Hello Paizo posters!
My group of players in a "Lands of The Linnorm Kings" based game have reached level 10, Mythic Tier 2, and I'm now starting to understand just how much even one to two tiers has a way of trivializing "mundane" encounters.
This has been fine so far; My players are having fun dominating high powered monsters and npcs with their mythic power.
However, I ultimately want to steer things toward "atmospheric norse myth" as opposed to "massive number crunching for total pwnage" - and to that end I want to create some foes that can actually stand toe to toe with my player characters while embodying "mythical themes".
What I'm hoping for are some general guidelines: Who else has had experience adding Mythic ranks or tiers to their NPCS and monsters? How did you balance things out for your game? How did it work out? How can I tweak things to optimize my "mythical" NPCs?
To give an example: Ingrimundr the Unruly is an NPC barbarian king in the lands of the linnorm kings. My plot is that he will eventually set off a civil war out of a desire to return his people back to their "glorious viking days".
Here's where I want to add a spark of "mythic" to the mix, taking a healthy dose of inspiration from the tale of Sigurd and Fafnir.
Here's the deal: In order to become king of a region, a warrior must slay a linnorm - a primordial fey dragon. However, Ingrimundr, being the hyper-masculine nut-job that he is, starts taking advice from demon lord Kostchtchie (also an enemy of Baba Yaga). Kostchtchie congratulates Ingrimundr on besting a worm, but then says that if he REALLY wants to go hardcore, he should mix up a potion of Linnorm's blood and chug that sucker for some major gain.
So Ingrimundr chugs a mix of wyrm blood and gets even more ripped than before, including the benefits of mythic power, as well as some... draconic abilities.
Get him down to a low enough number of Hit Points however, and Ingrimundr's dragon blood will boil over, ripping his body apart and turning him into a monster.
So I'm in two minds:
Either stat up Ingrimundr as a mythic (half dragon?) barbarian with the unique ability to go "dragon mode" when his Hit Points fall too low, or simply stat him up as a unique, mythic dragon.
Any advice, Paizo Posters?
Hmmm, considering he trusted a demon lord to give him power, how about something like...
The potion was actually part of a ritual that turns a volunteer into a near demi-god for their life span; when they are killed, their sacrifice completes the ritual, a gate opens from their corpse and a powerful dragon steps through the gate and is unleashed upon the world.
The power the individual gained was actually from the mythic power seeping through the gate the body keeps shut until their death, just a small trace amount compared to the actual mythic dragon.
Never trust a demon lord to give you power for nothing...
I like that idea!
Do you have any advice on general things to keep in mind to optimize the building of Ingrimundr as either a myhic NPC or a mythic creature?