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Right now, the assumption of most APs is that a party will level up fully from 1 to 20 over the course the adventure. At the end, those player characters have no other routes of advancement per the game rules, short of earning tons of money in downtime activities and buying items or casting rituals. Given that many would like to continue on with their characters from an AP, I think eventually there will be some demand for post-20 advancement.
What would that look like for 2E? Rather than simply talk about 1E's Mythic system, I decided to take a look at other variations from past RPGs and tried to draw some conclusions from that and the basic math and assumptions of 2E. Feel free to add your wishlist items for post-20 advancement as well, this is mainly just my rambling.
In First Edition AD&D, there was no level limit. Classes showed differing progressions for class abilities, but noted that they went up infinitely from there. The main break point between normal play and what we'd call epic-tier gameplay is the end of name titles, which was typically around level 9-10. At that point, player characters were more about building kingdoms than adventuring.
BECMI D&D (Red Box Basic) had levels up to 36, and broke levels down into tiers. 14-25 was Companion, 26-36 was Master, etc. Past-36 it had a tier called Immortals which involved literally achieving immortality and exchanging experience for power points at a rate of 10000:1. They advanced in rank rather than level, and both the plots and gameplay were essentially another game entirely.
Second Edition AD&D saw the introduction of conventional level charts that went up to 20, but again levels were actually unlimited. At 9-10, players stopped gaining full hitpoints at 9-10 (a similar break to 1E AD&D), and it even included an ominous warning about high level play:
Quote: Consummate skill and creativity are required to construct adventures for extremely powerful characters (at least adventures that consist of more than just throwing bigger and bigger monsters at the nearly unbeatable party). Very high level player characters have so few limitations that every threat must be directed against the same weaknesses. And there are only so many times a DM can kidnap friends and family, steal spell books, or exile powerful lords before it becomes old hat. Third Edition D&D had a similar system. Levels described up to 20, but going up infinitely past that point. However, it also formalized post-20 levels with the Epic Level Handbook. For the sake of the math, BAB and saves stopped increasing at level 20 to reduce large discrepancies between strong and weak progressions and the addition of a bunch of extra attacks. Most progression was about getting special abilities that eclipse what even level 20 characters could get.
Pathfinder 1E of course had Mythic tiers. This wasn't an epic level system, but it functioned in a similar headspace. Most of the time players would start this system before level 20, if they used it at all. It had a few traits I'll discuss earlier, but both the early start and the actual bound of 10 Mythic tiers set it apart from D&D games.
D&D 4E is the first variant of D&D with a level limit, but that limit was 30. There was no soft-cap at 20, but the game is broken into tiers. 11-20 was the paragon tier, with 21-30 as the epic tier.
D&D 5E tightened the tier system used in 4E down to 20 levels of play. Now 17-20 was the top end, and post-20 advancement was mainly covered through 'epic boons'.
So where does that trip though history leave Pathfinder 2E if it decides to ever come out with a post-20 system? I think before we go there, we have to discuss Pathfinder 1E's Mythic system and its issues.
The main issue the Mythic system had was that it exacerbated the rocket-tag gameplay already present in high-level pathfinder. Not going into specifics, but many builds could easily deal an extreme amount of damage at a bare minimum, though sometimes navigating that would take many minutes per round. It is very hard to make a BBEG a mythic party wouldn't obliterate in one round. And again, that's just the damage bump.
Another side of Mythic is that it excels at punching down. For example, Mythic Cloudkill can be augmented to outright kill low HD creatures without a save. In broader terms, Mythic gave many options that worked best against lower tier or level opponents (Mythical Critical Focus automatically confirming vs non-Mythic opponents). Mythic Improved Initiative essentially eliminates rolling for initiative; the higher tier that expends one use of Mythic Power will go first. This makes it hard to use a variety of Mythic levels or untiered opponents, as anything beyond -1 to +1 tier is very likely unbalanced.
So with that little roundabout aside, what can we take away from past attempts at 'epic' play?
A focus on politics, nation-building, or extraplanar adventures is recommended because it becomes hard to narratively justify normal adventures when players an opponents have abilities stronger than top level capstones
Infinite scaling doesn't really work within most math systems. All recent systems had bounds.
3.5E, 5E, and Pathfinder 1E all stopped progressing math entirely in their 'epic' ranges despite taking different approaches
Spells are a big reason why it is hard to justify simply going up to level 21+, as it would require inventing 11th level spells and higher. In 2E, Incapacitation would be another reason.
