I'm running Wrath and going into the final module, and at this point I can't stop my players at all. A number of abilities have made them invulnerable in numerous ways.
A combination of Mythic Deathless, Deathward, and a warlord ability makes them immune to negative energy and level drain, which included most ability drain and damage, immune to death via hp loss, and the ability to stay conscious and unstaggered as long as the warlord is conscious.
Not to mention greater invisibility coupled with the undetectable legendary item ability, which reads as:
Undetectable: This grants its bonded user the ability to become utterly undetectable while invisible. While invisible and in physical contact with this item, the bonded creature can't be detected or scryed by any method.
These, coupled with their ability to easily pass any save, and block spells by swinging at the spell using its DC as the AC, I can't touch them. I feel about about nerfing these abilities, or saying I'm gonna say it doesn't work that way because I can't do anything otherwise, but I'm sort of up a creek here.
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The first thing that I think you need to do is accept the fully loaded freight train that's coming down the tracks. Some people generally suggest just hand waving a lot of the more minor encounters so you can kind of finish the game and wrap it up faster.
Beyond getting a really good grasp on the mythic rules and enforcing them the best you can the final book of the path is essentially just a continual victory condition for the party.
I would just suggest coming to grips with the fact that all of your encounters getting paved over isn't your fault and just make your party's inevitable victory as fun for them as possible.
Yeah, Mythic is broken.
There really isn't a way to fix it. Instead of the normal rocket tag DnD 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder are, Mythic is ICBM rocket tag. Whoever hits the other team first wins, there are no survivors.
It's worth noting that the Undetectable quality only applies to magical ways of trying to detect the enemy. They can still be perceived using a normal perception check and things like footprints or opening doors etc can let you know the location of creatures. And nothing says that things like invisibility purge don't work. The ability is good, but you and you're players are reading it too literally. The same problem was had with the Ninja 20th level capstone ability. Treat Undetectable only as immunity to See Invisibility and other divination spells meant to defeat invisibility, of which you'll note Invisibility Purge is not.
Edit: Never mind, according to Stephen MacFarland (designer)
Yes, it is 1. Because mythic.There's an FAQ request about this floating around somewhere.
There are three schools of thought:
1) The character is undetectable by any means (including Perception skill checks, blind sight, tremorsense and true seeing).
2) The character is undetectable by magic, but senses work normally.
3) The character is immune to "detect" spells and any effects based on the scry spell.
Pick your preference. I waver between 1 and 2.
Perception checks don't work, but
Won't stop invisibility purge, or area dispel, anti-magic, mage's disjunction, and so forth, but will completely shut down all means of mundane and magical detection, all the way up to a wish.
Easiest way to run it: creature has total concealment whilst invisible, end of story.
If someone says "yes, but what about..." with something other than a way to end the invisibility, the answer is "still has total concealment".
Invisibility Purge, Area Dispel, Anti-magic etc still do.
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As others have said, the straight up mechanics and numbers of Mythic are wildly skewed. Mythic would have been better served with a longer and more directed testing schedule.
But, having said that, there are things you can do as long as your players are willing to go along with it.
Wrath is my first time as a GM. So, I jumped in the deep end while barely knowing how to tread water.
My players are OK with the changes I have suggested. These are a few.
1) Don't be tied down to what the stat block says. Change anything and everything to suit the power level of your PCs.
2) I can spend any mythic points to counter most anything the PCs can do. Every one of my mythic creatures has the ability to "buy off" a crit from an attack.
3) Do not be afraid to "fudge" numbers.
4) Lots of hit points
5) Add even more hit points
6) Awesome Blow - The way this feat works in our group is, if the NPC is 2 sizes larger than the PC, then on a hit the PC is knocked back 10 feet and prone. No CMB/CMD check. It just happens.
7) I just recently figured out how I was going to handle the augmented mythic spells that can bypass immunities. I will spend one mythic point to negate the immunity bypassing, and will give the NPC resistance 20. If I spend a 2nd point my monster regains full immunity.
The main reason that my players are happy with my changes is that any mythic points I spend in defense becomes less I can throw at them.
8) Templates. Know them. Use them. Lots of them. Advanced, Invincible, Fiendish, Savage etc. Yes, it adds to the pregame work, but it'll help.
Looking to find anything that could be a challenge? Consider that player levels and mythic tiers are the same. Your players are level 18 tier 8? Start browsing the CR 25+. And add templates to any monster you choose there. Or drop lower in CR and increase the number that they face.
With some of the changes here, throwing 3 mythic balors at them is a challenge again.
