What level would you rate this stance?

[Zachariah]

Hey guys,

Im working on a martial discipline school (Bo9S) called Black Lotus, which goes to gather with a class I made; the Martial Assassin. The discipline focusses on poison and assassination techniques. Intimidate is the key skill.
Now I have this stance that I want to implement, but I have a hard time determining what maneuver level it should. Could you guys give me your opinion. Rather have it around 6, but it might be a bit weak as it is now. Any suggestions that improve are welcome aswell

Malice: Stance - While your in this stance, every melee attack threat range is dubbled. This stacks with other effects that increase threat range. (Note that all the schools favored weapons have a threat range of 19-20)


Thanks in advance,
Zach

 

[Quartz]

This is better than the Improved Critical feat which requires BAB +8, and it stacks. It therefore ought to be very high level. Might even be Epic.

 

[Zachariah]

Sorry, double post due to freeze in page loading. Read post below.

 

[Zachariah]

Hmmm I see, just to be sure its clear; It increases the threat range by 2 (as all the weapons from this school have a threat range of 2). Now that I think of it, it can be to powerful indeed. I based the level 6 on the Deserd Wind - level 6 - Fiery Assault (Stance). That stance gives +1d6 fire damage, which is the same as a flaming weapon. Now Flaming weapon enchant is a +1. So I compared that to Keen, which is also +1. So therefore I just thought level 6 should be fine.

Does keen stack with improved critical btw? making 19-20 weapons 15-20?
If so this stance would make the threat range 13-20. That would be high indeed, 35% crits.

 

[GlassEye]

Improved Critical does not stack with anything else. So I would say that this stance, in order to stay at the level you have it, shouldn't stack with any other critical threat range modifiers.

 

[Arkhandus]

First, note that in 3.5e, threat range increases don't stack for the most part (rather, Improved Critical doesn't stack with other stuff, and the Keen property doesn't stack with other stuff, IIRC).

Second, note that you are not required to wield the weapons associated with a particular discipline. For example, while Shadow Hand includes the short sword as one of its weapons, you can still make full use of Shadow Hand maneuvers and stances when wielding, say, a warhammer or a greatsword. Only the Shadow Blade feat and the Blade Meditation (Shadow Hand) feat actually require use of Shadow Hand weapons in order to gain the feats' benefits. Similarly handled for other disciplines.

If you want the stance to only apply with Black Lotus weapons, then you must say so explicitly in the stance description.

And, since it stacks with other effects like it, you should probably make it an 8th-level stance. But, maybe it's fine at 6th-level, I dunno. 3.5e just has this stupid thing against weapons with decent threat ranges.

Regardless, it is DEFINITELY not lower than 6th-level as a stance. As others have said, it's much stronger than the Improved Critical feat, which is only available at middle or upper levels. The stance should have a prerequisite of, say 3 or 4 other Black Lotus maneuvers.

 

[Quartz]

The problem is that your basis is erroneous: added dice don't multiply on a critical and the flaming property has consequences of its own like added damage vs cold creatures and shedding light. And your feat is even more powerful than I thought: it applies to any weapon whereas Improved Critical only applies to one weapon. Per the text in the SRD, Improved Critical does not stack with anything. I don't know if Keen can stack with anything else.

I've just checked the Epic Feats SRD and this is definitely better than the Overwhelming Critical Epic feat.

 

[Zachariah]

Ok thats clear. I agree that 6 should be a minimum. I was, for some reason, under the impression that maneuvers required the user to wield one of the associated weapons. Anyway, thanks for clearing that up. I will add this to the description then.

I do find it a bit strange, though. What’s so great about criticals anyway that the system seems to be so against it? Weapons with a higher then x2 multiplier only have a threat range of 1 (on roll 20) and then it still requires to be confirmed. Comparing keen to flaming weapon, it really doesn’t seem to be as good. Keen; increasing the chance of doubling, tripling or quadrupling weapon damage by less than 5% to 15% (depending on weapon, and keeping in mind the confirming part) while flaming always gives a +1d6 damage on any hit. Although crits take the +X enhancement bonus from weapons in account (right? im not even sure, fairly new to D&D).

 

[Zachariah]

I was never under the impression that added dice would be multiplied.
Also, although I believe you are aware of this, its not a feat but a stance. Just to be sure.
So what makes this so powerful then? I fail to see it. (I must note that Vorpal is banned from our campaigns)

 

[Arkhandus]

You can gain a stance through the Martial Stance feat, if you first acquire a maneuver from the same discipline (usually through the Martial Study feat or a martial adept class).

Vorpal, in 3.5e, only works on an attack roll of natural 20, followed by a successful threat confirmation roll. As a result, it doesn't matter what weapon it's applied to, it'll always be the same effectiveness.

3.5e design just has some wierd stigma against high threat ranges. Back in 3.0 when the bladed gauntlet was messed up in Sword & Fist, there was a possibility of it being problematic (fighter 6/weapon master 7 with improved critical and a keen +1 vorpal bladed gauntlet? instant death to most monsters on a natural attack roll of 7-20. Before getting vorpal? Still a crit on 7-20, and weapon masters can boost their crit damage multiplier a few times per day. Before weapon master 7? Still a crit on 9-20.).

But aside from that misprint (Arms & Equipment Guide fixed it, or rather over-fixed it, as 19-20 threat range, making it a sucky exotic weapon that was no better than a short sword), it wasn't a big problem. While the average rapier-wielding fighter/duelist might have a threat range of 12-20 with improved critical and a +1 keen rapier, it wasn't very significant damage; that same fellow might be dealing 2d6+5 damage normally (less than the average greatsword-wielder, at the cost of more feats and class features), or 3d6+10 on critical hits (duelists in 3.0 had Precise Strike, but it didn't multiply on crits since it was bonus damage dice).

All in all it roughly evened out, since they'd get kind of frequent critical hits for slightly more damage than Joe Greatswordsman (though JG would do more damage on his own, less-frequent crits), but at the cost of more feats and class features and with much less power against undead, constructs, oozes, and whatnot (only 1d6+5 damage against them and no crits, and piercing tends to be less useful against some of those critters).

Anyway, in 3.5 they tried to cut down on critical hits, and made most threat-range increases worded so that they wouldn't stack with anything else of the sort.

Your stance is more powerful than Improved Critical in either version of the game, anyhow, and while I don't think it's as awesomely powerful as some people do (I'm more of a realist; seriously, how often are you going to wield several different weapons and also manage to score more critical hits with them, just because you have some ability that slightly boosts all your threat ranges? It's more like two or three IC feats in potency, since that's how many weapons you might realistically use it with, unless you limit it to just the Discipline's own weapons, in which case it's not even that powerful), I still consider it worth a 6th, 7th, or 8th level stance in cost/effectiveness.

I'm kinda hesitant about making it higher than 6th, though; the 8th-level Stone Dragon stance (which is available to all martial adepts, as long as they take a few SD maneuvers earlier) gives immunity to critical hits as long as the character doesn't move much and stays on the ground. I'd have to estimate a +2 threat range stance to be no more than 7th-level, tops, if it worked for all kinds of weapons. 6th is probably good otherwise, and heck, after thinking about it this much, I might even be crazy enough to consider it 5th-level.