Are you glad that Increased Threat Ranges no longer stack?

[Kai Lord]

Today at http://pub36.ezboard.com/fgameschat19968frm10.showMessage?topicID=489.topic Andy Collins was asked exactly why they revised the critical threat range stacking rules. Here's what he said:

"We wanted crits to be more special than they were in 3.0.

A side effect is that we can play around with crit ranges and crit effects a little more. For instance, I could see a really weird weapon that had crit range 17-20. Now that this can't be turned into 8-20 with two easy-to-get effects, it might be a viable concept to explore. (I have no idea whether this would be a good idea--it's just off the top of my head.)

Andy Collins
Senior Designer
Wizards of the Coast Roleplaying R&D"

 

[Sanackranib]

In my not so humble opinion, stacking critical threat bonuses is one of the worst ideas ever and I'm happy they changed it. I've seen combinations that get the critical threat range all the way down to a roll of 12-20. 12 is often less than what the character actually needs to roll to hit a monster. True, you still have to hit for it to be a threat, and you do have to confirm the hit to ensure it's a critical hit, but this still brings us to a game mechanic that allows for crits just as often as not. That is broken. Double or triple damage should be your reward for a high roll rather than a usual occurrence. I think this was definitely the right call for them to make and is just another example of how 3.5 fixes what were shortcomings with the system.

I agree. crits shouldnt run the game and should nevr be in the 40% of all your hits range. anybody crying about that change is put off because they can't do 200-300% damage almost half the time, nor should you be able to.