RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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I'll reiterate that my group had a great time with mythic and Wrath of the Righteous. It just wasn't challenging by the end, but they were okay with that.
I think the major flaw, such as it was, was simply that the adventure writers did not know how exponentially more powerful mythic would make PCs. Any modules written for a major new subsystem risk misjudging the challenge. That's just how it goes, it's the designer equivalent of theorycrafting.
I think a new adventure or AP written with mythic in mind would be much more appropriately scaled.
But it's not the spell that were a problem. It's martials one-shotting pretty much everything. Mythic spellcasting is pretty tame.Personally I really like the stat increases and immunities you can get from mythic rules.
I agree the mythic spells were a bit much.
Oh, you have to twink it a bit harder, but then it is just as devastating. Think a thousand damage on a save DC of 80-90 with no resistances allowed.
I'll reiterate that my group had a great time with mythic and Wrath of the Righteous. It just wasn't challenging by the end, but they were okay with that.
I think the major flaw, such as it was, was simply that the adventure writers did not know how exponentially more powerful mythic would make PCs. Any modules written for a major new subsystem risk misjudging the challenge. That's just how it goes, it's the designer equivalent of theorycrafting.
I think a new adventure or AP written with mythic in mind would be much more appropriately scaled.
The problem with that is that we already have all those inappropiately scaled demon lords and archdevils published. Kinda difficult to fix that now.
I'll reiterate that my group had a great time with mythic and Wrath of the Righteous. It just wasn't challenging by the end, but they were okay with that.
I think the major flaw, such as it was, was simply that the adventure writers did not know how exponentially more powerful mythic would make PCs.
I like the mythic rules as is. In my opinion the issues people had arose from wanting a mythic game to feel like a Pathfinder game (this expectation was entirely reasonable, I just think it didn’t turn out to be a useful one). I view a game using the mythic rules as a qualitatively different game from more usual “D&D type” RPGs. The ease of killing powerful creatures is what I like about it.
So I kind of agree that adventures should be written differently, but I’d rather the tweak go in a different direction - creating story challenges, rather than trying to challenge the party in combat situations.
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Or poor rules design.
I think the major flaw, such as it was, was simply that the adventure writers did not know how exponentially more powerful mythic would make PCs.
If the rules are poor that's largely on the community since they were given a public playtest.
I could easily construct an adventure for high mythic tier characters that would challenge them, now that I've seen what they can do. I don't think the mythic rules are innately flawed. A level 20/MR10 PC is awfully similar to a 3.0 ELH 30th level PC. A 30th level party would treat CR27 demon lords like a speedbump.
The main problem I had with mythic spellcasting in my Kingmaker game was Spellscar Oracle + Domain Immunity. "I'm going to cast all my spells from inside an AMF that doesn't affect me. Also I'm immune to dispel and disjunction."
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Or poor rules design.
I think the major flaw, such as it was, was simply that the adventure writers did not know how exponentially more powerful mythic would make PCs.If the rules are poor that's largely on the community since they were given a public playtest.
That's rather inaccurate. Many of these problems WERE pointed out during the playtest, and simply weren't changed. And several of the troublesome features weren't part of the playtest and weren't available to critique until the official release.
It's not been more than three days since I read a post on these very forums by someone complaining - I think about the Shifter? - and stating a public playtest would have done little good as public playtests here are less about actually changing the content of the material (since much if not all of it is already in the process of printing at that stage) and more about advertising the new product being "tested". At best, it would lead to Day One Errata. If that.
I'd link this post directly if I wasn't on my phone.
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There is a C, and it’s not one that people like to hear:
The majority of playtest feedback is from armchair designers who have no idea what benchmarks the design team are going for with rules. The design team ask for real play experience feedback rather than theorycrafting (to the extent that they basically ignore theorycrafting), so real feedback gets lost in the mass of (essentially worthless) posts. This results in minimal useful playtest data, which means the rules go out based on the initial balance, and may be flawed (as Mythic is above about tier 5, IMO).
It is one of my huge regrets that I wasn’t able to complete my real-play playtesting of Mythic (I only got up to tier 4) before the playtest was over, so didn’t provide high-tier feedback.
