How can you protect yourself from mythic magic missiles?

Question

I am in a mythic game as a cleric. Our martial character is worried about mythic magic missile and at first I dismissed his concerns until I started examining it for myself.

As everyone can imagine, magic missile can get out of hand when its metamagic master, empowered, maximized, quickened, and heightened (before using the mythic versions of those same feats).

So lets just gloss over that and get directly to mythic magic missile (MMM). The augmented version basically removes any protection from MM that existed, and what it didnt the heightened spell still took care of. So that's shield, spell immunity, globe of invulnerability, ring of forcefangs, and so on.

So the only remaining methods that I can think of are

• Concealment and either force the missiles to have a miss change or have nothing to target
• forms of an antimagic field
• Counter Spell/dispel magic

So what realistic choices do people have in countering this pretty powerful mythic spell?

Answer 1

Have enough hit points that a magic missile spell doesn't kill them? Which if you're up against someone who can "mythically quicken, empower, etc." a spell should always be the case.

I suspect many of these problems you're asking about are from just reading the rules and not from actually playing the game. In high level and mythic play, the single biggest factor is the action economy. Using an action on magic missile means you're not using that action (and spell slot) on something even worse, like every other non-first level spell. If I can do a super duper empowered mythic magic missile spell, or a, say, mythic persistent heightened flesh to stone, the latter is usually a better one-round killer.

I played in a Wrath of the Righteous mythic campaign and our caster had mythic magic missile - and used it when running low on other stuff, or when a little extra surefire damage would take out a wounded foe - in other words, whenever you'd use a normal magic missile in non-mythic mid-level play.

There's some mythic powers and stuff that can protect even against mythic spells - but that's not the real answer to this question. "Because there's something better to do with that action" is the real answer.

Answer 2

Talk to the GM about the brooch of shielding

The missiles created by the mythic magic missile spell "bypass the shield spell and similar effects that block the non-mythic version of this spell," but the brooch of shielding, despite the name and despite using the spell shield in its construction, does not, technically, block the missiles from a magic missile effect: "[I]t can absorb magic missiles of the sort generated by the spell or spell-like ability[, absorbing] up to 101 points of damage from magic missiles before [the brooch] melts and becomes useless."¹

The brooch of shielding (1,500 gp; 0 lbs.) is, however, extremely narrow in function, can't be recharged, and occupies the wearer's neck slot, which is extremely valuable personal real estate. By using the rules for Adding New Abilities to magic items, with the GM's permission, a brooch of shielding effect could perhaps be added to another inexpensive and slotless item (e.g. an ioun stone (dull gray) (25 gp; 0 lbs.)) for 2,250 gp. (Both brooch and stone are wondrous items and, as there's no trend of magic items that absorb spells occupying the neck slot, adding the brooch's effect to the stone shouldn't be an issue; see Altering Existing Magic Items under Magic Item Slots for Pathfinder's heartless limits to such effects.)

But, because using the brooch to defend against mythic magic missiles is reliant on a technicality, the GM could rule (and, perhaps, equally technically, maybe correctly, seeing as how the shield spell is used in the brooch's creation, after all) that the brooch is no defense against the mythic magic missile, ruling that the terms block and absorb are here close enough to be synonyms. This GM, though, given the lengths the creature's gone to to make itself—briefly!—immune to something as rare and weird (in this GM's campaigns, anyway) as magic missile effects, would let such a defense function, even against a mythic magic missile spell. The brooch will be slag soon enough under an assault by any competent mythic magic missile Metamagic Master mage.²

About that mythic magic missile…

An empowered (+2) maximized (+3) quickened (+4) 1st-level magic missile spell cast by a creature possessing the trait Metamagic Master (magic missile) (−1) spends one of that creature's 9th-level spell slots. While a level 20 caster's version of such a magic missile spell can be cast as a swift action, it deals only 25+((5d4+5)/2) points of damage, or, on average, about 43 points of damage. That's not only embarrassing but also pitiful for a 9th-level spell slot. A similarly beefed up mythic magic missile deals a more impressive 90+((20d4+10)/2) points of damage, or, on average, about 120 points of damage—more impressive but still a 9th-level spell slot and costing of 2 uses of mythic power. Although, the line-of-sight range and ability to bypass spell resistance and even spell immunity are excellent benefits of mythic magic missile. I can imagine the efficacy of such a spell being taught in wizarding classes: reliably picking off foes on the horizon is pretty cool, and for a caster with the correct trait, the spell's only 5th-level if it needn't be quickened (the mythic power cost will limit its usefulness, though).

So while your party's warrior can worry about this spell, the party's unlikely to encounter the spell a lot unless the GM routinely punishes players by dealing their PCs (45+((10d4+10)/2)) points of damage seemingly out of nowhere by sticking flying, greater invisibility-using mythic tier 4+ wizard 9s on every horizon.

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¹ I must add here that I really enjoy authors making absolutely certain the reader knows what a particular rhetorical flourish actually means in game terms, like melts and becomes useless so that there's no argument about a melted brooch continuing to suck up magic missiles. My favorite example of this is from AD&D's Monster Manual (1978): "If a [mind flayer's] tentacle hits it will reach the opponent's brain in 1-4 melee rounds and draw it forth, immediately killing the creature" (70), y'know, just in case a player at the table argues, "Hey, I'm a fighter! What do I need a brain for!?"
² Probably far fewer creatures should have the trait Metamagic Master than do. The regional trait originally appeared in the Dragon Empires Primer as Wayang Spellhunter (14), and, as the name and provenance suggests, a GM may limit the trait's availability to those from a region like Golarion's Minata which is populated largely (but not exclusively) by wayangs.