Dealing With Party Failure of the Non-TPK variety

[Toilet Cobra]

I'm in a sort of odd situation in my weekly Pathfinder game. Essentially, I need advice on how to help my players abandon a quest they are no longer qualified for.

Long story short: the players had just gained Mythic power about six weeks ago. Their Mythic power cinched on one of the PCs who was a chosen champion of Milani. They completed their first Mythic trial, but the Warpriest died in the climactic battle (he insisted on challenging the Big Bad in a duel) and Milani withdrew her power from the party. No more Mythic.

However, the party already knows that this trial was just the first leg of a much larger quest line. They have slain the first of three Mythic vampire/demon guys, but now without Mythic power and down a party member, they are hugely unqualified to pursue the second vampire. The Warpriest's player was happy that his character died in the line of battle and got an exalted place in the afterlife, and he has already declared that he intends to have his character ignore any attempts at resurrection (he's since rolled a new character so it's basically a done deal).

MY QUESTION: How to gracefully segue the party off a quest chain that they can no longer accomplish without major hand-holding? They have backup that can take over (The party is hanging around Numeria, they are friends with the Black Sovereign, and there are barbarians, wizards, and paladins galore who would have an interest in killing these vampires). But this quest was the main focus of their characters for a few levels now. It almost feels like their group would hand the reins off to someone stronger and then naturally disband at this point.

So what should I do to soften the sting of failure and move them on to something more their speed? I don't want to just turn the rest of the quest non-mythic (because they'd call BS) and I don't want to fill their party with DMPCs. I also don't want to make the players feel like their efforts (and by extension themselves) are unimportant. They are still interested in pursuing the broad goals they had before, so I don't think they'd go for a totally dramatic change in the campaign's direction.

[TheYell]

Give them a different mythic campaign to work on to "become worthy" of the vampire campaign again. If Milani no longer supports their effort because of a bad decision then they have to bear some responsibility for the consequences. Actively working on a goal should cure the "what-if" blues. And who knows, you may feel at some point that the party has a chance to take another swing at it.

[Red Fel]

So what should I do to soften the sting of failure and move them on to something more their speed? I don't want to just turn the rest of the quest non-mythic (because they'd call BS) and I don't want to fill their party with DMPCs. I also don't want to make the players feel like their efforts (and by extension themselves) are unimportant. They are still interested in pursuing the broad goals they had before, so I don't think they'd go for a totally dramatic change in the campaign's direction.

Let me see that I understand. Things proceeded like this:
Thanks to Party Member X, the party gained Mythic power.
Thanks to Mythic power, the party confronted Mythic challenge 1/3.
Party Member X died. No more Mythic power.
Your position is: Now that there is no more Mythic power, there can be no more Mythic challenges.

My question is: Does the lack of Mythic power now preclude Mythic power in the future?

Think of the comic that gave rise to these forums. Roy's sword was sundered in a battle with Xykon. Did that end Roy's quest to slay Xykon? Did he resolve to settle down and kill kobolds around a farming village until his eventual death of natural causes? No. Roy resolved to repair his sword, regain his power, and resume his quest.

You don't give Mythic power to the PCs once and expect that, if they lose it, it's gone forever. Give them a new opportunity to gain it. So they can't fight the rest of the bosses as they are. They still want to fight them. Offer them the opportunity to gain a new source of Mythic power.

Think about it. The PCs were empowered by Milani. They overcame a Mythic challenge. That draws attention. Perhaps another power-player in the cosmology sees in them the same potential Milani saw. Perhaps they were impressed by the PCs' tenacity. Perhaps one of the powers-that-be is going to engage in a bit of politicking by picking up Milani's cast-offs. Whatever the reason, give the PCs an avenue to regain their Mythic power. No hand-holding - make it clear that the acquisition of Mythic power will still be a major struggle. But point out that they can't hope to defeat these enemies without it.

They'll willingly undertake a side quest if they know it will end with Mythic.

EDIT: And swordsage'd.

