Using Mythic Rules [PF]

[Tanuki Tales]

The other week I ran a one shot with a friend from out of town and my cousin. It was just a simple dungeon crawl in a randomly generated dungeon and it had been suggested that I make their character's Mythic tier 1 to up their survivability and such. Well, the session was really fun and though I originally had zero interest in ever using the Mythic rules in my games, I took a shine to them.

I have an idea for doing a game for my regular group where they're in the nascent stages of becoming an entirely new pantheon of gods (probably going to run it as some kind of Ur-spark held amongst them so it can be just stored and choose a new host if one of them bites it) and I want to start them at level 1, Mythic tier 1 and hopefully end up with them as level 20, Mythic tier 10 before closing everything off with them ascending.

Getting on to the point of this thread now:

What are the opinions of other GMs on the Mythic rules and how did you go about utilizing them? What kind of trials did you create to help your player's increase in tiers and how did they go about completing them? Do you have any interesting stories to share? Any horror stories?


Thank you in advance for any feedback/advice/what-have-you shared in this thread. :smallsmile:

[Talya]

I haven't played with them yet, but I absolutely love the concept. If you ever wanted to play a campaign where beowulf really can wrestle a dragon and win, this is the ruleset for you.

I hope to try them out soon.

[Tanuki Tales]

I haven't played with them yet, but I absolutely love the concept. If you ever wanted to play a campaign where beowulf really can wrestle a dragon and win, this is the ruleset for you.

I hope to try them out soon.

I'd love to hear how it turns out.

[Psyren]

Have you read CTP's Mythic Handbook? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=316045)

[Alleran]

Have you read CTP's Mythic Handbook? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=316045)
And if you haven't, then you should. Just be warned that the higher tiers will do some very strange things to the game. To the point that the only thing capable of killing the characters will be the GM fiating artifacts and the like into the hands of enemies.

[CockroachTeaParty]

Disclaimer: most of the stuff from the guide has yet to be tested in actual play. Most of my guide is informed conjecture. If I can ever get to try them in actual play someday, I'll probably update the guide; if you wind up trying it yourself, please share your experiences!

[Reinkai]

I would recommend having an open discussion with your players when you're running a mythic campaign. Ask them to talk to you about what abilities they're thinking of taking so you can plan accordingly.

For example:

11 Fighter 10 Champion

Power attack vit strike aerial attack: 3d8 + 135
crit: 7d8 + 797

Things can escalate quickly.

[malonkey1]

I like it a lot for campaigns centered specifically around characters with great destinies, such as demigods, or the Avatar, or an-alien-savior-who-shall-remain-unnamed-because-he's-simply-too-powerful-and-can-only-be-defeated-with-frelling-green-rocks, but for high-power campaigns centered around insanely seasoned/skilled, but otherwise normal individuals, I go with high-level play. I have my own homebrew rules for epic levels that I like to use, but I'm not wanting to post them on this forum until I've polished them. Long story short, when you max out a class, it's maxed out and you have to level up elsewhere, but you can take PrCs to advance non-full casters to eventually hit level 9 spells. Also, I don't use epic spells. Too ridiculous.

[Tanuki Tales]

Have you read CTP's Mythic Handbook? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=316045)

No, but I've read most of it now! Thanks! :smallsmile:


And if you haven't, then you should. Just be warned that the higher tiers will do some very strange things to the game. To the point that the only thing capable of killing the characters will be the GM fiating artifacts and the like into the hands of enemies.

I'll keep that in mind, though the planned antagonists were going to be the already existing gods. :smalltongue:


Disclaimer: most of the stuff from the guide has yet to be tested in actual play. Most of my guide is informed conjecture. If I can ever get to try them in actual play someday, I'll probably update the guide; if you wind up trying it yourself, please share your experiences!

I definitely will! Though keep in mind that my group isn't very high op or anything. I'm the only one who knows how to actively optimize and my "accidental munchkin" is only in-state when his college isn't in session.


I would recommend having an open discussion with your players when you're running a mythic campaign. Ask them to talk to you about what abilities they're thinking of taking so you can plan accordingly.

