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Let’s open with a disclaimer: This a review with some anger in it. If that hurts your feelings so much that you can’t stand to read it and think that no constructive feedback can ever be taken from words written with some passion behind them, then you can stop reading now. And probably should never aspire to be someone who publishes a written work, because getting negative feedback and learning from it are an important part of being a writer.
That being said, welcome to my review of Wrath of the Righteous and the applicable parts of Mythic Adventures. Why review these two together, you ask? Because, as it applies to this AP as written, they are inextricably linked. Wrath of the Righteous was conceived to be used with this new set of rules and as such, when looking critically at the adventure path, one needs to look at the rules behind the roleplaying to see why this adventure path so disastrously fails.
And, yes, this AP is a failure on a truly epic scale. Or, I guess, a mythic scale. It doesn’t fail because of its story, which is pretty rote to the standards AP’s aspire to, only scaled up in the degree of severity if the party somehow manages to fail at their task. No, it fails because Mythic Adventures is, simply put, broken. Broken mechanically in a way which makes a joke of opponents which should make your players characters shiver with dread, but instead makes those opponents into walking loot piñatas.
Now, rambling aimlessly is pretty fun, but it makes for a poor review. Hence I’ll put some structure to this, before you all wander off bored. Spoilers, of course, abound after this paragraph, so read further at your own risk.
The AP and its story
The story of Wrath of the Righteous is quite standard. Bad guys want to take over the world, you stop them. Contrary to some AP’s, you get to know a lot of the bad guys up close during the first module, although they don’t leave much of a personal impression. Which, given how at that point they could reduce your low-level player characters to ash with a glance, is probably somewhat of a good thing. Not that there is much to them as personalities. Beyond evil gloating and evil ranting, that is. I think the villains with the most personality in the AP are an ally who betrays you (Nurah Dendivar) and that one female Glabrezu who talks with you during part three. You could add Nocticula here, too, but she is actually an ally with more likeability to her than Iomedae herself.
The story is competently written as AP’s go, with no immediate logical contradictions beyond the usual “Why don’t the villains stomp on the party when it is still not on their level of power”. But then again every AP seems to suffer from that problem, due to the level system of Pathfinder.
There are laudable efforts in the AP to present to the party options for the redemption of evil opponents but they are pretty bare bones. You mostly get a paragraph or two about it for some of the more important opponents or a sentence for the minor villains. Arueshalae, the risen succubus, gets several pages dedicated to her, but her redemption comes far too easy if you follow the options as written. Furthermore, while much is made of her desire to be good, not much is given to you about what actually prevents her from fulfilling that desire and how those problems may manifest. She already appears to be redeemed, as far as her presentation in the AP goes.
Another positive aspect which should be mentioned is that the AP presents you with a selection of NPC’s, who can even accompany you on your adventures. Where they will probably stand in the way and perish, due to their comically underpowered level and WBL, but the thought counts.
The NPC’s however also present you with a problem. There are too many of them. The AP starts out with throwing you together with four NPC’s, of which exactly one has a personality which goes beyond white-bread or stereotype. It then adds another five NPC’s to the party to those first four in the second module, at which point my players stopped caring, because the different NPC’s were blending into each other. It didn’t really help that most of them were pretty boring personalities, as presented by the AP.
I really would recommend concentrating on two or three really interesting NPC companions, if Paizo decides to continue to add permanent companions to their AP’s. I know it worked out pretty well in Jade Regent, where Ameiko and Shalelu made really interesting NPC’s whom enriched the campaign. However, too much is too much, especially if the many companions you get are difficult to distinguish from each other or have no defining personality traits associated with them.
The modules:
The Wardstone Legacy: WotR starts out pretty strong, with an epic scene which sets the tone for the AP. There is not much interactivity to it, but with some slight modifications it can make your players feel as if their characters are more involved.
The modules continues to present interesting options to your group and gives it all a slight sandbox feel. The final assault on the enemy stronghold is not as much of a fight as it could be, as the opposition feels way too weak for the dire predictions the writer makes about the necessity of multiple forays. The module ends in a suitably epic way and all around stands as the best part of the adventure path. The binding on this book (and Sword of Valor) was pretty weak, btw, with multiple people experiencing pages falling out. Which has never happened with any other AP module for me aside from this book and the next one.
Sword of Valor: This module starts with the group given command of a small army of Paladins. Which kind of presents a problem, as 100 level four Paladins would simply end the entire opposition as presented in this book. So the GM has to contrive why they cannot accompany you into the dungeons you are presented with during this module. If the best you can say to your players is “look, this is an abstract system, so let’s not think about it too much”, you got a problem.
Since this module happens below tier three, opponents still present a challenge. If your group is not careful in following up on leads that Nurah is a traitor, they can be in real trouble if they suddenly get assaulted from the front and the rear later in the module.
The module adds another four significant NPC’s to the five you are already traveling with after the first module and it gets really hard to keep some of them apart in terms of personality. If you want to keep all nine NPC’s relevant as personalities, you better come prepared to add significantly the descriptions given in the two first modules.
Demon’s Heresy: Aaand here is where things fall apart. The module itself is pretty okay, from a writing standpoint. However, mythic tier three (and getting more mythic feats) is the breakpoint where the ridiculous power issues crop up. Fleet Warrior and Mythic Improved Critical+Mythic Power Attack for martial characters, Arcane Metamastery for arcane casters and just a lot of other options which come together in really scary ways. Although you’ll probably see the immediate results of tier three from your martial characters. The casters just come together in combinations which are not just as obvious.
Unless you heavily modify the opposition in this module, they really don’t represent much of a threat. I used heavily beefed up encounters and still only managed to make half the modules opposition worth my players time.
Midnight Isles: This module makes a demon lord sympathetic. It introduces the Midnight Isles, the ruler of the realm, Nocticula and the capital of her realm, Alushinyrra. Aside from the future problem of presenting a city with an absurdly high gold pieces limit in what appears to be reasonably friendly terrain (a feature of the game world my players are sure to try to take advantage of in future AP’s), the story again is suitably good. In fact, I think meeting Nocticula may count as the most interesting moment the AP has to offer, since she doesn’t behave quite like you’d expect her to and there are even tantalizing hints at a redemption story.
