[E6][Mythic] What would a game like this look like?

[Mr Adventurer]

E6 3.5 characters and NPCs
All the monsters in the MM are present in the setting, but if they are higher than CR 9 or so they are mostly unique creatures of legend or incarnate gods (though no Divine Rules are used i.e. no Divine Rank)
After reaching level 6, characters unlock the ability to become Mythic, using the Pathfinder rules of that name

I guess the main question I have is "does the game collapse if only PCs have Mythic rules (no Mythic monsters)?"

And, "does sufficient Mythic Rank and E6 feats allow a party to take on challenges in the CR 10 to 20 range?"

[MisterKaws]

1) Having PCs stronger than entire kingdoms usually leads to murderhobo behavior. It can be good or bad, depending on what you and your party like to do.

2) After about CR10, you end up having to fight monsters with abilities that pretty much require you to have specific spells to counter them. With enough feats, you can of course just boost saves high enough that these abilities never come up, but every monster will basically have a couple of abilities with a 5% chance of instantly killing your PCs, with no room for resurrecting them unless you let them use spells of levels 4 and up. However, I think Mythic mitigates this a bit with its ability to boost rolls and all that, though it is still an issue. As long as you stay away from the more egregious monsters in that aspect(looking at you, Beholder), you should be fine.

[Biggus]

And, "does sufficient Mythic Rank and E6 feats allow a party to take on challenges in the CR 10 to 20 range?"

IIRC each mythic rank is supposed to be worth about half a level, so at level 6 and mythic rank 10 you're theoretically around level 11 equivalent. As for additional feats, I'd say maybe about 3 or 4 feats are worth a level, depending on how good the feat is, so eventually you might be able to get up to about level 14 equivalent. As MisterKaws says though, it depends a lot on the individual monster, some CR14 creatures will still be extremely hard to beat because the spells or items you need are not available.

[Serafina]

Certain Mythic abilities allow you to cast spells or spell-like abilities based off your Mythic rank.
The main example would be the Divine Source Universal Path Ability (https://www.aonprd.com/PathAbilities.aspx?Path=Universal) - you eventually get up to four domains (two potentially tied to your alignment) and four subdomains, and can cast one spell from each spell level, 1-9.

Unless you ban such abilities, they'd eventually break the usual E6 restriction against high-level magic.
Such magic would be available to all classes (Divine Source is available to every path and thus character), and highly thematic, and it wouldn't really be flexible (you're restricted to the domains you picked, and to domains available). But it'd still be spells of 4th level and above in a game that otherwise does not have such things.

[Mr Adventurer]

1) Having PCs stronger than entire kingdoms usually leads to murderhobo behavior. It can be good or bad, depending on what you and your party like to do.

What part of what I described does that? The Mythic levels? Could you expand a little on why that is?


2) After about CR10, you end up having to fight monsters with abilities that pretty much require you to have specific spells to counter them. With enough feats, you can of course just boost saves high enough that these abilities never come up, but every monster will basically have a couple of abilities with a 5% chance of instantly killing your PCs, with no room for resurrecting them unless you let them use spells of levels 4 and up. However, I think Mythic mitigates this a bit with its ability to boost rolls and all that, though it is still an issue. As long as you stay away from the more egregious monsters in that aspect(looking at you, Beholder), you should be fine.

OK, that makes sense - something to be aware of for the DM, and for the players to know there's always a risk of pitting themselves against these creatures of legend even if they are mythic themselves!


IIRC each mythic rank is supposed to be worth about half a level, so at level 6 and mythic rank 10 you're theoretically around level 11 equivalent. As for additional feats, I'd say maybe about 3 or 4 feats are worth a level, depending on how good the feat is, so eventually you might be able to get up to about level 14 equivalent. As MisterKaws says though, it depends a lot on the individual monster, some CR14 creatures will still be extremely hard to beat because the spells or items you need are not available.

Wait, really? I haven't looked at the book lately, but I'm sure I remember seeing abilities in there which far outstrip any class feature (except high level spells, of course - but even then...). Only half a level each doesn't "feel" right, is there a citation for that?

I'd be comfortable with "extremely hard to beat".

Have you got any particular CR 14+ monsters where you think this would be true?


Certain Mythic abilities allow you to cast spells or spell-like abilities based off your Mythic rank.
The main example would be the Divine Source Universal Path Ability (https://www.aonprd.com/PathAbilities.aspx?Path=Universal) - you eventually get up to four domains (two potentially tied to your alignment) and four subdomains, and can cast one spell from each spell level, 1-9.