[Gallowglass]

If the players truly don't want to abandon this quest why are you forcing them to? The players are supposed to drive the action and make their own choices.

This seems pretty easy. The Warpriest died so their token God withdrew her favor. Have someone feed them the information that "without that favor, they cannot prevail" and let them research options. Eventually they can figure out how to attract the attention and win the favor of another sponsor deity, then they can resume their quest. If God One wanted to enlist a bunch of schmucks to do a quest, there must be other gods willing to do the same.

Or, heck, now that they've been abandoned by their sponsor deity, they are feeling down in the dumps and at loose ends and they get approached BY the second vampire who charms and entreats them to join HIS side. After all, HE'D never abandon them. They he sends them to track down the NEXT bunch of losers that the sponsor deity is raising up to send after the vampire and take THEM out.

If they ignore the information they get and choose to proceed with the quest without seeking a new sponsor (so without mythic power) then that's what they do. They're going to have to be smarter and better prepared to make up for the lack of raw power, but the quest isn't impossible, just harder.

EDIT: also swordsaged.

[Toilet Cobra]

I appreciate the advice from you both, but there's an important detail I forgot in my OP: the party doesn't particularly want Mythic Power back. It was a totally OOC decision, but the prevailing feeling was that it made the game ridiculous and they didn't like it.

After the session where the Warpriest died, I gave the guys a choice: we can try to rez the warpriest, regain mythic power and continue, or we can start new characters and do something else. They responded that they wanted to continue with their current characters but sans any Mythic power. Now a rescue is in the works (even with the Big Bad dead, the remaining party members are trapped in Demon City, deperately sending to anybody they can).

[TheYell]

After the session where the Warpriest died, I gave the guys a choice: we can try to rez the warpriest, regain mythic power and continue, or we can start new characters and do something else. They responded that they wanted to continue with their current characters but sans any Mythic power. Now a rescue is in the works (even with the Big Bad dead, the remaining party members are trapped in Demon City, deperately sending to anybody they can).

Sounds like you got more than one kamikaze player!

[Toilet Cobra]

If the players truly don't want to abandon this quest why are you forcing them to? The players are supposed to drive the action and make their own choices.

The pickle I'm in is the players know the difficulty of the quest (stage 2 of the mythic quest is harder than stage 1) and won't appreciate me watering it down to their non-mythic level. I'm not forcing them either way... I told them straight-up that this would be a challenge for mythic characters and they have chosen as a group not to continue with the mythic rules.

I just want to make the transition away from this crazy quest chain and onto a more level-appropriate one make sense.

[Toilet Cobra]

Sounds like you got more than one kamikaze player!

They have an incredible gift for using logically sound, carefully considered plans to somehow end up in the worst possible situations imaginable. Demon City is just the latest nightmare they've reasoned their way into.

[Gabrosin]

I'll admit I know very little of Pathfinder, but my question is: why did Milani withdraw her blessing when her champion died? Would it not be more appropriate for her to reward the Warpriest's loyal companions, perhaps select one of them to be her new champion? Even if that person worships another deity, if it's one on friendly terms with Milani it could be made to work.

[Toilet Cobra]

I'll admit I know very little of Pathfinder, but my question is: why did Milani withdraw her blessing when her champion died? Would it not be more appropriate for her to reward the Warpriest's loyal companions, perhaps select one of them to be her new champion? Even if that person worships another deity, if it's one on friendly terms with Milani it could be made to work.

This was a compromise we made... basically the party comes from wildly different backgrounds. The Warpriest was a CG dwarf who devoted himself to Milani's ideals; okay, great. But the other party members were a LN Halfing Ninja who was essentially about two minutes from betraying everybody at any time, and a CG Summoner from the planet Castrovel who was there mostly just to see more of Numeria and take pot-shots at the local evil wizards. To answer the question "Why would Milani choose these two goons to be champions along with her Warpriest?" we settled on "Milani chooses the Warpriest, and the Warpriest shares the power with any worthy companions he conscripts into the cause."