Abilities that dramatically reshape combat math or action economy create rocket-tag scenarios that are preferably avoided
Abilities that serve mainly as a tier test mainly enforce punching down, making it hard to use a wide variety of threats.
So with that said, I think PF2 would look towards a system that:
Is not a straight increase of the level cap
Does not change the basic action economy (3 + R, +1 if quickened)
Does not change incapacitation
Does not allow 'count as a natural 20' abilities
Does not allow 'count as a natural 1' abilities
Does not infinitely scale, or add 11th level spells
Works off some sort of pool
Does allow for increases in proficiency, including introducing a new-proficiency rank beyond legendary, mythic (level + 10). Probably on a limited basis, either requiring individual purchase or spending a point from a mythic pool
Might still go up in tiers, but could also consist of buying up abilities a la carte
Does allow for mythic heightening of spells
Does allow for dice size increases
Does add incapacitation effects fairly liberally to abilities that don't have them
Probably is based on classes (because it interacts with their proficiencies), but possibly based on something similar to Mythic Paths from 1E
What are your thoughts? Do you want to see such systems return for 2E at all? What traps should Paizo avoid when writing such systems?
I think the biggest trap is making advancement center on numbers & perhaps action economy. In previous threads much of the discussion revolved around balancing numbers, which I don't really think is an issue since the curves have already been mapped out for monsters.
The trick is finding Epic/Mythic feats (of all sorts) & class abilities worth being called so, yet still have them balanced vs. the game and each other. How does one make a Barbarian level 25, one that's supposedly on par with the Tarrasque?!? And now put that in the hands of a player, one working in tandem with an archmage.
Balancing that's going to take a lot of investment from Paizo, more than for most products, plus extra playtesting, as much as for the first 20 level I'd think.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it's been said by the Designers that the game's math was intentionally made to scale up of they chose to pursue this. E.g. the math keeps scaling linearly after 20, so you don't need the fancy patch pf1e mythic was.
I see it as just being five levels of progression stacked on top, that helps you hit monsters stats in the 25-29 range (Demigod tier) but leaves the proper gods themselves off limits (unstatted but theoretically 30+) the progression would ideally include feats to flavor your character with mythic esque goodies.
Personally? I see a series of archetypes you take at 20, with feats that span character levels 20-25, taking over from your class. I also see a "mythic proficiency" rank that confers +10 (just incrementing again off legendary)
The archetypes could raise your proficiency to legendary if it's master, and to mythic if it's legendary, and to master if it's expert.
By making it a set of special archetypes, we can avoid having to add five levels of progression for every class.
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One of the biggest traps that Paizo might run into with any potential mythic/ epic system is one which they ran into in PF 1e, not enough future-proofing.
PF 1e mythic had numerous issues, but one of the most overlooked ones was that they simply did not cover nearly all of the existing bases, let along plan for any sort of eventual products. You can see this in the way that they had to create a patch to allow occult classes to interact with the system at all, as well as the numerous holes in the mythic system that caused many classes to slip through the cracks.
When Paizo makes mythic/ epic rules for pathfinder 2e, they will need to not only be a solid system which covers all of the existing basis, but also needs to have enough generalizability that they can be applied to future products that Paizo produces.
As a side note, I am very impressed by your analysis manbearscientist and agree wholeheartedly with your points. I actually hope that someone from Paizo reads your post, because I think that you have laid out most of the issues and options clearly and concisely.
Side note to Paizo, I know that mythic is probably a bit of a sore subject, because of the overall reaction that it received, but I urge you to give it another try. Despite how flawed the system was, there were a lot of very cool things you could do with the system, things which I feel were mostly lost under the torrent of broken options available. The opportunity to try again in a system which is already far more stable and balanced than pathfinder 1e ever was, and to make a mythic/epic system actually work in a game (as every single time a system like this has emerged it has always ended up as being a nearly unplayable mess) is worth giving mythic another shot.
I know that some people might think that a year into the game's release is far too early to start thinking about how ultra high-level gameplay will eventually work, but I believe that looking at such things now is enormously beneficial for the games future health. One really big underlying issue with most very high-level systems is that they were rarely conceived and thought about while the rest of the system was being created. High level gameplay always feels patchwork and an add on because it is a patchwork and an add on. While we cannot retroactively plan out mythic/epic for pathfinder 2e, starting early will ensure that the resulting system is as integrated with the rest of the system as possible, a necessity for this to work.
