Simple fixes to WoTR and Mythic that will keep this AP going to the end. (No Spoilers)

[wraithstrike]

Lincoln Cross wrote:

I have not played WotR and only experienced 1 tier of Mythic through a portion of our Runelords game.

I just find it odd that I see so many people use the term broken for mythic though. I get the impression that using this word for mythic comes from thinking in non mythic ways. What I mean is mythic characters doing mythic things is not broken. The game, when you add mythic, is a different game. I think the characters are supposed to be blowing things up and doing world shattering things. Mythic puts the characters on another level.

Krinn, above said he threw a CR20 mythic enemy at his group. I believe the most important factor in combat is action economy. There are countless threads here about single BBEGs getting blown up and that is because of action economy, not mythic. Mythic is only going to expound on this.

All of that said I still believe that Mythic has some balancing issues that need to be address. Or rather, pathfinder in general needs to address the disparity between offense and defense.

But they are fighting mythic foes so they should be able to give some sort of a challenge. With the ease at which mythic foes are dying they may as well be normal monsters. Mythic was not intended to put the game on super easy mode, which is what happens with certain abilities. Nobody needs a new ruleset to put the game on supereasy mode.

[Tangent101]

Tier 1 isn't that broken. It opens up some interesting possibilities for players but has a massive restraint on how much they can do.

It's Tier 3 when things start breaking.

[Lincoln Cross]

That's what I'm getting at though. Is broken the right term? It seems like that is exactly what mythic is supposed to do.

Shouldn't we be looking at the bigger issues?

Offense being many times more effective and easy to improve than defense?

Action economy?

Mythic or not if there is a way to mitigate the amount of damage that is produced and the number of actions that can be taken won't we get closer to the core of the real issues?

The best ways to fix the issues with action economy are more enemies and environmental factors that have a negative affect on the PC's and a positive one on their opponents.

As for ooffense and defense it is just way to east to stack up those numbers for damage. Much harder to stack them up for all forms of defense. A change to the core way that damage is mitigated would go a long way to helping this.

As for my group and WotR we are going to work together as a group to keep as even a playing field as possible.

[Krinn]

I fully acknowledge that single bossfights are pointless, I know that action economy rules everything, I didn't want to challenge my players per se, but they were utterly terrified just thinking about facing such an abomination (successful knowledge roll to identify the monster AND they knew it was mythic on top of that) and they were seriously fearing they were going to face their deaths :)

However, my point was to show them that a single character could bring that thing from full to zero during a single full attack (which he actually did), thanks to extra move actions from the party skald/marshal's advance, his own fleet warrior and fleet charge at the end (would also have used extra move from mythic haste AND the extra standard action attack if I hadn't already dishallowed that).
I just wanted a clear example that my players could see... magnus and others already listed a big amount of stuff that is problematic.

Action economy is a thing. Mythic only exacerbates the issue.
I don't want fights to boil down to just an initiative roll. It's anticlimactic and boring, and I'm talking Mythic vs Mythic. I can see a mythic fighter cleave through hordes of minions unscathed, but he shouldn't be able to tear down an equally (actually more powerful on paper) mythic bruiser monstrosity in six seconds.

The worst offenders to action economy are multiple spells per round (without using quicken) and full attacks while also moving, in addition to summons and animal companions which are difficult to use with my "when your turn comes, you have up to 6 seconds to think before stating all your actions and the actions of your animal companion / summoned critters, else the default is total defense" (it's harsh but works with 7 players), so my players usually don't summon stuff and only the paladin has a mount.
Hero points can grant extra actions, but I fully intend to enforce the "if you full attack you only get a 5 ft step" and "only one spell per round" rules, although one could use the extra actions for something else, like activating a supernatural ability, standing up from prone or make a single additional attack.

I think that Hero Points mimic a mythical character of legends like Hercules or Achilles better than the actual Mythic Rules.
PF Mythic Hercules would just kill the Mythic Hydra in (less than) six seconds, that doesn't sound very mythic to me, it seems more of a deity-level thing.

[NobodysHome]

I think "action economy" is misleading here, as it implies that the party is taking many more actions than the BBEG.

Once a fighter hits mythic tier 3 or so, he or she simply one-rounds every single enemy for the rest of the AP.

It's not "4 mythic heroes pounding on a mythic foe until it bows down", it's, "Everyone stands around twiddling their thumbs until the fighter goes, and then the enemy goes down."

