JeminiZero
2023-05-22, 08:19 AM
Note: I recognize that Pathfinder Mythic rules are generally unbalanced. I'm NOT saying this is the most powerful Mythic combo ever, and I'm sure you lot can point out far more broken builds to me. All I'm saying is that this is another optimization trick that I have not seen posted anywhere else, which some of you might like to read about. Cross posted to Paizo Forums (https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43t9v?Am-I-reading-this-right-Mythic-Archmage).
As the title suggests, this thread is about the Mythic Archmage's Eldritch Reciprocation, a path ability you can pick up from T6 onwards. Firstly, this is the ability:
You can choose to take extra damage from an arcane spell to replenish mythic power. When you are hit by or fail a saving throw against an arcane spell that deals hit point damage, as an immediate action you can choose to take damage as if that spell were affected by the Maximize Spell feat. If the spell’s damage can’t be increased by the Maximize Spell feat or is already under the effect of the Maximize Spell feat, you instead take double damage from it. The spell’s damage ignores your spell resistance, energy resistance, energy immunities, and other protections against damage.
If you take at least 25 points of damage from the spell, you regain one use of mythic power.
Most of the guides I've seen, rate this ability poorly.
From CTP's Guide to Mythic Adventures (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?316045-PF-CTP-s-Guide-to-Mythic-Adventures)
Eldritch Reciprocation (passive): If this didn’t require an immediate action and replenished more than 1 use of Mythic Power at a time, it would still be terrible. You don’t want to be hurt; no amount of MP is worth that, especially when you can just be a badass and go fishing for Boons.
From Mythic Archmage Path (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cUbN24sMknjNWz7kj1vXgZTRF9fs3Gj-m5jubXETlFM/edit) (Alternate Link (https://feeneygames.github.io/PFGuideArchive/archive/Mythic%20Archmage%20Path/MythicArchmagePath.html))
Eldritch Reciprocation: Ugg, yuck, regain mythic power in exchange for taking maximized damage from spells, and you have to take at least 25 damage for it to work? Ok, forget this one folks, it’s not worth it, generally I’d rather avoid damage then take damage even for extra mythic power.
This ability seems pretty powerful to me. Nothing about it states that it must be used in Combat. And if used outside combat, gaining Mythic Power from damage can be beneficial, if you can also use Mythic Power to heal yourself for more than the damage taken.
Eldritch Reciprocation can be turned into a strong ability, using a series of steps detailed below. And there is even a final trick which pushes its power to absurd levels.
Incendiary Cloud + Eldritch Reciprocation (ICER)
Let's say you are a Wizard or Sorcerer Mythic Archmage with Wild Arcana.
Using Wild Arcana (or your own spell slots but let's assume Wild Arcana for now), cast Greater Aggressive Thundercloud, Greater Flaming Sphere or Incendiary Cloud. (The rest of this post assumes you use Incendiary Cloud for the final trick, but Thundercloud and Flaming Sphere both work outside the final trick).
Hit yourself with your own Arcane spell, and intentionally fail your save. This qualifies you to use Eldritch Reciprocation. You take 6d6 maximized = 36 damage, and regain 1 Mythic Power. But, you can't do this indefinitely, you need to heal up in between.
Staff of Heal+ Enhance Magic Items (SHEMI)
For this step you need Enhance Magic Items, some ranks in UMD, and a Staff with the Heal spell costing 1 charge. You can then UMD the staff and spend 1 Mythic Power instead of Staff Charges. Thus, you can heal yourself far more than the 36 damage, netting a profit (remember that Enhance Magic Items lets you add half tier to Staff CL). So long as you can hit the UMD DC20 even on a natural 1, you can keep using the staff without risk of failure.
So at Tier 6, when you can first pick up Eldritch Reciprocation, you can take 108 HP damage for 3 Mythic Power, and then spend 1 Mythic Power to UMD the Staff of Heal to restore 110 HP (8 minimum stave CL + 3 Enhance Magic Items). In practice, the actual numbers are a bit less favorable than this, because a Sorcerer/Wizard's total HP at CL12/MT6 won't be that high. But even a regain-2-spend-1 Mythic Power ratio works well enough for most purposes.