That way everybody could play what they wanted, even characters who were not dedicated to Milani's deal, and we could have new characters join the party and gain Mythic power if anybody died. Unfortunately it doesn't work if it's the Warpriest who dies, which is exactly what happened.

[TheYell]

So I guess the point of your campaign is to see how long Butch and Sundance can hold out while the rescue is mounted.

With Butch and Sundance turning down extra firepower as "silly".

[nedz]

It sounds like your players didn't like the Mythic power thing anyway so you are best ditching that - which means that they need more regular power to do the second part of the quest or they have to ditch it.

So you either have to dump that plot line until they are stronger (higher level) or boost them in some other way. I suspect, from what you said about the MP, that they might not like the latter anyway.

I'd be tempted to park this and focus on some other aspect of the setting.

[DarkSoul]

You said they're still interested in pursuing the "broad goals they had before"... how tightly are these goals woven into your mythic storyline? If it's possible to work toward those goals in a different area of the world, I'd get them rescued and move on. "Okay, you spend some time recovering from your ordeal in Demon City. During that time you discover new leads relating to Backstory Details A and D in country X. Oh, and rumor has it some crackpot in that area has figured out how to summon Halfling Ninjas at will."

If they ask about Demon City and the vampires quest line, tell them flat out that either the bad guys win or some mythic-powered group steps in and gets the job done. They're woefully under-powered for mythic enemies and don't want you to water down the encounters, so there's not much they can do but get out of the area.

If none of the players have any goals that don't hinge on aspects of the current storyline, don't want mythic power, and don't want watered down encounters, then they're pretty much relegating themselves to "casualty" status. Or, you drive them out battered and nearly broken, and let them deal with the "what are we going to do now" thoughts that come with being a refugee.

Any way you look at it, what direction the campaign goes is basically up to them since they don't want to switch characters. If they don't realize it on their own, just lay it out for them, and get them thinking up ideas you can run with since they didn't want to pursue the ones you already had for them.

[Alex12]

I'll note that there are other flavors of power, and other sources of power, than mythic.
In terms of power boosts, the most obvious one I can think of is gestalt.
If they're in Numeria, there's all kinds of ways they can gain weird powers- mutagenic radiation and/or chemicals, magic space nanites, Starstone fragments, and so on, and that's discounting that even if one relatively minor goddess withdrew her favor, there's plenty of other gods from all segments of the alignment spectrum who might have their own reasons for empowering a group of reasonably-successful adventurers. Maybe Cayden Cailean decided he likes the cut of their jibs, maybe Asmodeus wants to use them in some plot, maybe Iomedae really dislikes these vampire/demons in particular and they're the group that's closest and most willing to go fight them, and so on.

[Toilet Cobra]

Thank you for the advice, everybody. I've throught it through and I think I will encourage them to leave Mythic Vamp #2 alone, for now, in favor of infiltrating the much-less-defended stronghold where Mythic Vamp #3 "is still being summoned." Since nothing about this leg of the journey has been established in-game yet, I don't think they'll be disappointed if it's not as mythical.

It should still be fairly harrowing, since it'll probably be a no-retreat dungeon run of the Choking Tower. And, as has been suggested, there are plenty of Numeria-specific ways to make them powerful enough to challenge Vamp #2. Particularly the Choking Tower is like, nanite central. Good place for a power boost that could let them handle the rest of the quest.

I have to say that I was fairly shocked that a gang of scheming optimizers like my gaming group didn't care for Mythic Power. I guess they prefer power that they sneak into the game under my nose. :P

[Jay R]

You can also have them learn about the great adventurers who killed vampire #2 while they were busy elsewhere. Then a new quest can appear.

[nedz]

I have to say that I was fairly shocked that a gang of scheming optimizers like my gaming group didn't care for Mythic Power. I guess they prefer power that they sneak into the game under my nose. :P

Maybe it's the difference between power they earn through optimising and the power you just gave them? A lot of the attraction of this game is aspirational as they look forward to their characters developing, if you just give them stuff it's not the same. It's a similar issue to monty haul games.