Eternal 1-round fights does not a mythic story make...

Again, you can fix this by either removing many of the fighter's options, or by boosting the living daylights out of the BBEG's hit points. But as-written, every BBEG is a one-round speed bump for a casually-built fighter.

[captain yesterday]

I've said it before All Rogue Party might as well play down to the AP's difficulty level;p
also say goodbye to Abyssal Traits being a hinderance

Mythic Rogues set foot on Abyssal soil
Rogue 1: man, i feel pretty good
Rogue 2: I feel Better even!
Galfrey: S#~$! background checks old girl! background checks next time!

unrelated i'm totally playing Galfrey like Gadget Gal from The Awesomes if i get to run it:)

[NobodysHome]

Just for fun, here's an example of what 4th-tier mythic does to damage.

Let's start with "average Joe CRB fighter" at 12th level. He's managed to get his strength up to 24 (fine for a "middle-of-the-road non-mythic" build) and he's the proud owner of a +2 Holy Demon Bane scimitar.

Being "Joe CRB", he doesn't think much about optimization, and just takes the core, "I hit things with my sword" feats. Weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization and Greater Weapon Specialization, Power Attack, and Improved Critical

Not exactly Mr. "I want to break things with my cheese," but definitely, "I want to be effective in combat."

Non-mythic mathstuffs:

BAB: +12/+7/+2, 1d6, 16-20
Weapon Training: +2/+2
Strength: +7/+7
Weapon Focus/Specialization: +2/+4
Power Attack: -4/+8
Weapon: +4/+4 (+4d6) (demon bane gets an extra +2 against demons)

So his attack stats are:
+23/+18/+13, 1d6+25+4d6, 16-20

Nothing to write home about, but in Book 4 where this guy is roaming, let's assume an average round gets us a hit/crit/miss for a very very rough DPR average of
113.5

Not bad. It'll kill most Book 4 monsters in 3 rounds.

Now we get 4 mythic tiers. Joe Fighter doesn't know any better, so he just takes Sudden Attack, Improved Initiative, Mythic Power Attack, and Foe Biter. (And don't forget -- Sudden Attack is considered the lesser of the two big Champion abilities, and Improved Initiative is an automatic ability.)

Mythic mathstuffs:

1 mythic surge = Ignore Power Attack Penalties
Mythic Power Attack = +4 more damage, or +24 on crits
1 mythic surge = 1 additional attack using Sudden Strike
1 mythic surge = 1 additional attack using Improved Initiative

His attack stats are:
+27/+27/+27/+22/+17, 1d6+29+4d6, 16-20 BEFORE using Foe Biter, at the cost of 3 mythic surges.

Let's be REALLY generous and assume just 3 hits and a crit. Foe Bite all of them.

One "nuclear" round, burning 8 mythic surges. Average damage?
517

4 tiers of mythic more than quadruples a fighter's damage output. And that's WITHOUT doing things like taking Mythic Vital Strike and using Improved Initiative to drop that and Foe Biter on a particularly nasty enemy AFTER a full-round attack.

So an "average Joe" quadruples damage by 4th tier. There are no corresponding defenses. There's no, "Ignore crits" except on the Hierophant chain. There's no, "Shut down Foe Biter". Almost all of mythic is "all offense, no defense".

So the key is either:
- Tone down the offense by limiting mythic surges or eliminating offending abilities, or
- Tone up the defense by adding similar, "Ha! I ignore your Foe Biter ability!" abilities

I think either could work. Unfortunately, neither got implemented...

[Lincoln Cross]

I see what you're saying but that still boils down to action economy and offense scaling higher than defense.

He is using the mythic power to get extra actions and damage.

Still seems like a change to the way criticals work and allowing less mythic power regeneration would go a long way.

There is a lot of talk about using hero points instead of the mythic rules. I can see how this would be a mechanical fix but it robs the flavor from the character of the characters. These guys are lancelot and Robin hood, Thor and captain America.

I am all for finding a way to eliminate rocket tag and keep the game balanced and fun for all but getting rid of mythic just doesn't feel like the answer to me.

[Tangent101]

This is Doom, with God Mode and All Ammunition.

How long do you bother playing it? And do you ever bother replaying it?

Now let's take that one step further: imagine that the time it takes to frag five opponents in Doom while in God Mode takes instead of 10 seconds at most, it takes two hours. Or more.