The combat is, again, not a threat at all in the form it is presented in the module. You may lose a PC’s to a lucky critical hit, but at this point getting a PC back is a matter of will, not resources.
Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth: This module is something of a mess. The party goes into an environment where they have a set of goals, but no set way of getting there. Encounter areas are vague for the most part, ways to get from part A to B are also vague and the story itself is haphazard at best. Combat is an utter joke at this time, with the party being able to land single hits which wipe out everyone but the last optional encounter (Baphomet) in one hit.
Oh, also Iomedae, as written, is a douchenozzle.
City of Locusts: At the point I am writing this review, I am one encounter away from ending the AP, where I combined three encounters as written (with vastly beefed up opponents) to present at least a little bit of a challenge. Combat is mostly meaningless, since the party can only really lose if everyone gets killed. Even the most mighty opponents can be brought down with two critical hits (or just two characters regularly hitting one opponent with a full attack). The story aspect has mostly fallen to the wayside, given how the last module didn’t present much of a story and this module also only offers the slightest excuse for one. With the last opponents vanquished and their objective met, the party will have done a great service to Golarion and walk as living demi-gods over its surface. But what does it matter, if they didn’t really have to struggle to get here during the last months? Mythic Adventures was as like typing in cheat codes in a computer game for them.
*edit* Aaand Deskari was easily exterminated. No big surprise.
The mechanical side and how it destroys the AP
As you likely have surmised by now, I am not happy with how this AP has developed. Much of this is due to how Mythic Adventures was designed and I am putting the clear blame on the developers for that.
Some small disclaimers before I go on.
- My group already nerfed the normal rules of Mythic Adventures, by limiting mythic power regeneration to 1d4 points per day, then effectively getting only half its daily uses (3+1 point per tier) and also forfeiting the additional attribute points each second tier.
- The monster stats were beefed up considerably throughout the entire AP, with help of the stat blocks provided by Sc8rpi8n_mjd. Thanks, mate!
- However, the party consisted of six players, with characters built at a 20 point buy. Encounters were almost always adjusted to reflect this.
Given all of this, the mechanical side of the game completely collapsed somewhere in book four. Legendary weapons, full attacks after moving and vastly enhanced critical hits pumped up the martials to a ridiculous degree. Casters were a bit slower to follow in the overpowered department, but boy did they catch up by this current point.
At the point this review is written (level 20 and tier 10, although this cropped up around level 15 and tier 8), when a martial character hits, how the game proceeds depends on if he rolled a critical threat. If he does, he autoconfirms the critical hit for something like 400-800 damage, normally taking out whatever he has hit on that strike. With casters, it depends on how much mythic power they want to invest in that round. With enough opponents around and the right spells, they can put out thousands of points of damage, with no resistances or immunities allowed.
This makes normal gameplay utterly irrelevant. Only by anticipating the player characters and putting in specific defenses there is even a modicum of challenge. Or by having defensive abilities which simply negate attacks, something which the opposition, as presented by Paizo, does not possess.
So, what went wrong? At my best guess, nobody of the developers thought to test high level combat under mythic conditions. At all. Otherwise they simply could not have missed that the monsters and opponents they thought up simply couldn’t match in HP the damage output player character could provide with single critical hit. If there was one single high-level game playtest at Paizo of Mythic Adventures, I would be incredibly surprised (unless they did it after publishing it or with martial characters which took the “flavor options” over the obvious ones).
Be that because of time constraints or lack of care, we are left with a broken product. Anyone who wants to experience the story, I recommend that you don’t use Mythic Adventures to tell it or at least a very heavily nerfed version of it. Very heavily nerfed. Way harder than I did.
I managed to finish the campaign because I hate the idea of abandoning a campaign once started. Many other GM’s who posted on this AP’s sub-board, people who were as excited or more than me about this AP, dropped it midway through. I personally would counsel against playing this AP, because of its corrosive way of undermining trust in Paizos developers and also raising expectations that the game will always be so broken even without the use of Mythic Adventures.
May the developers learn something and stop rushing out products. I understand the time constraints of having a constant output of published work, but the stellar reputation Paizo has among many gamers also depends on them publishing polished and well-written supplements. I have noticed that the care the writers seemed to have earlier in the lifecycle of this edition seems to have vanished ever more with the addition of new splatbooks. How Mythic Adventures destroyed Wrath of the Righteous is so far the greatest example of the tendency of Paizo developers to not think their new rules through to the end and publish new sub-systems without a proper playtest in-house. If I can give any advice to the writers, it is “stop adding new sub-systems to AP’s, they make the experience almost always worse”.
Finally, I asked each of my players to give a very short review of the AP. Here is what they said:
Samurai: The setting was good, although there were too many fights. It felt too much like a tabletop and the rules were too complicated.
Cleric: <sarcastic> One-turn offense rules. Yeeeeah. Yippeeee.
Ranger: I had a lot of fun, although I did not get a lot of the rules. But I loved being super effective throughout the entire campaign!
Barbarian: The AP had a nice story, although it was very fight-centric. The mythic rules are way too broken, though.
Sorcerer: The story was nice. Although Mythic Augmented Maximised Empowered Meteor Swarm at DC 81… are you kidding?
Paladin: The setting was super. Mythic is much too powerful. It is a nice idea and has a lot of style, but it is simply too broken.
My final verdict:
The story aspect (story, characters, setting) gets a 7/10 from me. It is epic, true, but the storytelling is standard. Other AP’s have done this better and have a better follow-through on story aspects.
The mechanical aspect (Mythic Adventures, opponents, extra rules) gets a 2/10 from me, due to the positive experience of the first two modules. If it were Mythic Adventures alone, it’d be a 0/10, because this system destroys campaigns.
Thank you for your time and have a nice day. For me, it's on to Rise of the Runelords, which at least is an AP which I know is well crafted and which doesn't fudge around with barely tested new rules.
Creative Director
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Thanks for the detailed feedback, magnuskn! There's certainly a lot for us to think about in looking over how Mythic Rules interacts with the game, particularly at high level play. I don't really have much more public to say at this time, but I did want to thank you for the review and impressions you had of the campaign and of the Mythic Rules.
