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I wrapped one of my two wrath groups this evening. The other group ought to finish this Saturday. Then, sometime next month, I'm going to bring both groups together to fight Deskari, pumped up and with some truly terrifying minions, for one last throw down to end this demon lord once and for all.
This marks the first time bringing a Pathfinder adventure path to a close (although I've also run a party all the way though Age of Worms, so not the first Paizo AP I've finished). Certainly the highest power game I've run for this long. And while it was fun, I'm looking forward to some power levels that I find more manageable!
Ran it through law school and studying for the bar exam, and it helped keep me sane. Ran it to the end despite my own problems with running high level games. It's been very satisfying despite some of the new wrinkles in the game that mythic has added. I've enjoyed mythic, and it's an interesting rule set, although I have had to modify, tweak, and retool aspects of it to make it work at my table a little bit better. Especially because all of my players are VERY clever.
So I'd really like to thank the writers on this path because it's been a lot of fun, the good folks at Paizo for putting out a game I've enjoyed and has helped me weather the stress of the last few years, and the good folks on this message board for providing insight, arguments, and some nasty new stat blocks.
How many people did Iomedae Soundboard and what music did you play to simulate it
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Sure, Kalindlara. The basic fixes I did was to add hit points. Lots of them in some cases. Like, 1000's at a time in the last few books. Increase stats here and there. Rebuild a few encounters. And it late game (the last book), I just had the characters describe how they were overcoming an enemy or obstacle without bothering to role for it (let the character just get creative as they wanted to with it). In the earlier books, I gave certain non-mythic enemies "banked actions" (i.e. burn a swift, get a full round action, useable only once or the ability to cast another spell as a free action twice in the fight, stuff like that), but this was mostly because I was running for two larger than average groups, and I needed to even out the action economy for the bigger badies without just adding more minions. Although I did that too. Generally I found that adding more hit points solved a lot of the problems for me, and a little bit of digging into stat blocks and redoing characters solved the rest. Sometimes that digging meant making up a new mythic ability that was exclusive to them that patched a hole in a build. Giving a legendary item with undetectable to the right enemies changed a lot of fights. I had to keep in mind that some of the fights, especially as they go up in power, really should be cake walks. They are some of the most powerful mortals around after all.
Issues came up with the hit point adding in that it made some high level spells kinda worthless (any of the power word spells), but things like mythic holy word were incredibly powerful. I'm not sure how I would address that if it came up again. In general, high level blast mages lose a lot of oomph. I toyed with the idea of letting casters add surge dice to the save DC's of their spells, but I never went through with that. Not sure how it would work out.
I also eased most of the players away from foe-biting legendary items by giving them custom ones items, tied to their build/backstory that were not weapons. So, while they didn't have to make them the legendary items, most players choose to make them their legendary items as they were interesting/potent enough to choose.
Things to watch for, generally, is the action economy. Mythic plays with that hard, and you need to be aware of it on both sides of the cardboard curtain. Next, legendary items can be insanely potent, so be aware of what your players are doing with them so you're not caught blind sided. In fact, generally knowing what your players are doing with mythic is helpful. You don't need to shut down what they're doing, but it will help keep the challenges actually challenging. At least a little. :)
While I can understand the advise to drop mythic, as it has some issues for certain, my players and I all found it fun. They generally thought of themselves as super heroes. So, while I probably won't run this deep into mythic again any time soon (but a tier or three in the right game could be a lot of fun, and the same with adding it to really nasty monsters/villains), it was really fun for this campaign.
Soundboarding? LOL, love the turn of phrase. And neither of my groups required that oh so gentle reminder. While they didn't read back suggested responses, they were well within the spirit of the answers, and passed all of those tests swimmingly. They also all agreed that if they had fouled them up, they'd have deserved the slap on the wrist that she was handing out. I mean, it's not that much damage...
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I've been lucky in that my 3-player group has no full casters, and is mildly unoptimized. I already banned foe-biter and undetectable, although I might make an exception for their enemies...
What were your groups made up of, race/class/path/build-wise? I'm curious about the methods they used to succeed. (My group consists of a paladin, an inquisitor, and a bloodrager, plus a couple of cohorts. They're... direct.)
