Mythic Heroes

[Old Fezziwig]

Mythic Heroes is the high-adventure solution for low-magic campaigns, written by the ENnie Award winning author of GRIM TALES.

Using the archetypes of myth and legend envisioned by Jung and Joseph Campbell, you can bring an epic sense of adventure to your campaign.

This product will show you how to:

1) Use action points to replace magic items in your campaign, without sacrificing heroic action;

2) Create exciting, high-level skill and combat challenges;

3) Use the archetypes of the Hero's Journey to bring a sense of cohesion and cooperation to the party, further enabling them to overcome the challenges of a mythic campaign.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Reviewer's Bias: In January 2005, I played in a one-shot game with these rules that was run by the author, although this is not, per se, a playtest review.

Mythic Heroes is a 25-page PDF from Bad Axe Games, written by Benjamin Durbin and with a full-color cover by Jeremy Mohler. The interior is black & white with pencil & ink artwork throughout. Six of the pages in the work contain no game material: the front cover, the interior cover, the OGL, and the three ads in the back of the book. On the whole, I've found Bad Axe Games to use a clean, stripped down layout, and that trend continues here — there are no borders and the text is arranged in two columns in a very direct font. This works for me, especially in a PDF product, where I don't want bells and whistles, just something that will load quickly and print out cleanly without using a ton of ink. As far as the art, I liked Mohler's cover quite a bit. The adventuring party seems to be prepared for something, but there's a nice bit of tension regarding what they could be prepared for. At first glance, I thought it was just another pin-up, like a lot of the art in modern D&D books (posed character portraits), but there's some subtlety there that I really appreciated. None of the interior art stood out as anything special to me.

What Mythic Heroes proposes is to wed the archetypes that Jung and Campbell suggested were integral to culture and myth with d20 gaming, most specifically in the form of Bad Axe's Grim Tales toolkit but not limited to it. To this end, Durbin's book has three sections: Action Points, The Mythic Campaign, and Skill and Combat Challenges.

Action Points, in one form or another, are familiar to many gamers now, so rehashing what they are and how they work isn't important here. What is important is that the system presented here does two things. One, it's irrevocably tied to the other material here — the archetypes presented in the Mythic Campaign chapter require action points to use and the challenges later in the book present an interesting mechanical way to challenge characters in a system where action points could quickly cause attack rolls and skill checks to become ridiculously easy. Because they're more integrated, in my opinion, than the rules that Wizards of the Coast presented in d20 Modern and Eberron and slightly more concrete than the rules in Malhavoc Press's Arcana Evolved, I feel like players will use them more frequently (in my experiences with the other systems, the action points became an afterthought, which is a shame). Two, they're a little more interesting than typical action points in that the dice can do different things depending on the ability and the GM's rules for the campaign. They can be doubled (roll two dice, add them), shadowed (roll two, drop lowest), or doubled and shadowed (roll three, drop lowest, add remaining two). Variants for scaling the die size (lower level characters use smaller dice) and exploding action dice (each time the maximum is rolled, reroll and add, repeat until a different number is rolled) are also provided. On one level this is clever because it taps into part of the gamer psyche that just likes to roll dice, but it makes sense mechanically, especially given that the baseline aim of this system is to compensate for a lack of magic items, and the various ways the dice can be manipulated help yield higher/more epic results. It's a counter for the old saw that D&D characters are defined by their equipment and not their actions.

The main section of the book, the Mythic Campaign, details the Jungian/Campbellian archetypes (Wow, typing that makes me feel like I'm back in graduate school) and the game effects of the archetypes. There are seven archetypes presented, and they're all designed to interact with each other: the Hero, the Shadow, the Fated, the Mentor, the Oracle, the Trickster, and the Maiden. Most of them are fairly self-explanatory, but Durbin does a nice job explaining exactly where they fit in to the mythic campaign and within a party of PCs. And, ultimately, that's the key here — where they fit in inside the party — because the abilities and bonuses presented by the templates directly effect other party members. For example, the second ability of the Mentor archetype, Mentor's Gift I, allows the Mentor to spend an action point for an ally if he has more action points than that ally. It mechanically supports his role as a mentor to the other heroes by giving his position a clear, in-game function. Similarly, the Maiden's abilities encourage the party to protect her and reward them for doing so, particularly in the face of grave personal danger for her — Desperation, for example, shadows her allies action dice if she's helpless, unconscious, or dying. And most all of the abilities given to the archetypes are similar in how they tie into the archetypes of the other characters.