The-Magic-Sword wrote: Not to put too fine a point on it, but it's been said by the Designers that the game's math was intentionally made to scale up of they chose to pursue this. E.g. the math keeps scaling linearly after 20, so you don't need the fancy patch pf1e mythic was.
I see it as just being five levels of progression stacked on top, that helps you hit monsters stats in the 25-29 range (Demigod tier) but leaves the proper gods themselves off limits (unstatted but theoretically 30+) the progression would ideally include feats to flavor your character with mythic esque goodies.
Personally? I see a series of archetypes you take at 20, with feats that span character levels 20-25, taking over from your class. I also see a "mythic proficiency" rank that confers +10 (just incrementing again off legendary)
The archetypes could raise your proficiency to legendary if it's master, and to mythic if it's legendary, and to master if it's expert.
By making it a set of special archetypes, we can avoid having to add five levels of progression for every class.
I agree with this idea. At the same time, however, I hope that some of the abilities seen in mythic monsters and players do get carried over to pathfinder 2e. The ability to grant spells like a god, was legitimately one of the coolest parts of pathfinder 1e mythic (and one I would hate not to see in PF 2e), along with many other abilities which were largely buried beneath the broken ones. In other words, I think that ignoring mythic completely is a mistake, they can at least look back and use some of the abilities as inspiration.
IMO, the way to go would be to keep the number scaling as is and add a mythic trait for feats, making them only accessible at level 21 and higher. The challenge would be creating interesting feats that feel appropriately impressive for that level of play.
I think the biggest question is whether there's a market for the material. Personally, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the upcoming three-part adventure paths do well sales-wise and open the door to more. I'd really like to see a three-part 20+ adventure path with a final boss in the level 30 area.
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My understanding is that the vast majority of complaints about 1E Mythic were regarding its mechanical implementation. The idea of Mythic play itself is actually reasonably popular. There's a reason Owlcat games chose Wrath Of The Righteous for their sequel after all.
Charlie Brooks wrote: IMO, the way to go would be to keep the number scaling as is and add a mythic trait for feats, making them only accessible at level 21 and higher. The challenge would be creating interesting feats that feel appropriately impressive for that level of play.
I think the biggest question is whether there's a market for the material. Personally, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the upcoming three-part adventure paths do well sales-wise and open the door to more. I'd really like to see a three-part 20+ adventure path with a final boss in the level 30 area.
If they go with 'mythic levels' as the variant rule for post-20 play, I think running 21-25 makes some sense. It would allow them to still have bigger, badder enemies in the form of stuff of like Baba Yaga or demon lords that should theoretically be stronger than a Tarrasque or Treerazor but don't really have room to be with the system as-is.
You can even sort of see how it'd work. Not that this is definitive, but the generic level 21-25 advancement would probably look like:
21- Ancestry feat, class feature, mythic proficiency boosts, skill increase
22- Class feat, skill feat
23- General feat, mythic proficiency boosts, skill increase
24- Class feat, skill feat
25- Ability boosts, Ancestry feat, mythic capstone, mythic proficiency boosts, skill increase
Mythic proficiency boosts would basically cover most of a classes proficiencies. For instance, a Fighter would go up to mythic in weapons, legendary in armor, and potentially boost saves as well. Alternatively, I could see the option to replace any post-21 ancestry, class, or general feat with 'mythic feats'. Martials might also get an upgrade to greater weapon specialization that increases damage to 3/6/9/12/15. Capstones could include artifact weaponry/armor.
So said fighter might have a +4 artifact weapon at max level. They are supposed to stand equal to a Tarrasque at this point, do they? They attack for +46 (if they have a +4 artifact weapon) and have a 52 AC along with 408 HP. This is roughly comparable with the Tarrasque's +45/54/540. So math-wise, it works out better than I'd expect.
The bigger challenge is spellcasters, as they have to go 5 levels without gaining higher spell levels. I don't really have great ideas to account for casting balance in a 21-25 mythic system.
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As far as a market goes, I think it might organically grow as people finish up proper adventure paths. I wouldn't expect it to have a large demand in the first year of PF2, because most proper 6 book APs will take longer than that to finish for the average group.
I do think the 'idea' of mythic is one of the best thematic interpretations of epic level play. Getting a drip-feed of divinity (even before 20) is cool, and it is arguably the first system since Immortals that justifies such advancements in lore.