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What surprises me the most about this overall review is my near-absolute-agreement with you on the storyline in Books 1-4 (where my players are now).
Book 1 had my players hanging on the edge of their seats, and they were forcing me to run 2-3 sessions a week just to keep the story going. Their momentum kept them excited through Book 2, but by the time they reached the Drezen dungeons they were asking, "Seriously? Are we going to be facing anything challenging down here? Is there any story?"
And yes, I had a nightmare managing all those NPCs as well.
I hugely played up Arushelae in Book 3, as that was really the book's only redeeming feature (story-wise). Otherwise it was "Kingmaker Book 1" without the promise of kingdom-building.
And now in Book 4, my players are willingly skipping weeks at a time in favor of Jade Regent. They're just not invested in the story any more, because it's become, "Killed that, what's next?" Even the next-weakest AP I've played through or run (Carrion Crown) didn't have such a weak story line. They FINALLY reached Alushinyrra, and they're really excited about exploring it, but the notion that they have to get into fights or otherwise gain notoriety to progress the story really rankles them; they just want to see what a demon-run city is LIKE. ("Can you please just run the city for us for 2-3 sessions without any of the AP stuff? It sounds really fun!")
The story is epic in scope, but pales in the telling.
We're just running into the "one-hit wonder" encounter style, but our group is much more concerned about storytelling and NPC interactions. Give them a new city to explore over a fight any day of the week. Just don't have the NPC join their party!
I would like to add as an aside to this review: Wrath of the Righteous may be salvageable as an AP without significant reworking by not giving the players Mythic power. At most, you could provide players with regenerating Hero Points to improve survivability. Mind you, I have NOT run this AP (as my two groups are in Runelords and Reign of Winter)... and one problem that has been brought up several times is that encounters are underpowered for non-Mythic characters, let alone Mythic. Still, if you enjoy the story of WotR, then not letting the players use Mythic would likely provide a challenging encounter for the first third of the AP, and with a little work can still be challenging for the rest of it.
That said? Mythic is broken beyond the 2nd Tier, and even at Tier 2 it can be overbalanced. The Mythic rules will need some significant modifications to be usable.
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Thanks for the detailed feedback, magnuskn! There's certainly a lot for us to think about in looking over how Mythic Rules interacts with the game, particularly at high level play. I don't really have much more public to say at this time, but I did want to thank you for the review and impressions you had of the campaign and of the Mythic Rules.
Thank you for reading and leaving a reply. I want to say that I really appreciate the work you and the rest of the Paizo staff are doing for us. I understand that not everything works out as intended and that you guys are always sorely pressed for time.
However, you guys really got to do better on testing out how new rules affect gameplay. The reputation of Paizo depends very much on the quality of your work and when it becomes clear that said work doesn't really function as intended, that reputation takes attrition damage, which is accumulating dangerously over the last years.
Since it apparently isn't possible to fix those problems afterwards in a satisfactory fashion (for the explained reasons of not wanting to change page orders in published books and, again, lack of time), getting it right on the first is very important. IMO, you need to invest more time into playtesting new systems before publishing them and that includes also taking more feedback from the mathematical theorycrafting types, who sadly have a problem expressing themselves amicably when they find errors.
And, yeah, when I get passionate I sometimes am less than perfectly polite, too. I am sorry about that. I try to do better than my "first draft", too. For example, I rewrote some parts of this review to be way less sarcastic than my first take before putting it up on the web.
What surprises me the most about this overall review is my near-absolute-agreement with you on the storyline in Books 1-4 (where my players are now).
Book 1 had my players hanging on the edge of their seats, and they were forcing me to run 2-3 sessions a week just to keep the story going. Their momentum kept them excited through Book 2, but by the time they reached the Drezen dungeons they were asking, "Seriously? Are we going to be facing anything challenging down here? Is there any story?"
And yes, I had a nightmare managing all those NPCs as well.I hugely played up Arushelae in Book 3, as that was really the book's only redeeming feature (story-wise). Otherwise it was "Kingmaker Book 1" without the promise of kingdom-building.
And now in Book 4, my players are willingly skipping weeks at a time in favor of Jade Regent. They're just not invested in the story any more, because it's become, "Killed that, what's next?" Even the next-weakest AP I've played through or run (Carrion Crown) didn't have such a weak story line. They FINALLY reached Alushinyrra, and they're really excited about exploring it, but the notion that they have to get into fights or otherwise gain notoriety to progress the story really rankles them; they just want to see what a demon-run city is LIKE. ("Can you please just run the city for us for 2-3 sessions without any of the AP stuff? It sounds really fun!")
The story is epic in scope, but pales in the telling.
We're just running into the "one-hit wonder" encounter style, but our group is much more concerned about storytelling and NPC interactions. Give them a new city to explore over a fight any day of the week. Just don't have the NPC join their party!
Absolutely agreed on every point.
I would like to add as an aside to this review: Wrath of the Righteous may be salvageable as an AP without significant reworking by not giving the players Mythic power. At most, you could provide players with regenerating Hero Points to improve survivability. Mind you, I have NOT run this AP (as my two groups are in Runelords and Reign of Winter)... and one problem that has been brought up several times is that encounters are underpowered for non-Mythic characters, let alone Mythic. Still, if you enjoy the story of WotR, then not letting the players use Mythic would likely provide a challenging encounter for the first third of the AP, and with a little work can still be challenging for the rest of it.
That said? Mythic is broken beyond the 2nd Tier, and even at Tier 2 it can be overbalanced. The Mythic rules will need some significant modifications to be usable.
I am also pretty certain that not giving the player characters mythic power (outside of maybe some of the "base powers" they get at every tier) and instead easily renewable hero points would probably make the campaign entirely playable as intended. There still would be a need to bring up some of the lesser encounters up to par, though.
The very enhanced loot output this campaign gives to players would also do its part to give player characters an edge. Totally forgot to put this into the review proper!
Thought I'd chime in quick as one of the DMs from a group that dropped it around halfway through Book 3.
Up until the point we dropped it, I was able to consistently challenge the party, though usually by combining encounters and rolling with the kiddie gloves off completely. The players were ecstatic and loving the story and all the npcs and what was happening. Parts felt a bit off (they specifically did not like the mass combat rules, a sentiment I shared completely and the babau fight at the end of the first book felt forced to them) but the party overall had fun with the amount we did.
