D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5] Threat ranges no longer stack!

[Wolf72]

it sounds like a house rule that went official.

my questions are:

what's the earliest you can get a really good crit range? and is that over-powered for that level?


(I don't think so, it takes quite a lot of focusing to get that far doesn't it? ... and then there are plenty of challenges that will nullify your uber crit-range)

 

[hong]

Is this such a problem? These PCs are already paying a lot of opportunity costs to do marginally more damage. Now they'll take that feat and plow it into specialization, or power attack, or weapon focus, and the saved loot cost for the magic item and invest it in a higher bonus to hit and damage. Wowzers, nothing's changed except a flavorful mechanic.

... it will, however, become more consistent with d20 Modern, Star Wars, and other d20 games, where crits tend to be a lot less common than in 3E. I suspect this isn't an insignificant part of their thinking.

 

[green slime]

I agree with Zhure on the silliness of this particular rule.

Mathematically, they are the same

1d8 20 x3
1d8 19-20 x2
1d6 18-20 x2

Which really surprised me when 3e first came out, but the elegance is so nice.

Where it becames a problem is the 1d8 20 x4 weapons that cause sudden death on a crit. x4 is HUGE.

Aaahhh, for a while there I thought they had a handle on things. I actually liked the new Power Attack.

Come to think of it, it was probably the scythe + new power attack that broke crits, not the actual critical threat range itself.

 

[Fenes 2]

Scratch another 3.5 rule that won't make it in my game. Neither the duelist nor the weapon master currently played in my campaign pose any problems.

 

[Datt]

Well they are just going to save me money from now on. I just got my first +5 weapon and was going to get it keen here shortly. But if that is the change in 3.5 then I probabl won't do it. Unless of course we house rule it diferently. I can take 1 feat and effect every weapon of a particular type, which I have also spent other feats on.

 

[Darklone]

I think they made this change to give all those animals who never critted a chance compared to the evercritting PCs.

 

[Urbannen]

So I take it that the critical range can only be expanded once, i.e., a weapon with a 19-20 critical range can only ever have a 17-20 critical range.

The only problem with the expanded critical range is that so many people (every group I've ever played with, in fact) use some kind of home-brewed critical chart. These systems make criticals horrendously powerful, often inflicting x3 and x4 damage from x2 weapons along with injury to specific, random body parts. (Leading to the eternal question: "Is your character wearing a helm?" Pray to Heironeous that the answer is yes.) The dirty secret of D&D is that many, many people use these critical systems, and these critical systems are not balanced. With these systems, whoever has the largest critical range becomes the most dangerous customer. I don't know if this is a reason why they are changing this rule; I don't see any other reason to change it otherwise.

I don't think you can compare Star Wars criticals and D&D criticals, either. Star Wars criticals are really deadlier since they can bypass VPs (if you have any left) and armor (if you don't have any VPs left).

 

[hong]

So I take it that the critical range can only be expanded once, i.e., a weapon with a 19-20 critical range can only ever have a 17-20 critical range.

The only problem with the expanded critical range is that so many people (every group I've ever played with, in fact) use some kind of home-brewed critical chart.

Conversely, noone I know uses anything of the sort.

 

[diaglo]

Olgar's just celebrating. cuz' i was gonna buy a magic item in his campaign that had like a 9-20 or somethin' as a crit range.

for like a thousand cps.

 

[Enkhidu]

Conversely, noone I know uses anything of the sort.

Yeah, but its not like you know anyone that's, well, important or anything...




Enkhi-"beats hong with a stick"-du