Whether you think Paizo are right or wrong to take this position with playtesting is an individual choice (I think crowdsourcing theorycrafting has a place in rules design, but I understand why Paizo want real playtesting), and shouldn’t become the subject of this thread.
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The entire method to focus on play experience feedback and do a hard ignore on theorycrafting is a flawed methodology, which sadly the designers have continually refused to amend or even really discuss the merits of with their engaged customers.
Yes, theorycrafting without knowing the benchmarks will probably not deliver perfect results. But you can still get useful data from it, because theorycrafters will most often point out the exploits and obvious problems in a system. Some of them are easy to math out, because they only require not refusing to do simple multiplication and addition.
Play experience feedback is severely limited in its utility because most people who go for it will start at the lowest level and, due to the time constraints of play sessions, real life and the play test, will then never reach mid- nor high-level play, which is where most of the issues with mythic came in. While I cannot claim to have read all that much of the play experience feedback of several playtests, what I saw had very scarce content relating to other than low-level games.
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I have to strongly agree with Magnus, if only for the simple fact that of all the playtests that we've had here, the "armchair designers" have pointed out flaws and problems that didn't get fixed in the official release, and those flaws and problems have - GASP - more often than not turned out to be actual flaws and problems that people complain about, often in very large numbers, after the official release. Sometimes this leads to errata. Most of the time not.
I get the basic idea that "theorycrafting is not as useful feedback as actual play data and thus we ignore it", but when the theorycrafting has been correct so many times in a row, I think it's time for that basic idea to undergo some revision.
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those flaws and problems have - GASP - more often than not turned out to be actual flaws and problems that people complain about, often in very large numbers, after the official release. Sometimes this leads to errata. Most of the time not.
Perhaps the designers are aiming for a game different from what the armchair designers are.
That would explain “most of the time not” fixing what you call flaws and problems. I know people speak about game design as if there’s an axiomatic set of guidelines everybody wants, but that’s not really true. One person’s flaw is another’s feature.
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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I have to strongly agree with Magnus, if only for the simple fact that of all the playtests that we've had here, the "armchair designers" have pointed out flaws and problems that didn't get fixed in the official release, and those flaws and problems have - GASP - more often than not turned out to be actual flaws and problems that people complain about, often in very large numbers, after the official release. Sometimes this leads to errata. Most of the time not.
I get the basic idea that "theorycrafting is not as useful feedback as actual play data and thus we ignore it", but when the theorycrafting has been correct so many times in a row, I think it's time for that basic idea to undergo some revision.
What I see when I look back at old playtest boards in a lot of theorycrafting complaints, some of which end up being valid. People read the proposed rules, and then you get a list of things A, B, C, D, E and F that they think will be broken and not work. Then the book comes out and not one of the things about A-F are changed, and it turns out that, now that people are actually playing the rules, A, C, and F are really problems. Now the theorycrafter comes back and says "I told you all about A, C, and F during the playtest and you ignored me!" completely neglecting that they also complained about B, D, and E which turned out okay in actual play. It's the equivalent of shooting at a blank wall then painting the target around your shots.
That's why actual playtesting is so important - you have to experimentally confirm your hypothesis. If all you do is complain about stuff you find "obvious" about the proposed rules, you're like an armchair scientist or quarterback that refuses to check your own predictions. I've done a decent amount of actual playtesting for various RPGs, board, and card games and while I often have preconceived notions after reading the rules, I always verify them with actual play. It's the basic scientific method.
So, pure theroycrafting with no evidence to back up its assertions is basically just noise, and the developers are wise to basically ignore it. There's no way to distinguish who is right and who is wrong.
I remember the playtest for a class where someone very carefully built a character and then tested it in combat against some very specific foes, of varying types and capabilities.
On the basis of this testing, they provided feedback on the class, with details of the shortcomings and areas in which it shined. Simply put, it was an exquisite piece of playtesting which fell utterly flat because of one thing - It was tested solo, not in an adventuring party.
From Paizo’s perspective that feedback served little purpose, because a single character is part of the party, and as long as they can contribute their share towards the party as a whole, they’re fine.
