Are crit only weapon abilities worth it?

[MatthewJHanson]

I've always felt intuitivly that magic weapon special abilities that only functioned on critical hits (all the bursts, plus the psionic feeder weapons) were not worth the price, the possibly exception maybe being Vorpal.

I've always been too lazy to actually do the math to figure out whether they're worth it or not, but after looking at the thread about energy enhancments, I thought I'd ask if anybod has done similar work for bursting weapons and such.

Or is there anybody else who just feels in their gut that the only on a crit special abilities are not worth it? Anybody want to defend them?

 

[ElectricDragon]

Okay, take Thundering as an example: +1 bonus, +1d8 sonic damage (or more) on crit and Fort DC 14 or permanently deaf on crit.

This ability works even on crit immune creatures, making the weapon better when dealing with undead, constructs, oozes, plants, and elementals. Though the weapon itself does no crit damage; the thundering crit ability makes up for it unless the creature in question is immune or resistant to sonic damage, too. The crit does not happen but the crit activated ability is not suppressed.

I thought the same way you did until one of my players pointed this out to me.

Ciao
Dave

 

[MatthewJHanson]

Except that flaming also works on creatures that are immune to crits.

I don't see the fact that extra damage criticals items still work on creatures immune to crits as a bonus, I just see it not having a penalty.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Look at it as a 5-10% chance (or better with Imp. Crit or Keen, etc.) to change the course of a fight VERY quickly. A wildcard, if you will.

 

[Goolpsy]

With a Flaming burst example, just think at it as a "Lucky strike" you didn't hit the golems weak spot, the weapon just reacted somewhat more furiously...

 

[boolean]

Compare a +1 Flaming Burst weapon to a +1 Flaming, Shocking weapon.

One does an extra 1d10 (or more for higher multipliers) on a crit.

The other does an extra 1d6 on _every_ attack.

I know which I'd prefer.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You're leaving out one thing...if the weapon with the burst ability is X3, its +2d10, and its +3d10 for an x4 weapon.

In other words, its not as good for a sword or a club as it is for an axe, bow or pick.

Still, you're right in that the +2d6/ succesful strike is usually better mathematically than the +1d6 + .05(1d10), unless you're fighting something thats immune to one of the powers or is extra vulnerable to the bursting power.

Then there is the roleplay/story-arc angle. For certain PCs, weapons or campaigns, a mixed- power weapon just doesn't fit. A hammer devoted to a god of storms is more likely to have Shocking Burst (and Thundering etc.) than Shocking and Fire.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Mathematically the burst weapons are, uh, shockingly inferior. If you compare the extra damage you get with a holy weapon (+2, +2d6) with a burst weapon (+2, +1d6 and more on a crit...

The holy weapon gives you a straight +7 average damage on most of your foes and with no resistance to it.

The energy burst weapon gives you +3.5 + (0.1*5.5) = +4.05 average damage on foes which are not resistant to the energy. If we say that in the long run resistant foes and vulnerable foes even each other out (not strictly true since there are far more resistances than vulnerabilities) +4.05 is a long way shy of +7 average per attack.

x3 crit weapons get just the same average, picks and scythes with their 5% chance of a x4 crit have an average extra damage of +3.5 +(.05* 16.5) = +4.325 average damage.

As an interesting thought experiment, how much extra damage should be done to make it of equivalent value to holy?

Taking a sword as our base for easier maths, we want the burst to do an extra 3.5 damage on average. That will happen on 10% of hits, so a mathematically equivalent flaming burst weapon should do 10d6 damage on a crit (average 35, happens 10% of the time giving the +3.5).

Can you see someone agreeing with one of those as a +2 enhancement

 

[Plane Sailing]

p.s. I only used the threat chance above, and ignored the issue of confirming the crit which can reduce the chance of the extra damage kicking in dramatically.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Short answer: No.

Slightly not so short an answer: Only after elemental damage has been added, enhancement has been given priority & the improved critical feat has been taken. I suspect a 19+ or better crit threat weapon gives a better return.

Long answer is this, this, and this.