So given that Mythic seems to have a few broken abilities lets have a conversation about what is broken and how we can fix it.
I start the conversation with two of the biggest ones:
Power Attack (Mythic)
Your attacks are truly devastating.
Prerequisite: Power Attack.
Benefit: When you use Power Attack, you gain a +3 bonus on melee damage rolls instead of +2. When your base attack bonus reaches +4 and every 4 points thereafter, the amount of bonus damage increases by +3 instead of +2. In addition, the bonus damage from this feat is doubled on a critical hit, before it's multiplied by the weapon's critical multiplier.
You can expend one use of mythic power when you activate Power Attack to ignore the penalties on melee attack rolls and combat maneuver checks for 1 minute.
Why it's broken - the bonuses on power attack themselves aren't the problem - it's the line "You can expend one use of mythic power when you activate Power Attack to ignore the penalties on melee attack rolls and combat maneuver checks for 1 minute" for a single use of mythic power - using no action you ignore the penalties for 10 rounds. The progression ignores up to negative 6 on attack rolls.
I believe that this feat can be fixed by one of the following:
- Reduce the duration to one round and require a swift action to use
- keep the duration and no action but remove the attack penalty reduction
- keep the duration and require a swift action to use and make the attack penalty reduction only work on the round activated
If you have another idea that would make this a bit more balanced I'd love to see it - we are looking for input into a house rule for our games.
Next up - Mythic Vital Strike:
Vital Strike (Mythic)
You can strike your foes with incredible force.
Prerequisite: Vital Strike.
Benefit: Whenever you use Vital Strike, Improved Vital Strike, or Greater Vital Strike, multiply the Strength bonus, magic bonus, and other bonuses that would normally be multiplied on a critical hit by the number of weapon damage dice you roll for that feat.
Extra damage from sources that wouldn't normally be multiplied on a critical hit isn't multiplied by this feat.
Ok breaking the problem down behind a spoiler to make the numbers not clog up the conversation... (it has a minor spoiler from wrath of the righteous in it also so...)
Barbarian level 7.
Str 16 to start - human +2 str = 18
+2 ability score from Iomedae = 20
+2 from level up = 22
+2 from tier 2 = 24
Rage = +4 = 28 Str
Feats = Power Attack - weapon focus - vital strike - whatever else
Mythic feats = mythic power attack, mythic weapon focus
Mythic power attack = -2, +6 (for 2 handed it would be -2,+9)
Earthbraker - 4d6 + 18 ( 9 * 2 power attack) + 26 (13 * 2 Str)/3
Barb mythic power attack/vital strike = +7 (level) + 9 (str) + 1 (weapon focus) = +17 to hit
That's a minimum of 48 and max of 68 damage. Without Mythic Vital Strike it would be a minimum of 26 and a max of 46.
Crits would be a min of 140 and max of 180. Without Mythic Vital Strike they would be minimum of 74 and max of 114.
From one hit. From a barbarian with a starting strength of 16, and *NO CHEESE* (outside of the built in mythic cheese)
If my math is off please let me know - what this means is one feat gives the following : Your min damage is now more than your previous max damage.
This is broken - there is no getting around it - no mythic surge needed - no actions used - and makes situations where you can use a charge attack to get in close - then use a mythic surge (swift strike - swift action) for an extra standard attack - getting off a vital strike for insane damage. At 2nd tier you can then use a free action for yet a third standard action - letting you hit again.
This means that 7th level Barb in the example gets 3 attacks for the cost of 2 mythic points and his swift action. He does a minimum of (charge power attack - 24, mythic vital strike 48, mythic vital strike 48) 120 damage, and a maximum of 170 damage.
This feat scales with the vital strike chain in a straight linear fashion.
Fix - I have no idea - at a minimum I suggest that this feat only works with a swift action surge. I'd lean towards including language that only allows a single vital strike per round regardless of the number of standard actions on your turn. I would also think only applying the 'multiply by the number of dice' language to crits only - which would make this feat very random - but satisfying when it does go off.
Open to suggestions...
Please bring up other examples.
I disagree. I think mythics are working as intended.
