Wulf Ratbane
Adventurer
But seriously, I was very pleases to see Mythic Heroes elements worked into the APs. I really liked the concept behind it but my players found it a little cumbersome. I am hopefull this will help those ideas become better integrated for them.
You'll note that the Maiden was rolled into the Mentor and the Trickster was rolled into the Shadow. I basically tried to move things around a bit to fit into tighter "roles."
I also removed a lot of the "doubling and shadowing" terminology-- and replaced doubling with exploding dice. An action point will give you a much greater bonus than any comparable Big Six item for your level-- but APs are, of course, a limited resource.
But when you spend them, they almost always work.
Frankly I think this is much better for overall balance than the existing Item Creation arms race, with escalating ability scores, enhancement bonuses, DCs, and so forth. It's simply not the case that you need a +5 resistance item all the time (and I will show you the math to prove it...), but when you do really need it... you really need it. APs fill that gap nicely.