In terms of the Mythic rules, the playtesting of high tiers was almost entirely theorycrafted, and it meant that the force multiplication of an entire party with these ridiculous abilities wasn’t properly benchmarked to create appropriate statistics for CR 26-30. It doesn’t help that the APL adjustment for tiers is somewhat questionable (it’s okay up to tier 4, goes haywire after that). All this means that, unfortunately, the flagship adventure path for the mythic rules (WotR) couldn’t hold together once the characters start getting into book 3, and the feedback to the developers of the AP was almost entirely negative (because the character weren’t challenged by encounters).
I’ve long since given up using CR for my high level mythic game, but I do keep trying to judge a corrected APL to see if I can come up with a way to make it work right. It’s a work in progress.
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So, pure theroycrafting with no evidence to back up its assertions is basically just noise, and the developers are wise to basically ignore it. There's no way to distinguish who is right and who is wrong.
Yes, there is. 1+1=2. You don't need to "playtest" simple math to make it correct. The same with a lot of feats and abilities where theorycrafters pointed out mathematical design flaws and were ignored.
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Ok, I'm hoping this debate doesn't get heated and out of the hand ._. Being really preemptive here, but seriously, please don't lose temper and escalate discussions that are interesting D: I'd be sad we can't have the conversation!
In my studies about game design stuff, I've been basically taught to take account all criticism and not just the well written ones. Like, even if feedback is... Whatever unpleasant adjective you want to use, its still important to read between lines about what they have problems with instead of dismissing it because its unpleasant to my feelings. Same could be applied to theorycrafting, even thought I believe that theory crafting often assumes things that doesn't always happen in practice, its still feedback so its important to take in account especially if its not feasible to test whole campaign from 1-20 for every new class.
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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So, pure theroycrafting with no evidence to back up its assertions is basically just noise, and the developers are wise to basically ignore it. There's no way to distinguish who is right and who is wrong.Yes, there is. 1+1=2. You don't need to "playtest" simple math to make it correct. The same with a lot of feats and abilities where theorycrafters pointed out mathematical design flaws and were ignored.
There are so many assumptions baked into your "simple" statement - that 1+1=2 - that I'm going to use it as an example. Your equation only works if we all have the assumed starting point - we assume the meanings of 1, of 2, of the + and = signs. We assume that mathematically things can equal other things. We have defined an addition operation. And so forth. If any one of these assumptions is untrue, what you have written seems simple to you but is nonsense to someone that doesn't share the assumptions. And that's for a relatively simple formula. With the amount of assumptions baked into a game as complex as Pathfinder, it's entirely possible for people to come to different conclusions using the same math you do.
For example, I find high level (15-20) Pathfinder play perfectly usable and well-balanced. Any playtesting or theorycrafting I do on things related to high levels starts with that assumption. I'm going to get very different results than someone who starts from "all high level play is rocket tag and impossible to make fun." When all you do is theorycraft, what looks to you like simple math that reinforces your preconceptions, looks like nonsense to those who don't share those preconceptions. I.e., in base 2 your equation 1+1=2 is not just wrong, it's meaningless.
If you have an actual example of a mathematical design flaw pointed out during a playtest that was ignored, I'd be happy to address such a specific example. It might make my point clearer than this generalized analogy.
I think if we are going to get more Mythic AP or modules it will probably come from third party providers. I started the Wraith of the Righteous as a GM but I have to confess it was too high powered for me to run adequately. In the middle of the second book we agreed to abandon it. Level 20 characters are formidable enough, but a well played Magus 20 / Champion 10 or a Wizard 20 / Archmage 10 can be nearly impossible to deal with.
I may look at the Mythic rule set again in the future but I will probably purchase the Legendary Games Mythic rules to go along with Mythic Adventures.
But of course. That's why paizo stands firm and will provide tons of more mythic content, despite what the nay-sayers complain about.those flaws and problems have - GASP - more often than not turned out to be actual flaws and problems that people complain about, often in very large numbers, after the official release. Sometimes this leads to errata. Most of the time not.Perhaps the designers are aiming for a game different from what the armchair designers are.
I presume you’re offering that as a kind of sarcastic counterexample? (Correct me if I’m wrong).