ICER-SHEMI effectively gives you limitless Mythic Power outside of combat. You can start fights with nearly full Mythic Power (minus the 1 used to Heal yourself back to full HP). And the investment to achieve this isn't that costly. To recap, you need:
*Wild Arcana (Which is the best Archmage Arcana anyway)
*Eldritch Reciprocation
*Enhance Magic Item and enough ranks in UMD (Both of which are useful anyway, outside this combo)
*A Staff of Heal (Technically available as a Staff of Life (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/staves/staff-of-life/), but that is probably way too expensive. And you are unlikely to be able to buy a custom Staff with just Heal. You probably have to take Crafting Mastery, and make this yourself with the help of any Divine Caster who can cast Heal. But as with EMI+UMD, Crafting Mastery is a solid ability to have on its own anyway).
Comparison against Channel Power and True Archmage
Arguably, ICER-SHEMI is strong, but not absurdly strong. Mythic Tiers already include Recuperation, letting you recover full spell slots between fights. Provided your spells known/spell prepared choices are good, starting combat with (nearly) full Mythic Power and full Spell Slots is great, but comparatively speaking, not vastly superior to starting combat with less Mythic Power and full Spell Slots.
Hence, a case could be made that the Nova-bility of Channel Power makes it a better pick at Tier 6 than Eldritch Reciprocation. Of course, you could (eventually) squeeze both Path Abilities into your build.
Ultimately, it is somewhat campaign dependent as to which Path Ability works better. If you have 15 minute adventuring days, then you are unlikely to run out of Mythic Power anyway and Channel Power will work better for you. If instead, you are racing the doomsday clock, then being able to recharge Mythic Power and distribute it to the rest of your party (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/mythic/mythic-magic/mythic-spells/restore-mythic-power/) will become a better choice.
At Tier 10, you automatically gain True Archmage. This lets you recharge Mythic Power anyway and makes Eldritch Reciprocation sort-of redundant. (Specifically, a True Archmage can Summon a bunch of Lillends and ask them to cast their Bard spells at the Archmage to recharge Mythic Power).
The Final Trick: Augmented Mythic Time Stop
But at Tier 10, another ability also becomes available, which changes the ICER-SHEMI combo from strong to absurd.
Time Stop has the wording: "Normal and magical fire, cold, gas, and the like can still harm you." Which means you can use ICER-SHEMI to damage yourself and recharge Mythic Power inside Time Stop as well. True Archmage cannot do this, or at least not as easily. Monsters summoned within Time Stop, can only act only during "normal time" and hence remain frozen relative to you.
So you can stop time for hrs/CL, use the combo above for rechargeable Mythic Power, and then spend that Mythic Power to flood the battlefield with thousands of Delayed Fireball Blasts (or whatever else you fancy). You should grab Elemental Spell or Mythic Energy Conversion in case you are up against Fire Immune enemies, and probably Channel Power to punch through any SR short of Magic Immunity.
And if one casting of Augmented Mythic Time Stop for 20 subjective hrs isn't enough, you can spend your ample Mythic Power to cast it again. And again. And again.
Other Classes
Technically, a Druid has access to both Heal spell and Greater Flaming Sphere/Aggressive Thundercloud. Hence a Druid with Heirophant Inspired Spell and Eldritch Reciprocation can perform the combo above. (No need for Enhance Magic Items or a Staff of Heal). However, Druids lack Time Stop/Incendiary Cloud as native spells and hence cannot pull off the final trick.
Other ways of recharging Mythic Power within Time stop
Zepheri (https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43t9v?Am-I-reading-this-right-Mythic-Archmage#6) has pointed out that the Hierophant Tier 10 Divine Vessel capstone, also lets them regain Mythic Power within Time Stop. The exact text is:
At 10th tier, whenever you cast a spell that targets one or more non-mythic creatures, those creatures must roll twice for any saving throws associated with the spell and take the lower result. Whenever you are healed of hit point damage by a spell or effect, you are healed for the maximum possible amount. You also gain DR 10/epic. Once per round when you take more than 20 points of damage (after damage reduction is applied), you regain one use of mythic power.
