Grim Tales: Mythic Heroes Rocks!

[Yair]

I don't own Grim Tales, so I'm thinking of how to fit Mythic Heroes into my regular D&D game, and thought this might be a good place to talk about that.

My first concern is how does it work balance-wise in conjunction with usual wealth-by-level D&D guidelines. I got the impression (from page 5's last paragraph) the Mythic Levels are supposed to replace magic items entirely. Looking over their benefits, this seems highly improbable especially at high levels. But I have no experience with this system, so maybe I am underestimating it. If that is the case, surely this is a major bump in the character's power level if both it and wealth-by-level rules are used, and not just the "yet another step" the introduction suggests?
I don't really understand the target audience for this product. The work seems to suggest using Mythic Levels and challenges to replace magic items, and is clearly written for GT owners, but I was under the impression GT did not use the wealth-by-level guidelines. Perhaps I was mistaken?

I am also concerned with the rule that states that action points must be spent before the GM reveals the result of the roll. I find it nearly impossible to enforce, as in my games the DCs are "above the table", so to speak (I just tell the players the AC and so on). This pretty much renders the Prescience mythic ability moot, for example.

Another point is the differences from D&D. I understand that under these rules an action point need be spent to confirm a critical hit; I'm not at all certain on whether to switch to this mechanic or keep the D&D one in place.
I use a variant of Action Points from the www.d20srd.org site in my game, where action points are gained at 5+ECL/2 points per level, not reset to this total. I'm not sure why making everyone have less AP and forcing them to spend them when they near the next level is advantagous. I'm also not sure if combining my AP allotment with the Mythic Level system won't make it too powerful.

There are other quirks in the phrasing and mehcanics that pose less of a problem and I suspect are mainly due to differences between GT and D&D. Things like calling ability scores attributes, the Drive skill, referring to a "core skill list", and so on.

I am of half a mind about it. The concepts seem interesting, but the mythic abilities rather weak and the added book-keeping not incosequential. I'm not sure my current campaign will fit well with the Mythic Journey vibe too.
I'm going to write a review about it. I won't be reading Kajama Lion's until I do.

Yair

 

[BryonD]

I play GT, but I also play D&D with action points.
To me, it is not a big deal. I completely ignore the action points / gear aspect for my D&D game. They got gear and they got action points. This makes them a bit stronger than if I was not using action points. That has never been a problem. I anticipate that adding MH on top of this will be a much smaller shift than adding Action Points in the first place was.
For GT I use the action point to confirm method, but in D&D I use the standard roll to confirm. Again, I don't see it as an issue. It is a difference between GT and D&D that is pretty much transparent as far as MH is concerned. Crits do not compete for APs in my D&D game, that's all. It still works fine.

I would not worry about the prescience thing. If you want to replace it with something else, go ahead, but it is a pretty minor perk, IMO, anyway.

I had a similar issue with the Shadow's Fate Intervines ability. I already allow anyone to spend an action point to stabilize. So I simply decided that this ability put's you back to -1 HP as well.

All in all I think you can apply this to D&D easily. There really should not be any need to change any of your existing rules. If they MH stuff is redundant, just tweak it or even let that be a no ability level. After all, these are bonus abilities. And fairly minor all in all.

For example, just replace "core skill" with adding a permanent class skill. It is effectively the exact same thing.

At $4 it isn't a big gamble anyway......

YMMV

 

[Yair]

I won't be using Mythic Heroes

After considration, and for legal reasons, I won't be using Mythic Heroes in my games so my interest in this product is lost and I won't be discussing it further. I'm sorry to have posted thoughts and interest in adapting it and then backing down from the conversation, but in light of new information this adaptation is just not possible for me.

I wish you all fun using it. It's a great product (as I said in my review).

Yair

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

My first concern is how does it work balance-wise in conjunction with usual wealth-by-level D&D guidelines.

It's very difficult to put a gp price on Action Points, but I did just that, to the best of my ability. In the end I felt that the values I ended up with were just too open to interpretation, so I didn't include the exact information in the product.

But I can tell you that to the best of my estimations:

APs start out MUCH more powerful than you would expect for wealth-by-level guidelines. Around 11th level, the curve evens out, and then it does indeed fall off as you approach the high teens and 20th level.

I felt, however, that I wasn't getting the whole story as a large portion of a high-level character's wealth is tied up in high-price items that stick with him from level to level (as opposed to APs that refresh every level). It might be worthwhile, if I wanted to positively quantify it, to look not at the wealth-by-level figures as a static figure but rather by the amount of increase (~delta) from level to level.

It's complicated by I wouldn't mind sharing my thoughts on it in another thread if anyone is interested.

I am also concerned with the rule that states that action points must be spent before the GM reveals the result of the roll. I find it nearly impossible to enforce, as in my games the DCs are "above the table", so to speak (I just tell the players the AC and so on). This pretty much renders the Prescience mythic ability moot, for example.

Hrmm. I thought the standard was not to announce the DCs-- although this definitely slows down play. Certainly there are still opposed checks where the PC does not know the target DC in advance.

Another point is the differences from D&D. I understand that under these rules an action point need be spent to confirm a critical hit; I'm not at all certain on whether to switch to this mechanic or keep the D&D one in place.

BOTH! I believe I worded it in such a way that it would crossover regardless of which system you are using. That is to say, if you are playing by the standard D&D rules where you roll the threat first, then roll to confirm, simply add on an option where you can spend an AP in lieu of rolling to confirm. I'd take that option! Especially for high level characters where you score a critical threat farther down your multiple-attack, lower-BAB string. Seems I roll all my natural 20s on my third or fourth attack so usually have great difficulty confirming.

There are other quirks in the phrasing and mehcanics that pose less of a problem and I suspect are mainly due to differences between GT and D&D. Things like calling ability scores attributes, the Drive skill, referring to a "core skill list", and so on.

Ability score/attribute would certainly be a mistake.

I am of half a mind about it. The concepts seem interesting, but the mythic abilities rather weak and the added book-keeping not incosequential.

It would definitely be easier to use Mythic Heroes from the outset of a campaign than to drop all those options onto high level characters and expect the players to absorb them all effortlessly.

On the other hand I don't think players are usually too concerned with having too many goodies. They'll figure them out in short order.

Thanks for the review, by the way.