Mythic Power Attack is problematic in its current state if only because Mythic Furious Focus also exists. It really should not have the ability to eliminate the attack roll penalty while Mythic Furious Focus exists. Mythic Furious Focus is inherently worse. While it gives you the benefit of always ignoring the penalty on AoOs, the penalty ignoring via mythic power lasts for a single round. Mythic Power Attack does so much more and lasts for a full minute. It is too good in that regard.
Mythic Power Attack is problematic in its current state if only because Mythic Furious Focus also exists. It really should not have the ability to eliminate the attack roll penalty while Mythic Furious Focus exists. Mythic Furious Focus is inherently worse. While it gives you the benefit of always ignoring the penalty on AoOs, the penalty ignoring via mythic power lasts for a single round. Mythic Power Attack does so much more and lasts for a full minute. It is too good in that regard.
I agree - that's why I suggested one round of reduced penalties - after reading furious focus I think the only fix would be to allow one round of reduced penalties with a swift action - this sets up an interesting difference between the two feats (furious focus requiring one more non-mythic feat to achieve - but giving the reduced penalties as a free action instead of swift).
It seems that they used 'swift action' (and immediate as that either uses swift on the current round or the next round's swift depending on the timing of the usage) as a way to limit mythic power from becoming absurd - the power attack feat as it stands breaks that design however.
I support this effort. I've seen so much discussion in the Wrath of the Righteous subforum about problems with Mythic play.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Your idea of making Mythic Adventures less broken is to... nerf MARTIALS?
Solid idea, abysmal execution. 0/10.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
The entire point of Mythic is being broken.
And neither of these things are to begin with.
Take a look at stuff in the Archmage and Hierophant trees and come back to me.
Power Attack (Mythic)
Your attacks are truly devastating.
Prerequisite: Power Attack.
Benefit: When you use Power Attack, you gain a +3 bonus on melee damage rolls instead of +2. When your base attack bonus reaches +4 and every 4 points thereafter, the amount of bonus damage increases by +3 instead of +2. In addition, the bonus damage from this feat is doubled on a critical hit, before it's multiplied by the weapon's critical multiplier.
You can expend one use of mythic power when you activate Power Attack to ignore the penalties on melee attack rolls and combat maneuver checks for 1 minute.
Power Attack (Mythic)
Your attacks are truly a force to be dealt with.
Prerequisite: Power Attack.
Benefit: When you use Power Attack, you can now chose what minus to hit you want to use. The minus can not be greater than you base attack bonus normally allow.
You can also use a mythic point as a non-action to reduce the minus to hit by half for 1 round for ever point of base attack you posses. This ability can only be used once per encounter and/or encounter.
Agreed with Ipslore. Before trying to fix the fact that Martials don't suck when they can't Full Attack (which is a good thing and should be built into the core rules), look at what Casters can do first. Fix that.
My only issue with Mythic is that the entire thing is meant to be, well, reality-breaking.
I don't have a problem with that after you've already gone to lv20 and above (we use lv30 as the "mortal" cap in my groups' games, with APL45 reachable by taking class levels in tandem with Mythic Tiers up to CL40 - Deities in my games are lv40 with 10 Mythic Ranks, though, so characters have never ACTUALLY gotten there... it's just POSSIBLE, in case I ever feel like having them actually fight gods)
It's when you're Lv10 and Mythic Tier 5 that things get bonkers.
Supposedly, you'd only be the equivalent of an APL12 character, but that's... kind of not true in the least - you are WAY more powerful than a lv12 character is at that point; you're closer to lv20 in the stuff you can pull off, honestly.
If you don't like Mythic Tiers just don't use them for characters.
I LOVE Mythic Ranks for monsters - they're a GREAT way to quickly make powerful Boss characters!
Well you are APL12, but instead of fighting a small amount of mobs, you are expected to fight wave and hordes, with mythic tiered bosses.
Because throwing CR18 mobs at the party leads to very unbalanced encounters.
Eh, like I said - we just use Mythic Tiers as Pathfinder's version of the 0D&D "Immortals Rules" and don't even bother with "Epic" rules:
You take them after you've already reached the peak of human abilities - technically that's over 20, but more realistically that's when you've hit 30 and are pretty much at the threshold of godhood.
Your idea of making Mythic Adventures less broken is to... nerf MARTIALS?
