Hey all; I've been having trouble lately in a campaign in avoiding instant disablement. I built a mobility-based melee bard just to try something crazy, and it mostly works, but I have absolutely dismal fort/will saves. My CMD is also not great (been pinned and silenced at least once, polymorphed once, etc). I'm not accustomed to having these kinds of problems; not used to high level "rocket tag" gameplay. I've been wrecked repeatedly on turn 1 or 2 by failing one of these saves and effectively sitting out the combat when this happens. The material cost of the deaths/regeneration/healing/etc isn't really what is killing me as much as seeing the party struggle without me.
I've been trying to mitigate with buffs (Extended Augmented Heroism) which has helped a lot, and I took Master of Escape which has saved me a few times. I can post my whole build on here if it'd help but I was thinking of general suggestions, like if there's a higher level particular spell or item worth looking for. I'm dreading we'll soon start seeing more Death effects. I already took Greater Fortitude in anticipation!
The campaign I'm in is using mythic rules. It will be going to max level & tier eventually (we're level 15/tier 7 right now). We had to houserule nerf a bunch of the mythic abilities to keep things from getting too busted but the spirit of all of the abilities is intact (the paladin has a crit build and mythic power attack is ridiculous as written, in particular). The DM wants the party to be challenged at least some and I'm bound to bite it from time to time, to keep me check, but I figure it doesn't keep me from asking if anyone can suggest anything.
All mythic play is Rocket Tag.
Haha I was dreading that.
You should have inspired defense (marshal path ability). At 15th tier 7 that should give like +10 to all saves with a mythic point spent to start inspire courage.
That's awesome! BUT, I'm not the Marshal. A little more information: I'm a level 15 dervish dancer (typically using Rain of Blows rather than Inspire Courage), with most of my current abilities focused on mobility or self buffing. My main path is Trickster but I dual pathed into Champion.
I had been the front line fighter along with the Paladin (Champion/crit build) for the first part of the campaign, but we were joined by a Monk (Guardian/cleave build) so I sometimes focus on buffing. The rest of the party is an Oracle (Archmage/counterspell build - odd build), a Ranger/Low Templar (Marshal/throwing weapons build), a Cleric (Hierophant/crafting build, but tends to healbot or buff).
It's not exactly an optimized party, but I thought asking wouldn't hurt.
First off, you're at level 15. That's 8th level spell territory. Most every single Save or Suck/Die spell is going to be up for grabs, and a lot of them are going to be quite prevalent, or even in Mass versions. Mythic just makes this even more common/dangerous, so the fact that your Will and Fortitude Saves (even though you're a Bard and should have the good Will Save progression) are crap just means you need to be able to avoid being in such situations until they can't react to it.
Second off, getting high Spell Resistance (usually 11 + HD is the basic standard) can cause a lot of those spells to fail (though any spells cast on you that isn't from yourself will still have to penetrate it).
Third off, if you have high Charisma, consider a 2 level Paladin dip; Divine Grace is extremely powerful to shore up your Saves (By 15th level, you'll have ~30 Charisma. Adding +10 to all your saves for a level 2 Dip is crazygood), and kind of synchronizes with your Champion Mythic path.
I'd also consider finding ways to get immunities to effects, or the ability to reroll certain saves, so as not to get screwed by a bad roll. Cap of the Freethinker, taking the Improved Great Fortitude/Iron Will/Lightning Reflexes along with a Defiant Weapon, all allow you extra re-rolls.
Lastly, Mythic Rules scale and spiral out of control. There was a thread where somebody 1-shot a BBEG with an ~1,300 damage Mythic Vital Strike critical. The way I see it, it's only a matter of time before something or someone just one-shots you anyway because of the ridiculous scaling. I'm not saying there's nothing good to come from Mythic Rules (we used only a spare few for our campaign and it more than provided an added power boost and uniqueness to the campaign), but it's a lot like a nuclear warhead. You throw that on top of an already deadly weapon, like a fighter jet, or a bomber plane, and the kind of damage and destruction it can deal is absolutely enormous. Not to mention the aftermath of the actions.
What have you done to fix your saves? If you are buying belts and headbands of Dex and Chr to max out those stats, instead of going for ones that increased Dex and Con or Chr and Wis that would make a difference. Of course cloaks or resistance are a must.
There is also the question of what the other party members are doing. If you are failing saves against the big bad (rather than just mooks) it might not be the end of the world that that is happening, if you have someone who can fix things quickly then that person spending an action along with you drawing aggro on spells, might end up being a pretty good trade for the big bads standard action.
If grapple is a problem, you can't beat freedom of movement for defending against that. It is a bard spell, plus there are several ways to get it from magic items as I recall. Boots of escape are also a cheap option, although unless you allow custom/combined magic items using the slot for that is rough.
I'd also consider finding ways to get immunities to effects, or the ability to reroll certain saves, so as not to get screwed by a bad roll. Cap of the Freethinker, taking the Improved Great Fortitude/Iron Will/Lightning Reflexes along with a Defiant Weapon, all allow you extra re-rolls.
Ah yes, this is great. I hadn't seen that Cap before. Immunities are probably a good idea too; I'll have to look into some things. You also gave me the idea to look up Robes of the Archmagi, and I discovered Robe of the Resplendent Thespian, which completely crushes my Cloak of Resistance.
High level play is often ebst described as rocke tag.
Mythic lets this start way earlier and then makes it even more rocket tagety.
My favorite way to not die is to not play high level mythic characters who, naturally, fight high-CR mythic monsters - a sure recipe for rocket tag instant deaths. Hopefully not every fight, but fairly often. And there really isn't any way to avoid being eaten by, well, ME!!!, unless your GM is really, really, really pulling his blows. Luckily (or perhaps unluckily for you), yours is not.
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My favorite way to not die is to not play high level mythic characters who, naturally, fight high-CR mythic monsters - a sure recipe for rocket tag instant deaths. Hopefully not every fight, but fairly often. And there really isn't any way to avoid being eaten by, well, ME!!!, unless your GM is really, really, really pulling his blows. Luckily (or perhaps unluckily for you), yours is not.
AM NOT "AM BARBARIAN", BUT AM DIFFERENT BARBARIAN, AND BARBARIAN AM LAUGH AT PUNY SNAKETHING. AM THINK "MITH-ICK" STUPID, AND NOT BARBARIAN AT ALL. AM NOT NEED "MITH-ICK" TO SMASH PUNY SNAKETHING, AND AM LAUGH AT "MITH-ICK" SNAKETHING WHEN TRY SMASH BARBARIAN.
BEST BARBARIAN FOOD AM PANCAKE. BECAUSE BARBARIAN AM SMASH NOT-BARBARIANS LIKE PANCAKE!
I'm looking at spells for Mythic, and you should have ultimate magic too. Ear piercing scream is good for targeting something that might target you. Can you make a magic item with anticipate peril in it?