For example:

11 Fighter 10 Champion

Power attack vit strike aerial attack: 3d8 + 135
crit: 7d8 + 797

Things can escalate quickly.

Can you break down the exact build for those numbers please?


I like it a lot for campaigns centered specifically around characters with great destinies, such as demigods, or the Avatar, or an-alien-savior-who-shall-remain-unnamed-because-he's-simply-too-powerful-and-can-only-be-defeated-with-frelling-green-rocks, but for high-power campaigns centered around insanely seasoned/skilled, but otherwise normal individuals, I go with high-level play. I have my own homebrew rules for epic levels that I like to use, but I'm not wanting to post them on this forum until I've polished them. Long story short, when you max out a class, it's maxed out and you have to level up elsewhere, but you can take PrCs to advance non-full casters to eventually hit level 9 spells. Also, I don't use epic spells. Too ridiculous.

Depending on the writer of course, same goes for magic. :smalltongue:

I'd love to see your epic rules when they're finished.

[Reinkai]

I don't have access to the sheet right now, but it was either 20 or 25 point buy, aasimar fighter, took mythic power attack, mythic vit strike, mythic death from above, and aerial assault as a champion. Basically all of that stacks together, and any flat damage modifiers get multiplied by the number of vital strike dice (as well as multipied due to using a 2h weapon) and then by the critical modifier. Power attack gets multipied by the number of dice and then by 8.

It adds up very quickly. It wasn't even an optimized build (reasonably certain it was prompted by Thor 2), using a Warhammer, few magical items other than a belt of str +6, and a couple of other typical magical items.

[Tanuki Tales]

I don't have access to the sheet right now, but it was either 20 or 25 point buy, aasimar fighter, took mythic power attack, mythic vit strike, mythic death from above, and aerial assault as a champion. Basically all of that stacks together, and any flat damage modifiers get multiplied by the number of vital strike dice (as well as multipied due to using a 2h weapon) and then by the critical modifier. Power attack gets multipied by the number of dice and then by 8.

It adds up very quickly. It wasn't even an optimized build (reasonably certain it was prompted by Thor 2), using a Warhammer, few magical items other than a belt of str +6, and a couple of other typical magical items.

Was he an Aasimar variant that gave a racial bonus to Strength?

[Reinkai]

I don't believe so, no. However, he did have massive bonuses to str from 10 tiers of mythics. I believe he was over 30.

[Tanuki Tales]

Alright, math time:

So we're assuming the following:
18 base Strength
All the tier ability increases went to Strength (so that's +10)
+6 strength from an item.
All the level up ability increases went to Strength (so that's +2)
He has Mythic Power Attack, Mythic Vital Strike and Mythic Death from Above as feats.
He chose Aerial Assault as one of his path abilities
He's using a warhammer two-handed (we're going to assume it's a +3 warhammer, since most of his WBL went to that belt).


So, what does this give us?

Said Odinson has 36 Strength, which means a +13 bonus.
When two-handing his Warhammer, his damage is 1d8+22.
When using Aerial Assault, this changes to 1d8+1d6+22 to 1d8+10d6+22 depending on how high the creature is.
When using Mythic Death from Above (which I don't really see interacting that much with Aerial Assault unless it's a purely aerial combat, but I'll assume it's stacking here), the damage doesn't change, but the Warhammer's crit modifier changes to x5.
When using Mythic Power Attack, this changes to 1d8+1d6+35. (I'm going to assume the low end of Aerial Assault for the rest of this.)
When using Mythical Vital Strike, this changes to 1d8+1d6+2d8+70. [Vital Strike is two weapon dice].
When he critical hits, this all turns into 6d8+1d6+2d8+288

So without a critical hit, the damage is ranging from 74 to 100. With a critical hit, the damage is ranging from 297 to 358.

Can someone please check my math?

Edit: I messed up calculating the crit results.

[CockroachTeaParty]

Yeah, Mythic Vital Strike can produce some scary numbers by a strict RAW interpretation; I believe RAI might have been different, but it's still brutal. A theoretical 20th level fighter Tier 10 Champion I slapped together easily averaged some 700-800 damage a round, and had a potential damage of close to 3,000.