Orthos’s point was broader than mythic rules, as I understood it and certainly my reply was intended to address the broader point. Paizo are continuing to do what they’ve always done and have been facing criticism of their playtest process since the CRB. There are always people announcing on the forums how bad they think Paizo has handled various things - if those complaints continue and paizo’s FAQratta process doesn’t address them then it’s reasonable to conclude that the PDT don’t share the opinion (no matter how strongly expressed the critique is).
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At this point I'm mostly griping. I've accepted the beast for what it is and handle further problems in my own games with houserules.
It is my opinion that Paizo is at their strongest when writing stories, and their mechanics are but a means to an end that - in my eyes - fails more often than it succeeds. (Notable successes would include almost all of their 6-level casting classes - Alchemist, Inquisitor, Magus, etc. are some of the best built and best balanced classes Paizo has ever made, bar none.) Honestly the only reasons I'm still using it are because I have a great deal of 3.0/3.5 and 3rd Party material that's still perfectly good to use and that I and my group don't want to take the time to learn another system like 5th Edition. So PF it is, and we adjust as necessary along the way.
But that also won't stop me from pointing out problems when I see them, or supporting those who do.
At this point I'm mostly griping. I've accepted the beast for what it is and handle further problems in my own games with houserules.
It is my opinion that Paizo is at their strongest when writing stories, and their mechanics are but a means to an end that - in my eyes - fails more often than it succeeds. (Notable successes would include almost all of their 6-level casting classes - Alchemist, Inquisitor, Magus, etc. are some of the best built and best balanced classes Paizo has ever made, bar none.) Honestly the only reasons I'm still using it are because I have a great deal of 3.0/3.5 and 3rd Party material that's still perfectly good to use and that I and my group don't want to take the time to learn another system like 5th Edition. So PF it is, and we adjust as necessary along the way.
But that also won't stop me from pointing out problems when I see them, or supporting those who do.
I'm with you. I just don't think people are always right when they declare they've found a problem/flaw (I 100% support their right to advocate for change though).
In my opinion, when their issue remains for years and years without being addressed via FAQ or errata, it becomes more and more likely that Paizo PDT disagree about it actually being a problem.
I think that's worth bearing in mind as perhaps what one has identified as a 'glaring issue, unaddressed for years' is in fact just a difference in expectation/design goal.
For my part, I feel like Paizo has gotten noticeably better over time with their classes - and, in general, their more recent 6th-level casters have hit the sweet spot far more often than not. ^^
So, pure theroycrafting with no evidence to back up its assertions is basically just noise, and the developers are wise to basically ignore it. There's no way to distinguish who is right and who is wrong.Yes, there is. 1+1=2. You don't need to "playtest" simple math to make it correct. The same with a lot of feats and abilities where theorycrafters pointed out mathematical design flaws and were ignored.There are so many assumptions baked into your "simple" statement - that 1+1=2 - that I'm going to use it as an example. Your equation only works if we all have the assumed starting point - we assume the meanings of 1, of 2, of the + and = signs. We assume that mathematically things can equal other things. We have defined an addition operation. And so forth. If any one of these assumptions is untrue, what you have written seems simple to you but is nonsense to someone that doesn't share the assumptions. And that's for a relatively simple formula. With the amount of assumptions baked into a game as complex as Pathfinder, it's entirely possible for people to come to different conclusions using the same math you do.
For example, I find high level (15-20) Pathfinder play perfectly usable and well-balanced. Any playtesting or theorycrafting I do on things related to high levels starts with that assumption. I'm going to get very different results than someone who starts from "all high level play is rocket tag and impossible to make fun." When all you do is theorycraft, what looks to you like simple math that reinforces your preconceptions, looks like nonsense to those who don't share those preconceptions. I.e., in base 2 your equation 1+1=2 is not just wrong, it's meaningless.
If you have an actual example of a mathematical design flaw pointed out during a playtest that was ignored, I'd be happy to address such a specific example. It might make my point clearer than this generalized analogy.
You *do* remember that this started out as someone pointing out that mythic characters can easily one-shot CR 30 demon lords, do you?
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Eh, level 20 cavalier is capable of one shotting Cthulhu with charge crit, 4 level 20 party members are capable of defeating cr 30 creature if they have buffs on and are somehow able to avoid save or die effects :p
(tarrasque at cr 25 is relatively easy to solo with level 20 characters from my experience <_< Not being able to die doesn't really help when someone can just perpetually keep stabbing it to -1000+)
How in blazes is a single non-mythic character dealing 1000 damage in a round? O_o
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If I can just add my two cents here, it seems like the problem is more about the fact that someone can just one shot a near demigod. Which is pretty boring when you think about it, because shouldn't a demigod be as close to the ultimate challenge (for even a fantasy character) that they could ever hope to get? Because the whole point of the mythic rule system is to help you emulate the ancient Greeks and Romans heroes of myth, but even they couldn't fight these guys.
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How in blazes is a single non-mythic character dealing 1000 damage in a round? O_o
As cavalier? Level 20th cavalier ability causes your damage with lance when you charge be modified with x3 and when lance crits, its x3 as well.
So basically, its matter of stacking modifiers. Rest you can probably figure out with feats and str modifiers and whatever :D
I can see that breaking 100 or maybe even 200, but how are you getting that to 1000??
The basic damage dealer for Wrath
20/10 Paladin using a two handed weapon and power attack (note I am ignorning the extra damage on a crit as a nerf)
With haste he gets
5 attacks at +61 to hit for 3d6 +84 +2d6 holy , using mythic fleet charge he gets an extra 1 at +71 while setting up the above full attack
With those totals he always hits and only rolls the dice to see if he gets a crit with a greatsword he has a bout a 75% chance of 1 or more crits with mythic improved crit
Assuming 1 crit per attacks sequence that is
24d6 + 672 +12d6 holy this is a low effort attack
Now typically the pc wizard has used limited wish on important bad guys to give them Litany of righteousness , or he could use foebiter to double all attacks
which is another 18d6 + 504 , against something really dangerous foebiter and litany
for
60d6 + 1680 +12d6 holy(the holy damage is feeling underappreciated)
for an average of 1932
The huge damage is one problem with mythic the other is that there is no real defense against it, which means that killing the entire party is easy , just send a semicompetent mythic fighter in and have him win initiative. Challanging them is hard. It takes the lvl 20 rocket tag and makes it several orders of magnitude worse. I like lvl 20 games and have fun running them.
(The TWF Rogue was 9 attacks at about +53 for d6 +35 and 10d6 sneak which doubled on a crit due to mythic , he did not have foebiter but on a good day he hit for 127 d6 +315 damage , rolling that was a pain without a computer so about 760 damage)
Neither of these characters was totally optimised and I am sure I could sneak in more damage. Particularly as I had banned or nerfed several options so I don't include them in these calculations these are the characters from the end of wrath . The wizard could cast up to 31 9th level spells with a base DC of 29 +level and the Oracle could cast 32 9th level spells for 10 rounds after I killed her (as long as she was healing)
For one attack with mythic vital strike and a lance , +spirited charge
base 6d6 +252
spirited charge takes that to
18d6 + 756
Foebiter/Litany add 6d6 +252 each time and a crit would add another 18d6 +756 (mythic improved crit for a max of
48d6 +2006
(lance done quickly late at night as no pc used one)
2174 damage with one hit
Edit.
I loved the plot of Wrath, I had great fun running the first 4 books as I could just about cope with the power creep. I finished running it as a duty to my players, despite the great plot and great characters the rules killed my enjoyment . The only time that has happened in 30 years as a GM. I would even consider running it again if I ever had the time to rewrite all encounters to be practical for none mythic pc's
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I can see that breaking 100 or maybe even 200, but how are you getting that to 1000??
Its basically about stacking damage modifier as high as possible from different items, class features, buffs and etc. For example, level 20 challenge alone gives cavalier +20 damage bonus. That and with spirited charge feat, you get x4 lance crit modifier :p
But yeah, I don't remember total recipe for the combo, it is ridiculously optimized for charge damage build. Right now I only remember it well enough to get to 300 damage
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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You *do* remember that this started out as someone pointing out that mythic characters can easily one-shot CR 30 demon lords, do you?