Solid idea, abysmal execution. 0/10.
No - I'm playing a martial in the mythic campaign and these two scream about being broken.
These two feats are also the #1 and #2 complained about in terms of breaking the game by several GM's and so they got my full attention to see why they were being complained about - and I agree they are broken.
If you read my first post - I didn't say these were the only two feats that needed fixing - the idea I have is to identify the feats that are way too overpowered compared the most and then see if we can't come up with a solid set of house rules that reign everything back in.
To whit:
- I am fully on board with mythic being superpowered - I enjoy systems like heroes unlimited and Mutants and Masterminds. Superhero games are actually the most often run at my table outside of fantasy/d&d/pathfinder type games - so mythic to us was a big excitement.
- You'll notice I used a level 7 barb in my example - that's because I wanted to show how even at low levels/tiers these two feats start to cause issues.
- I am at this point unsure which caster feats in the mythic book are causing the most problems - from anecdotal evidence it would be the inspired spells the conversation as of yet, has not gotten there
- With 'being superpowered' in mind there still needs to be some kind of balance, and the question is how best to achieve that - my guess is that some part of this thread will need to deal with CR adjustment and new mythic feats for 'mythic foes' that increase hp and or defense to allow for impressive fights
- My hope is at the end of this we'd get a set of house rules that make things balanced - to that end if a single feat is in every case better than not just one - but more than one put together (like power attack) or is on it's own a doubling of power (like vital strike) then it should be the outlier - I'd rather have house rules for a smaller number of things than rebuild 90% of the martial feats (and the headaches this would cause to make a fight balanced) to keep up with these two - same goes for caster abilities.
Does that help? As to some of the other comments about 'being good on a single attack' - I do have issue with a martial putting out more damage on a single attack than a full attack - and that same barb could have achieved a full attack simply by changing his action priority - 'swift action to move and make a standard action (swift charge)' - hit the monster - free action single attack (tier 2) - make his full attack and then 5 foot step away to get distance - that's a valid attack chain in mythic - making a single attack shouldn't be the candy for the martials - making a full attack chain with options and mobility should be a more tempting cookie - right now it's not.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Your reasons don't change anything about what's said. The short of it is if you're having problems with HP damage nothing is going to help you because you will have problems with everything else as well.
I will admit that the wording on mythic vital strike is horrid.
|
I don't think some who play Pathfinder understand that when one includes Mythic into a campaign. It increases the power level of the campaign. As it should imo. What's worthy of making a myth sang by the bards. Cleric A who creates food and drink for his 4-6 member party. Or Cleric B who feeds a 400+ army in one sitting.
The main problem if one reads the Wrath of the Righteous forum is not so much that the Mythic rules are broken. Their are some a few things that could use some alterations. The main problem is that the more Mythic levels a party takes the less the npcs and majority of the enemies fail to scale properly. Which is not the fault of the rules mostly the devs. That's why I had plans to run WOR and scrapped that in favor of another AP when the times comes. It's bad enough that even with a Mythic AP they still approached with beginners in mind.
If you don't beleive me check the WOR section of the forums. Their are people running the Ap and playing it. Most of the reviews seem to be negative. Or WOR can be run with major changes to the opposition.
Your reasons don't change anything about what's said. The short of it is if you're having problems with HP damage nothing is going to help you because you will have problems with everything else as well.
I will admit that the wording on mythic vital strike is horrid.
Thanks for the input - I'll continue to try and work on a set of house rules that makes Mythic more balanced and look for more input from people who would like to contribute.
In general if you would like to add either a feat/path ability/or system that you feel is part of what is breaking mythic play please chime in and we'll ad it to the discussion. Thanks :)
We're playing WotR (I am a player) - there are, until now, no problems with the mythic rules - just the usual "problems" with the opposition. (no real problem, just if you begin to mildly optimize characters and have 25point buy, APs may have to be adjusted accordingly)
The GM of WotR and me, running RotRl, we both use quite similar methods to keep things interesting/challenging (I look at you, simple Advanced template and max HP).
How can Power Attack and Vital Strike be a matter of concern? Sorry, but this is simply beyond me.