About halfway through book 3, they were still having fun and even now they talk about the campaign and wanting to go back to it. It was me that pulled the plug. The inclusion of mythic for the first few tiers didn't change a lot, my players aren't big min-maxers or optimizers, either.
Now I started Wrath for two reasons. The first being it sounded awesome and I still believe the story is epic and has a lot of potential. I was consistently excited to DM it. The second, was that as a DM I was a bit burned out running my own stuff so I gave an adventure path a try hoping it would cut down on prep time and inspire me a bit.
Around halfway through book 3 I started to realize with all the customizing and changing encounters I was doing had gone from maybe an hour or two max of prepwork during the first book for a session to almost quadruple or quintuple that when we ended it. For that amount of prep time I decided I'd rather be running something totally homebrew-ed again.
Whether we go back to Wrath or not, I'm not discounting it. The players have voiced their desire more than a few times to and I'd like to finish it myself someday, but I also suspect I'd like to rework it fairly heavily and change how much mythic stuff they get to cut down on the prepwork needed. It increases the power of the PCs, even if they don't optimize, on a drastic scale that only rockets the higher tiers they get.
Now with that said, the campaign I've been running since has made some use of mythic on enemies and bosses and I have to say I love it. The Agile simple template alone is amazing to turn a boss into something truly scary. It's made for some very tense and challenging encounters. So I don't think mythic is totally without merit, but I do wish the player options had been tested much more heavily. As it is now mythic foes for a non-mythic party can be a blast, but mythic pcs vs mythic foes is a cakewalk.
Ironically this is the only AP I've ever had a party TPK in.
I wonder if it's how people run the encounters. I was not the GM, but I guess at what the GM added.
You say you beefed them up, but did you give the enemies the same mythic abilities as the PC's in some instances.
It would turn into true rocket tag (or whoever goes first, slaughters the other...which probably would eventually mean a TPK if the party loses the ability to hit first)...which probably would mean broken in many other ways...
Just wondering if you tried that when beefing up the encounters or not?
You can look up the stat blocks of the opposition in Sc8rpi8on_mjd's Wrath of the Righteous statblocks document thread.
It doesn't want to load, maybe I'm using the wrong browser.
I think with a proper use of Mythic stuff utilized by the GM in regards to the foes, they could be just as powerful, if not more so than the players, at least before ALL the mythic tiers are utilized in book 6. So you could beef them up with some pretty Mythic stuff which would make it rocket tag...or TPK's very possible.
Just a matter if they got to go first or the players.
Of course, most GM's don't want to go and create something which will wipe their players if it gets to go first...but it is an option to make the fights harder I imagine.
I just know we got our party wiped in this AP...can only surmise it's because the GM was playing it different (and dirtier) than others have been?
Probably because we literally wiped and breezed through most other APs prior to that in parts 4-6...so making it so we wouldn't do so in this one...ironically.
A "who goes first, wins" game is already existant at the highest levels of the normal game. In gamer terms, it's called "rocket tag". Mythic has this, too, but mostly for player characters. The opposition, as buffed by Scorpion, had also excellent offense, just not to the level of the PC's.
I'll add that the enemies in book 3 do not present a threat to the PCs as printed, no matter if the GM uses their mythic abilities appropriately or not. Many of the NPCs in this AP seem to have been designed intentionally weaker by feat choice and stat selection.
This ties in to what Aleron says in a way. I found the best, or easiest way, to make anything a threat was to give it dual initiative and mythic power attack... or the agile template. One of my bigger problems was that rocket tag existed on both sides. I had no problems knocking down PCs each fight.
I'll also bring up the coolness/oddity of Arueshalae and Alushinyrra. They are both presented well but on the surface contradict what the AP and story is about. Everyone wants to redeem Arueshalae, my PCs loved it but it was fairly simple and, honestly, she has no purpose other than to be redeemed. After that she can fade into the background with the other multitudes of NPCs provided. Or it gives the false hope that other demons can be redeemed.
I loved Alushinyrra and set a campaign there for a year. But sending crusaders there who have seen demons destroy their lives and homeland? I'm not so sure about that. All of my PCs wanted to hole up and do nothing there since it was... demonic! Shocking.
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I think I agree with almost all of Magnuskn and Nobody's points implicitly, however, I had an extremely positive in-game experience despite that. Having followed magnuskn's game log from the beginning, as well as many other discussions, I think I have some ideas as to what contributed to that:
1. My player does not play for the challenge. She's only interested in telling a story in a fun way, so the fact that the later adventures could get blown through with little challenge was a feature, not a bug. I don't think there are many players like that, but if you have them, this adventure fills that.
2. I've found that 'taking a pre-written adventure and modding the heck out of it' is actually probably my favorite DMing style. Also, the fact that the only AP I had run prior to this was 4e's Scales of War, this was still a major time saver in comparison. Running this out of the box would not have worked. This is actually largely because...
3. My group LOVED having so many NPC's. We would literally take entire sessions doing nothing to advance the plot, and just spending more time on PC-NPC character interactions. Yeah, if you don't do anything with the NPC's beyond what's in the book, or you only fit on discussion with them where it normally fits into the adventure, they are going to be bland and dry. In fact, when Adventure 4 got delayed a month, in order to just keep the game going, we did an entire month-long Christmas special with the characters interacting, holding a tournament, and even hunting down a child who had turned into a Glabrezu due to a terrible ritual, and didn't know what to do about it.
4. I think you're right that the later adventures weren't able to pull off the story in the same way as the earlier ones. However, I felt Adventure 1 and 2 did such a great job of setting up the world and the characters, that whatever issues I had later on could easily be spackled over with elements from early on.
I want to stress, I do not believe that these differences mean that 'I'm a better DM' or 'You were playing wrong.' I'm quite certain that I am not as good a DM as most of the other posters here. However, I think there was a level of synergy with myself, my players, and this AP, which allowed a level of enjoyment we have not had in any other adventure. And, by exploring why that was, despite all the flaws, I hope to add to this review a way of seeing when it IS correct to play this AP, as a counterpoint to the well illustrated reasons listed of when NOT to play.