So your assumption, that others may not share, is that this is undesirable. I personally have no problems with PCs being able to reach a level of power where CR30 is a speed bump. By the time you have an effective party level of 35 or so a CR30 isn't even worth the time to play out the fight. Now I do concede that the CR calculations around mythic characters are messed up and mythic adds way more to the effective APL than 1/2 ranks.
In 1e there were actual deities with < 70 hp. 12th level characters could 1 shot them. In Pathfinder, mythic rank 9-10 characters are effectively demigods themselves. Making hugely powerful characters isn't an intrinsic flaw, it was simply an error of scaling challenges improperly.
Having played/run multiple 3.0/3.5 campaigns that went up to level 40 or so, a level 20/MR10 Pathfinder PC isn't even on the same scale as an epic level 40 3.5 PC.
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You *do* remember that this started out as someone pointing out that mythic characters can easily one-shot CR 30 demon lords, do you?So your assumption, that others may not share, is that this is undesirable. I personally have no problems with PCs being able to reach a level of power where CR30 is a speed bump. By the time you have an effective party level of 35 or so a CR30 isn't even worth the time to play out the fight. Now I do concede that the CR calculations around mythic characters are messed up and mythic adds way more to the effective APL than 1/2 ranks.
In 1e there were actual deities with < 70 hp. 12th level characters could 1 shot them. In Pathfinder, mythic rank 9-10 characters are effectively demigods themselves. Making hugely powerful characters isn't an intrinsic flaw, it was simply an error of scaling challenges improperly.
Having played/run multiple 3.0/3.5 campaigns that went up to level 40 or so, a level 20/MR10 Pathfinder PC isn't even on the same scale as an epic level 40 3.5 PC.
The problem is there one shotting the cr 30 Demon lore whent there only basically lvl 15-18.
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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The problem is there one shotting the cr 30 Demon lore whent there only basically lvl 15-18.
You *do* remember that this started out as someone pointing out that mythic characters can easily one-shot CR 30 demon lords, do you?So your assumption, that others may not share, is that this is undesirable. I personally have no problems with PCs being able to reach a level of power where CR30 is a speed bump. By the time you have an effective party level of 35 or so a CR30 isn't even worth the time to play out the fight. Now I do concede that the CR calculations around mythic characters are messed up and mythic adds way more to the effective APL than 1/2 ranks.
In 1e there were actual deities with < 70 hp. 12th level characters could 1 shot them. In Pathfinder, mythic rank 9-10 characters are effectively demigods themselves. Making hugely powerful characters isn't an intrinsic flaw, it was simply an error of scaling challenges improperly.
Having played/run multiple 3.0/3.5 campaigns that went up to level 40 or so, a level 20/MR10 Pathfinder PC isn't even on the same scale as an epic level 40 3.5 PC.
With 7-9 mythic tiers, which clearly bumps their effective level by more than indicated. I think if you wanted to balance Wrath so that the challenge stays fairly level, give the party no more than 4 tiers spread out over the AP. The CR system, already a bit loose, is totally busted by the introduction of mythic. I don't think you'll find many people who will argue against that.
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I vaguely remember James Jacobs saying that were he to do Wrath of the Righteous again, he'd give no more than 1 mythic tier per book, hitting tier 6 at the end of book 6. I could be mis-remembering, but I think he said as much.
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You *do* remember that this started out as someone pointing out that mythic characters can easily one-shot CR 30 demon lords, do you?So your assumption, that others may not share, is that this is undesirable. I personally have no problems with PCs being able to reach a level of power where CR30 is a speed bump. By the time you have an effective party level of 35 or so a CR30 isn't even worth the time to play out the fight. Now I do concede that the CR calculations around mythic characters are messed up and mythic adds way more to the effective APL than 1/2 ranks.
In 1e there were actual deities with < 70 hp. 12th level characters could 1 shot them. In Pathfinder, mythic rank 9-10 characters are effectively demigods themselves. Making hugely powerful characters isn't an intrinsic flaw, it was simply an error of scaling challenges improperly.