Mostly, people who are perfectly fine with the rules do not write about that in the Internet. I am and do (in this case).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
We're playing WotR (I am a player) - there are, until now, no problems with the mythic rules - just the usual "problems" with the opposition. (no real problem, just if you begin to mildly optimize characters and have 25point buy, APs may have to be adjusted accordingly)
The GM of WotR and me, running RotRl, we both use quite similar methods to keep things interesting/challenging (I look at you, simple Advanced template and max HP).
How can Power Attack and Vital Strike be a matter of concern? Sorry, but this is simply beyond me.
Mostly, people who are perfectly fine with the rules do not write about that in the Internet. I am and do (in this case).
From a different thread:
OK, we had our first "stupid damage event" of the campaign. The 12/5 fighter burned 6 mythic surges to do 804 hit points in a single round.
The casters aren't even coming close, though the sorceress' maximized mythic fireball that did 100 to everyone over a wide area did more damage total.
Yeah, we've started Book 4, and damage output is just getting silly. Single creatures aren't a challenge any more...
A 12/5 fighter can take out a demon lord (CR 30) in one round.
He's supposed to be 'level 14.5' according to the CR rules - If you don't take mythic power attack and mythic vital strike this situation can't happen. That should be a clue these feats are an issue. The focus however isn't just these two feats.
A suggested house rule would be to limit mythic surges to 1 per every 2 tiers you posses - which would cap out at 5 per round under the current system - however that still would make feats that last for 10 rounds or don't require surges more powerful than those that don't.
Mythic power attack is fine, though I'd be really tempted to toss out that "double the damage bonus before applying crit multiplier" nonsense on critical hits for adding a completely unneeded extra step.
Mythic vital strike is something on my "probably too good" list - I'll occasionally look at giving it to a monster, check the math, go "okay, it now auto-kills at least one PC a round" and swap it for something else. Mythic power attack is nice, but definitely not insta-gib nice.
I'm dealing with mythic vital strike by simply not giving it to enemies until I think the party can finally survive engaging something that has it. That might not happen until the party's nearly 20th level and has the survivability that comes with it.
None of my players actually have vital strike, though they're aware I've been avoiding giving it to enemies.
(Fleet Warrior was something I actually wound up nerfing - to granting 2 attacks at tier 3, the 3rd iterative attack at tier 6, and a 4th iterative attacks at tier 9, as fleet warrior as written actually FUBAR'd encounter balance the moment people took it at tier 3 - it gives the real benefit of fleet charge at no power cost)
I assume NobodysHome post involved someone with Foebiter, which is also on the "probably too good as written" list.
By and large mythic adventures is fine as is (and I sure as hell would NOT scale back mythic power uses!), there's just a handful of things that are too good (much like in regular gameplay).
So the problem is that the blasting spellcasters feel weak?
Let me assure you, that's because blasting is terrible. The martials finally being able to act like they're serious threats (even if only in hitting things) is hardly a bad thing.
Don't think anyone has said that - however plain vanilla Pathfinder a blaster can keep up with martial damage output, so the fact that it's out of whack may indeed be an issue - I'll have to consider that.
Thanks for your input - if anyone else is super worried about caster/martial disparity within mythic I'm interested in seeing the broken feats on the caster side to add to the discussion - lots of people posting that martial feats are fine but casters are broken without nice examples for us to discuss - please add to the discussion, play experience is a bonus in this case.
Mythic power attack is fine, though I'd be really tempted to toss out that "double the damage bonus before applying crit multiplier" nonsense on critical hits for adding a completely unneeded extra step.
I don't think that the added damage is a problem at all - as is the feat is too good in terms of removing the penalty for one surge and no action for 10 rounds - IMO in terms of other abilities this facet of the feat sticks out as not working like the design of the rest of the system. However again I do agree that actual damage increase it gives you isn't the problem itself.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The casters don't need mythic feats they are nasty strong with just the casty tiers. But if you really want to know the power of a mythic spell caster then go look at mythic cloudkill because that's the only spell they need to wipe most things out.
If you're real savy you'll combine it with the mythic paragon feat so that you kill anything no save 5+tier HD or less, 6+tier - 8+tier save or die, 9+tier con dmg, it also lasts mins per level and it's controlled moveable. Bye bye armies, towns, dungeons, everything immune to poison after tier 8 (except undead and constructs). It's also a relatively low level spell so you could even metamagic widen, extend, or maximize the con damage for the tough buggers.