They FINALLY reached Alushinyrra, and they're really excited about exploring it, but the notion that they have to get into fights or otherwise gain notoriety to progress the story really rankles them; they just want to see what a demon-run city is LIKE. ("Can you please just run the city for us for 2-3 sessions without any of the AP stuff? It sounds really fun!")
In response to this point in particular, I'd say DO IT. Like I said above, the best parts of the adventure were when the group just lived in the world for a while. Who cares if they aren't entirely following the script. Let them explore, and point out the different things they can do to advance along the way. I think sessions like that are necessary to detox between all of the combat. Maybe if they do end up running the Succubus encounter area, don't even present combat as an option.
Actually, thinking about it, that might be why it didn't feel overly 'combat-y' to me. We had so many sidetracks that didn't involve combat, that we were never overwhelmed by the combat to non-combat ratio. (This habit I have for finding non-combat opportunities in combat encounters probably also stems from previously having run a 4e campaign, where combat was WAY more of a focus than it is even in this AP).
They FINALLY reached Alushinyrra, and they're really excited about exploring it, but the notion that they have to get into fights or otherwise gain notoriety to progress the story really rankles them; they just want to see what a demon-run city is LIKE. ("Can you please just run the city for us for 2-3 sessions without any of the AP stuff? It sounds really fun!")In response to this point in particular, I'd say DO IT. Like I said above, the best parts of the adventure were when the group just lived in the world for a while. Who cares if they aren't entirely following the script. Let them explore, and point out the different things they can do to advance along the way. I think sessions like that are necessary to detox between all of the combat. Maybe if they do end up running the Succubus encounter area, don't even present combat as an option.
Actually, thinking about it, that might be why it didn't feel overly 'combat-y' to me. We had so many sidetracks that didn't involve combat, that we were never overwhelmed by the combat to non-combat ratio. (This habit I have for finding non-combat opportunities in combat encounters probably also stems from previously having run a 4e campaign, where combat was WAY more of a focus than it is even in this AP).
LOL. You're talking to a guy who had them do a 2-month (real time) side trek to Absalom during Rise of the Runelords. Absalom? Yep! I'm definitely giving them time to explore, but it does mean more prep time for me, and I'm GM'ing 3 weekly campaigns so it's a bit of a hardship for me timewise. But our groups sound very similar -- my group's favorite sessions are those where they go 8 hours without rolling a single die. Just lots and lots of juicy NPC interactions.
NPCs are nice -- Jade Regent has a reasonable number of them. And heck, even in WotR Arushelae is in a hilarious romantic relationship with the sorceress' ferret familiar.
However, I'm going to stick with, "too many for one GM to run" in WotR. In Book 1 my group REALLY got to know Gwerm, Aravashnial, and Anevia, and it was wonderful. They spent a lot of down time roleplaying with them. I got to chew up the stage with Irabeth in the Grey Garrison, so they loved her, too. The "dinner with Gwerm" between Books 2 and 3 is still one of my favorite moments of the campaign, and was totally unscripted.
But starting in Book 2 we got Aron, Nurah, Sosiel, and Arles, all of whom need some screen time at the beginning of Book 2. As a GM, I found I could not run 8 NPCs at once. (Well, 7, since they chose not to bring Gwerm with them.)
By the beginning of Book 4, we've added Arushelae and Galfrey, and I have to pick-and-choose which NPCs are going to be rich, full-blooded individuals and which are necessarily going to be cardboard, because I personally just can't manage that many personalities at once.
Your mileage may vary.
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I'm pretty sure that if you are the type of GM who can turn ten NPC's, half of which have no distinguishing personality traits, into interesting characters, while at the same time modding the AP like hell, while at the same time maintaining the insane pace the campaign puts before you (there were stretches were the player characters were leveling each session, be it levels or tiers), then this campaign will be wholly another experience.
For Nobody... that part is correct. Have fun with and in the city, its likely unlike anything most groups have done before. Throw events or NPCs there way and see what sticks. Don't tell them about notoriety and move the plot on when its good to. (probably all obvious info)
Or for others, be warned that skill DCs are no longer a challenge as printed either. DC 50-60 is pretty easily achievable.
For Nobody... that part is correct. Have fun with and in the city, its likely unlike anything most groups have done before. Throw events or NPCs there way and see what sticks. Don't tell them about notoriety and move the plot on when its good to. (probably all obvious info)
Or for others, be warned that skill DCs are no longer a challenge as printed either. DC 50-60 is pretty easily achievable.
LOL. *IF* your PCs actually are spending points on skills!
My fighter is routinely rolling a Perception of 50+.
My bard has great difficulty getting a Perform or Knowledge check over 30.
Where are his skill points going?
Heck if I know, but it sure is hilarious watching him blow roll after roll! Makes for... interesting RP when the bard can't charm anyone, and listeners walk out on his performances! :-P
Heh, funny differences.
My warning came from the paladin in my group that was listening to my mythic combat damage grumblings. So he 'wasted' a mythic feat on mythic cha surge, or whatever its called... thereby making any Cha check DC pointless.
I guess it fits for a mythic speaker but it also takes the challenge out of things.
A "who goes first, wins" game is already existant at the highest levels of the normal game. In gamer terms, it's called "rocket tag". Mythic has this, too, but mostly for player characters. The opposition, as buffed by Scorpion, had also excellent offense, just not to the level of the PC's.
I think you missed what I was saying.
The GM BUFFED the enemies, as in made them more powerful.
He added to them, gave them CR's and abilities/powers in mythic above and beyond what they had in order to challenge the party.
Which is where it really got to...who goes first wins...and the enemy went first.
Imagine a Foe that does 500 dmg to the entire party on the first hit type of thing...
Or other ridiculous things.
AS I said, that particular group slaughtered RotRL and other AP's easily, and the only thing I can imagine that caused the TPK in WotR was the utilization (extra added ones to enemies) in WotR by the GM.
Yeah, but rocket tag is bad. The problem is, the rules gave mythic rocket tag to the PC's, but not the opponents. Even Scorpion, who gave some sick stuff to the opposition, did not do this. Because... rocket tag is bad.