Having played/run multiple 3.0/3.5 campaigns that went up to level 40 or so, a level 20/MR10 Pathfinder PC isn't even on the same scale as an epic level 40 3.5 PC.
No, I'm sorry, that is effing insane and obviously unintended by the designers. The fight against Baphoment at the end of chapter five is presented as a "run or you will very probably die" scenario, when he in actuality went down easily after getting one single spell off. Deskari, the end boss for the entire AP, was a laughable speed bump.
Your insistence that some further theorycrafting by the devs (or actually playtesting a high level scenario against their own creations) or taking some of the warnings of the player base seriously would not have prevented that disaster is just wrong.
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Magnuskn is right. Unfortunatly having run Wrath and actually played with high level mythic characters it is clear that the ability of the pc's was unanticipated by the designers. The plot and writing clearly indicated certain encounters are very dangerous however what would happen with the stats that are published is that 1 PC would spend 1or 2 mythic points and end the encounter in 1 round. This makes for instance the time pressure in book 6 irrelevant as the pc's can kill everything in the module without worrying about refreshing their resources.
Back to the point of the thread as the mythic rules stand there is no point in publishing a mythic AP as it will be essentially unplayable despite excellent plot, characters etc. The mythic rules do not work.
Also I feel that pretty much any story you could tell with mythic would be equally well told with level 20 none mythic pc's.
If anyone disagree's about mythic being broken I will only be interested if they have run as written (no third party changes or massive house rules) several sessions with level 16+ Tier 8 +PC's and found that the published creatures pose a significant challenge. I can't imagine anyone has
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Everything you guys are mentioning circles back to the CR calculations being broken for mythic, which is quite true. Wrath was written using those incorrect CR assumptions, so the later encounters are especially unbalanced. What the authors thought would be appropriate challenges turned out not to be.
What in the world does that have to do with the mythic system itself being broken? Demon lords aren't a challenge for max tier mythic PCs. Ok. Noted. So what? That doesn't mean that there is no challenge, it just makes that challenge higher.
You keep saying "the system is broken," but every example you give is "the system was more powerful than expected." Those phrases are not synonymous in my book.
Are we simply having a semantic disagreement where you think "more powerful than expected" means "broken?" To me, "broken" means "makes the game less fun or unplayable," and my experience with mythic is pretty much the opposite of that. My players had a grand time in Wrath.
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Broken means that is is impossible to produce challanging encounters within the rules.
I can with mythic easily produce a TPK , that is no problem just using standard pc's I can kill an entire party but it all comes down to the initiative roll, whoever wins initiative kills everyone else. This is occasionally an issue with high level play but my experience there is that competent players make it hard to kill them all in a round.
In mythic you cannot build a PC who can survive 1 round vs a pc designed to do damage, it is impossible.
What I want to do is produce encounters which last over multiple rounds (2-3 is acceptable) require some tactical thought and are produced using the rules of the game.
I had to give the final boss of the Wrath campaign 16000hp, huge bonuses to attacks, AC , saves CMD , everything , numerous extra abilities and he lasted 3 rounds. Wow that that an exciting climax, I see why Demon lords worry people.
At the moment with RAW a level 20/10 character considers a demon lord less dangerous than a kobold to a first level character. This is not the intent of the rules therefore the rules are broken.
My players started to find combat boring towards the end despite my best efforts it felt like all they had to do was walk in swing a sword and everything died. When I was 12 I ran games like that and it is the baseline for bad GM'ing except in this case that was the rules not a 12 year old munchkin powertripping.
I estimate that a level 20/10 pc is about CR40-45 equivalent which means nothing in the game is worth noticing, given that the designers did not thing that and in fact thought CR25 was equivalent the rules did not do as intended and are broken.
I have been gaming for about 34 years in that time within an otherwise functional and reasonably well written game I have never before encountered such a broken subsystem. (I have found entire games systems that are more broken but that is a different topic
What was an excellent campaign died due to awful rules. This is my last rant on the subject , until I forget my resolution not to rant about mythic again. In summary Mythic AP = Unsubscribe
I personally agree more with ryric's stance - there is nothing wrong with mythic as a concept, and there is nothing wrong with the power it provides - the problem is that the power it provides vastly exceeds the capabilities of the challenges and encounters presented in WotR.
