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Looking through the new Mythic rules from War of the Immortals, I've come across a bit of a conundrum regarding how Mythic Resistance works. For those of you who don't know, monsters in a Mythic campaign can be upgraded to special Mythic Monsters using the rules on page 168+ and depending on the monster's level, they will choose from a list of options that that accumulate as the level increase.
At level 1, creating a Mythic Monster has you choose between either Mythic Resiliance (upgrade the degree of success on a specific save, always starting with their highest) or Mythic Resistance. Mythic Resistance reads:
"The creature gains resistance to all Strikes made by non-mythic creatures equal to half its level. If it gains mythic resistance a second time, increase the resistance to its full level. Mythic weapons bypass this resistance even if the creature wielding them is not mythic."
When precisely does Mythic Resistance come into effect? This hinges on what a 'non-mythic creature' is, specifically whether the PCs in a Mythic campaign count as mythic creatures.
- If the PCs with a Mythic Calling *always* count as Mythic creatures, then their strikes always bypass Mythic Resistance. It begs the question - why would a GM ever put this on a creature if it does nothing? More importantly, why is the game specifically making a *choice* between Mythic Resistance and Mythic Resiliance, because Mythic resistance certainly has a big effect on the creature's defenses. This wouldn't make much sense if Mythic Resistance is always bypassed. There is also a feat called Mythic Strike (lvl 10) that lets you Strike at Mythic prof and it "counts as a mythic weapon for the purposes of overcoming mythic resistance or mythic immunity." This is a feat that only Mythic PCs can take - why would it specifically call out bypassing the resistance if PCs were supposed to automatically bypass it anyways?
- If the PCs in a Mythic Campaign do not always bypass the resistance, when is it actually supposed to apply? We know that Mythic weapons always bypass the resistance, but the only examples for Mythic weapons in the book are all level 20 (plus one Ogre Hook, but that belongs to an enemy monster so I doubt it is core progression). We also know that Mythic Strike (lvl 10) allows you to bypass the resistance. But do all strikes at Mythic prof bypass the resistance? Do all abilities with the Mythic trait have their subordinate strikes bypass the resistance?
There's also a possible incongruity on the "Immortal Tricker" statblock - it says the trickster gets Mythic Resistance, but the creature's version says "Mythic Resistance The Immortal Trickster has resistance 11 to all damage from attacks and spells from non-mythic creatures." The previous version of Mythic Resistance only called out strikes, not spells, so is this a special ability of the Trickster or a misprint? Later in the same section, the "Weaver of Webs" statblock grants it Mythic Resistance to 'attacks' rather than just strikes - again, is this a special feature for that specific creature or a misprint?
Then we come to Mythic Immunity, which says: "The creature is immune to either harmful spells cast by non-mythic creatures, or Strikes made with non-mythic weapons and unarmed Strikes from non-mythic characters. Only the most powerful creatures (typically level 25) should be immune to both." This text
What does this feature actually do? If the PCs are not mythic creatures, then it suggests that no spell can ever damage them, but strikes can for some reason. If the PCs are always mythic creatures, then it loops back around to the problems I described when talking about Mythic Resistance.
When does the immunity apply, and how are spell casters in particular meant to interact with it?
Side Note: There's a bizarre rules interaction where theoretically you can summon a creature with a weapon to strike the Mythic Immune foe and do no damage (because the summon's weapon isn't mythic) but if you order your summon to drop their weapon and simply punch the guy, suddenly it bypasses the immunity entirely because they aren't a "character"?
If anyone has come across any official clarification on these feature's I'd love to hear it! I want to add Mythic to one of my games but I'm really stuck as to how it works - I am personally leaning towards the 'PCs aren't always Mythic Creatures' interpretation but I just don't know now.
Thanks!
There is no official clarification that I'm aware of.
When it comes to "are mythic PCs mythic creatures?" I haven't seen a definite answer either way, but I feel like the answer is probably "yes". The rules themselves seem to assume that in other places, like how mythic points are defined as (emphasis mine) "take the place of hero points for mythic characters".
Likewise when it defines mythic proficiency, it talks about it in the context of mythic characters. Do "mythic characters" count as "mythic creatures"? I mean, its possible that the answer is "no", but it doesn't fit with a natural language reading of the text very well.
The flipside is that a feat like Mythic Strike has text saying it counts as mythic for overcoming resistance, which almost never does anything if mythic characters already count as mythic since you need to be mythic to take it. "This text does what is already true in almost all cases" doesn't mean its wrong, but it does create doubt.
I doubt we'll get a definitive answer until the spring errata cycle, so you may just have to run with what you feel like will make the best game for your players. I will say in this area that if mythic resistance is trivially easy to bypass (ie: mythic PCs just do it automatically), it makes mythic resilience feel REALLY bad for caster PCs since there's no way to bypass that at all except "don't use spells against that save". Creatures with this in more than one save are just going to feel miserable.
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I doubt we'll get a definitive answer until the spring errata cycle, so you may just have to run with what you feel like will make the best game for your players. I will say in this area that if mythic resistance is trivially easy to bypass (ie: mythic PCs just do it automatically), it makes mythic resilience feel REALLY bad for caster PCs since there's no way to bypass that at all except "don't use spells against that save". Creatures with this in more than one save are just going to feel miserable.
I'll try some things out while waiting for the errata. In the meantime, I think what you said makes a lot of sense - it just feels weird to let the resistance get bypassed while save effects have their level of success bumped down so massively. Something that balances the two seems more of the intention to me, but I still don't know how to square that with the Invulnerability. I might just try and work out something with my table that ignores the invulnerability except for story reasons.
I noticed that the Mythic rules use 'characters' and 'creatures' in a way that makes them seem like different things - is this distinction made anywhere in the core rules? I don't really recall it being different in the GM Core but I suppose this context is different.
The flipside is that a feat like Mythic Strike has text saying it counts as mythic for overcoming resistance, which almost never does anything if mythic characters already count as mythic since you need to be mythic to take it. "This text does what is already true in almost all cases" doesn't mean its wrong, but it does create doubt.On the other hand, if it really does something, you have 3 attacks per session without resistance. If you don't spend MP on something else. Isn't this too bad to be true actually? MP are restored only by considerable quests ("mythic deeds") otherwise.
Yes, I know not all enemies are required to be mythic. But we could allow at least two mythic enemies per session in a mythic campaign, could we?
I strongly suspect melee characters don't want to (almost) always hit resistance on their attacks either. Well, unless they have mythic weapons. Which aren't that numerous?
Yep, agreed. Plus if it does apply all the time, that means martial characters can't get around it until level 10 (which effectively means the entirety of a 1-10 mythic campaign) and can't use any of their class ability/feat attacks since none of those mix with using Mythic Strike unless they get a mythic weapon.
So in one interpretation its basically irrelevant, and in the other its almost always on unless you are burning mythic points and have a level 10 feat (or have a mythic weapon).
Pick your poison, I guess?