Mythic Path: Champion
If you want to play Beowulf, this is your Path. You won’t get the raw reality-shattering power of the Archmage or even the Hierophant, but you’ll be hitting things with pointed sticks in unparalleled style.
Champion Features
You get 5 bonus hp per Tier. You’ll have 50 hp over normal warriors of equivalent level by Tier 10, and your CON could potentially be much higher as well.
At Tier 1, you get to pick one Champion’s Strike:
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Distant Barrage (active): This is a swift action uber ranged strike. If you’re making an archer or similar build, this is probably your best choice.
Fleet Charge (active): Excellent action economy and tactical utility. Great on skirmishers, even better as a ‘pseudo pounce’ for setting up full attacks. Eventually made somewhat obsolete by Fleet Warrior at Tier 3.
Sudden Attack (active): If you plan on grabbing Fleet Warrior, this is a solid, accurate swift action attack, but I prefer the flexibility of Fleet Charge above.
Lastly, at Tier 10 you become a Legendary Champion. Natural 20’s generate MP for you, and it becomes almost impossible to miss non-mythic foes.
Champion Path Abilities
1st-Tier Champion Path Abilities
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Aerial Assault (active): Unless you’re making a crazy tetori build, this ability is too situational. It’s an awesome visual though, and might be worth taking just for the lulz.
Always a Chance (passive): Avoid this at low levels. At higher levels, this could guarantee you hits, particularly if you fight lots of minions. That said, I think a 5% miss chance is worth risking rather than wasting one of your path abilities.
Always Armed (passive): If you’re using improvised weapons, you’re probably in it for the flavor. Still inferior to actual manufactured weapons, even with this ability.
Armor Master (passive): If you’re focusing on DEX to the exclusion of all else, this might be worth taking; that said, a lot of skirmishy, DEX-based prestige classes and abilities only function if you’re wearing light armor, so the benefits of taking this multiple times are unlikely to be worth it.
Backlash (passive/active): As a PC, you’ll be subject to more critical hits than any other character in the game, but still, it’s rare enough that it’s not worth one of your path abilities. Over the course of your entire career, this might net you a handful of AoO’s; pass.
Blowback (active): Screw Bullrush; if you’ve got MP, just smack’em around. Good battlefield control when you need it.
Burst Through (passive): An excellent ability for any melee character, particular those that favor charges; you’ll only have to worry about difficult terrain from now on.
Clean Blade (passive): Gross. If you’re into crit-fishing, this is kind of cool.
Climbing Master (passive): Gain a climb speed. Boom.
Crusader (passive): This ability gives you followers like the Leadership feat, and doubles them if you already have said feat. Assuming Leadership isn’t banned, you can probably think of something to do with a bunch of Surge-capable mooks.
Devastating Smash (passive/active): Unless you’re fighting a lot of constructs, wait until 3rd Tier for the Destroyer ability.
Endless Hatred (active): Rangers will like this.
Ever Ready (passive): This is great, and keeps getting better with age. Essential for tanks, defenders, and pole-arm trippers.
Flash of Rage (passive): Any character can benefit from this, not just barbarians. Situational, hard to rely on, but cool when it works.
Impossible Speed (passive/active): Get fast. Get there. Get got. Combines amazingly with Fleet Charge/Fleet Warrior.
Imprinting Hand (passive): Unarmed fighters and monks can ID weaknesses and hunt down foes with ease. This is a pretty cool ability.
Juggernaut (passive/active; MO): Considering you can’t charge an opponent unless you know where they are and have an unobstructed path to them, by the RAW this ability is unusable. If you can see through walls somehow, maybe this might work. Tremorsense?
Lesson Learned (passive): Functional. More useful in large fights with multiple foes with similar abilities. I’d probably skip this.
Limitless Range (passive): Extremes of range increments rarely are an issue unless you’re playing a thrown weapon-focused build. In this case, this is probably worth taking.
Meat Shield: Eats an immediate action, and if you fail the target breaks free, which sucks. Tetori monks might take this, though.
Mounted Maniac (passive/active): Amazing for mounted builds, particularly cavaliers and paladins.
Mule’s Strength (passive; MO): Your STR should be high enough that you don’t care about carrying capacity. Just buy a bag of holding if it’s an issue for you.
Mythic Ki (active): Post Tier-3, an hour’s rest will refill your ki pool completely. If you’re hard-pressed for more ki, though, this is an option.
Mythic Rage (active): This is more useful before Tier 3, but afterwards you shouldn’t have to worry too much about running out of rage.
Mythic Smite (active): Like the above abilities, post Tier-3 you can just rest an hour to regain your smites. That said, paladin’s have fewer smites than rage rounds, etc., so this can be useful, particularly if you want to smite in every combat.
Mythic Weapon Training (passive): Potentially a whole bunch of sub-par feats balled into one. Cool for expanding your weapon selection, but most classes will be happy with what they can already use.
Punishing Blow (passive): You never have to worry about regeneration or fast healing again. Nice!