Which is why I denounced it in my review and I personally wouldn't even want to give rocket tag abilities to the opposition. TPK'ing the party is not the goal a GM should have, after all.
Rocket tag is a consequence of inadequate possible defenses, just sayin.
Rocket tag is a consequence of inadequate possible defenses, just sayin.
Yeah, well. If the developers allow single attacks by player characters which do something along of 500-1500 damage and their best opponent of the entire campaign has not even 800 HP, I think the problem may be on the development side.
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They FINALLY reached Alushinyrra, and they're really excited about exploring it, but the notion that they have to get into fights or otherwise gain notoriety to progress the story really rankles them; they just want to see what a demon-run city is LIKE. ("Can you please just run the city for us for 2-3 sessions without any of the AP stuff? It sounds really fun!")In response to this point in particular, I'd say DO IT. Like I said above, the best parts of the adventure were when the group just lived in the world for a while. Who cares if they aren't entirely following the script. Let them explore, and point out the different things they can do to advance along the way. I think sessions like that are necessary to detox between all of the combat. Maybe if they do end up running the Succubus encounter area, don't even present combat as an option.
Actually, thinking about it, that might be why it didn't feel overly 'combat-y' to me. We had so many sidetracks that didn't involve combat, that we were never overwhelmed by the combat to non-combat ratio. (This habit I have for finding non-combat opportunities in combat encounters probably also stems from previously having run a 4e campaign, where combat was WAY more of a focus than it is even in this AP).
LOL. You're talking to a guy who had them do a 2-month (real time) side trek to Absalom during Rise of the Runelords. Absalom? Yep! I'm definitely giving them time to explore, but it does mean more prep time for me, and I'm GM'ing 3 weekly campaigns so it's a bit of a hardship for me timewise. But our groups sound very similar -- my group's favorite sessions are those where they go 8 hours without rolling a single die. Just lots and lots of juicy NPC interactions.
NPCs are nice -- Jade Regent has a reasonable number of them. And heck, even in WotR Arushelae is in a hilarious romantic relationship with the sorceress' ferret familiar.
However, I'm going to stick with, "too many for one GM to run" in...
Yeah, even I will admit I had tons of trouble finding a role for some of the later characters (Aron Kir especially was hard to work in, Sosiel ended up being easier only because the group cleric was hilariously incompetent with Religion checks, and Sosiel ended up as something of a comedic foil to him). Everyone else I was able to do something with. It also helped that many characters 'paired off' with PC's (Anevia and the Rogue became girlfriends (platonic), Aravashnial and the Magus enjoyed having someone who could actually talk at their level. Horgus became a kind of Father-figure to the Cleric. Irabeth was the team Mom, and also enjoyed discussing strategy and war games with the quiet warrior character. Aron ended up finding a role as a co-worker type with the Rogue, as she helped him with the reconstruction. Nurah ended up as a love interest (and eventually wife) to the cleric. Arueshaelae formed a close bond (and eventually marriage in a beautiful scene the played made herself) with the Magus. Even the two concubines from the Wintersun clan ended up becoming servants.
Yeah, but rocket tag is bad. The problem is, the rules gave mythic rocket tag to the PC's, but not the opponents. Even Scorpion, who gave some sick stuff to the opposition, did not do this. Because... rocket tag is bad.
Which is why I denounced it in my review and I personally wouldn't even want to give rocket tag abilities to the opposition. TPK'ing the party is not the goal a GM should have, after all.
I'm not understanding the first part. Why can't the enemies be given the same feats and abilities as the PC's if the GM wants?
If the GM decides not too...isn't that the GM's fault instead?
I believe this is what the GM I played WotR was doing...it was quite deadly.
NOt that this is a good solution, but I'd say it makes WotR with mythic optimization by a GM FAR more deadly then people are making out.
In fact, you can end up with the opposite effect, which as you put it...TPK'ing the party may not exactly be a wonderful thing to have as the usual option either.
Similar problem, but on the opposite end of the spectrum.
And yes, as another put it...it was our lack of defenses in regards to those same abilities. Call it inexperience in prepping to face mythic foes with the same capacities as PC's for mythic stuff.
It was the first time playing through mythic though...
Look, you can't really defend against the mythic stuff PC's can do. At least not with options available within the written rules. Giving the same options as PC's have to the opposition just makes the entire game "who rolls initiative first". This way, the campaign just ends the first time you have opponents who go first or you force your players into optimizing initiative to always go first. Which they can achieve, if they put their minds to it.
So, since rocket tag ain't the solution, it would have to be the opposite, which is nerfing mythic options so that they would fall under less insane parameters than the now fall under.
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Thematically speaking, having two sides on a conflict engage in an epic fight for the ages (i.e. mythic) shouldn't be resolved in less than six seconds. While its true that a lot of fights in PF can be as short as a round or two, Mythic accentuates this to such an absurd degree as to not even be believable. The problem isn't with both sides being fair, its the fact that both sides are armed with thermo-nuclear detonators that end the fight on their activation. This is okay sometimes, but when every single fight (and the from play journal, sounds like what happened) devolves into it, it looses everything that should make Mythic feel.. well, Mythic.
Edit: Ninja'd
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Thanks for the feedback on Mythic, magnuskn. Obviously, Mythic and WotR were written long before I got here, but it's still useful to me moving forward. Interestingly, your review, particularly with respect to the Mythic martial buffs causing the most havoc at lower levels, also provides an extremely good counterpoint to calls to give non-Mythic access to such abilities to martials. We have the playtest data now from people playing WotR about what that would do, and it sounds like it ain't pretty!
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I will say this: Mythic should not have focused on significantly increasing the damage output of the Mythic encounter. It instead should have significantly increased the defensive abilities of the Mythic characters and enemies. Think about the myths and legends of the Norse and the Greeks... of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and of Beowulf. These are not stories where someone hits something once and it's dead. These are epic battles where it ultimately takes brains to overcome a dread foe.
When I'm running a game, be it Mythic or not, I will often end up fudging results. This can mean an enemy is able to withstand the players' attacks longer than normal... because a quick kill would make things boring. This can also mean that a player is left with several hit points instead of dying outright. Fudging goes both ways.