Edit: Fixed HD ranges.
I personally support that effort. This is NOT a question of Martial/ Caster disparity. The problem is that Mythic increases much the offensive power, but only slightly the defensive side. So I support totally this, with some modifications to power up the defensse.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I personally support that effort. This is NOT a question of Martial/ Caster disparity. The problem is that Mythic increases much the offensive power, but only slightly the defensive side. So I support totally this, with some modifications to power up the defensse.
But see it is as long as the complaint is the damage is too high then you are speaking directly about martials.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
When mythic casters have access to spells that auto slay enemies (1-3 spell combo) that the martials can also slay (when they blow their WHOLE LOAD)
They really have no right to complain
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I personally support that effort. This is NOT a question of Martial/ Caster disparity. The problem is that Mythic increases much the offensive power, but only slightly the defensive side. So I support totally this, with some modifications to power up the defensse.
On the Defensive side:
Adamantine Mind f&@%s up anything that attempts to use its puny mind affecting magic on you.
There are not one, no two, but THREE abilities that allow for 24 hour duration on buffs.
Not to mention the obvious like the higher Tiers' immortality, or the one Legendary Item ability that can heal you for a lot of damage or remove any condition.
1 tier of mythics can let your PCs feel special. I think anymore tiers should wait until late game, unless you are giving the same amount of tiers to important enemies and come to accept that non-mythic enemies are either mooks or WAY over appropriate CR.
That being said, PCs could fall into the rocket tag trap of building mythic character (and are more likely to do so if you throw higher and higher CR foes at them instead of applying mythic tiers).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm not sure I agree with that in many cases. There are quite a few abilities from Trickster, Champion, and Guardian that are more than merely numbers.
The problem with (or advantage of, in some cases) Mythic is that many of the options boosters are for very niche builds. Stuff like Grapple specialists get a lot more besides numbers, but your standard 2H wielder...not as much.
Which is awesome for grapplers, not so much for the 2H as far as interesting options go.
The casters don't need mythic feats they are nasty strong with just the casty tiers. But if you really want to know the power of a mythic spell caster then go look at mythic cloudkill because that's the only spell they need to wipe most things out.
If you're real savy you'll combine it with the mythic paragon feat so that you kill anything no save 5+tier HD or less, 6+tier - 8+tier save or die, 9+tier con dmg, it also lasts mins per level and it's controlled moveable. Bye bye armies, towns, dungeons, everything immune to poison after tier 8 (except undead and constructs). It's also a relatively low level spell so you could even metamagic widen, extend, or maximize the con damage for the tough buggers.
Edit: Fixed HD ranges.
On the table - Mythic cloudkill
Mythic Cloudkill
As a move action, you can move the cloud 10 feet in any direction.
Add your tier to the spell's level and Hit Dice categories to determine its effect on creatures. (For example, at 3rd tier a creature with 6 or fewer Hd gets no save, one with 7–9 HD must save or die, and one with 10 or more HD must save or take 1d4 points of Con damage.)
Augmented (6th): If you expend two uses of mythic power, the spell bypasses the poison immunity of living creatures.
combined with Mythic Paragon
So the progression of this ability isMythic Paragon (Mythic)
Your mythic power is even more potent than that of most other mythic beings.
Benefit: Your tier is considered 2 higher for determining the potency of mythic abilities, feats, and spells. This doesn't grant you access to mythic abilities or greater versions of mythic spells at a lower tier than you would normally need to be to get them, nor does it grant you additional uses of mythic power or adjust the dice you roll for your surge.
- autokill anything with 4hd at tier 1 - up to 13hd at tier 10
- fort save or die 5-7 HD at tier 1 - 15-17HD at tier 10
- 1d4 Con damage to 8HD(and up) at tier 1 - 18HD(and up) at tier 10
Adding paragon to this makes it worse.
At tier 10 this spell instakills most CR16 encounters, many CR17 - and even a few CR20+
Even worse for an extra mythic surge it takes away poison immunity - which will wipe out mythic encounters at these levels too.
Fixes...