Would you bother playing Doom in God Mode if it took forever to do anything even though you were guaranteed to win?

Mythic is not epic. It is not recreating the battles of mythology, of Hercules vs. the Hydra or the fights in "Battle of the Titans" (the first one). It is putting on God Mode for a game and killing everything around you. Why bother?

Seriously. Why bother? And if you have to alter the game on an ever-increasing scale to keep it challenging for your players? Then has not Paizo dropped the ball and failed to create a well-crafted AP? Seriously, we're buying Paizo's products so to save time because most of us don't have lots of time to make our own adventures or double-check and make sure it won't kill the characters or be a cakewalk. If Paizo's product is a cakewalk? Then it has failed as a game product.

[NobodysHome]

Now, now, the "Failed AP" thread is up the road a bit! :-P

I just worry when people talk about "action economy" as a key focus.

My view of the core problem is that his non-mythic crit averages 71 points of damage, while he can punch his mythic crit to 238. In one blow. WITHOUT Mythic Vital Strike.

Most of the offensive melee abilities focus on "multipliers, multipliers, multipliers", so melee characters nova around 4th tier.

I'd be far more focused on reducing the number of possible multipliers than on reducing the number of possible actions, so it's more back to the original post: "OK, you guys have played through this. What went wrong?"

My answer is, "My fighter one-shots everything because he criticals every round and does well over 200 hit points per critical."

It DOES lead to the situation Tangent describes: You spend two or three sessions building up a BBEG and talking about how he beats up nuns, eats orphans, and wants to turn the PC's parents' homestead into an Abyssal sewer swamp. So by the time they meet him, they just want him dead, no questions asked. So they open up all their Christmas toys at once.

And leave unto the world a crater where the BBEG once stood...

[Krinn]

We had session yesterday.

After "The Talk", everyone was at least willing to give hero points a shot (3+half level felt better than 3+tier as it took away all references to mythic tiers). They leveled up their characters to 11 to make up for the 3 tiers they lost and substituted the mythic stat bonuses with the +4/+2/+2 from alternate ascension.

Without mythic rules about legendary items, I can now personalize the four legendary items the party has. As an example, the psychic has a multi-dimensional crystal crafted from a partly exhausted Nahyndrian crystal and augmented with her psychic abilities, so that it exists in multiple dimensions at the same time depending on how she "rotates" it, and it allows her to use rope trick, clairvoyance and teleport.
As a legendary item, it could use those abilities once per day and would become stronger at every tier.
Now, I reworked it as a "staff" of sort (keeping the fluff invaried), it has 10 charges and can expend 2 to use rope trick, 3 to use clairvoyance and 5 to use teleport, it recovers 1 charge per day by itself and can be recharged via psychic spells once per day by an amount equal to the spell level. If she finds more Nahyndrian crystals, she could add to her own crystal powers via downtime, either adding new spells, more charges or upgrading existing spells to greater versions (rope trick => mage's magnificient mansion => create demiplane).
Yeah, the player is a fan of Doctor Who and wanted her own TARDIS, and she loves crystals... she's very excited about this new subquest of finding Nahyndrian crystals now!

Legendary items aside, the party faced enemies from the "futuristic" background of the party android (here, the player loves science-fiction and bought the technology guide on day 1). Without getting too much into the backstory, they are facing an incubus fighter clad in powered armor (posing as the "emperor" of the character's surviving people who are essentially enslaved to craft more technological items for the demons), his entourage of 6 tiefling fighters, an enemy NPC with MIRV rocket launcher (commanding a unit of 8 tiefling shooters and 4 snipers as well) and a friendly NPC both from the android past (the friendly one just rolled a natural 20 to avoid getting dominated into attacking her former lover and instead shot at the emperor himself in an act of defiance as he was struggling against the mental subjugation... when the dice gods are in tune with the story!).

For the first time since mythic went in use, the fight lasted for more than 4 rounds... we ended the session at the beginning of the 5th round, the android and the emperor locked in melee combat with monoblades near his (golden, of course) throne in a futuristic cathedral (the android pierced through its rose window, flying with her friend on jetpack), the paladin of shelyn barely saving from death her halfling ranger friend who fell to snipers and rockets and riding on top of her trusty frost drake to outmaneuver the rocket guy through structures in the military encampent, the other party members moving through the psychic crystal "rope trick" shaped as a window to help the android while the tieflings fire zero, laser and arc rifle shots at them.

