Pathfinder Mythic Immortal accidental killing weirdness

[Fiery Diamond]

I just felt like talking to the void about something that was bugging me. In Pathfinder 1e, with the Mythic rules, at tiers 9-10, you gain the ability to come back to life 24 hours after you're killed, and can only be permanently killed by a coup de grace or critical hit from another mythic character (or a weapon capable of bypassing DR/Epic or an artifact). Where this gets a little silly is that, as written, your enemies don't actually want to kill you with regular attacks or magic, because you'll come back. They want to knock you out and coup de grace you. But if you've got the ability to remain conscious at negative HP, they can't do that with regular damage dealing.

So picture this: you're facing against a mythic character wielding an artifact weapon and he kills you. Then he goes, "Oops, I didn't mean to do that! Now he'll be back tomorrow! Hopefully I'll get a critical hit next time, or at least not roll so high!"

That's... dumb. It makes far more sense to me that if you have a corpse left, they can "coup de grace" the corpse to the same effect as a real coup de grace. The idea of accidental overkill or using blasting spells being bad things when trying to kill someone is just doesn't sit right with me.

Okay, rant over.

[Rynjin]

I think it's perfectly fitting with the "exact wording" stuff most immortals are known for.

[Biggus]

It's a bit vague about how the return to life works, for example: if your body is more or less intact, do you come back to your original body or get a new one? If it's the former, they could restrain your body and be ready to CdG you when you wake up.

Also, stuff like Trap The Soul should work normally AFAIK.

I agree it's a bit weird though. Tbh I think a lot of the mythic stuff wasn't as well thought through as most PF material.

[Zanos]

I think it makes sense. In most cases when you're fighting a creature with resurrective immortality you don't want to kill them, you want to seal or disable them until the means are at hand to permanently eliminate them. Getting a lich, for example, into a dimensionally locked forcecage is certainly preferable to reducing his hits points to zero. Similarly here, it's preferable to disable the mythic character so you can guarantee a kill later. Stabbing a mythic immortal through the heart isn't sufficient to disable him so badly that you can more or less kill him whenever you feel like it. And overkilling his dead body isn't going to help, because his soul has already left.

If this was replaced by something like regeneration only overcome by mythic characters it would be a pretty anemic ability, since by mythic 9 anything that is going to be bringing you into danger of death probably has mythic ranks.


It's a bit vague about how the return to life works, for example: if your body is more or less intact, do you come back to your original body or get a new one? If it's the former, they could restrain your body and be ready to CdG you when you wake up.

Also, stuff like Trap The Soul should work normally AFAIK.

I agree it's a bit weird though. Tbh I think a lot of the mythic stuff wasn't as well thought through as most PF material.
Much like 3.5 epic, I doubt much thought was put into mythic other than 'numbers big' and 'cool ability that breaks rules.' I seriously doubt any mythic 9+ characters were actually killed during playtesting. The ability is pretty terrible if they can just throw your body in a pool of acid and let you die from immersion damage every day.

[Fiery Diamond]

I think it makes sense. In most cases when you're fighting a creature with resurrective immortality you don't want to kill them, you want to seal or disable them until the means are at hand to permanently eliminate them. Getting a lich, for example, into a dimensionally locked forcecage is certainly preferable to reducing his hits points to zero. Similarly here, it's preferable to disable the mythic character so you can guarantee a kill later. Stabbing a mythic immortal through the heart isn't sufficient to disable him so badly that you can more or less kill him whenever you feel like it. And overkilling his dead body isn't going to help, because his soul has already left.

If this was replaced by something like regeneration only overcome by mythic characters it would be a pretty anemic ability, since by mythic 9 anything that is going to be bringing you into danger of death probably has mythic ranks.


Much like 3.5 epic, I doubt much thought was put into mythic other than 'numbers big' and 'cool ability that breaks rules.' I seriously doubt any mythic 9+ characters were actually killed during playtesting. The ability is pretty terrible if they can just throw your body in a pool of acid and let you die from immersion damage every day.

This (the bolded bit) is also a problem. Personally, I think that just scrapping the ability of a mythic character to do anything different to you than a non-mythic one and locking it to "must use artifact" would be the ideal solution, TBH. If you wanted to keep mythic people more relevant, make it impede using resurrection magic. If I were rewriting the ability, I'd make it something like this:

At 9th tier, if you are killed, you return to life 24 hours later, regardless of the condition of your body or the means by which you were killed. When you return to life, you have 1 HP and aren’t treated as if you had rested, and don’t regain the use of abilities that recharge with rest until you next rest. If your body is completely intact and in a non-deadly location, your soul returns to your original body; otherwise, a new body is created at the closest non-deadly location to the place where you died. This ability doesn't apply if you are killed by a critical hit or coup de grace by a weapon capable of bypassing epic damage reduction (the weapon must be an artifact if you are at 10th tier). If your body is at least partly intact and you have not yet resurrected, using a weapon capable of bypassing epic damage reduction (or an artifact at 10th tier) to destroy the remains also prevents you from returning to life through this ability. If the one wielding the weapon is mythic, your soul is destroyed and can only be returned via wish or miracle.


As for the first part of what you said: that's what having the appropriate weaponry on hand represents: having the means to permanently eliminate them. Accidentally rolling too high shouldn't invalidate that, nor should someone having "stays conscious at negative HP" and something like freedom of movement to prevent them getting tied up. That's why I think locking it to the weapon rather than "weapon or mythic" makes sense, along with having a stipulation for if you killed them already.