Unless you ban such abilities, they'd eventually break the usual E6 restriction against high-level magic.
Such magic would be available to all classes (Divine Source is available to every path and thus character), and highly thematic, and it wouldn't really be flexible (you're restricted to the domains you picked, and to domains available). But it'd still be spells of 4th level and above in a game that otherwise does not have such things.

That's a great point, thank you. I think it would be OK to allow E6 characters to have the kinds of things you describe, in the context of the setting I am thinking of. Those high level magics do exist - powerful monsters have them - so it's really only "mortals" who don't normally have that cap to the power of their abilities. Mythic would allow them to break that cap.

[MisterKaws]

What part of what I described does that? The Mythic levels? Could you expand a little on why that is?

You asked a "what if" in case the PCs were the only Mythic characters in the world. That's what I'm saying. Not having Mythic NPCs can lead to the players having the ability to simply raze kingdoms to the ground. If you want your players having that sort of power, that's okay, but if not, that's something to consider when populating the setting.

[Mr Adventurer]

You asked a "what if" in case the PCs were the only Mythic characters in the world. That's what I'm saying. Not having Mythic NPCs can lead to the players having the ability to simply raze kingdoms to the ground. If you want your players having that sort of power, that's okay, but if not, that's something to consider when populating the setting.

OK, thanks for the clarification.

Are there particular Mythic powers or abilities that you are thinking of here?

[MisterKaws]

OK, thanks for the clarification.

Are there particular Mythic powers or abilities that you are thinking of here?

The whole thing. PCs a few levels higher than the maximum-level NPC in a region are often so much qualitatively stronger than everything they can just stomp them into the ground. E6 reduces that issue by removing these qualitative changes(mostly higher-level spells/powers/mysteries/utterances/invocations/vestiges/chakras). But then when you add Mythic, you reintroduce a lot of them, and having them be exclusive to players heavily induces murderhobo behavior.

Again, if your players and you are good with that, it's not a problem, but otherwise, governments have to be able to deal with this sort of thing. However, that also means cities can definitely deal with the mythic monsters that pop up without the players' help. It is your job to decide why they don't do that themselves. Who knows, maybe it's a matter of convenience, and mobilizing the city guard out of the capital takes too long, and leaves the city defenseless, so they can't do that unless it is a major issue.

If you know your players enough to know they won't just go murderhobo, you might then want to slowly give them more power, until they indeed have the power to level entire countries, but any fleshed-out ruler should continue trying to maintain methods to defend against them regardless.

[Biggus]

Wait, really? I haven't looked at the book lately, but I'm sure I remember seeing abilities in there which far outstrip any class feature (except high level spells, of course - but even then...). Only half a level each doesn't "feel" right, is there a citation for that?


OK, I looked it up, I was getting it slightly confused. Mythic ranks are what monsters have, and they are officially worth +0.5CR per rank:

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/mythic/mythic-monsters/

PCs have mythic tiers, which are slightly different:

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/mythic/mythic-heroes/

However, they are also officially worth +0.5 levels per tier:

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/mythic/running-a-mythic-game/#Sidebar_Adjusting_CR_and_Level

I agree with you though, mythic tiers seem like they're worth more like a whole level each to me, but I'm no expert so I might be overestimating them.

[Psyren]

I think it's an interesting idea - and keep in mind also that Mythic, unlike regular class levels, can be completely temporary or geared at a specific purpose. You as the GM can stop advancement or even take it away entirely at any point if you want to keep the PCs in check. There's some bookkeeping associated with that (it's not like a videogame where you can flip the "IsMythic=1" toggle after all) but one idea might be that the PCs only have access to their Mythic abilities for a very limited amount of time, when they're in a specific location, or when they're wielding specific divine items that can't simply be taken anywhere. By doing that, you eliminate the geopolitical concerns of the PCs having access to powers beyond those of a typical E6 party when they're not facing down the BBEG or their more powerful minions.

As for the abilities themselves, I'm not as well-versed in which ones might be tough for an E6 game to deal with - I'd recommend something like CTP's Mythic handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?316045-PF-CTP-s-Guide-to-Mythic-Adventures) to get a read on them.