For me, it's a cinematic wet dream, which wouldn't have been possible with mythic as it was. The party spent roughly a quarter of their hero points in various phases of the battle (the paladin cheating death for his frost drake which was then healed with a heal mount spell, the arcanist casting a spell he hadn't prepared, the android trying a failed hasty diplomacy and on the subsequent round closing the distance with an extra move action, and more!) and it feels more mythic to us this way than with mythic abilities - the android would just have killed the emperor in one or two rounds with move and mythically buffed full attack on the same round.

At the end of the session, everyone was really happy with the hero points change, the fight they're into is pretty epic and lasts long enough so everyone can shine for his actions, even NPCs who roll natural 20 against dominations :)

[wraithstrike]

Lincoln Cross wrote:

That's what I'm getting at though. Is broken the right term? It seems like that is exactly what mythic is supposed to do.

Shouldn't we be looking at the bigger issues?

Offense being many times more effective and easy to improve than defense?

Action economy?

Mythic or not if there is a way to mitigate the amount of damage that is produced and the number of actions that can be taken won't we get closer to the core of the real issues?

The best ways to fix the issues with action economy are more enemies and environmental factors that have a negative affect on the PC's and a positive one on their opponents.

As for ooffense and defense it is just way to east to stack up those numbers for damage. Much harder to stack them up for all forms of defense. A change to the core way that damage is mitigated would go a long way to helping this.

As for my group and WotR we are going to work together as a group to keep as even a playing field as possible.

Broken does not have to mean OP. It can mean does not work properly. The mythic levels are supposed to be equal to one character level, but in play many people said they feel like 1.5 character levels which adds up, and does make them broken in the "not working properly" sense.

[Krinn]

Minor correction, wraithstrike... the mythic levels are actually supposed to be equal to HALF character level!

But it's really the overwhelming disparity of offense vs defense plus the ease with which you can break action economy that makes mythic broken in my eyes. It's not just OP, it breaks the flow of the game, turning an otherwise interesting and compelling story into a cakewalk where the evilest BBEGs turn to ashes in one round, or if you build for challenging encounters you rarely hit round 3 anyway and it's just more chance for TPK depending entirely on who wins initiative. This is not the d&d/pathfinder I learned to like.

[Raltus]

What if there was another chain of mythic feats/abilities that focused more on defense, Active defense?

I turned the Succubus in Citadel Dreznen into a Swashbuckler and she Parried quite a few of the fighters hits that would have done a lot of dmg. He was not to happy even going so far as to say " I hate active defense in a game like this" I am not out to piss my players off but it seems like a good start.

You could even add in multipliers... I know I used the "M" word, for active defense, maybe give the BBEG guys abilities that when struck they do dmg back to the players. I did Howlers in Kenabras and they really go the party thinking about melee attacks and taking dmg for dealing dmg.

I know these games focus more on passive defense that doesn't add up unless you go for it and forgo everything else.

What about all the BBEG's having shields up that absorb so much dmg when they are in their area of absolute power? Giving them items that increase their WBL to where it should be and extra mooks to soak dmg.

[reiella]

NobodysHome wrote:

Now we get 4 mythic tiers. Joe Fighter doesn't know any better, so he just takes Sudden Attack, Improved Initiative, Mythic Power Attack, and Foe Biter. (And don't forget -- Sudden Attack is considered the lesser of the two big Champion abilities, and Improved Initiative is an automatic ability.)

Don't you need two applications of Legendary Item to get Foe-biter since it requires minor artifact status? The math still largely works, I'm just wondering if I missed something there.

[Raltus]

Reiella you are right, you can either take it at 3rd tier or a few others.

[magnuskn]

NobodysHome wrote:

I just worry when people talk about "action economy" as a key focus.

It actually is one of the most important balancing factors in normal campaigns. In Mythic, well, yes, but the other mentioned problems have a much higher weight stat in seeing how broken mythic is.

[NobodysHome]

reiella wrote:

NobodysHome wrote:

Now we get 4 mythic tiers. Joe Fighter doesn't know any better, so he just takes Sudden Attack, Improved Initiative, Mythic Power Attack, and Foe Biter. (And don't forget -- Sudden Attack is considered the lesser of the two big Champion abilities, and Improved Initiative is an automatic ability.)

