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

[Murrdox]

Bah I say! A welcome change, if done correctly!

I've always said that Keen is way too good, and it's an easy way to borg out fighters. I've seen fighters that duel-weild and threaten a critical with every attack. It's ridiculous.

I've ALWAYS thought it was tremendously overpowered that Keen and Improved critical double your threat range. They shouldn't. IMHO, they should simply add 1 to your threat range.

Thus, a Keen Longsword is a threat range of 18-20 (instead of 17-20 by the current rules). Get Improved Critical? Sure, let it stack, but it only adds another 1. So thus you get a 17-20 crit threat, instead of a 15-20 by the current rules.

I don't know about non-stacking of keen and improved critical, if that's the way things are going. I'd prefer that they still stack, but they only increase the threat range by ONE no matter what threat range the weapon has on it naturally.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Sure.

Falcion/Scythe vs. Greatsword.


So if your damage bonus is 20 or higher, against an opponent that's susceptible to hits, all else being equal, it's better to use a Scythe or Falchion with Improved Crit than a Greatsword with Improved Crit.


Hvy Pick/Rapier vs. Longsword/Battleaxe

If your damage bonus is 9 or higher, blah-blah-blah, rapiers or heavy picks are a better choice than longswords.

Thanks for the numbers, so it appears for the two handed weapons you now need a ridiculous bonus to damage to make these worthwhile.(the diference is probably minor enough for me that I'll stick with falchion cause I think its cool) Still though on a numbers side I don't see myself hitting +20 to damage anytime soon.

For one handed weapons it becomes much more feasible though. 20 str=+5 weapon spec or rage=+2, +3 sword and your already there. So for these weapons maybe the 12-20 range weapons were better. Whether its enough better to justify a change I doubt though.

All in all it looks to me like there really wasn't a need, and now we'll just see more two handed sword types with a 17-20 crit range for the two handed weapon types. In the one handed category we might still get diversity as people balance issues of things like finessible, two weapon style wanting light weapons, and the cool one handed bastard sword war axe style with a nice ol shield etc.

 

[Trainz@work]

I was playing a fighter. A soon as I reached 15+ on my crit, the DM almost exclusively made us fight undead, elementals, constructs... you get the point. He was intimidated by my potential damage.

So, in fact, by having a good crit, I couldn't crit anymore. Yeah. Sucks. What do you think the DM will do if we slow down our crit progression, but someone plays a rogue. Yup. We will only encounter undead, elementals, constructs...

So I can understand the rationale behind that change. Somewhat.

Right...

*sigh*

 

[Mike Sullivan]

I don't know about non-stacking of keen and improved critical, if that's the way things are going. I'd prefer that they still stack, but they only increase the threat range by ONE no matter what threat range the weapon has on it naturally.

All this does is nerf swords in comparison to axes and picks/scythes, which aren't affected at all by this change.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

For one handed weapons it becomes much more feasible though. 20 str=+5 weapon spec or rage=+2, +3 sword and your already there. So for these weapons maybe the 12-20 range weapons were better. Whether its enough better to justify a change I doubt though.

Yeah, I was really surprised by how easy it was for one-handed weapons. I checked and rechecked the figures, though.

The thing to remember, though is that it's a very, very, <i>very</i> mild bonus. Yeah, if your damage bonus is 12ish, it's better to wield a rapier than a longsword -- but it's better by about .2 hit points of expected damage per hit.

That's why the big difference between a Bastard Sword and a rapier -- the rapier passes up the longsword at 9, and then really slowly crawls up by .1 additional damage per 1 damage bonus.

 

[Destil]

Can't say I'm too happy with this one. Things were typically fine unless you started throwing in PrCs. If anything I could understand reducing keen to a flat 1 to your threat range.

 

[Staffan]

I've ALWAYS thought it was tremendously overpowered that Keen and Improved critical double your threat range. They shouldn't. IMHO, they should simply add 1 to your threat range.

That would mean that axes and picks would get a lot more out of Improved Crit than swords would. Doing the math for a moment:

Unmodified longsword: +100% damage (x2) on 10% of hits (19-20) = +10% damage for crits.
Unmodified battleaxe: +200% (x3) damage on 5% of hits (20) = +10% damage from crits.
Longsword with one crit booster, old style: +100% damage on 20% of hits = +20%.
Battleaxe with one crit booster, old style: +200% damage on 10% of hits = +20%.
Longsword with one crit booster, your way: +100% damage on 15% of hits = +15%.
Battleaxe with one crit booster, your way: +200% damage on 10% of hits = +20%.

As you can see, with your way of doing things battleaxes and the like stand to gain a lot more from boosting threat range.

 

[Storm Raven]

There were simply too many characters running around with 12-20 threat ranges, and when you're threatening a crit on nearly half your rolls, it's no longer "special."

Of course, Andy misses the point that any character who is running around with a 12-20 critical threat range is, almost be definition, a significant combat based hero. He's gotten a +8 BAB, invested a feat, and acquired a specialized magic weapon to get to this point.