Technically, this stacks with ICER-SHEMI above, so you could take Hierophant as your main Mythic path, and take Dual Path (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/mythic/mythic-feats/dual-path-mythic/) to pick up Archmage Path Abilities. You could then recharge 2 Mythic Power, each time you take 25 (or more) damage. But this isn't strictly necessary, because if your generated Mythic Power from one Augmented Time Stop is not enough, you could simply cast Augmented Time Stop multiple times instead.
As the title suggests, this thread is about the Mythic Archmage's Eldritch Reciprocation, a path ability you can pick up from T6 onwards. Firstly, this is the ability:
You can choose to take extra damage from an arcane spell to replenish mythic power. When you are hit by or fail a saving throw against an arcane spell that deals hit point damage, as an immediate action you can choose to take damage as if that spell were affected by the Maximize Spell feat. If the spell’s damage can’t be increased by the Maximize Spell feat or is already under the effect of the Maximize Spell feat, you instead take double damage from it. The spell’s damage ignores your spell resistance, energy resistance, energy immunities, and other protections against damage.
If you take at least 25 points of damage from the spell, you regain one use of mythic power.
Most of the guides I've seen, rate this ability poorly.
From CTP's Guide to Mythic Adventures (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?316045-PF-CTP-s-Guide-to-Mythic-Adventures)
Eldritch Reciprocation (passive): If this didn’t require an immediate action and replenished more than 1 use of Mythic Power at a time, it would still be terrible. You don’t want to be hurt; no amount of MP is worth that, especially when you can just be a badass and go fishing for Boons.
From Mythic Archmage Path (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cUbN24sMknjNWz7kj1vXgZTRF9fs3Gj-m5jubXETlFM/edit) (Alternate Link (https://feeneygames.github.io/PFGuideArchive/archive/Mythic%20Archmage%20Path/MythicArchmagePath.html))
Eldritch Reciprocation: Ugg, yuck, regain mythic power in exchange for taking maximized damage from spells, and you have to take at least 25 damage for it to work? Ok, forget this one folks, it’s not worth it, generally I’d rather avoid damage then take damage even for extra mythic power.
This ability seems pretty powerful to me. Nothing about it states that it must be used in Combat. And if used outside combat, gaining Mythic Power from damage can be beneficial, if you can also use Mythic Power to heal yourself for more than the damage taken.
Eldritch Reciprocation can be turned into a strong ability, using a series of steps detailed below. And there is even a final trick which pushes its power to absurd levels.
Incendiary Cloud + Eldritch Reciprocation (ICER)
Let's say you are a Wizard or Sorcerer Mythic Archmage with Wild Arcana.
Using Wild Arcana (or your own spell slots but let's assume Wild Arcana for now), cast Greater Aggressive Thundercloud, Greater Flaming Sphere or Incendiary Cloud. (The rest of this post assumes you use Incendiary Cloud for the final trick, but Thundercloud and Flaming Sphere both work outside the final trick).
Hit yourself with your own Arcane spell, and intentionally fail your save. This qualifies you to use Eldritch Reciprocation. You take 6d6 maximized = 36 damage, and regain 1 Mythic Power. But, you can't do this indefinitely, you need to heal up in between.
Staff of Heal+ Enhance Magic Items (SHEMI)
For this step you need Enhance Magic Items, some ranks in UMD, and a Staff with the Heal spell costing 1 charge. You can then UMD the staff and spend 1 Mythic Power instead of Staff Charges. Thus, you can heal yourself far more than the 36 damage, netting a profit (remember that Enhance Magic Items lets you add half tier to Staff CL). So long as you can hit the UMD DC20 even on a natural 1, you can keep using the staff without risk of failure.
So at Tier 6, when you can first pick up Eldritch Reciprocation, you can take 108 HP damage for 3 Mythic Power, and then spend 1 Mythic Power to UMD the Staff of Heal to restore 110 HP (8 minimum stave CL + 3 Enhance Magic Items). In practice, the actual numbers are a bit less favorable than this, because a Sorcerer/Wizard's total HP at CL12/MT6 won't be that high. But even a regain-2-spend-1 Mythic Power ratio works well enough for most purposes.
