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Archives of Nethys

Archives of Nethys

Pathfinder RPG (1st Edition) Pathfinder RPG (2nd Edition) Starfinder RPG

Rules Index | GM Screen | Player's Guide
War of Immortals / Mythic Rules / Designing Mythic Encounters

1st-5th Level

Source War of Immortals pg. 85
The abilities mythic characters gain at early levels let them apply mythic proficiency only to skill and Perception checks. Though some of these abilities have combat purposes (such as the guardian's Calling's ability to attempt Disarm, Reposition, and Shove checks at mythic proficiency), the characters' mythic abilities generally won't be adding significant amounts of extra damage to the PCs' attacks. The major ways that mythic play differs from standard play at this level are in the PCs' general survivability and their ability to excel at certain types of tasks during exploration and downtime mode.

As a GM running a mythic game, you might present your party with more hard or very hard skill checks during exploration mode, especially when those checks directly relate to a party member's Calling. Encounters: You should build and run combat encounters normally, as described in GM Core. If the players are finding combat to be too easy and nonthreatening, stop using trivial-threat encounters, and use fewer low-threat encounters; however, avoid using extreme-threat encounters or more than one severe encounter per day in game since these encounters are still weighted against the party, and the PCs have minimal resources to increase their advantage against such powerful and overwhelming threats.

As normal for this level range, remember that severe- threat encounters are better deployed as a boss enemy whose level is no more than the PCs' level plus 2, with supporting lower-level monsters. If the story of the encounter strongly indicates that the boss should be a solo threat, don't increase its level, but replace the lower-level monsters with similarly leveled complex hazards or a larger number of simple hazards. These hazards can help make the fight interesting and unique without making the game too lethal to be enjoyable.