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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sejs" data-source="post: 997856" data-attributes="member: 4910">Yeah, Keen adds more penetration (or oomph in the case of blunt weapons) to where some of those 'would have been more deadly had I cut a bit deeper' hits do indeed cut a bit deeper.  It's magic, it makes you better by giving a little boost to your skill.  Like using masterwork tools. By all means, you're free to interpret however you want to.  But he does have a more solid argument, because he can point to a place in the rules and say it says skill, right here.  Conversely, you can't point to where it says 'lucky blow' You lost me - how does the armor a person wears factor in? Critters that have the Augmented Criticals quality, which are admittadly rare - natural attacks have crappy criticals because they don't require any training, class levels, or feats to use.  If a human lashes out with their 1d3 subdual punch, it's 20/x2.  If a griffon bites you with it's 2d6 bite, it's 20/x2.  If a 20th level monk kung-fus you up and down the block with his blinding flurry of 1d20 fists of vengeance, they're 20/x2.  They have crappy critical numbers because anyone can use them without special training.  If there was a small size simple weapon that was considdered to do piercing, slashing and crushing damage and did 2d6 damage, but suffered by having -just- a 20/x2 crit, you count just how many characters would line up to use those.  I can tell you right now, not a single adventurer would be caught without one, ever.  That weapon is just a griffon's bite attack's stats.  Natural weapon have crappy crits because of the zero investment required to use them. See above. Re: Druids - because druids don't have keen edge. Neither do clerics.  Re: Dragons - there's alot of spells that dragons would develop to play off their natural advantages, none of which are core.  Very few of which are even published anywhere.  As for Keen Fang - who says it doesn't work on natural weapons?  The spell target says 'weapon touched' doesn't it?  A natural weapon is still a weapon. If you choose to ignore parts of the system to enhance the game for you players, that's just dandy.  But it's not a failing of the system that's at fault.  Systematically a monster attacking with natural weapons crits just as often, and as hard as a monk.  A bad guy fencer with imp crit and a keen rapier crits exactly as often as a PC fencer with the same mods.  And for situation where iterative attacks don't come into play?  Two level 10 fighters with identical stats (10s across the board) take a 30' move toward, and then make a single attack against an unarmored man (Ac 10).  Neither charges or takes any special actions; just one move action, and a single attack at highest ba.  Both have invested all their feats into things that have no effect on this combat, EXCEPT one has Improved Critical with Longsword, where the other does not.  Both are wielding mundane longswords.  The imp crit fighter is more 'skilled' with the longsword, than the other guy.  The imp crit fighter should be able to do more damage, because of his skill even though both men are the same level. Yes.  That's precicely why a rapier is a 1d6 -medium- weapon with a -high crit range- yet a low crit multiplier, and why it can be -finessed- even though it would otherwise be too large.  It is a "precice hit weapon"; to become better with it, such that you dedicate feats to it's improvement, you become a "precice hit specialist".  A rapier cannot deal giant gaping gash-wounds like an axe because it's a glorified needle.  But it sure it easy to get into vital organs because it's so easy to move around. This change alone? No.  This combined with power attack; no PA w/ light weapons, period - does nerf the dex-based fighter unfairly.  It was possible to make a decent short sword fighter character, before.  Now, without any pa, or crit stacking..nope.  Get a bigger weapon, they're the wave of the future.</blockquote>

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