My players are about to make the final push in book 4. They landed on the island and are waiting to head to and clear out the mining cave.
At level 13 tier 5 I threw a Thanatotic Titan at them.
9) Oh yeah, for your bigger mythic foes? If the stat block does not have Dual Initiative, then give it to them. Don't worry about the "rules" for building a monster. Give it to them. And any other mythic ability you want them to have. Your big mythic big bads NEED to go twice in a round.
But, if your players aren't willing to grant you any of these sorts of changes, then yeah, your best bet is to handwave the "minor" encounters and end Wrath as quickly as possible.
Yeah, I was just hoping for some advice about how it because I do feel bad about the amount of fudging and hand waving I've been doing. I'm not expecting to win lol, but I want a way to make it challenging without them feeling like I'm tripling the difficulty levels.
I've been using awesome blow a lot, that has been helpful, but the party usually flies at all times at this point so not getting much from it anymore. I'm definitely increasing hit points, but I have to give every creature true strike for every attack to come close to hitting them when they're fully buffed.
I've tried debuffing, but dispel only hits so much, and most other debuffs on the party get blocked by their own spells and wards and things.
Templates are good but monsters usually have them already.
They're not really doing damage from crits, and I can't surge my AC. They're just 2 paladins and have enough attacks between all the mythic stuff that they can chunk away at my monsters quickly.
I've been throwing CR 25's at them, but I still have to do all this fudging to make those fights difficult.
The only way I've kept any semblance of sanity is by basically saying look, I don't care if necromancy isn't evil, Iomedae will revoke your powers if you keep casting it over and over. The sorcerer can do that, but if she starts casting necromancy spells on the party of paladins and clerics they have to treat that as hostile action because, well, necromancy.
And that some of these mythic things, like undetectable, only work against non-mythic things. For undetectable, I said it hides you completely from non mythic creatures, and it protects you from any divination or spell that uses the word "detect" cast by a mythic creature, but things like tremorsense, life sense, blindsight, etc, will let the monsters see them.
Other than that, I've been handwaving a few minor fights anyway, mainly because one of our players is going off to grad school in a month, and we have about a week where everyone is in town to finish the last book.
All in all, I just want a fun way to make these monsters challenging besides adding +20 to everything, doubling their hp and giving them dual initiative.
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Paladins, ey? I'm completely unfamiliar with the Wrath of the Righteous Campaign and Mythic, but Warding armor will let you end smites against you as an immediate action. I'm sure the fights will last longer if the paladins don't have their smite going.
I think Angelskin used as a material for armor gives you a 20% chance to be treated as neutral instead of evil, which could also negate some smites.
How is their touch AC? What is the enemies wealth? If your enemies have the abilities to cast spells, dimensional blade might be an option. Evil clerics could certainly use this. Brillant Energy Weapons probably lower the paladins AC by 14-19, which is like using true strike.
If a DM knows the rules as well as their players do, no character or group is unstoppable.
If your head evil honcho has been watching the party, they should be able to send an equal number of buffed villains (say three levels and two tiers lower) to take out the party if they get a surprise round.
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I too am starting book 6 tomorrow. I baaned mythic vital strike and nerfed power attack, but with auto crit and max crit one player has passed the 700 in one round. I have started preping mummys mask cause book 6 will be there curb stomp. Most of us are ready for it to end. Enjoy it the best you can
Unless you have actually run level 20 mythic tier 10 pc's you have no clue how bad it gets. I like high level games , I run them often there is absolutely no comparison between level 20 pc's and level 20 tier 10, for isnstance a wizard can cast over 30 9th level spells in a day, Fighters and Paladins pretty much never miss, clerics keep healing after they are dead, status effects have no meaning.
A better guess of the CR of a Level 20/tier 10 pc is 30. Doing 700hp of damage in around is routine, 1500 takes some effort but it can be done for a few rounds. The party can shrug off 90% of spell effects. You can kill them as it is just rocket tag but that's half the problem you want an interesting fight and if the fight comes down to who wins initiative and then does silly damage it loses interest.
To make the final battle of this campaign interesting I gave the boss 16,000hp. He lasted 4 rounds.
There is a thread of upgrade monsters on here somewhere they helped a bit and then I started multiplying hitpoint and adding random numbers to attack scores, AC and damage just to make things interesting.
All the dragon riding 16 level worm that walks clerics I threw in as a single encounter 8 of them . Dead in 2 rounds , no real damage done, they did not even need to spend many mythic points.
I liked and still like the plot but mythic.....