Don't you need two applications of Legendary Item to get Foe-biter since it requires minor artifact status? The math still largely works, I'm just wondering if I missed something there.

You're correct, but we've got ability room to spare:

1st tier: Sudden Attack as a Champion, Improved Initiative as a mythic PC, Mythic Power Attack as a mythic feat, and Legendary Item as a mythic path ability.

2nd tier: Whatevs.

3rd tier: Take Legendary Item a second time as a mythic path ability.

You know, I'm not sure I even need to hit 4 here. Do the weapons get their abilities separately?

I was thinking that I'd need to hit tier 4 to add Foe Biter, but it looks like the weapons just "get" their abilities, so he could be that nasty at Tier 3. Ouch!

[Kevin Mack]

wraithstrike wrote:

Broken does not have to mean OP. It can mean does not work properly. The mythic levels are supposed to be equal to one character level, but in play many people said they feel like 1.5 character levels which adds up, and does make them broken in the "not working properly" sense.

Actually there treated as only 0.5 of a lvl when they should vary from 1 to 1.5 lvl's

[Raltus]

Why not allow all BBEG's to act multiple times a round? would even the playing field.

[NobodysHome]

magnuskn wrote:

NobodysHome wrote:

I just worry when people talk about "action economy" as a key focus.

It actually is one of the most important balancing factors in normal campaigns. In Mythic, well, yes, but the other mentioned problems have a much higher weight stat in seeing how broken mythic is.

Yes, the end of that sentence should have read, "...when people talk about 'action economy' as a key focus in the problems with mythic rules."

In normal games, it's everything. Almost.

[Thefuzzy1]

I have had the mythic talk with my group and they have all decided to press on with mythic. This gives me a party of 7 and mythic (we are just into part 2 of book 1 so no issues yet) to contend with for the future, from what I see book 3-4 and tier 3ish is where it starts to unravel taking the inherent weak points of the system and busting them wide open. Without going crazy with the ban hammer or spending all my between game time fully re building each monster (I do have to re work all the encounters for a party of 7 any way but there is a limit to my free time) I am going to try to test out a "mythic baddie" template giving my big fights a way to (in theory) contend with the mythic offense with as little work on my part as possible. The BBEG and added minions will take 1/2 damage (like 5e resistance) and have a moderate to heavy fortification effect. This gives a chance the pcs can one shot them and feel super epic without it being a sure thing and should give some staying power to the darkside. Now to the hive mind (and mythic math pros) here how would this shake out and are there any overt flaws I may be missing?

[Krinn]

Raltus wrote:

Why not allow all BBEG's to act multiple times a round? would even the playing field.

I tried, also double max'ing boss HP and adding levels and mythic tiers to boot, but it doesn't work... or it does work and then you seriously risk a TPK. Fine tuning is impossible.

Really, Mythic rules eventually just boil down to who start first and can nuke the opposition first.
High level (15-17+) play also has this issue, but as shown, Mythic reaches that threshold and breaks the game as soon as tier 3.

[Krinn]

Thefuzzy1 wrote:

I have had the mythic talk with my group and they have all decided to press on with mythic. This gives me a party of 7 and mythic (we are just into part 2 of book 1 so no issues yet) to contend with for the future, from what I see book 3-4 and tier 3ish is where it starts to unravel taking the inherent weak points of the system and busting them wide open. Without going crazy with the ban hammer or spending all my between game time fully re building each monster (I do have to re work all the encounters for a party of 7 any way but there is a limit to my free time) I am going to try to test out a "mythic baddie" template giving my big fights a way to (in theory) contend with the mythic offense with as little work on my part as possible. The BBEG and added minions will take 1/2 damage (like 5e resistance) and have a moderate to heavy fortification effect. This gives a chance the pcs can one shot them and feel super epic without it being a sure thing and should give some staying power to the darkside. Now to the hive mind (and mythic math pros) here how would this shake out and are there any overt flaws I may be missing?

Here's the template I've been using with my own 7 mythic characters for a while...