And I definitely think options like 'grant domains like a god' are a must.
Excellent recap of older editions. I just wanted to point out that, if I remember correctly, there as another approach used in 3.X that applied to gods and demigods: they had more than 20 levels, but not in any single class. Heracles, for example, could be statted as a Fighter 20/Barbarian 20. Since it was another book, they didn't use epic feats and spells, but they had divine ones instead.
Probably less relevant and less applicable than the Epic Level Handbook one, though.
I think the simplest way to make one creature or character feel Mythic relative to others in 2E would be to give Mythic characters and creatures a 4th action that stacked with Quickened, and possibly which was limited to specific actions, such as actions including Strikes or Cast a spell.
Potentially, this extra action could ignore things like MAP.
You could also tie this extra action to the expenditure of a resource, like Mythic power.
Going this route gives the same feeling of Mythic as being independent of the leveling system, without breaking the carefully balanced Math.
What it does not do is support post 20 advancement... but in general, that's just math progression.
KrispyXIV wrote: I think the simplest way to make one creature or character feel Mythic relative to others in 2E would be to give Mythic characters and creatures a 4th action that stacked with Quickened, and possibly which was limited to specific actions, such as actions including Strikes or Cast a spell.
Potentially, this extra action could ignore things like MAP.
You could also tie this extra action to the expenditure of a resource, like Mythic power.
Going this route gives the same feeling of Mythic as being independent of the leveling system, without breaking the carefully balanced Math.
What it does not do is support post 20 advancement... but in general, that's just math progression.
Mythic/Epic Actions would be something worth experimenting with.
So maybe one guy uses it for an ability akin to Fast Healing, while a caster uses it for her "Mythic/Epic/Quickened" casting. There could be sets of these options available via feats (or maybe some foundational ones might even be general actions available to all 21st+ PCs).
The numbers per hit may not equal some of the baddies, but perhaps the effectiveness per round could be more equivalent and it could open up some high-tier options without just a numbers push.
We've run level 25 PVP games (2 teams of 2 PCs), and PVE with high level monsters (4 PCs vs 1 monster), and the system scaled fine.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
manbearscientist wrote: ...The bigger challenge is spellcasters, as they have to go 5 levels without gaining higher spell levels. I don't really have great ideas to account for casting balance in a 21-25 mythic system... I very much enjoy the ideas you've presented and I do think this would be the best way to proceed into mythic levels and the like, but I don't see why this specifically would be a problem.
We had Mythic versions of spells in PF1, which were significantly stronger. I imagine at level 21 spellcaster would have a feat that would say to chose one spell you already know for each spell level and transform these spells into Mythic versions of the spells. Yes, this would be a lot of work, but significantly less work than making all the spells already was.
Mythic Fireball, for example, could become D10s instead of D6s and allow you to chose your burst size from 5 to 30 feet. Heck that still might not be good enough as heightened to level 10, it would barely be stronger than Cataclysm.
So maybe then you get to pick 2 per level as you level up. So at level 21 you get to upgrade one level 1 and one level 2 spell to
Mythic, then at 22 a level 3 and level 4 spell, and so on.
If you wanted to simplify it, and possibly make it scale even better, just give us level 11 to 13 spell slots. Have level 13 slots work like level 10 slots currently do, but have 11 and 12 work like regular spell slots. Give us some spells like Dire Winter and Floating Mountain, and then fill out the rest of those spells with Mythic variations, so instead of Mythic Fireball just replacing Fireball, it could be a level 11 spell.
The HARDER trick is figuring out what to do with the future level 9 spellcasters, the Magus and the Summoner. Do they stop at level 12 now? Do they straight up skip level 10 spells? If you use the system where some of your old spells upgrade to Mythic versions but spell slots still only go to 10, maybe they get only 1 per level after level 20 instead, and still don't get level 10 spells.
I think either of these systema could work. I kinda like the upgrading spells to mythic level a little better, but also I want to see unique level 11 to 13 spells. I really like spells like Dire Winter.
Maybe they use the upgrading system, but your level 22, 24, and potentially 25 class feats could get you level 11, 12, and 13 spell slots as well. You wouldn't get spells of that level naturally, although there would be a few and you could potentially earn them. In lieu of that, the slots would be used for heightening.