My personal perspective is that the APL adjustment for mythic is flawed. As I've said before, it works okay up to about Tier 4 (Level 8 Tier 4 at APL 10 works out about right), but tier 5 and up blow the roof off (so level 10 tier 5 is closer to APL 15 than 12). I don't have the numbers and I don't have the design skill to deconstruct tiers to get better APL adjustments for tiers 5-10 - I'd have to brute-force the solution, and I frankly don't have the time to do it.
In the end, I have to accept that mythic cannot be effectively played as written, which I can accept the term "broken" to represent.
This does not stop me from absolutely loving my ridiculous high-power mythic campaign and the utterly insane stuff the PCs are capable of (CR 26 mythic dragon downed in a single round last week), but the play paradigm is completely different to even high-level Pathfinder (which is itself different to low-/mid-level Pathfinder). But it's amazing fun.
APs have historically been written to be playable with average pregens (hence statblocks at the end of each book), and mythic rules make no exception. It is always assumed the GM can, and should rewrite in order to give a better challenge (without being a jerk)
I saw worse than what depicted, without mythic.
An average 15 pt but mythic hero one shots Deskari. I do rewrite encounters to deal with better designed pc's it was impossible for wrath. In the other 4 AP's I have played or run that has not been a problem, in the bits of another 3 AP's I used inserted into other campaigns it was not a problem only when mythic was used did it prove impossible to match the challange to the pc's and even then only after about level 14, mythic 6 although before that it was hard.
Level 20/10 paladin, 15 pt buy human with a two handed weapon and power attack would kill deskari in 1 round if he took vital strike in 1 blow. Taking Power attack and vital strike is not exactly devious munchkin powergaming theory crafting in fact it is what a novice basic character would do and look he one shotted a demon lord without trying
Also I assume you last looked at an AP before I bought one as there are no PC pregen stats in them at all. Have you tried mythic before commenting on it?
Phillipe post or PM me a set of stats for Deskari which would be challanging and let us see how your great mastery makes this easy, after all I failed and every set of stats I have seem for him failed but you will do better easily then I will retract my opinions about mythic being broken
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Given that Wrath of the Righteous under mythic rules was the absolutely worst experience I ever had with a roleplaying game (which includes Shadowrun, a game system I fricking hate), I think I can be excused of still being a bit salty. It took a lot of time to get back to the level where I really enjoyed playing Pathfinder after that.
And, honestly, doing armchair analysis where "it is easy to adjust the adventure" is just arrogance. I already used updated statblocks, provided by scorpion_mjd during the campaign. I already had nerfed certain aspects of mythic adventures from the start. At a certain point it became clear that the entire system was unbalanced versus what the developer assumptions had been. My players and I chose to finish the AP nonetheless, but that experience really sucked the joy of GM'ing out of me.
ryric, more power to you if you rescued some enjoyment out of the AP. But your opinion that the insane abilities of the high mythic tier characters are somehow intended is contradicted by what has actually been published by Paizo. There are no CR appropiate creatures published for a level 20/tier 10 character. Hell, there aren't CR appropiate creatures published for a level 15/tier 7 character, IMO.
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Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh I'll avoid commenting on that.
But I would like to add that its not as much that mythic is impossible to balance as much it was that wrath of the righteous wasn't truly balanced for mythic <_<
(though, yeah, mythic wasn't designed to be op enough where you can one shot cr 30 creature, but then again, neither was pathfinder designed so that level 20 fighter can beat up tarrasque solo and that is possible)
I will say that 1 tier of mythic can be a delightful spice to upgrade a campaign where thematic. Just be prepared to give any significantly challenging encounter mythic power of its own. Now my group already had some serious optimisation going so adding mythic was more of a multiplier then an additional, so I had a bit more work to improve the stats then just "increase them a bit" But it did give me the chance to change book four Barzillai Thrune from "dude with 15 inquisitor levels and some gnarly boosts," to "cave sized genius loci with an avatar form the size of the tarrasque that controls the very battlefield with a thought"
I would be incredibly hesitant to increase the amount of mythic beyond 3 tiers at 20th level.