So, I've been playing Pathfinder 1e since the Beta was released. I was partial owner of a game store and dove right into it.
We're finally getting into Mythic rules playing Wrath of the Righteous. I know... We're a little late to the party, to say thr least.
We're 14th level and 6th tier and we haven't had any real challenges except when the DM massively beefs up the bad guys.
It kinda seems like Mythic rules weren't really playtested. Anybody else have these issues?
It depends on a few other variables, but it’s a known issue if the group tried to optimize a little. Mythic takes the regular rocket tag issue of Pathfinder and magnifies it. Do you perhaps have a larger group than 4 or even 5? Because that can make a big difference to the way the AP plays.
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Yeah, mythic is basically broken: My GM tells tales of running WotR with the standard mythic rules and a 'solid but not ridiculously min-maxed' group and only actually getting to roll for the NPCs two or three times in the entirety of the last two modules (which is about the point you are at I think).
WotR certainly does not help things by being so Demon focused: When you are constantly fighting Demons, it's really easy to decide to gear up against them (If your martial characters don't have cold iron holy weapons by the time they hit double digits, they must not be paying any attention at all).
When I played WotR, we used watered-down mythic rules (some baseline mythic boosts and stat buffs, but no actual mythic spells or feats) and it was just very ridiculous levels of rocket tag (if your foe actually gets a chance to act, you probably did something very wrong)...
The real problem seems to be that published AP’s are notorious for being fairly easy. For the most part this seems to be by design. With an AP it is written so that it can be played by just about anyone. I do not use published AP’s so have no direct experience in this, but that is what many people of the forums say.
Mythic Rules do boost the power considerably and allows for even greater optimization than normal. The guidelines in the mythic rules state that the CR for a mythic character is increased by half their mythic tier. The example they give in the book is a 10th level/5th tier character is considered CR 12. This means that character should be about as powerful as a 12-level character.
Looking at a comparison between a 12th level sorcerer and a 10th level sorcerer with 5 mythic tiers finds the mythic character is way more powerful. The 12th level sorcerer will have access to 6th level spells, but that is about it. The mythic character gains +4 stat bonus due to mythic tier while the extra 2 levels may gain the normal sorcerer a +1. The mythic sorcerer gains 2 mythic feats and 5 path abilities. For the mythic feats the sorcerer takes mythic spell focus and mythic spell penetration. For the path abilities the sorcerer takes longevity, Mythic Spell Casting, Energy Conversion, Elemental Bond (fire) and Eldritch Breach.
Assuming both characters are identical except the normal sorcerer has 2 extra levels. The DC of the normal sorcerer’s 6th level spells will be 23 (without items), compared to the mythic sorcerer’s DC of 27 for his 5th level spells. When trying to penetrate spell resistance the normal sorcerer has a +16 bonus, but the mythic sorcerer has a +19 (+24 is using a fire spell) and rolls twice and takes the better result. The normal sorcerer has access to higher level spells so cast chain lighting dealing 12d6 damage to the primary target. The mythic sorcerer cast a mythic fire snake for 15d10 damage, and the target is grappled for 15 turns taking 1d10 damage each turn. The mythic sorcerer can also cast any wizard spell of 5th level or lower by spending a mythic point, has 10 of fire resistance and +3 on all mental stats without taking any penalties on the physical due to age and can no longer die of old age.
I have actually run a mythic campaign and had no trouble challenging my players, but it was not a published AP. I created the campaign myself and encouraged the players to optimize as much as the wanted. The opponents were equally if not more optimized than the players. I actually had to scale back a few opponents. The mythic vampire antipaladin was just too much even for a mythic paladin.
Adding mythic is wonky for the power add. The first couple of tiers seem to grant the most shenanigans. Compare 12 with 1 tier to 10 with 5 tiers.
We're running a group of 4. 2 paladins, 1 cleric and 1 conjurer/ fighter/ arcane archer. I'm the arcane archer and specifically not power gaming every level. I'm the weakest of the group, but I can spend a couple of mythic points and deal 90 damage automatically with mythic magic missile and my maximize metamagic rod. I'm rarely targeted, but if I am, I pull a Loki and make it so it was an illusionary image that was hit and I teleport 30' away. The paladins have a contest to see who can do the most damage. One is a crit-monster that always confirms and can reroll attack rolls or something broken like that. The other paladin has a couple of abilities that let him basically move anywhere on the battlefield he wants because he can get his movement up to over 100 BEFORE I cast Haste. Now, we jst got tier 6, and he took the ability that lets him take a full attack after moving. LOL WTF??