Sniper’s Riposte (passive/active; MO): Any archer will benefit from this, although hopefully you’re staying out of melee anyway. Stealthy types can become amazing snipers with this ability.
Sunder Storm (active): Sure looks cool! Very very situational; I highly doubt I’d ever see this used.
Swimming Master (passive): In an ocean-based game this would be blue. Saves you some skill points and opens up new maneuverability options.
Tear Apart: This is interesting in that it can be used against natural armor. Good if you have multiple buddies fighting alongside you, this is effectively a melee debuff option.
Titan’s Bane (passive): You’ll eventually be fighting big things, and this makes you better at it. Rogues in particular will love this, especially small ones.
Uncanny Grapple (passive): This opens up new options for grapplers, including a pseudo-constrict ability and the hilarious swing ability. Tetoris should nab this one.
Wall Smasher (passive/active): Reminiscent of Dungeon Crasher, this ability seems to be targeting monks and other unarmed fighters. Very specific builds might find a use for this. If anyone actually succeeds in throwing someone through a wall with this, I’ll give them a cookie.
3rd-Tier Champion Path Abilities
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Destroyer (passive): Tunnel through dungeon walls, sink boats, go nuts. This suggests you can even punch through walls of force and similar effects, which might need some clarification.
Disabling Strike (active; MO): This is an attractive option for crit fishermen, particularly against non-Mythic enemies.
Elemental Fury (active): Better at higher Tiers for the duration increase, the primary draw of this ability is the defensive benefits.
Fleet Warrior (passive): This ability makes Fleet Charge largely obsolete. This is a phenomenal ability, but if you're going the Mythic Vital Strike route you can pass on it. Also, if a caster ally is regularly casting Mythic Haste this isn't quite as valuable.
Groundshaker (active; MO): Awesome visual, but too situational and for too little benefit to be really worth it.
Incredible Parry (passive/active): I’d rather be attacking than parrying, but it’s here if you want it.
Maneuver Expert (passive/active): This is pretty sweet, potentially saving you tons of feats, and opening up tons of options.
Master Grappler (passive; MO): This requires and expands upon the options offered by Uncanny Grapple. It’s mostly just a numerical increase; if you’re into grappling, this will make you better at what you’re doing, but Uncanny Grapple alone will probably serve you just as well.
Maximized Critical (passive): Not flashy, but functional. Better if you can increase your damage multiplier somehow; combos well with Mythic Improved Critical.
Mighty Hurler (passive; MO): Again, a cool visual, but you want to be throwing magic weapons with special abilities, not rocks.
Penetrating Damage (passive): So many Mythic abilities allow you to ignore DR that this is kind of pointless.
Precision (passive): This is amazing. Make your iterative attacks matter! You took Fleet Warrior, right? You can take this multiple times, too, and it might just be worth it to write +20/+20/+20/+20 on your sheet...
Titan’s Rage (active): Best on a barbarian, this is still pretty awesome. Bigger is better in melee.
To the Death (passive): Who needs Diehard? I’d probably skip this.
Unstoppable Shot (active): This can do some pretty ridiculous things in a big fight with lots of foes, but typically you’re better off just using a full attack.
6th-Tier Champion Path Abilities
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Critical Master (passive): You have to take it twice for it to work against Mythic creatures, which is lame. You shouldn’t fear non-Mythic threats by this point anyway, so this is probably not worth it.
Fistful of Daggers (passive): This... is terrible.
Perfect Strike (active): Eh... it’s just a standard action. By this point, you should be devastating things with full attacks as much as possible. Still, it’s certainly functional, essentially an auto-crit with the potential for even more damage.
Seven-League Leap (passive/active; MO): It’s pretty awesome just for the visual. Inaccurate, slow to set up, and ultimately pretty silly, but potentially worth taking just for the sheer lunacy of jumping from town to town.
Shatter Spells (active): Punch magic in the face! Become an honest-to-gods mage-killer.
Sweeping Strike (passive): You’re wasting one of your upper Tier path abilities on what amounts to Great Cleave?
Champion Path Breakdown:
You’re really good at hittin’ stuff! Before Tier 3, there’s not a lot to get excited about; take Impossible Speed in preparation for the future, though; by the time you reach Tier 3 (around level 6), your iterative attacks come online, and you can grab Fleet Warrior and Precision.
As a low-Tier Champion, you’ll be burning MP to full attack as much as possible. Post Tier-3, you can full-attack practically every round. By the end of your career, you’ll very likely be full-attacking at your full BAB every round, dealing horrific damage with things like Power Attack and fancy weapons. Kill things. Kill them dead. You can reserve your MP for defensive abilities like Unstoppable or Surges.
Archers will have more freedom, and can take whatever path abilities suit their fancy. There’s some fun toys for grappling characters, and just about anybody should take Shatter Spells when it becomes available for the extra edge against magic.
Re: [PF] CTP's Guide to Mythic Adventures
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