The system I thought of for mythic heightening was:
Spell Surge (Free Action)
Spend a mythic point (2/level). The next spell you cast is mythic heightened. You can heighten spells this way past 10th level, and they are automatically treated as heightened to your maximum level this way (IE, 12th at level 23). If it has a mythic version, you may cast that version instead of heightening the spell in this way. This can only affect your specialty spells.
Cantrips, focus spells, and 10th level spells can always be heightened as if they were specialty spells you used this ability on. This lets 10th level spells keep their luster and helps separate out 9th vs 10th level casters (along side proficiency differences), while keeping cantrips and focus spells relevant. Sure, your Magus can throw out 26d6 fireballs at -2 DC, but a Wizard can cast Cataclysm 2+ times a day heightened to deal 24d10 damage and a Cleric can cast Avatar heightened to 27+level AC, 40 THP, and an attack modifier of +40, with +16 damage per hit.
You gain two specialty spells at odd levels, one at even levels. This is mostly to replicate gaining spell slots. It might be wholly unnecessary, but I think fits thematically and makes it so casters can continue to specialize in what they did before.
This would reduce the amount mythic spells needed. Anything that has a simple +X, and incapacitation effects would automatically scale up as normal. Things that scale up less consistently could be modified to work with little effort (IE contingency or mage armor). A 13th level contingency with a Time Stop reaction feels suitably Mythic.
I could also see mythic points being used to apply a metamagic as a free action, even potentially quickened casting outside its 1/day limit. That would make for a good mythic feat. Most likely limited to 1/turn.
As far as mythic proficiency boosts, I think two boosts every odd level is appropriate. A la carte, pick what you want, but nothing can be increased more than once this way. Skill increases continue normally. This would allow you to go up Weapons/Spells + Defense + 3 Saves + Perception by level 25, along with getting 3 mythic skills.
Realistically the earliest we're getting a Mythic/post-20 progression is year 4 or 5. There are so many things to do first that will be applicable to more tables given that survey supported general consensus is that the vast majority of all games played with D&D descendants are levels 1-5. That said letting Paizo know early that people want it allows them to bear it in mind when designing future products. Knowing that there's enough demand for post-20 content someday now means that it's more likely to work smoothly when it's eventually developed.
Spamotron wrote: Realistically the earliest we're getting a Mythic/post-20 progression is year 4 or 5. There are so many things to do first that will be applicable to more tables given that survey supported general consensus is that the vast majority of all games played with D&D descendants are levels 1-5. That said letting Paizo know early that people want it allows them to bear it in mind when designing future products. Knowing that there's enough demand for post-20 content someday now means that it's more likely to work smoothly when it's eventually developed. I definitely agree. I think the real push for such content will come once many groups complete their 1st or second AP. So at best you'll see a push in 1-2 years, leading to a 2 year development development, playtest, and release by year 4.
I feel that the draw will be that players find that combat 'works' at high levels in this edition, and eventually they will want something to do with their post-AP characters. Paizo may also want to explore storylines involving stronger demon lords, Great Old Ones, or even Baba Yaga. These characters should all be significantly stronger than what we've seen so far, but if they go beyond level 25 they would simply be unbeatable stat balls that don't even make sense to use. And simply flattening every major threat to level 25 isn't a good solution either.
That said, it doesn't make much sense for players to go up to 30. At 25, they can realistically deal with the very tough entities currently out there but will still have Extreme threats to face. And that gives Paizo narrative reason to extend levels up to 25, killing two birds with one stone.
As earning 1000 experience would be difficult at level 21+ (you aren't going to face off against dozens of level 18+ threats on a daily basis), it would probably use an alternative system. Possibly just mythic experience. But that's somewhat off-topic.
Basically, I think Paizo will eventually add mythic levels to satisfy players that do enjoy 2E's best-in-class high level play when they have a good narrative reason to bring in the 'big bads' and probably not soon. Probably the best example of this would be the Whispering Tyrant.
I think we still have a while before we see mythic stuff. However I do think this system might be the best equipped to handle High High level pay. You can actually just increase the numbers and get away with it. just gong to 30 should be no big deal now if proficiency started getting crazy like mythic 6 being like +20 or something I could see that being a problem. Probably ways to counter it too though. Give everyone mythic ac 4 or something. you get the idea. Then it's just creative super powered stuff to do at those levels. I think spells are the easiest because you just think of something big and cool. Meteor swarm? how about Continuous intelligent meteors!(IDK I was just being random with that one.)
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