- Increase boss CR by 3. This is usually accomplished via a couple levels in PC classes AND the advanced template if the monster is intelligent, or via other templates if it is not. This also means that the boss will have NPC gear... a jingasa of the fortunate soldier is cheap, and if you can afford it, buy an angelskin armor of moderate fortification and/or of warding.
- Make sure you have an equivalent (now heightened) CR of mooks that make sense for the boss to have. Never leave your boss alone.
- If it is Mythic, add 2 Mythic Tiers/Ranks and focus heavily on defensive abilities. If you focus on offense here you are just building a very fragile monstrosity that only becomes a threat if it wins initiative, and in that case it slaughters at least one character but is taken down in one round as well. If it is not Mythic and it's a boss who COULD be mythic, add 2 Mythic Tiers/Ranks anyway.
- On such mythic boss, recalculate hp maximizing every hit dice, then double the result. If players have access to foe biting or other high damaging mythical effects, triple or quadruple instead, until you have enough hp to survive at least two rounds of focused fire.
- Every such mythic boss has dual initiative AND mythic improved initiative.

Beware though... this will keep things interesting for a while, but it WILL take a very long time to play through a single mythic battle and it is a lot of work to prepare... and beware of divine characters taking mythic holy smite or worse yet mythic order's wrath.

[Seannoss]

Ya... sorry to tell you Fuzzy but all the NPCs will need re-working. My party was normal sized of non-optimizers and I had to spend hours each week to update each encounter.

And I was lucky... only had to deal with mythic holy smite. Not sure what designers were thinking of with those spells.

[Krinn]

Yeah, the only reliable defense against mythic holy smite and order's wrath is spell immunity, a cleric-only spell, and it gets old fast.

[Lincoln Cross]

I've seen a lot of comments about how mythic effectively adds .5 or even 1.5 class levels.

I'm inclined to look at it as it effectively reduces the CR by that amount instead. In reregards to xp and treasure this changes a lot.

[Krinn]

Lincoln, I don't understand what you mean. By what you're saying, are you arguing that mythic tiers make the characters weaker?

[GreyWolfLord]

Krinn wrote:

Lincoln, I don't understand what you mean. By what you're saying, are you arguing that mythic tiers make the characters weaker?

No I think what he's saying is that it means the CR is lower than it would be if that same creature wasn't face by mythic characters.

For example, if we were 15th level and were facing a CR 15 creature, it would be equal to CR 15.

However, if were were 15th level and had 5 levels of mythic, we should view that same encounter (with the CR 15 creature) now as a CR 10 encounter.

[Lincoln Cross]

GreyWolfLord wrote:

Krinn wrote:

Lincoln, I don't understand what you mean. By what you're saying, are you arguing that mythic tiers make the characters weaker?

No I think what he's saying is that it means the CR is lower than it would be if that same creature wasn't face by mythic characters.

For example, if we were 15th level and were facing a CR 15 creature, it would be equal to CR 15.

However, if were were 15th level and had 5 levels of mythic, we should view that same encounter (with the CR 15 creature) now as a CR 10 encounter.

This is exactly right. Seems like a better way to look at tiers than adding to the character levels.

[Krinn]

Yeah, now I understand... it would also help in the XP department, if one still uses that system... less xp if you're mythic means that you can afford bigger challenges if you want roughly the same xp as before.

[Raltus]

I think I am still missing something on this.

Are you saying a PC at 15/5 who would equal to lvl 17.5 their normal encounter should be CR 10?

I just think I am not following the logic here.

[GreyWolfLord]

Raltus wrote:

I think I am still missing something on this.

Are you saying a PC at 15/5 who would equal to lvl 17.5 their normal encounter should be CR 10?

I just think I am not following the logic here.

If 17.5 is their normal CR, than the CR a 15/5 group would face in what I understand your logic, would actually be a CR 23.5 or CR 24.

a CR 17 would count as a CR 12 instead.

[Lincoln Cross]

Raltus wrote:

I think I am still missing something on this.

Are you saying a PC at 15/5 who would equal to lvl 17.5 their normal encounter should be CR 10?

I just think I am not following the logic here.

Take the average mythic Tier of the party and subtract it from the CR of whatever your group is facing.

Thus if your groups average Tier is 3, then all CR's are reduced by 3.

So, a CR 15 encounter only count as a CR 12 for the purposes of xp and treasure.

Does that make sense?

Of course, I don't believe my group will be using xp for this AP so we won't have to worry about upon the CT's.

[Raltus]

Ok I think I got it now. So in reality a 15/5 group facing a CR 15 creature the CR of the creature should be around 17.5 to be equal to the groups APL?