My suggestions for consideration would be:
- change the 'add your tier' language to 'add your tier to the spells top HD range, nonmythic creatures get no save for the effects if their HD are lower than your tier + the normal range. (This in effect doesn't autokill things at a higher level but makes the con damage automatically affect monsters at a higher level range)
- change the secondary surge to remove poison immunity from non-mythic living creatures and mythic creatures with poison immunity require a save
I personally support that effort. This is NOT a question of Martial/ Caster disparity. The problem is that Mythic increases much the offensive power, but only slightly the defensive side. So I support totally this, with some modifications to power up the defensse.On the Defensive side:
Adamantine Mind f+$#s up anything that attempts to use its puny mind affecting magic on you.
There are not one, no two, but THREE abilities that allow for 24 hour duration on buffs.
Not to mention the obvious like the higher Tiers' immortality, or the one Legendary Item ability that can heal you for a lot of damage or remove any condition.
Adamantine Mind (Ex): Your mind is as hard as any armor, and is dangerous to engage. You gain a bonus equal to your tier on saving throws against mind-affecting effects. Whenever you succeed at a save against a mind-affecting effect, the creature attacking you with that effect must succeed at a Will save (at the same DC) or be stunned for 1 round.
On it's whole I don't see much wrong with this ability. If it's truly overpowered perhaps the following change?
Whenever you succeed at a save against a mind-affecting effect,as a swift action, you may spend a mythic surge to force the creature attacking you with that effectmustto succeed at a Will save (at the same DC) or be stunned for 1 round. As a swift action a mythic caster may spend a Mythic surge to negate this feedback.
Still gives the protection - punishes non mythic foes at a cost - and allows a mythic enemy to defend themselves back...
I'm not sure I agree with that in many cases. There are quite a few abilities from Trickster, Champion, and Guardian that are more than merely numbers.
The problem with (or advantage of, in some cases) Mythic is that many of the options boosters are for very niche builds. Stuff like Grapple specialists get a lot more besides numbers, but your standard 2H wielder...not as much.
Which is awesome for grapplers, not so much for the 2H as far as interesting options go.
I'll agree with this - it would have been nice to see similar options for weapons that combat maneuvers received - something like a feat that let you use any weapon feat chain for a surge - and the entire chain for 2 surges (like champion gets an ability that lets you use any of the maneuver feats).
I'd have loved to see mythic feats that were 'you can ignore any two prerequisite feats - when selecting a normal feat with this option'.
I'd love to have seen things like 'your sword strikes so hard that it creates a wave of force pushing anything in a straight line prone up to one size larger than yourself - spend a mythic point to increase this to two size categories'
Pure numbers would be... ok - had they crunched the math and added things like 'at rank 5 and above add 1000 hps per tier to an enemy'
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I personally support that effort. This is NOT a question of Martial/ Caster disparity. The problem is that Mythic increases much the offensive power, but only slightly the defensive side. So I support totally this, with some modifications to power up the defensse.On the Defensive side:
Adamantine Mind f+$#s up anything that attempts to use its puny mind affecting magic on you.
There are not one, no two, but THREE abilities that allow for 24 hour duration on buffs.
Not to mention the obvious like the higher Tiers' immortality, or the one Legendary Item ability that can heal you for a lot of damage or remove any condition.
Adamantine Mind (Ex): Your mind is as hard as any armor, and is dangerous to engage. You gain a bonus equal to your tier on saving throws against mind-affecting effects. Whenever you succeed at a save against a mind-affecting effect, the creature attacking you with that effect must succeed at a Will save (at the same DC) or be stunned for 1 round.On it's whole I don't see much wrong with this ability. If it's truly overpowered perhaps the following change?
Whenever you succeed at a save against a mind-affecting effect,as a swift action, you may spend a mythic surge to force the creature attacking you with that effectStill gives the protection - punishes non mythic foes at a cost - and allows a mythic enemy to defend themselves back...mustto succeed at a Will save (at the same DC) or be stunned for 1 round. As a swift action a mythic caster may spend a Mythic surge to negate this feedback.
I didn't say it was OP. Just saying that stating there aren't any Mythic defensive options on par with the offensive options is dead wrong.
I... think I won't be getting into this topic.
<takes a deep breath>
Nope, not gonna do it.