Most characters with a +8 BAB are mighty heroes in campaign terms. An 8th level fighter is a godlike combatant compared to your typical 1st level warrior, capable of amazing feats of combat prowess. He should be able to do things that others regard as "special" on a regular basis. His desire to nerf higher level characters because they are able to accomplish things beyond the ordinary is yet more evidence that Andy Collins should have never been allowed on the redesign team.

 

[Gideon]

Hey,
Just to bring something up...if you look at the first post where Andy Collins is quoted he says "it's no longer special" because of the large crit ranges. The 'balance' of the crit. range is not an issue according to his statement.

If 'Special'ness has merit or not is a different debate.

 

[Zhure]

I concur. Trying to crank out a really awesome critical wielder takes a lot of specialized abilities:

+3 falchion, 18000 gp
scabbard of keenness 15000 gp
pearl of power (3rd level) 9000 gp
Assassin's Senses (Clr2, Sor/Wiz2, Brd 3, R&R, non-Wotc, non-core)
Improved Critical feat, +8 BAB
Weapon Master (feats: Dodge, Mobility, Combat Reflexes,
Expertise, Weapon Focus, Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack, Dex
13+, BAB 5+.)

Assuming the character wants to be self-sufficient he needs to either max out UMD and take a level or two of Rogue or Bard, or sucks it up and takes three levels of Cleric so he can cast Assassin's Senses 3 times per day with his pearl of power. He takes the War (for weapon focus, hopefully there's someone with a falchion out there) and one other appropriate domain. Searching around in the FR book, there's Anhur, a deity with Chaos, Good, Strength, Storm and War whose weapon is the falchion. War and Strength domains it is.

Stats he assigns DEX 14, STR 14, WIS 14 (for the bonus spell and for Superior Combat Reflexes). The rest are also important, but CHA is a dump stat, abnormal for a cleric.

(Human Feat) Dodge
(level 1) Cleric - War domain -Weapon Focus: Falchion
(level 1) Combat Reflexes
(level 3) Cleric - Mobility (3rd level Feat).

Then the character jumps into Fighter until he can squeak into weapon master.
(level 4) Fighter 1 - Expertise
(level 5, BAB 4) Fighter 2 - Spring Attack
(level 6, BAB 5) Fighter 3 - Whirlwind Attack
(level 7, BAB 6) Weapon Master 1
(level 8, BAB 7) Fighter 4- Weapon Specialization
(level 9 BAB 8) WM 2- Improved Critical
(level 10,11,12, BAB 9,10,11) WM 3-5 - ???
(level 13,14) WM 6,7 - Ki Critical.

Now the character is ready to really rock with his critical bad-self. At 14th level he's spent ALL his feats to achieve this save one at 12th level. He gets a BAB of 13, +2 for Superior Weapon Specialization, +2 for STR and +3 for the weapon, so his final modified attack bonus is +20.

His Falchion crits on a 10-20. Base 18-20; Keen 15-20; Improved Critical 12-20; Ki Critical 10-20.

When he casts Assassin's Senses (for 3 rounds at a time, with a pearl of power he can do this 3 times per day), his critical increases to 8-20. weeeeeeeee.

His base damage bonus is +3 for STR (two-handed), +3 enhancement and +2 for superior weapon specialization. 2d4+8. Once per day he can increase his STR by 3 using his clerical Strength domain, but this yields only a +1 to hit and +1 to damage.

Since he's a weapon master, with his chosen weapon type 7 times per day he can do maximum damage when he doesn't crit. On those occasions where he does crit, 3 times per day he can increase the crit multiplier to x3.

Normally he does 2d4+8, or 16 points of damage per hit. On the first three criticals, he'll do an average of 13x3 = 39 points per hit. A 14th level character is assumed to have 150,000 gp of wealth and he's only spent 42,000 gp. There's not much else to boost his critical range, so the rest can be plowed into increasing the base damage of his weapon, other items that increase damage (rhino hide armor) or strength (belt of giant's strength) and defense (since he can't wield a shield unless he takes Monkey Grip as his level 12 feat, but I'd recommend using Scribe Scroll so he can cast Assassin's Senses more often).

Personally I don't see any of this as broken. Any uncrittable monster (elementals, undead, constructs, characters with armor that ignores crits) will just ignore this character, so the weapon master will be saving his maximum damage ability for those targets.

The rest of the time he's going to crit about one quarter of his swings. To achieve this, he's spent a large chunk of money and a bucket of feats. I don't see the imbalance here. Maybe someone can post a more specific example? I could've tweaked this one out at a lower level, but wanted to include Assassin's Senses, since it's part of the "broken" combo I've seen mentioned.

Greg

We'll ignore graft weapon, since it doesn't increase criticals and we'll ignore duo-dimensional hand, since it specifically disallows critical ranges to increase beyond 17-20, and we'll ignore the deepwood sniper route, because their keen arrows ability because it specifically doesn't stack with any other keen effect. I'm also ignoring Hunter's Mercy because it's only with arrows. Also, the weapon master's flavor text strongly implies it's with melee weapons only.