ICER-SHEMI effectively gives you limitless Mythic Power outside of combat. You can start fights with nearly full Mythic Power (minus the 1 used to Heal yourself back to full HP). And the investment to achieve this isn't that costly. To recap, you need:
*Wild Arcana (Which is the best Archmage Arcana anyway)
*Eldritch Reciprocation
*Enhance Magic Item and enough ranks in UMD (Both of which are useful anyway, outside this combo)
*A Staff of Heal (Technically available as a Staff of Life (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/staves/staff-of-life/), but that is probably way too expensive. And you are unlikely to be able to buy a custom Staff with just Heal. You probably have to take Crafting Mastery, and make this yourself with the help of any Divine Caster who can cast Heal. But as with EMI+UMD, Crafting Mastery is a solid ability to have on its own anyway).
Comparison against Channel Power and True Archmage
Arguably, ICER-SHEMI is strong, but not absurdly strong. Mythic Tiers already include Recuperation, letting you recover full spell slots between fights. Provided your spells known/spell prepared choices are good, starting combat with (nearly) full Mythic Power and full Spell Slots is great, but comparatively speaking, not vastly superior to starting combat with less Mythic Power and full Spell Slots.
Hence, a case could be made that the Nova-bility of Channel Power makes it a better pick at Tier 6 than Eldritch Reciprocation. Of course, you could (eventually) squeeze both Path Abilities into your build.
Ultimately, it is somewhat campaign dependent as to which Path Ability works better. If you have 15 minute adventuring days, then you are unlikely to run out of Mythic Power anyway and Channel Power will work better for you. If instead, you are racing the doomsday clock, then being able to recharge Mythic Power and distribute it to the rest of your party (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/mythic/mythic-magic/mythic-spells/restore-mythic-power/) will become a better choice.
At Tier 10, you automatically gain True Archmage. This lets you recharge Mythic Power anyway and makes Eldritch Reciprocation sort-of redundant. (Specifically, a True Archmage can Summon a bunch of Lillends and ask them to cast their Bard spells at the Archmage to recharge Mythic Power).
The Final Trick: Augmented Mythic Time Stop
But at Tier 10, another ability also becomes available, which changes the ICER-SHEMI combo from strong to absurd.
Time Stop has the wording: "Normal and magical fire, cold, gas, and the like can still harm you." Which means you can use ICER-SHEMI to damage yourself and recharge Mythic Power inside Time Stop as well. True Archmage cannot do this, or at least not as easily. Monsters summoned within Time Stop, can only act only during "normal time" and hence remain frozen relative to you.
So you can stop time for hrs/CL, use the combo above for rechargeable Mythic Power, and then spend that Mythic Power to flood the battlefield with thousands of Delayed Fireball Blasts (or whatever else you fancy). You should grab Elemental Spell or Mythic Energy Conversion in case you are up against Fire Immune enemies, and probably Channel Power to punch through any SR short of Magic Immunity.
And if one casting of Augmented Mythic Time Stop for 20 subjective hrs isn't enough, you can spend your ample Mythic Power to cast it again. And again. And again.
Other Classes
Technically, a Druid has access to both Heal spell and Greater Flaming Sphere/Aggressive Thundercloud. Hence a Druid with Heirophant Inspired Spell and Eldritch Reciprocation can perform the combo above. (No need for Enhance Magic Items or a Staff of Heal). However, Druids lack Time Stop/Incendiary Cloud as native spells and hence cannot pull off the final trick.
Other ways of recharging Mythic Power within Time stop
Zepheri (https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43t9v?Am-I-reading-this-right-Mythic-Archmage#6) has pointed out that the Hierophant Tier 10 Divine Vessel capstone, also lets them regain Mythic Power within Time Stop. The exact text is:
At 10th tier, whenever you cast a spell that targets one or more non-mythic creatures, those creatures must roll twice for any saving throws associated with the spell and take the lower result. Whenever you are healed of hit point damage by a spell or effect, you are healed for the maximum possible amount. You also gain DR 10/epic. Once per round when you take more than 20 points of damage (after damage reduction is applied), you regain one use of mythic power.
Technically, this stacks with ICER-SHEMI above, so you could take Hierophant as your main Mythic path, and take Dual Path (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/mythic/mythic-feats/dual-path-mythic/) to pick up Archmage Path Abilities. You could then recharge 2 Mythic Power, each time you take 25 (or more) damage. But this isn't strictly necessary, because if your generated Mythic Power from one Augmented Time Stop is not enough, you could simply cast Augmented Time Stop multiple times instead.