Epic/Mythic God Tier

[Ualaa]

TLDR - What high level resources do you like?
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My next campaign will be in two phases:


~~~~~ Phase 1 ~~~~~

The first starts the game out (at Gestalt 4 || 4), with the option of +CR templates (up to +3 worth) eating levels on both sides of the Gestalt.
Fairly strong build rules, the strongest I've used in a campaign so far, but also starting at relatively low levels (4th).
We're using Ultimate Spheres of Power (as a caster, you need to use the Sphere system); Spheres of Might and Path of War seem to be the most popular martial options.

The first stage of the campaign runs to somewhere around 20th or 25th level, culminating in the heroes defeating the despotic "God-King".
Levels are tied to sessions played, so the players will ultimately choose when they're ready to tackle an evil god, but I'm estimating at least 20th level but maybe later.
In the process of his defeat, they directly (and the world indirectly) absorb some of his mythic power, and the game becomes mythic going forward.

It turns out, while being a despot he was also holding the world in an isolated state; no planar travel to or from the world.
With his death, that is no longer true, and the world becomes accessible.
There are coveted resources hidden away, and external threats want them...


~~~~~ Phase 2 ~~~~~

This is where it gets fun (crazy)...

The characters are at least Gestalt 20 || 20, maybe a bit higher.
I've got ideas for 5 level bracket challenges, that will take them to 50 || 50.

They're Mythic Tier 1 at the start of this stage.
If they kill something of higher Mythic Tier, the least mythic of them advances one tier.
If they kill something of lower Mythic Tier, randomly one of them increases in mythic power (based on the Tier slain... more mythic points, or add a mythic feat, ability or +2 untyped stat increase).
This will be by "Highlander" style Quickening.
They can actively hunt down mythic creatures; whether they go that route or not, many mythic creatures/NPCs will be hunting them (and others).

For Mythic:
- Mythic Adventures (Paizo)
- Mythic Hero's Handbook (Legendary Games)
- Mythic Character Codex (Legendary Games)
- Mythic Spheres of Power (Drop Dead Studios)

The ultimate goal will be for a pantheon to form, consisting of the Player Characters and the allies they make, having saved the world from the external threats (that the God-King was holding off) and vanquishing rivals who would also want to form their own pantheon, becoming the Gods.

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I'll be borrowing/using material from:
- Book of Immortals (Mongoose)
- D&D Immortals Set BECMI (Frank Mentzer)
- Deities & Demigods (Wizards of the Coast)
- Epic Level Handbook (Wizards of the Coast)
- Godbound (Crawford)
- Immortals Handbook: Ascension (Eternity Publishing)
- High-Level Campaigns (Wizards of the Coast)
- The Primal Order (Wizards of the Coast)
- Wrath of the Immortals (TSR)

Beyond those resources, would you recommend anything else?
I have all Paizo/Pathfinder(1e) books already.

[Biggus]

And I thought I had a lot of epic/mythic/deific books...

I don't have anything to add to the list I'm afraid, but I would like to ask your opinion of The Book of Immortals, The Primal Order, Mythic Hero's Handbook, Mythic Character Codex and Mythic Spheres of Power as I don't have any of those.

Also may I say I admire your optimism in starting a 46-level campaign...

[Ualaa]

Mythic Hero's Handbook, Mythic Spell Compendium and Mythic Monster Manual were part of a kickstarter. There are hero lab files for these three, if a group uses those.

Our group prefers the Spheres of Power magic system, so the Mythic Spell Compendium isn't used at all.
I believe the goal for these three was for the first five (or maybe seven) Paizo hardcovers (Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Equipment, Ultimate Magic, Advanced Player's Guide etc) to have a mythic version of each of their feats, spells etc.

The base Mythic Adventures has quite a few examples, but misses a lot as well.

Legendary Games later did a second kickstarter, with the Mythic Character Codex and Mythic Monster Manual II included, which expanded the mythic options greatly.
I believe most of the Paizo hardcovers have versions.

These volumes also cover content from Dreamscarred Press (notably mythic psionics), Kobold Press, and Rogue Genius Games.

Mythic Hero's Handbook adds: the Genius, the Living Saint, and the Stranger, to the Paizo options: Archmage, Champion, Guardian, Hierophant, Marshal, and Trickster. Character Codex adds: Path of the Bound, Path of the Mystic and Path of the Reluctant Hero.

The two main books also introduce mythic class abilities, based on the thematic abilities of the classes. Between the two books, they cover most (seems to be all) of the Paizo classes, with several of the classes from Kobold Press and Rogue Genius Games.

Taking Paizo's Mythic Adventures as a balance point, the balance is in line with existing material while expanding the options dramatically.
That is especially true if you use the chapter, 'Mythic Solutions', which has identified a lot of issues for mythic games and usually presented three options that reduce the rocket-tag like elements.

I'm fairly familiar with the first volume, Mythic Hero's Handbook, but am just reading through the Mythic Character Codex... so am not as familiar with that volume.

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Mythic Spheres of Power is available on Drive Thru, but without a print on demand option (at least not when I bought it).