The PDF ends with a section on skill and combat challenges, which is a system where players can increase the DC of a skill check or attack roll in exchange for an enhanced success; the character ends up doing something faster or better than he would normally. For instance, by accepting a +5 penalty to the DC of a Gather Information check, the character can aim to be discreet in his research, keeping his intentions and actions hidden from prying eyes. Similarly, by taking a -2 penalty to AC, a character can gain DR 1/- to model rolling with punches and such. My first thought upon reading it was that it was a more streamlined version of the combat maneuvers and stunts presented by Mike Mearls in The Book of Iron Might, and my instinct was correct, given that Iron Heroes, which is itself, if I understand correctly, an extension and revision of those rules, appears in the PDF's Section 15. It's a nice version of that system, and Durbin does a nice job extending it to skills while keeping it manageable.

With this background complete, I do have some minor notes on things that could be problematic with this book. Firstly, although it could very easily be used for a standard d20 game (and the introduction mentions as much), it's intended for low magic games and a standard game will find the power level ramped up a bit (the introduction also says this), so I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for a new GM. Like Grim Tales, it's a toolkit, and deserves some consideration before being dropped directly into a game. Most things will work as is, but some won't. To wit, the Oracle gains extra spells at levels 3, 7, 13, and 19. A DM will need to consider what this means for a normal D&D game. Are they new spells per day? New spells known? What level are they? Should it be replaced by something else (limited, free metamagic)? Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, some of the archetypes could be disruptive in certain groups. The Trickster's abilities encourage the character to be a sort of scoundrel, alternately helping (Goodwill, Trickster's Aid) or hindering (Ill-Will, Devil's Luck) the other characters. In a more competitive or less mature group, this could be very disruptive and lead to some intra-party strife, as the Trickster decides when to use these abilities on a metagame level.

All in all, I enjoyed my experiences with these rules a lot and am very impressed with the final version that I've read over the last two nights. I think the rules will add a lot to epic games, and it's nice to see mechanics that actively support role-playing and story-telling within this milieu.

Score: 5

 

[Old One]

What KJ Said...

I was all ready to write a review of Mythic Heroes...but I would just be reiterating everything Kajamba Lion said...almost to the letter !

I think Wulf/Bad Axe Games have it another home run here. As a fan of low(er) magic games, I think the rules presented here are fun, elegant and useful. I think it works well across all genres and really expands/deepens the action point mechanic with shadowing, doubling and exploding dice.

I also agree that some of the Mythic level entries - such as the "Gain a spell" option noted by KJ - do need some tweaking in a non-GT game. I would be inclined to grant free use of a meta-magic feat 1-2 times a day for each time this is granted.

I am running a 1-shot at the next NC Game Day and fully intend on implementing the rules contained in Mythic Heroes.

Bravo!

~ OO

 

[Yair]

Mythic Heroes is a 20 page pdf that presents a way to fit your player characters into the roles of the classic archetypes of literature, providing bonuses based on action points based on and encouraging their chosen archetypical role. As an introduction it provides a complete action point system, and as an aftermath a system of skill and combat challenges to allow you to better utilize these buffed-up roll results.

There are seven mythic archetypes presented in the text: the Hero, Shadow, Mentor, Oracle, Trickster, Maiden, and Fated. Each is presented with a few paragraphs explaining the role, and a table of 20 Mythic Levels. When you raise a character level you rise in Mythic Level as well, and on each Mythic Level you gain one mythic ability. The mythic abilities are the core mechanical concept here, they usually allow you to use action points in ways appropriate for your archetype. For example, the Hero can spend an action point to increase his damage sat level Hero Mythic Level 4, the Mentor can give another an action point to use at Mentor Mythic Level 3, and so on.