The DM has started maxing out HPs or, in a couple of cases, adding 300+ to the HPs and increasing AC so combat will last longer than one or two rounds.
We've played other APs and, while they can be easy in some cases, they aren't normally a walk in the park like this is. We fought a mythic dragon, and I don't think it ever got to attack. If it did, it wasn't memorable. Of course, a lot of this is decided on dice rolls, but still. It seems waaaay too easy. Like I said, it feels like it was never play-tested. It's like they just came up with a bunch of cool god-like abilities, put them on paper and said, "Okay. Print it".
Just being mythic is a huge boost so there is some validity in the early levels being the most significant, but some of the later abilities are very strong. At 3rd level you gain Recuperation which allows you to fully heal after 8 hours of rest. You can also regain all limited use class abilities by spending a mythic point and resting for an hour. Mythic saving throw means you can often ignore many non-mythic abilities. Gaining tier 3 and 6 also unlocks more powerful mythic path abilities.
Being able to add metamagic feats to all spell cast for 10 rounds without using a higher level spell or increasing the casting time makes blasters incredibly tough. Being able to increase the damage dice and add an extra 5 dice means that low level spells still remain viable at high levels. An intensified mythic burning hand does 10d6 damage with a 1st level spell. An intensified augmented mythic fire ball can deal up to 25d10 damage and ignore fire resistance and immunity.
It depends on what you think mythic's purpose is.
If you think of it as "more rules, especially for high-level play, like 3.5e epic", oh yes, it's so very, very broken.
But if you think of it as "more rules, for telling the tales of legendary characters whose deeds will be told for centuries", they're very functional.
Challenging mythic PCs or making them feel threatened is difficult, yes. But if you're okay with the interesting bit being using interesting over-the-top abilities, without the constant threat of character death... it's fun.
The issue we're having with the Mythic rules and Wrath of the Righteous is, we're not concerned with the battles. It's either a race to see who kills the bad guys faster or a competition to see who can pull of the coolest maneuver. Even fighting the other mythic critters, so far, aren't a challenge at all. Like when we fought the mythic dragon a few levels ago. We were so concerned that we quickly buffed and unloaded with our most damaging abilities and killed it in one round.
We were doing arena fights and those were a lot of fun because we had to purposefully hold back and try and make the combats last longer. We weren't taking all of our attacks and not buffing or using spells to seriously mess with the enemies. The challenge was NOT to kill them too fast.
Don't get me wrong, I like wading through bad guys on occasion, but when there's no threat in any combat, the thrill kind of fades.
It seems strange that they would write an AP just for players to mop the floor with enemies with no challenges.
Yes, there are issues with the PF1 mythic rules. It can significantly increase the power level of mythic PCs; even more so with certain choices of mythic feats and path abilities.
However, the Wrath of the Righteous AP makes this imbalance worse:
1) The NPCs, even though they are not mythic, provide added support that is not compensated for in the encounter CRs; and
2) The treasures available include numerous powerful magic items and even artifacts at a higher rate than most APs.
In addition to being mythic, the PCs have more help and better magic items than most APs. Also, too many of the encounters seem to be against single enemies; which is an issue even without mythic (or added NPC support).
The guidelines in the mythic rules state that the CR for a mythic character is increased by half their mythic tier.
I do think it’d be closer to correct if it was 1+half(mythic tier) to CR if they have any mythic added.
Yeah. I feel like, if the mythic rules were used in a homebrew adventure where the GM sets the encounters, it could be better balanced.
So, the mythic rules could work if thought was put into the encounters. The AP is what wasn't balanced.
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While it is accurate to say Mythic is "broken", it's a little more complex than that. Mythic turbo-charges the offensive side of the system, but does not counterbalance it on the defensive side very effectively. This creates very fast-paced and deadly combat, where battles can swing wildly in a single turn. This is further exacerbated by the system leaning heavily on swift/immediate actions, which has a number of consequences. Because immediate actions are one per turn, it's much easier to overwhelm a target's defenses since they can only use a mythic defense once. It makes being flat-footed more brutal than usual. It also creates class-based balance issues, as some classes run into action economy issues because of this. Something like a Fighter doesn't normally need swift or immediate actions so it's no problem, but something like a Swashbuckler runs into issues.