Certain powerful Mythic monsters have Mythic Vital Strike, and can pump out similar numbers; I fear that high-level mythic becomes an even more absurd game of Rocket Tag.

Personally, I'm interested in seeing how Mythic characters fare when fighting Hastur or Cthulhu...

[Karoht]

I'm planning on running Carrion Crown pretty soon. I plan on giving the players 1 mythic level for completing the second book, and then possibly one for the 3rd or 4th (one or the other but not both), and we'll see where things are at after that. I'm going to give the party no more than 3 Mythic levels over the course of the entire module. There are in-universe reasons why I will be granting this to the party.

Mind you, I might give certain baddies a single mythic level and no more. Mostly for some tactical considerations, IE-Marshal and their Advance path ability would be amazing when lower level, but kind of meh at higher levels.

The theory is that at low level, a single Mythic level at low level (sub 10) provides some interesting perks to a party, the sort of stuff you really want at low level, but not so potent as to be game breaking. I also am a fan of Mythic Surge as opposed to Hero Points.

[Seerow]

I don't generally play Pathfinder, but I've considered for the next game I run to cherrypick out the Mythic rules and give mundane characters access to Mythic abilities, and see if that does anything to help them keep up.

[Tanuki Tales]

I don't generally play Pathfinder, but I've considered for the next game I run to cherrypick out the Mythic rules and give mundane characters access to Mythic abilities, and see if that does anything to help them keep up.

Now there's a thought.

Though I guess I'm lucky in that my group doesn't know how to tap the full wellspring of magic's brokenness. :smalltongue:

[Greenish]

I don't have access to the sheet right now, but it was either 20 or 25 point buy, aasimar fighter, took mythic power attack, mythic vit strike, mythic death from above, and aerial assault as a champion. Basically all of that stacks togetherYou can't use Vital Strike (mythic or normal) with a charge, and Aerial Assault requires a charge, so those won't stack.


Also, hey, is Death Warden's Bandolier a reference to the Old Kingdom series or am I imagining things?

[The Random NPC]

Personally, I'm interested in seeing how Mythic characters fare when fighting Hastur or Cthulhu...

Finished a game this semester, one of my party members accidentally summoned Pazuzu, another party member wished for Cthulhu, since I chose my ship as my Legendary Item and gave it fly I had my +5 siege cannon on me at all times. 6d6+9 turned into 18d6+ 162, then I critted, turning it into 36d6+324. I did around 660 damage in one round, the Barbarian did 300 before me, so Cthulhu went misty, and everyone tried to kill me because I had a Gold Orb of Dragonkind.

[CombatOwl]

The other week I ran a one shot with a friend from out of town and my cousin. It was just a simple dungeon crawl in a randomly generated dungeon and it had been suggested that I make their character's Mythic tier 1 to up their survivability and such. Well, the session was really fun and though I originally had zero interest in ever using the Mythic rules in my games, I took a shine to them.

I have an idea for doing a game for my regular group where they're in the nascent stages of becoming an entirely new pantheon of gods (probably going to run it as some kind of Ur-spark held amongst them so it can be just stored and choose a new host if one of them bites it) and I want to start them at level 1, Mythic tier 1 and hopefully end up with them as level 20, Mythic tier 10 before closing everything off with them ascending.

Getting on to the point of this thread now:

What are the opinions of other GMs on the Mythic rules and how did you go about utilizing them? What kind of trials did you create to help your player's increase in tiers and how did they go about completing them? Do you have any interesting stories to share? Any horror stories?


Thank you in advance for any feedback/advice/what-have-you shared in this thread. :smallsmile:

Mythic is quite unbalanced. Depending on what feats and path abilities you pick, you will either be like unto a god (mythic vital strike, mythic spell focus, etc) or dramatically under-powered against mythic foes (mythic eschew materials).

[Tanuki Tales]

Mythic is quite unbalanced. Depending on what feats and path abilities you pick, you will either be like unto a god (mythic vital strike, mythic spell focus, etc) or dramatically under-powered against mythic foes (mythic eschew materials).

So...you're basically telling me it's like the rest of the game? :smallconfused: