Why isn't tier 1-only mythic Pathfinder used more often as one of those demigod games like Exalted, Nobilis, Godbound, and Gods of the Fall?
>start everyone at level 5
>arcanist, cleric, druid, shaman, witch, and wizard only
>mythic tier 1
>archmage and hierophant paths only
Voile, a demigod game! You can pull bullshit spells out of your ass with your default path abilities, and you can even grant spells. You don't even need 3pp like DSP to do this.
Because that sounds like a complicated and restrictive way of playing a novel concept in a game that is unsuited for such antics.
/thread
Some games are simple and flexible, and can be easily adapted to many different genres and styles of play.
Pathfinder is not one of those. The only reason to use Pathfinder as the system is if you want to play Pathfinder.
or you could do yourself a favor and stop using the d20 die by actually trying to use those other systems.
Super-mage is a pretty specific fantasy, while all those other games let you go for a whole series of concepts for your often literal demigod.
But more than that, Exalted and Godbound achieve their power fantasy not simply by increasing the numbers for the players, but by making ordinary baseline characters weak for comparison. A level 1 Godbound has about 8 HP and an attack bonus around +4; that's pretty reasonable for a level 1 Pathfinder character as well. The difference is in Godbound insisting that every mortal character that isn't a legendary hero has at most 2 HP. Any competent character, including mortals themselves, can reasonably land that in a single round of combat. That's when having 8HP starts to make your character feel superhuman, and that's before any of the supernatural abilities.
Ever heard of e6 DnD? It's that same mentality applied to 3e DnD (and therefore to Pathfinder, since they are the same game). 99% of everyone is level 1. Mortals, including the PCs, simply cannot ever go past level 6. By starting at level 6 and sticking to making NPCs weaker than that, the PCs feel powerful. (You also avoid the worst of caster imbalance, especially spells that can only be countered by other spells.) You also make things like CR15 Dragons into impossible, city-slaying terrors because there is literally no one who can fight them on even terms.
Might be to your taste.
Mythic Pathfinder tries to achieve the same thing by making PCs that are incrementally more powerful than standard PCs, but it misses the point. It's not about how powerful the PCs are, it's about how powerful they are relative to the setting. Also, as you point out with your class restrictions, Mythic is as balanced as the rest of Pathfinder, i.e. deliberately hardly at all because that's more fun for character building. Ivory Tower Forever.
>A level 1 Godbound has about 8 HP and an attack bonus around +4
Go head over to the Godbound thread, we're talking about how +4 attack is dogshit against the AC low level enemies have.
I know, I see that. Not really relevant to the point I'm making, though. Godbound characters get to feel powerful relative to their opponents, not just by making the numbers big.
There is an expected power vs actual power issue with the whole concept of the Level One Demigod that Godbound suffers from. For the opposite problem, see Exalted. You start as one of the best of the best, and then you Exalt and get better. The game maths creaks under the strain of that. Rolling more d10s than fit in a reasonably proportioned hand is only one part of that problem; there's also the arguments about how many characters and NPCs should be allowed to have five dots in something.
The low level AC vs accuracy thing is legitimately a problem with Godbound, though, given its power fantasy. It could probably be addressed with a houserule that uses armor as DR. In fact, I'll write one up and suggest it in the thread, see if I can get Touhoudude's input.
Because most of the actual "power" of the tier-1 classes is logistical and stretegic.
A wizard never punches someone to the moon. They find someone who can and deliver that person to the targets bedroom. While that can be interesting, a while group of characters who do similar things isn't as fun.
>A wizard never punches someone to the moon. They find someone who can and deliver that person to the targets bedroom.
You've never seen clerics and druids then.
What if I want to be like Hercules and not some faggy caster?
Can they do that without using magic?
Exalted types all use magic. Charms are literally magic, even Solar Charms.
Magic =/= Casting.
It's possible for a character to be supernaturally good at a thing and have parity with a character who is good at a supernatural thing. Those are both superhuman character concepts, but they're not both casters.
Okay, so why isn't it fine to be a druid empowered by nature or a cleric empowered by belief in an abstract cause?
I don't follow. Is it not? I was just agreeing with that there can be a difference between being a caster and being superhuman. What's that got to do with druids or clerics?
This is correct.
>Exalted
>name a bunch of spellcaster classes
You should actually go read Exalted. A big part of it is that it explicitly rejects "spellcasters are king"
All Exalts are magical, but to succeed in combat they have to take the actually fighty-specific powers. Any sorcerer in Exalted who tries to fight using only spells will get his shit kicked in immediately by an equal-tier opponent who focused entirely on swording better because spells are slow compared to swords and don't allow for many active defenses.
Okay, so go play a cleric and buff yourself with Divine Favor, Divine Power, Righteous Might, etc.
Not even close to the same thing.
Why not?
Playing a warrior guy in Exalted in Exalted is about having a bunch of active powers that you mix and match in combat, which thematically are a supernatural expression of your skill.
Basically, Tome of Battle, except that all spellcasters take 2-3 actions to cast every single spell and all the PCs get ultra-strong defenses against save-or-die and save-or-suck effects.
>Catgirl (male)
>stop using the d20 die
Please. d20s have become the name of my exostence, and I fear the day where I need to pick up and use a d20 again.
>I want to play a badly-balanced combat simulator in a hackneyed fantasy setting!
Can't imagine myself ever saying that tbqh
Embrace the muscle mage.
Cast fist.
My group has done that with 3.5.
It was an evil campaign that, as soon as it started getting out of hand, the DM just let it off the leash.
Cleric, two wizards, a druid, and barbarian who we let do that stupid charge twink build. Their black march across the world was hilarious.
At the end they became champions of the dark gods and invaded the blessed fields of Elysium, the campaign ended with them being slain by Pelor. (Though, the DM wrapped up the epilogue by stating they had injured Pelor enough to allow Nerull to overcome the light god once and for all, ushering in an age of eternal darkness etc.)