Note I knew the rules far far better than my players , killing them was easy making a balanced and fun challange impossible
This whole thing is really annoying, since the plot and flavor of the last two books frame it as a suicidal, apocalyptic last stand against godlike demons. The gameplay and mechanics...obviously don't reflect it. It doesn't feel epic, it barely has any stakes. Check out this segment from Book 5.
A few rounds after the death or redemption of the Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth, the Ineluctable Prison shakes with the sound of thunder and a muffled bellow echoes through the structure. This is a sure sign that the PCs must prepare to flee or fight, for it is the sound of Baphomet traveling to the Ineluctable Prison from his tower. If other occupants of the prison still live, they eagerly cut off combat and drop down in positions of supplication, terri ed at what Baphomet will do to them when he arrives.
Give the PCs the chance to flee. If they instead wish to stay and face the demon lord in battle, they have id4 rounds to prepare. After this time, Baphomet appears in all his ferocious and enraged glory.
The developers seem to think that Baphomet will be perceived as a massive threat by the PCs and that the idea of confronting him will give them pause. But judging from the majority of player's experience, Baphomet provides little to no threat against them because of the brokenness of mythic rules.
The same could be said of Book 6 and Deskari, being dragged into the Abyss and faced with a demon lord should be a very chilling and possibly fatal encounter, but most PCs probably won't have much of a problem with him.
I too am starting book 6 tomorrow. I baaned mythic vital strike and nerfed power attack, but with auto crit and max crit one player has passed the 700 in one round. I have started preping mummys mask cause book 6 will be there curb stomp. Most of us are ready for it to end. Enjoy it the best you can
This is funny, because after I finish running Wrath, I will also start running Mummy's Mask.
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While my campaign ended mid-Book-4 (one of the players quit after taking the "gift" and becoming Chaotic Evil in spite of having the "Beyond Morality" mythic ability), a second GM is running the campaign for a different group, and starting in Book 4 he added 1000 hit points to every monster just to have them last an extra round or two.
Just for fun, he threw a CR 29 demon lord at them while they were at 12th level, tier 4 mythic, and they curb stomped it.
If that's not an indication of how broken mythic can be if the players choose to optimize, I don't know what is. They have a paladin and a battle oracle who have ACs in the 40s and who use Shield Other to distribute damage across the entire party, then heal it all as swift actions. Mythic rangers with Evil Outsiders as favored enemies are just broken. Etc.
EDIT: If you're wondering how they won against such a high CR creature, they rolled a higher initiative. That was it. It never got an action.
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*tsk tsk*
He should've given it dual initiative, that way, it wouldn't have been able to act *twice*
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Yeah, sadly this seems to be the problem. I did manage to figure out an issue we had been doing with AC, apparently my players didn't realize some things like deflection bonuses and sacred bonuses didn't stack. So that means I don't have to add +30 to every to hit roll on top of everything else lol.
It's been a fun campaign, but more because of the players and the RP, along with a cool story, than any actual gameplay. Mythic, since maybe books 3-4, has just gotten out of control.
We have about a week til one of my players moves, and we're looking at a 3-4 day series of back to back sessions, and I'm hoping to just power through it, call it a day, and look back at the cool story while erasing any memory of the actual fights from my mind.
(Maybe it's different if you're not the DM)
Mythic augmented maximized magic missile is the bane of my existence lol
It is the combination, banning a few abilities here and there does nothing at best it slows things down a bit.
Melee types can swift action move get a bonus attack and full attack, all their attacks are at full BAB, with a legendary weapon they can double the damage of some of those melee attacks, thats a combination of several abilities. Mythic power attack and improved critical just increase the damage.
Everyone can spend a mythic point to ignore pretty much any status condition, this actually weakens spell casters quite a bit as Save or Suck spells , now just cost a mythic point.
Spell casters can cast 20+ spells of their highest level, also they can spend 1 mythic point for 10 rounds of quickened spells.
Even if you limit the mythic ranks to a small number they still get the basis of these abilities.
Rebuilding the entire mythic rule set is not something I am going to do I paid for it and would rather it had worked. It did not, I still get some use of it to boost important npc's but I will never let pc's use mythic powers again, it killed what could have been a fun campaign for me. I believe some 3rd party stuff has attempted to rebuild mythic I have not looked at it as for me the easy solution is to forget about it
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Hmm, seems like at least revised action economy from unchained would solve at least full attack problem since with that system full attacks don't really exist ._.
Anyway, what is the mythic rank were things go out of the whack? Like is the first one okay or is it combination of high level and 1 rank that breaks it?
Does anyone have experience on 3rd party mythic stuff and how they attempt to fix the system?