Sadly, Mythic either requires you to fudge constantly to keep enemies challenging... or allowing enemies to drop with one strike, which becomes boring.
I truly enjoyed Mythic Adventures when it first came out. I integrated it into my Runelords and Reign of Winter game. I have realized it is inherently flawed... and will keep my group at the low end of Mythic power (at Tier 2). That said, springing a Mythic foe on non-Mythic players is a fun twist... and can allow a GM to continue to use otherwise weak monsters that just happen to be special.
Look, you can't really defend against the mythic stuff PC's can do. At least not with options available within the written rules. Giving the same options as PC's have to the opposition just makes the entire game "who rolls initiative first". This way, the campaign just ends the first time you have opponents who go first or you force your players into optimizing initiative to always go first. Which they can achieve, if they put their minds to it.
So, since rocket tag ain't the solution, it would have to be the opposite, which is nerfing mythic options so that they would fall under less insane parameters than the now fall under.
I wasn't defending it, I was pointing out that WotR wasn't the pushover many say it is if the GM actually buffed the enemies (at least like many GM's buff enemies in non-mythic PF, which is granting enemies the ability to have the same powers as the PCs in many instances).
When you stated you had actually buffed the enemies, and then went on to say how easy WotR was...knowing what the GM did and how we ended up with a TPK (and the ONLY one we've had with an AP) alarm bells went off and I went...something doesn't sound right with his statement there.
I know better than what he said, if the GM buffed like ours does...which is to make an even keel with the party (not by CR, but how the GM feels would make the enemy be a fight that was challenging or difficult for the party with what they feel the party can do, and what they can give enemies to counter or challenge these things, sometimes that's a major rising of the CR...much harder to do in AP6 but up through AP 5 very easy to add mythic and even top out things in their abilities)...there's NO WAY it was a pushover.
Maybe the default module itself...but NOT if the GM buffs the encounters to be an equal challenge to the party.
When that happens, mythic tends to be far deadlier than non-mythic from my WotR experience.
Thanks for the feedback on Mythic, magnuskn. Obviously, Mythic and WotR were written long before I got here, but it's still useful to me moving forward. Interestingly, your review, particularly with respect to the Mythic martial buffs causing the most havoc at lower levels, also provides an extremely good counterpoint to calls to give non-Mythic access to such abilities to martials. We have the playtest data now from people playing WotR about what that would do, and it sounds like it ain't pretty!
Well, as long as you guys don't take that as an excuse to not give dex-to-damage to martials for an appropiate cost in feats... :p
The martial buffs did not only cause havoc at the lower levels, though ... they just started to do so earlier than the ones for the casters (although you can be sure that the Sorcerer player appreciated the heightened flexibility granted to him via Wild Arcana).
The martials were extremely effective during the entire mythic part of the AP, up until the final fight, where our Ranger made a sieve out of Areelu Vorlesh and Khoramzadeh reborn was one-shot by the Samurai.
I wasn't defending it, I was pointing out that WotR wasn't the pushover many say it is if the GM actually buffed the enemies (at least like many GM's buff enemies in non-mythic PF, which is granting enemies the ability to have the same powers as the PCs in many instances).
Yes, and what I've been trying to do is point out that it is a horrible idea, because it will lead to TPK's, like in the case of your campaign. And TPK's means in most cases that the campaign ends, which is a bad thing to do as a GM.
I wasn't defending it, I was pointing out that WotR wasn't the pushover many say it is if the GM actually buffed the enemies (at least like many GM's buff enemies in non-mythic PF, which is granting enemies the ability to have the same powers as the PCs in many instances).Yes, and what I've been trying to do is point out that it is a horrible idea, because it will lead to TPK's, like in the case of your campaign. And TPK's means in most cases that the campaign ends, which is a bad thing to do as a GM.
Well, it certainly ended the one we were in. We didn't finish the WotR AP.
I bought the PDF so I could read the ending at least...of course since our group failed...Golarion is in DEEP...well...Demon infestations...
So, you're absolutely right on that point in regards to what happened with our group's WotR campaign.
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One of the most important parts of being a GM is to be able to lose with grace.
there is always Iron Gods, I embraced them and I havent felt better, like exactly one million dollars
@J-Bone: Just run it without Mythic. Regenerating Hero Points will give players increased survivability, a touch of the Mythic essence, and not overpower things.
@magnuskn: I beg to differ. There is no winning or losing with RPGs. There is having fun. I've had encounters where few of the allies are hit or harmed... and yet the players said they felt challenged because they used up a lot of resources in fighting their foes. Just because I didn't reduce anyone to single hit points or the like doesn't mean the fight wasn't a tough one. And so long as the party feels challenged, then it can still be a good game.
That said, it sounds like partway into Book 3, the challenge left WotR and never returned. And that's a damn shame. Half the problem lies with Mythic Adventures... and seeing I doubt Paizo is going to give the rules the massive rewrite it needs, I suspect outside of the occasional Mythic foe, we're never going to see these rules used for players again.
@magnuskn: I beg to differ. There is no winning or losing with RPGs. There is having fun. I've had encounters where few of the allies are hit or harmed... and yet the players said they felt challenged because they used up a lot of resources in fighting their foes. Just because I didn't reduce anyone to single hit points or the like doesn't mean the fight wasn't a tough one. And so long as the party feels challenged, then it can still be a good game.
That said, it sounds like partway into Book 3, the challenge left WotR and never returned. And that's a damn shame. Half the problem lies with Mythic Adventures... and seeing I doubt Paizo is going to give the rules the massive rewrite it needs, I suspect outside of the occasional Mythic foe, we're never going to see these rules used for players again.
Yeah, but as the GM you are almost always playing the losing side in battles, so there is definitely "losing in RPG's", at least when it comes to the individual battles. And part of your job as a GM it is to lose gracefully, which sometimes is more difficult when the opponents you built up to be a threat get stomped easily.
I have had to increase the difficulty a bunch, especially in Chapter 3 onwards - but that has more to do with my players being very good (and generally too many encounters being underpowered, as Nobody's Home has pointed out).
