Power Critical - Fixed or Nerfed?

[Centaur]

When the Power Critical Feat was originaly introduced, it allowed the user to declare one strike per day a critical hit, as long as he made both a regular hit roll and a follow up confirmation roll.

In the new "Complete Warrior" Book, it has been down graded to a mear +4 to your confirmation roll, thats all.

It seems to me to have gone from a once a day save until you realy need it attack to almost a waste of a feat.

Before is would have been usefull only to character with a big damage weapon with a low threat range, while now it is only usefull to charcaters with a high threat range...

Anyone have any thoughts on this. Or has it been discussed before? If so, can anyone point me to the thread?

thanks

 

[Shariell]

I completely agree with you.
It's something like a waste of a feat in this new revision... a 1/day critical seems to me to be a fair deal for a feat, I would house ruling that my players can choose the 3.0 version of the feat in my campaing...I don't see it as a game balance breaker, but it's only my humble opinion

 

[Goolpsy]

Actually i see the new feat as an opportunity... why dont u take both?

btw.. im sure my dual wielding elventhinblade char with keen and improved critical.. will agree that the new (+4 confirm) is the best for him (12-20/x2)

 

[shilsen]

Actually i see the new feat as an opportunity... why dont u take both?

btw.. im sure my dual wielding elventhinblade char with keen and improved critical.. will agree that the new (+4 confirm) is the best for him (12-20/x2)

3,0, I presume. Keen and Improved Crit don't stack in 3.5.

 

[Li Shenron]

It feels more upgraded than downgraded to me... :\

But yet the two feats are very different from each other, and as you say they are useful for very different weapons. If there is a design mistake, IMO it was to replace a feat with something entirely different, like they had rewritten Spell Focus to give a caster level increase instead of a DC bonus.

 

[Goolpsy]

ye i play 3.0 rules... anyway... even with one of them 15-20 30% chance of making a Crit... and with the +4 on confirm... even the minor of your attacks have a chance now..
I would still allow both to be taken... even by the same Char

 

[green slime]

While the feat may seem balanced in the eyes of a player using it.... how much fun is it for a player facing off against an NPC with this feat?

A raging Orc Barbarian 3, wielding a Greataxe, power attacks (-3 to hit, +6 o damage) declares a Power Critical, and with the confirmation roll, instantly renders most 5th level PCs to unconsciousness, if not death.

 

[Shariell]

Armor of fortification (and other cheapers spell effects) prevent damage from critical hits, so the trade for 1 feat seems to me balaced.
Remember this feat is a 1-a-day-only options, and is applied only to one attack roll, not to the entire attack routine (in addition, it must HIT the target, otherwise the effect of the feat is wasted for that day).

 

[Jarrod]

It was both fixed and nerfed. The new feat matches others much better (+4 to a special-case roll seems to be the baseline). Being able to auto-declare 1/day was core to a huge number of broken combinations.

I also, personally, don't like X/day abilities, especially 1/day ones. Power Critical on a full power attack, a Sudden Enlarged Maximized Death-ified Something... bleah. Just doesn't do it for me.

 

[werk]

ye i play 3.0 rules... anyway... even with one of them 15-20 30% chance of making a Crit... and with the +4 on confirm... even the minor of your attacks have a chance now..
I would still allow both to be taken... even by the same Char

You still need to 'hit' with your roll in order to threat or crit. Just rolling between 12 or 15 and 20 does not insta-crit unless you're housing it. 20's always threat/crit tho.

Increased Threat Range
Sometimes your threat range is greater than 20. That is, you can score a threat on a lower number. In such cases, a roll of lower than 20 is not an automatic hit. Any attack roll that doesn’t result in a hit is not a threat.