[Mr Adventurer]

The whole thing. PCs a few levels higher than the maximum-level NPC in a region are often so much qualitatively stronger than everything they can just stomp them into the ground. E6 reduces that issue by removing these qualitative changes(mostly higher-level spells/powers/mysteries/utterances/invocations/vestiges/chakras). But then when you add Mythic, you reintroduce a lot of them, and having them be exclusive to players heavily induces murderhobo behavior.

Again, if your players and you are good with that, it's not a problem, but otherwise, governments have to be able to deal with this sort of thing. However, that also means cities can definitely deal with the mythic monsters that pop up without the players' help. It is your job to decide why they don't do that themselves. Who knows, maybe it's a matter of convenience, and mobilizing the city guard out of the capital takes too long, and leaves the city defenseless, so they can't do that unless it is a major issue.

If you know your players enough to know they won't just go murderhobo, you might then want to slowly give them more power, until they indeed have the power to level entire countries, but any fleshed-out ruler should continue trying to maintain methods to defend against them regardless.

OK, thanks. Since this goes back to the premise of the game, I'm not worried about inappropriate behaviours - it'll be part of the pregame discussion.

As mentioned, I won't be using Mythic versions of monsters, just the ones out of the MM (though I reserve the right to customise them slightly).


OK, I looked it up, I was getting it slightly confused. Mythic ranks are what monsters have, and they are officially worth +0.5CR per rank:

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/mythic/mythic-monsters/

PCs have mythic tiers, which are slightly different:

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/mythic/mythic-heroes/

However, they are also officially worth +0.5 levels per tier:

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/mythic/running-a-mythic-game/#Sidebar_Adjusting_CR_and_Level

I agree with you though, mythic tiers seem like they're worth more like a whole level each to me, but I'm no expert so I might be overestimating them.

Wow, yeah. I guess the Mythic levels don't directly increase your Attack Bonus, saves, skill points, or class features. But, still. On the other hand, it's probably not wise to just equate Mythic Tier with class levels anyway, since they're such a different measure of power.


I think it's an interesting idea - and keep in mind also that Mythic, unlike regular class levels, can be completely temporary or geared at a specific purpose. You as the GM can stop advancement or even take it away entirely at any point if you want to keep the PCs in check. There's some bookkeeping associated with that (it's not like a videogame where you can flip the "IsMythic=1" toggle after all) but one idea might be that the PCs only have access to their Mythic abilities for a very limited amount of time, when they're in a specific location, or when they're wielding specific divine items that can't simply be taken anywhere. By doing that, you eliminate the geopolitical concerns of the PCs having access to powers beyond those of a typical E6 party when they're not facing down the BBEG or their more powerful minions.

As for the abilities themselves, I'm not as well-versed in which ones might be tough for an E6 game to deal with - I'd recommend something like CTP's Mythic handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?316045-PF-CTP-s-Guide-to-Mythic-Adventures) to get a read on them.

Thanks :). It's something I've had rolling around in the back of my mind for ages now - I had a thread on this concept, less the Mythic aspect, a little while back.

Revisiting CTP's thread with E6 in mind, it's great to see some general commentary on the different Mythic abilities, but the E6 context would change a lot of the analysis quite a lot (you generally won't get those higher level spells that can obviate the usefulness of some Mythic abilities, for example).

[Biggus]

On the other hand, it's probably not wise to just equate Mythic Tier with class levels anyway, since they're such a different measure of power.


Yes, and like class levels they won't all be of exactly equal value, but you do need some way of estimating the equivalent average party level for purposes of XP for example.

[Selion]

You need to remove high level spellcasting from mythic abilities. Divine source gives domain spells up to level 9, so it will break the game.
Let's see what a mythic sorcerer can do without trying too much.
Mythic magic missile deals 2d4+1 damage/bolt and bypasses shield and similar effects.
At mythic level 4 the augmented version doubles the number of bolts and bypasses SR and immunities, the range becomes "line of sight"
so empowered (mythic feats for +75% damage) mythic magic missile is 63 average damage.
If you are mythic 6 you can further improve it with channel power, which increases the damage of 50% (base damage? enpowered damage? Mythic powers are a mess, so we don't really know)
So, assuming you multiply all the spell damage you have 94 average unblockable damage with unlimited range.
I think that in a raw damage department he's superior to a level 9 sorcerer, who according to rules is the same CR of a level 6 sorcerer/mythic 6 (2 mythic tiers equate one level, apparently ), but higher level spellcasting would probably make it even, who knows.