Now, it is absolutely possible to create challenging mythic campaigns, but it is very difficult and requires a lot of GM experience since the sweet spot is very narrow. It also requires players to understand that this is a very lethal rules variant where offensive power is high and PC's are relative glass cannons. A good or bad roll at an opportune time can always shift the tides of battle, but these shifts are far more dramatic in mythic and can easily result in a player death. It's a very unique style of campaign, one I found very interesting and challenging to GM effectively, but also one I can't recommend. It was too over the top, and I needed to overcompensate to challenge my PC's.
This brings us to Wrath of the Righteous. As others have already mentioned, AP's are designed to be accessible for players of all skill and optimization levels. They aren't meant to be hard, and if played as written should not result in PC deaths. This runs completely counter to what mythic is, and when you try to force that design philosophy into a mythic campaign you get a boring slog where the enemies are completely and totally outclassed by the PC's. I don't think Paizo had a good option here, and while it's debatable as to whether they took the right path in the circumstances it's understandable given the lack of expertise with the mythic system at the time that the erred on the side of caution and created an overly-conservative difficulty level.
Now, with all that said I do think the Mythic rules really excel in one place: When you use them on antagonists. When used carefully by an experienced GM, a mythic enemy is one that breaks the rules and surprises players and presents a truly dangerous foe. Mythic is a great tool to mechanically communicate to the players that their adversary is another league, that the rules that apply to them are merely guidelines to this opponent. It's an alternative to big numbers as a means of intimidating the players mechanically. Moreover, with only one enemy being mythic the action economy advantage doesn't break the bank. It's a great tool to have, and I've taken to using mythic opponents fairly regularly in my campaigns where it's merited.
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Legendary Games' "Mythic Solutions" tackles a number of problematic rules in Mythic Adventures and does a LOT to tone down the PF1 Mythic landscape.
I highly recommend it.
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Legendary Games' "Mythic Solutions" tackles a number of problematic rules in Mythic Adventures and does a LOT to tone down the PF1 Mythic landscape.
I highly recommend it.
It seems interesting. For people who don't want to open another account in another platform a link to the same product on Paizo's forum.
The DM has started maxing out HPs or, in a couple of cases, adding 300+ to the HPs and increasing AC so combat will last longer than one or two rounds.
we've been doing this in our "normal" games, plus adding some Advance's to the bad guys for years. Pathfinder AP's (and normal CR rules) seem to be built around 4 low to moderately experienced players, playing non-optimized characters, and still being able to win most of the time. Any level or player experience and/or character optimization, seems to really swing the power level far into the players favor.
It's not hard to build Normal characters that can do some of the things you list. A Magus can use any of the various teleport spells and make a full attack, a Monk can get his speed up to 100. Confirming every crit is a bit more difficult, but you can make it pretty easy to confirm. there are some Rogue Talents that allow the "loki" trick.
I haven't played Mythic yet, but it's coming up in our list, so I've been reading over the rules, and it seems to me that quite a few of the things you can get from Mythic, are already available to other classes. I just finished a campaign with an exploiter wizard, who could change the element of any spell, something he can do with this first exploit, but there's a mythic talent that allows the same thing.
So while I see lots of people say mythic is broken, I see that a lot of normal characters can do quite a bit of the same stuff.
So, I've been playing Pathfinder 1e since the Beta was released. I was partial owner of a game store and dove right into it.
We're finally getting into Mythic rules playing Wrath of the Righteous. I know... We're a little late to the party, to say thr least.
We're 14th level and 6th tier and we haven't had any real challenges except when the DM massively beefs up the bad guys.
It kinda seems like Mythic rules weren't really playtested. Anybody else have these issues?
The short answer is yes. Mythic is broken and unless a GM massively modifies enemies to deal with an optimized mythic party everything will be a cakewalk. Even with highly optimized enemies, it can basically boil down to who has better initiative. As player characters are capable of dealing thousands of damage with their mythic abilities, the game quickly just becomes "I go first, I win" because optimized mythic enemies have the same problems.
I won't personally touch PF1 mythic rules.