Yeah, I think one of the biggest lessons for someone trying to run mythic (be it Paizo or in a homebrew), you have to use the modified APL 100% of the time, not the 25% recommended in Mythic Adventures. After more than a couple tiers, the encounters designed for non-mythic APL are just a waste of time. (I usually turned those into RP encounters. They were smart enough to run away or surrender.)
I wanted to offer my own input on this excellent thread, both as feedback to the designers and to offer up a viable option that I've mentioned before and has worked very well for us. The group included four very well-made and well-played characters using a 20 point buy.
First of all, we ditched Mythic rules entirely. Instead, the characters gained additional levels at what would have been Mythic tiers 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 10, meaning they finished at 26th level. We found that the earlier access to spells and the increased BAB went a long way towards balancing the campaign.
Secondly, at higher levels we instituted our own 'Epic rules' which were pretty simple. X times per day you could add X to any d20 roll after the roll was made, where X equaled the number of epic levels they had achieved. Epic levels were anything over 20, meaning at 23rd level one could add +3 to any d20 roll 3/day as a free action. It made for a nice bit of 'destiny-making'.
These two changes collectively added a lot to mechanical gameplay but ensured that encounters remained a challenge.They were very, very simple to make using the existing rules as is.
A couple of caveats: I always tailor magical treasure to balance the PC's (up or down) and tend to customize most of it. We also had a number of side-quests added and some tweaks to the side-plots, but almost all were inspired by material in the AP itself or in the Worldwound campaign setting. NPC's were often radically altered or outright replaced.
As to the story, we thought the AP was magnificently set-up and unlike some others, we found it engaging throughout. Extremely satisfying once the Mythic elements were removed.
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Nice review Magnuskn, after following you campaign journal for such a long time, I am quite impressed that you were able to temper you anger and provide useful feedback.
I pretty much agree with most of your points (even considering, that my group has not even finished part 2 yet, I already had to make plenty of modifications ), but I am a bit surprised, that you didn't, mention the plethora of encounters at or below APL (even without considering mythic tiers). It might be a complaint, you and me have already leveled at a number of adventure paths, but I think it bears repeating.
Mythic abilities tend to give players characters a lot more endurance, from abilities that let characters convert mythic power into spells, to powers like recuperation. Those make test of endurance a massive waste of time, and most players understand this quite soon. Comparisons to that damned duracell bunny seem a bit unfair, but it is not without merit.
Regarding the NPCs, you are pretty dead on especially with your comparison to Jade Regent (even considering, that even that one had a number of non essential NPCS). Some are kinda interesting, especially the married NPCs, but most of them don't really have an arch, or get new roles to play in the later adventures. Getting the ability to invest a small number of NPCs with a degree of mythic power (maybe to fill a role underserved in the party) would have been preferable (I might still take that route).
And to end this on a controversial point, I think mythic is worth saving, it requires a number of changes here and there, but the core concept is sound. If course APs have to compensate for these changes (either less XP and/or loot).
You went into this with a negative attitude on the mythic rules. You came out of it with one. Sounds like everything worked out just fine and balanced to me.
Look man, its a game. I wouldn't get too angry. Maybe its just not your cup of tea.
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Sure, it's totally balanced when martials crit for 500+ points of damage against "challenging" opponents who can't take even one such hit and casters drop fireballs to the tune of 300-400 damage, no immunities, on the same opposition. Which type of games do you play, exactly?
Ah, theres some of that anger you spoke of yes? Not taking my advice? Pity.
That aside, personally I'm not looking for an AP to lead me by the ring in my nose. I'm looking for one I can build on and make my own. For me, Wrath did a great job of just that. Mythic rules and all. Perhaps something was lost in translation at your table.
Look at it this way, judging from some of your player's comments they had a good time, so not a total failure anyway eh?
Stop defending the indefensible, dude.
I was originally a huge fan of Mythic. I questioned why it wasn't used for Reign of Winter, and have integrated it into both my RoW and my Runelords campaigns.
I regret having done so. Certain aspects make the game very unbalanced. Let's put it this way: you have a game mechanic that emulates the Arcane Bonded Item feature, turns it into a Swift Action, and doesn't require the Wizard (or Sorcerer!) to even have that spell in their spellbook. Add insult to injury, the spell counts as +2 levels higher, and this can be done five times a day at the first tier. And it can be for any level spell that the wizard or sorcerer can cast.
You have another ability in which someone moves, gets an attack that ignores damage resistance, and then the player can do a full attack afterward. Including bonus attacks from Haste or other abilities. Thus meaning a player wielding two weapons and with a high enough level and the proper feats can, with Haste, move and then attack 10 times in a round.
You honestly don't see how these are broken?
Now let's add in a AP that has enemies too weak to be a challenge for even non-Mythic characters.
He went into this, ended up massively boosting the hit points and other abilities of the foes, and found even that didn't balance the game. He is not alone in seeing this, and a number of GMs have QUIT RUNNING IT because it is too unbalanced.
That said, there is a simple solution: don't use Mythic for this AP. It ends up tough in places, but there's enough magic items and extra gold that they players should do fine. Add in the extra artifacts that are included in the AP, and only the most novice of groups would have problems.
Uh huh. If you can do it, I can do it. You know how much powergaming that puts a stop to? There is no system that cannot be broken, no system that cannot be tweaked to insane levels. Make it your own game, or watch yourself get walked all over. That's not a game issue. Its a people issue.
Or, simply don't use the Mythic set if its too much. Honestly, high level play isn't for all tables and mythic ramps that up. Possibly just as well to let it lie in your circle. Me? I'm going to run Savage Tides as mythic next. But then I have a table where that's possible. Not all tables are the same. No, not better, just different.
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The problem is not that you cannot tweak mythic, but that mythic is broken already out of the box. Player character powers overshoot opponent abilities on a ridiculous level. I already made comments how curiously underpowered opponents looked when the rulebook first came out... little did I know how much I was underestimating the real power level even then.
But your condescending remarks are quite unfounded. As Tangent said, I already tweaked the power levels much higher than what it was in the books proper... it just wasn't enough. If I'd run the AP out of the book with a simple +50% to the opponents numbers to account for my six players, it would have been even worse.
Going into the AP with a "positive attitude" doesn't change the math, no matter how much you tell us that it does.