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Legendary Games is the company that produces the most mythic stuff. The Mythic Hero's Handbook (hope the name is right) has a chapter that addresses a lot of the biggest power surges in the mythic rules and suggests alternate takes on them. I'd suggest it if you're interested in mythic for that chapter alone.
I haven't looked enough at the revised action economy to know if that would fix any issues. I suspect that you would have to house rule how mythic extra actions interact with those rules.
I bet most people have different ideas when mythic breaks down, especially as it is level dependent as well. But tier two (where PCs get extra actions) and tier three (where they can spend a mythic point to regain all non mythic resources) are two big power jumps.
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Legendary is actually releasing an adventure path right now that is supposed to involve some of their mythic stuff and the technology rules somehow.
It's called Legendary Planet (Very Stargate like from what I can tell). Might be worth looking into for a mythic published adventure.
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Legendary Games has a lot of great suggestions to tone down the most broken parts of the Mythic Adventures problem areas.
However if you're already running Mythic as-is I suggest you look at their Path of Villains plug-in. It's basically a mythic path just for the bad guys complete with path abilities that mirror stuff the PCs can do and more.
The great thing about Mythic is it breaks the rules. You can take back control of action economy by giving your Mythic Villains more actions! I especially like the ability that gives a villain a number of extra swift, immediate, or AoO equal to the difference in how many mythic heroes vs mythic allies it has. There's one that gives temporary Mythic Points that the villain has to use by the end of its next turn when a hero uses an ability that cost a mythic point against them. Making heroes re-roll or have to roll twice and take the worse roll is also great.
--Vrock, Paper, Scissors
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I feel your pain.
I am running a WotR mythic game with 5 players including 2 tenured university professors, a person with degrees from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, and an individual with a PhD in Theoretical Physics. Their characters are mathematically perfect killing machines optimized to make their GM cry. One round of combat typically runs 3-4 hours and involves synergistically beautiful overlapping abilities unleashed with almost poetic lethality.
That being said, even now in Baphomet's realm, I am able to get the big fights to last between 5-10 rounds with tension and challenge, but the ridiculousness of what these PCs can do at MT 7 redefined what my definition of "power gaming" was. I am amused when a PC laments that an attack "only" does several hundred hit points of damage in a single strike.
I knew what lay ahead based on many threads' helpful posts about the perils of WotR and the mythic rules set. I posted this advice elsewhere but repeat some ideas here:
1. Use Scorpi0n_mjd's modified stat blocks for all opponents (I rebuilt them even more, but they are a great start.)
2. Give every monster with mythic ranks the Advanced Template.
3. All monsters have maximum hit points; then I multiply a creature's final HP total by its mythic rank. If you keep mythic power attack/vitalstrike/foebiter in the game, this is an essential step to avoid one-hit kills from fighters.
4. No death from massive damage for any mythic creature.
5. Add creature's mythic rank to every stat block component, saves, SR, DR, every stat. These monsters need to save against PCs with ridiculous CL and other checks. Give them a fighting chance.
6. DR for demon lords and anything MR 9-10 is not bypassed by any means.
7. All mythic creatures have the innate ability to negate critical hits to regular hits or any single hit with a mythic point expenditure once per round or once per initiative, whichever greater.
8. Mythic Paragon allows MR >10 for some elite foes (Hepzamirah, Baphomet, Deskari.)
9. I collapsed encounters into enormous, ridiculous, scenarios reflective of their opponents' logical reactions to extremely powerful foes. It is difficult to manage admittedly, but giving your BBEGs worthy minions and cannon fodder is critical to challenging mythic PCs.
10. Demon Lords have unprecedented dominion over their realms. In the Midnight Isles, I had Baphomet actually take control of the Nahyndrian mines themselves as part of his incursion into Nocticula's Realm, changing walls, creating doorways, isolated PCs with foes, etc.
I have some other tricks up my sleeves, but bottom line is that if you are going to run this campaign, around MT 3 PCs start rapidly outpacing mythic monsters and you better be ready for it.
It is probably too late for you, but anyone thinking of playing this story should give careful thought to nerfing many mythic abilities or removing them from the game altogether.
I removed Undetectable because it is ridiculously broken. I do allow foebiting as well as mythic vital strike (and give it to their foes.) I gave opponents Legendary Weapons and any mythic ability in play is available for any opponent. Baphomet and Deskari have Domain Immunities, for example.
I am finishing Book 5 and will post what I did to Deskari and the final volume after I do it, but I significantly altered the final confrontation with Deskari and have radically changed parts of Books 4 and 5 to craft the story.
It's been a lot of work, but I am enjoying the challenge of competing with 5 amazing minds to create a compelling story.