The addition of mythic abilities will make your characters stronger, but I’m not sure by how much. The text suggests that the addition of all the suggested rules is about on par with the power-up supplied by magic items (and, indeed, suggests replacing magic items with this system). Some abilities certainly seem powerful (like the addition of 1/2 your Hero Mythic Level to any ability score at level 10, for several rounds), while others seem subpar (like the capstone ability of the Maiden, allowing her to restore to life any one ally who died in the last round at the cost of her own life - very weak compared to true resurrection available at level 17!).
The text is written for the Grim Tales system, which may account for some of these power discrepancies. It says “This book can be adopted by any GM running a d20 campaign”, and indeed most issues seem trivial (the “Use Unknown Device” skill instead of Use Magic Device, and so on), but I am not sure if adopting it whole cloth to a D&D campaign is straightforward. Some roles and abilities seem to be underpowered compared to the others for a D&D game (of course, I didn’t playtest it, this is just my impression). At least one change to the D&D system is also implied by the rules: critical hits need to be confirmed by spending an action point, and the system adds critical successes and failures to both attack and skill use.

The action point system presented allows one to spend actions points to perform various things: improve a d20 roll (adding an action dice to it), activate a per day ability, emulate a feat, bypass damage reduction, improve your AC, confirm a critical hit, or heal after combat. There are several options presented including variant ways of gaining action points, an “exploding dice” mechanic when using them, and scaling the action dice by character level.
The system also presents two interesting concepts: shadowed and doubled action dice. When a dice is shadowed, you roll two dice and pick the highest. When it is doubled, you roll two dice and add them together. Many of the mythic abilities allow you to shadow or double (or both!) action dice under certain circumstances.

The product ends with a section of skill and combat challenges (which I understand is taken from Iron Heroes). It provides some interesting options for using skills, allowing you to take penalties to the roll in return for perks. There are some universal ones like Fast Completion (allowing you to speed up the skill use), and some specific (like not losing you Dex to AC while climbing). The options seem very interesting, although the presentation could be a bit more consistent (they switch between penalties to the roll and increases to the DC without any reasoning I could see).
Combat challenges are also presented, allowing you to similarly modify your attack or defense. These are essentially combat options in addition to the standard ones. For example, can fight defensively to and take +1 to your AC per -2 to your attack, or reduce your opponent’s movement on the next round by 5 feet by taking a -2 to your attack roll.
Both the combat and skill challenges allow you to do things you couldn’t otherwise by the rules, often these are things I would expect a feat for. Their addition is therefore definitely a power-up.

This section also contains rules for critical success (which you must spend an action point to activate) and failure (which the DM awards you an action point to activate) on a natural 20 or 1 on a skill or attack roll. Each skill description has notes on critical success and failure, and general rules are provided. Tying these things to action points is strange, I leave its effect as an exercise to the reader.

Overall, Mythic Heroes provides a substantial power-up to the characters, but a power-up deeply suffused with the mythic archetypes and adorned with evocative and varied use of skills and attacks. If you’re willing to suck up the power increase I think these rules can greatly enhance the game, but they do come at the cost of managing another “level” system, remembering lots of new options, and carrying the load of an action point system on your mind. I am also not certain how adoptable it is for a straight D&D game.
I was not sure if this was a 5- or 4-star product. It’s certainly good, but upon reflection I think the rules are not balanced enough or thought out to fit with a D&D game (again, this is without playtesting) to merit a 5. It’s definitely a high 4, though, especially if you’re interested in the challenge and action point system (which are great regardless of the mythic hero stuff). For a Grim Tales game, I suspect it is a 5 - but it's published as adoptable for any d20 campaign, which strongly implies D&D, and I graded it as such.

Note: This product has the following OGC designation: “Open Content consists of game mechanics only”. That's it.
If you are one of the few who care about such things, you might want to avoid this rather vague declaration.