It mentions using the five Legendary Games mythic books, along with the Spheres system and Mythic Adventures as sources.

It talks about creating mythic traditions, which more or less are boons and drawbacks that are more beneficial and more limiting than the traditional ones.

It presents the Spheremaster mythic path, which with only really a cursory look seems to be in line with the other mythic paths from the other three books (Mythic Adventures, Hero's Handbook, Character Codex).

It gives mythic class options for the Spheres of Power classes (Armorist, Elementalist, Eliciter, Fey Adept, Hedgewitch, Incanter, Mageknight, Shifter, Soul Weaver, Symbiat, Thaumaturge, Wraith and Bokor (the Spheres prestige class)).

The remaining quarter of the book talks about Mythic Problems/Solutions, similar to the Mythic Hero's Handbook, but specifically from a Spheres of Power perspective.
A lot of that is overlap, although from a different book by another publisher.

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I've not really delved far into Book of Immortals or the Primal Order.

Book of Immortals seems to be similar to, but another publishers take on, the D&D Immortals Set.
This seems to focus on having the characters serve the gods and their domains at a level beyond an epic character; haven't read much of it yet.

Primal Order was written by Wizard's of the Coast, but designed to be system neutral and work with most of the gaming systems that were out at the time of it's publication.

It presents Primal Energy and Primal Flux as a focus of a system, and gives a bunch of options that you can do with that energy.

There are divine ranks (more so that Deities & Demigods) with minions, godlings, demigods, supported demigods, lesser deities, greater deities and supreme deities.

Haven't really read this one, just browsed the PDF.

[Buufreak]

There's Mythic Paths of the Lost Spheres. © 2014, Lost Spheres Publishing. From the PFD20SRD.

[Biggus]

lots

Thank you for taking the time to write those detailed reviews!

[Doctor Despair]

If you're planning this sort of campaign, I'm sure you have a good-natured group that won't abuse these features, but be careful with Epic Spellcasting and the divine salient ability Alter Reality. Both of those can absolutely be game-changers and obviate a lot of challenges you plan with clever use.

[Ottriman]

I am someone who has read Immortals Handbook: Ascescion and have some things to say on it.

Firstly: I recall it using some mechanics from the third edition Epic Level Handbook so you might want to get that one too for some basic mechanics (epic spells and the scaling of basic features).

That out of the way, let me discuss some of the pros and cons.

Pros

1. There are some pretty nice and thematic epic feats plus divine abilities in this book that give a character real powers that aren't the usual 3,5 boring stuff of bigger numbers.
2. It has simple rules for scaling up a characters effective size by virtue of their strength and thus one can eventually play Kratos and wrestle down kaiju as a normal sized guy, which is hella nice. Although this might have been in the immortals bestiary instead, I don't remember at the moment. Actually upon further inspection that one is in the complementary bestiary.
3. The production quality and editing is pretty good for what amounts to a free fan product, although it isn't especially cool by professional standards.

Cons

1. This book uses epic magic from the epic level handbook and stuff and thus imports the most busted bit of the original epic level handbook.
2. The balance of abilities in this book is not great. For example Metamartial combat is basically metamagic for fighters, but it comes with gigantic to hit penalties that are almost never worth it. Meanwhile there are feats that let you get more feats for every near death experience, gain free metamagic and gain the ability to overcome critical hit resistance/immunity. That is just the tip of the iceberg, you must be very damn careful about what abilities are and are not allowed.
3. Overall this book (and it's complementary bestiary) tends to be very focused on making things "epic" by giving them stupidly huge numbers (CR 100! +117 longsword!) with this effect getting stupider the further along you go (it's not so bad for the first 10-20 levels after 20).
4. In my opinion the book presents a very rigid hierarchy of divine power that feels a bit strange to me.
5. At least the pdf I got had no bookmarks. Not sure if that was just how I happened upon it or if it'll also be like that for you.

Hope this helped.

[Ualaa]

Buufreak
More options!
Thank you.

Doctor Despair
Thank you for the warning... it's good to be on the lookout for potential issues.
I'm fairly sure it will get crazy as it progresses, with a goal of 50||50 gestalt, mythic 10...
But nice to have potential problem abilities identified early before they're an issue.

Ottriman
Thank you for the review of the Immortals Handbook.

I'll be the DM, so pretty much choose what is available.
Going in, the players basically figure that they're Gestalt, and will take classes up to maximum level of a given class and then switch to a new class.
They're aware that somewhere around 20th, they'll start to be mythic as well.

Anything from the High-Level Campaigns, Epic Level Handbook, Immortals Handbook, Godbound, etc, will be extra stuff I throw in to expand options or provide adversaries and such.

[Ottriman]

Buufreak
More options!
Thank you.

Doctor Despair
Thank you for the warning... it's good to be on the lookout for potential issues.
I'm fairly sure it will get crazy as it progresses, with a goal of 50||50 gestalt, mythic 10...
But nice to have potential problem abilities identified early before they're an issue.

Ottriman
Thank you for the review of the Immortals Handbook.