[Lincoln Cross]

Yes if you are counting each Tier as .5

[Thefuzzy1]

so with adding mooks to the bigger fights to help with action economy and a blanket "mythic bad guy" template of takes 1/2 damage (like resistance in 5e) and a moderate to heavy fortification effect so far in limited play tests it is keeping the fights challenging without being rocket tag. Granted I'm at my desk at work with a random number generator not dealing with pcs but it looks passable so far.

[Tangent101]

The request was for a Simple Fix to Mythic to keep the AP going to the end.

Every effort to make Mythic usable ends up being complex.

The simple solution is this: don't use Mythic, and replace it with regenerating Hero Points, both for the players and for Mythic enemies.

[Sarcastro]

Without having done any playtesting other than reading these threads, I say keep the monsters mythic, and let the PCs level through level 25.

Ch. 1: Lvl. 1-6
Ch. 2: Lvl. 6-9
Ch. 3: Lvl 9-12
Ch. 4: Lvl 12-16
Ch. 5: Lvl 16-20
Ch. 6: Lvl 18-24

Beyond being integral to the general plot of the campaign, mythic monsters don't seem to be quite as tough as mythic PCs.

[Lincoln Cross]

Tangent101 wrote:

The request was for a Simple Fix to Mythic to keep the AP going to the end.

Every effort to make Mythic usable ends up being complex.

The simple solution is this: don't use Mythic, and replace it with regenerating Hero Points, both for the players and for Mythic enemies.

That is a simple fix but it doesn't keep mythic, which I am very much set on.

As a player I don't care if the easiest fix is multiplying enemy hit points by absurd numbers. I just want to play my mythic character and for everyone at the table to have fun.

I do honestly believe that reliving the most broken things and adjusting other offenders should be enough to keep it easy and reasonable.

[Tangent101]

I was once a big fan of Mythic.

But even when I first got it, I felt there were some serious problems with it, including how some abilities were underpowered and others overpowered.

In time I've realized Mythic just doesn't work. And in my future games, I will not use it. Of course, Paizo has my money so they have no reason to care.

[captain yesterday]

Have you thought of scraping mythic before they're over
you're starting to sound like magnuskn:-p

[Tangent101]

Nope. I'm just not going to let the Mythic go to Tier 3.

[captain yesterday]

we got bored with ours at tier 2, killed em off, TPB (total party bored:p)

[Tangent101]

They must not have chosen very effective abilities. I know that one player's use of Marshal has proven exceedingly effective, and a second player's use of "any wizard spell around" has foiled me on several occasions.

The second group hasn't been quite as lucky with their Mythic abilities, and I have considered letting them reach Tier 3... but considering how much bad stuff happens at Tier 3, I am reluctant to do this.

[Candide]

I'm nerfing a few abilities and removing multiplication clauses of mythic power attack and vital strike. And the star boosts from tiers have to be put into something outside their niche. At least the first one or two. Maybe more. My players are either fairly new or not optimizers. Mythic does make it easier to optimize though. I'm holding out hope compared to all these threads, that this will be fun.

My group of 6 PCs is about to hit the Lost Chapel so we're still young.

[NobodysHome]

Candide wrote:

Mythic does make it easier to optimize though.

Mythic makes it hard not to optimize. Be sure your group understands that it's a conscious choice to avoid doing ludicrous damage in mythic.

My group took the whole, "Let's take something that sounds cool and not worry about numbers," approach.

Then the fighter did over 800 points of damage to a demon in one round.

Ouch.

[magnuskn]

captain yesterday wrote:

Have you thought of scraping mythic before they're over

you're starting to sound like magnuskn:-p

Hey, I'm not the only one who ran across those issues, far from it.

[captain yesterday]

i was just teasing:-)
and i couldn't tell from all the mythic is broken threads:-p nor are they entirely wrong views
i still think my party can non-optimize our way thru WotR, but lots of other paths sound better to them then WotR, so it'll be awhile if we ever do:)

[captain yesterday]

Tangent101 wrote:

They must not have chosen very effective abilities. I know that one player's use of Marshal has proven exceedingly effective, and a second player's use of "any wizard spell around" has foiled me on several occasions.

The second group hasn't been quite as lucky with their Mythic abilities, and I have considered letting them reach Tier 3... but considering how much bad stuff happens at Tier 3, I am reluctant to do this.

they mostly got bored with their characters and wanted to do something different (i.e. i got book 1 of Iron Gods and they said "kill em off! we're fighting robots!":-p)