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@Drax_Morningdark I really like suggestions 3 and 5... I am going to have to use those. I was somewhat arbitrarily setting HP for Named NPCs by factors of 2 early on (post tier 3) and sometimes 3 or even 4 (post tier 6). But I like using the MR as the guideline.
I've got the fight with the Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth this weekend. Time to get rebuilding Scorpi0n_mjd's stat block with Legendary Games Path of Villainy mythic paths and those suggestions.
--Vrocket Launcher Tag
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i feel for you man. im stuck with an undetectable cleric, a paladin with insane saves damage and an AC of about 80 (touch of 51), a sorcerer that does icy prison mass for about 2000 damage to everything that fails a ref save, and a ranger that shoots tons of arrows that deal tons of damage to demons. this AP is like players running tomb of horrors on their GM. you are just meant to die over and over. best you can do is get one or two good hits in. maybe kill the weak on so he is dead while the cleric does a free resurrection.
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@Drax_Morningdark after using your suggestions #3 and #5 I found that it was too much, especially #5. Adding MR to every stat made monsters far too overbalanced, even against the most ridiculous mythic PC builds in my party.
For example, our Paladin is a tank whose AC hits the mid to high 50s against creatures he's smiting. Alternatively, our dwarf Barbarian's to hit and damage was truly frightening. Using your adjustments on Sc8rpi8n_mjd's Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth could not only hit the paladin regularly but could also use block attacks against the dwarf's highest attack numbers with ease. I ended up killing both in only a few rounds landing dual initiative full attacks on both of them.
I think HP time the AP book number is a more linear power curve that can prove ablative for mythic power attack, vital strike, and foe-biter.
--Jingle Bell Vrock
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Legendary Games has a lot of great suggestions to tone down the most broken parts of the Mythic Adventures problem areas.
However if you're already running Mythic as-is I suggest you look at their Path of Villains plug-in. It's basically a mythic path just for the bad guys complete with path abilities that mirror stuff the PCs can do and more.
The great thing about Mythic is it breaks the rules. You can take back control of action economy by giving your Mythic Villains more actions! I especially like the ability that gives a villain a number of extra swift, immediate, or AoO equal to the difference in how many mythic heroes vs mythic allies it has. There's one that gives temporary Mythic Points that the villain has to use by the end of its next turn when a hero uses an ability that cost a mythic point against them. Making heroes re-roll or have to roll twice and take the worse roll is also great.
--Vrock, Paper, Scissors
You also can get just this section of the book by itself as Mythic Solutions.
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I don't understand what could be so hard to create a better big bad boss battle. Just add more minions! Like a horde of them if you need to! I envision the world wound this massive gate where demons just poor out. You mean to tell me the boss doesn't have it
s own little set of munchkins to protect it?
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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I don't understand what could be so hard to create a better big bad boss battle. Just add more minions! Like a horde of them if you need to! I envision the world wound this massive gate where demons just poor out. You mean to tell me the boss doesn't have it
s own little set of munchkins to protect it?
Having just finished running Wrath last August, after a certain point, minions don't help. I tacked on 36 Balors to one of the demon lord encounters and they were taken out by incidental damage from attacks directed at their boss, before they even got a turn.
Things like caster level 32 on holy word also make minions much less of a threat.
Read the last set of battles VERY CAREFULLY. There is a severe monkey wrench that's thrown into those mythic heroes that can be the breaking point for them if they're foolish enough. And remember that they are time dependent... no popping off for a day to recharge.
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When I played WotR the GM heavily enhanced the combats. We still beat the clock on day 0.
My support cleric could do anything. And had two spells a turn.
One fight had multiple decapitations and I just mythic regenerated that. Mythic deathless is very strong - insane when the effect becomes allies within a mile.
Mythic plane shift, go home and rest in the middle of the dungeon. Go and shop then come back in just a few hours...Easy.
Mythic blade barrier as an immediate action to interrupt spell casting.
heightened sanctuary. Heightened repulsion.... Things just had to wait.
I suggest you play up character choices and interactions as the main fun and buff the fights.
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The issue with unstoppable PC's is a hard one, though it has been fun to be able to just start making stuff up to see what actually challenges the party. I've been lucky insomuch as the PC's aren't nearly as optimised as some of the things I've read in this thread, but my PC's have pretty much shredded everything I've thrown at them. I finally succeeded in killing one of them last week! All it took was the party raiding some demonic slavers in league with Haagenti; a CR 20 half-Marilith broken soul Lillend azata, a CR 17 broken soul Trumpet Archon, and two Kalavakus demons.