I'll be the DM, so pretty much choose what is available.
Going in, the players basically figure that they're Gestalt, and will take classes up to maximum level of a given class and then switch to a new class.
They're aware that somewhere around 20th, they'll start to be mythic as well.

Anything from the High-Level Campaigns, Epic Level Handbook, Immortals Handbook, Godbound, etc, will be extra stuff I throw in to expand options or provide adversaries and such.

Alright, so long as you keep you eyes peeled this shouldn't be impossible to balance.

[Melcar]

I'll be borrowing/using material from:
- Book of Immortals (Mongoose)
- D&D Immortals Set BECMI (Frank Mentzer)
- Deities & Demigods (Wizards of the Coast)
- Epic Level Handbook (Wizards of the Coast)
- Godbound (Crawford)
- Immortals Handbook: Ascension (Eternity Publishing)
- High-Level Campaigns (Wizards of the Coast)
- The Primal Order (Wizards of the Coast)
- Wrath of the Immortals (TSR)

Beyond those resources, would you recommend anything else?
I have all Paizo/Pathfinder(1e) books already.

"On Hallowed Ground", a Planescape splat book!

[Ualaa]

If anyone is interested in Epic sources, I've found a book to add to the list.

Suzerain (by Savage Mojo), written for both their system and Pathfinder 1e.
I cannot find a print copy at the FLGS or on Amazon.
But there is both the PDF and Print on Demand on Drive Thru.

The first third of the book is player friendly material, and it's Suzerain setting.
You can download that for free, to see if it's worthwhile.

The remainder of the book is the GM material.
That has a cost, but has the entire book in it.

- - - - - - - - - -

Reading through, The Primal Order seems more geared for actual deities.
Codifying what they can do, and the abilities they have as deities.
Or the abilities they can select.

It's interesting, but more for building a pantheon kind of thing.
Or if the players ever get on the bad side of a deity.

Interesting book, and mostly system neutral.
A bit at the end for adapting to other systems.

There are other books (PDFs) on Drive Thru that expand that system though.

- - - - - - - - - - -

I'm leaning towards arc one, the characters eventually overthrow the God-King.
They end up absorbing his essence and become Mythic Tier 1.

Through his efforts, the Prime Material plane was off limits.
This would be the first plane or maybe the only prime plane.
Not sure on that, but other powerful creatures are interested...
And with the death of the God-King, they can access this world.

Mythic is kind of like Highlander, where you need to kill for the Quickening.
Will do something where the least mythic hero gains a tier if the opponent was of a higher tier.
Or if the opponent wasn't higher tier, then a random hero gains some mythic attribute... based on the relative tier of the slain enemy (a Mythic Point, a Mythic Feat, a Mythic Ability, or Mythic Attribute Points... a character can take a lesser reward if they want).
So ultimately, could end up with characters who have a lot more Mythic Power Points or other mythic stuff than is typical.

Suzerain suggests tying those abilities to levels, with 1st to 15th gaining their abilities.
I'm thinking of using this as a parallel system, and tied to levels entirely.
LV 21 Neophyte, LV 22-23 God-Touched, upwards to LV 30 Demigod.

Then using Godbound (Sine Nomine Publishing) as advancement beyond LV 30.
I'd do that in addition to continuing the mythic stuff.
Not really sure how mythic the group would be having done 10 levels (approximately 30 sessions of play (our sessions are 8-14 hours, weekly)).
With one tier gained per mob (who was a higher tier) per character, and probably seven or eight regular players... that would be as few as (2nd-10th, 9 tiers) 9 x 8 (players) = 72 mythic opponents.

Not all opponents will be a higher tier...
The initial waves, the forerunners or vanguard that access our plane would be Tier 1-4 maybe.
Lots of those initially.
Then fewer bosses, so the group may not be Tier 10 by Level 30, but the Suzerain stuff is tied entirely to levels, so they have those abilities and some kind of Mythic (probably Tier 4 or maybe Tier 8 range) and likely a lot more mythic points, feats etc than would be typical for their tier.

Godbound would need a bit of translation.
It's based on OSR rules and seems to be a pretty good system.
It would likely run quite well as it's own game.
One of the basic assumptions is 10 AC to start, and that improves downwards, like AD&D 2nd did.
The 'Words of Creation' are supposed to be quite epic, so I'd like them to translate to Pathfinder terms as massively overpowered for 20th level characters, but ideally something that fits in by Gestalt 40:40 (so four classes at 20th) and Mythic 10.
Perhaps amongst the stronger options, even at that point.
So some translation necessary.

There is an expansion, 'Lexicon of the Throne', with more of the Words of Creation and rules for making your own.

[DigitalOverlord]

If anyone is interested in Epic sources, I've found a book to add to the list.

Suzerain (by Savage Mojo), written for both their system and Pathfinder 1e.
I cannot find a print copy at the FLGS or on Amazon.
But there is both the PDF and Print on Demand on Drive Thru.

The print copy of Suzerain Legends is currently unavailable but Savage Mojo are running a Kickstarter campaign to fund the printing of the latest version. People who sign up for news about the campaign at playsuzerain.com get a free adventure, whether they decide to back it or not.