Thank you! :)
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If you do allow foe biting an undetectable for the baddies, I'd advise using them both sparingly (especially since you banned it for PC's).
Let's see here, the Thursday Night SWAT team was made up of a half-orc cavalier (marshal) that was all about the mounted combat, a human sorcerer/dragon disciple (guardian) who rocked his natural attacks as a damage beast, gnome rogue (trickster) who liked to switch it up between two weapon fighting and sniping, a human inquisitor (hierophant) who was all about the buff and support before putting his smack down, human oracle of life (hierophant) who truly understood the power of alignment channel in disturbing ways, and human evoker (archmage) who was simply magnificent and liked to energy to sonic. We had a paladin as well to start, but his life got busy so he had to drop the campaign about the end of book 3.
The Saturday Night Specials were composed of a human barbarian (guardian) who fought every foe by axeing them a question (power attack vital striking hit point beast), aasamir ranger/rogue (champion) that was a master archer, aasamir paladin (hierophant) who served as the primary healer when not smiting, aasamir magus (archmage) for artillery and melee damage, samsaran conjurer (archmage) who was specialized in permission magic and debuff. There was a human oracle of battle (marshall) that made game when he was able, but he was busy with life. Did some support and healing when there.
Thursday night was a well oiled machine, and nothing escaped their wrath or DPS. The evoker had problems keeping up with damage output at late levels, especially when they group would put the high 40 str dragon disciple (with foe bitter for his natural attacks), and the dual weapon rogue into flanking. They could deal over a 1000 hp in a round when they were popping mythic hard. To say nothing of the cavalier and his x7 damage per charge, able to make multiple charges per round. They never went into battle without a mythic haste going (later augmented mythic haste). The flexibility this gave the group to position and full attack simply became a part of every battle. The oracle of life really dug deep into channel feats and with her mythic alignment channel, could clear groups of fodder demons fast, or heal the group quickly and effectively. Now, just because I didn't mention other characters, does not mean they were not pitching in, but they were support role, skill checking, debuffing, blasting, pulling crazy spells out of thin air with wild magic, etc.
Thursday worked well as a team, and cross supported to get the most out of their team work feats, etc. They had multiple heavy hitters, and multiple options for battlefield control. Their numbers and coordination made them a huge threat. As a smaller party, they would have been a very different group.
Saturday night was less of a well oiled machine, and more just a party of adventurers brought together. They didn't synergies or team work like Thursday, but that said, they knew their party roll and filled it. The barbarian shored himself up against mind control and spell effects with his mythic powers, which made turning him on the party harder and harder as time went on (it was a favored tactic at lower levels). He pumped out a lot of damage with the mythic power attack/mythic vital strike combo. And had just all the hit points. The paladin split herself between smiting and healing, and the group eventually just had to get good at damage management (lots of self healing options, and sending the barbarian in first to soak the damage). The archer and magus would stand at range and job spells and arrows in and got very good at it. A ranger with a lot of favored enemy outsider (evil) goes pretty far in this campaign. The conjurer was playing by Skype, so he shifted his initial focus from summoning to permission mage. Mythic silence is an incredible spell for shutting down casters, and I had to plan every fight with a spell caster around that spell being dropped. Every damn one. He had silent spell options loaded and ready to go, and was always ready to counter spell as well. Mage encounters all needed to be heavily retooled or just written off. He was also careful to have layers of spells and barriers to hide behind. While I'd drop him from time to time, he adapted fast.
Saturday also benefited form a large and diverse party, but since they were not cross-built as heavily, reducing party size would have meant more battlefield tactics changing, and not build tactics. And even then, hit hard and hit fast is almost always a good tactic. And if the barbarian would have had a foe bitting weapon, it would have been that much worse.
The big thing I'd watch for with your group is mythic power attack and mythic vital strike. They up the damage output something fierce. Pay attention to what mythic spells (if any) the inquisitor takes. Mythic silence alone can change a lot of battles. Like I said though, in general, be aware of what the PC's are doing.
All that said, don't shut them down for it. Those abilities are what makes a character feel like a big damn hero after all, but they should go into how you're thinking about the campaign for sure.
For the record i'd use either AC/DC or Where have all the Cowboys Gone for Iomedae's Soundboarding (man! i wish i thought of that term last year when there was that whole thing going on:-p)