Are you glad that Increased Threat Ranges no longer stack?

[Grog]

In other words, adding Keen and Improved Crit doesn't double the range; it adds 1. (Which is the same thing for weapons that only crit on a 20, I know, but I think it'll work.)

The problem is, this is unbalanced in favor of the high-multiplier low-threat range weapons. Adding 1 to the threat range of a x3 or x4 weapon is a much greater benefit than adding 1 to the threat range of a x2 weapon.

 

[Aaron L]

I think it's a bad idea and an unnecessary change.

 

[Camarath]

With the revision, Falchions will now have a max crit range of 15-20, the same as the Long Sword in 3.0.

I think with Weapon Master you can get the Falchion's range down to 13-20 since I heard that their ability still stacked with Improved Crit. The Scythe on the other hand can still have 17-20 x4 crit just one lower than in 3.0.

 

[Xeriar]

Xeriar's earlier comment about making 18-20/x2 into 19-20/x3 has a similar problem in changing the balance between weapons... it makes the weapon better than it was. 19-20/x3 is +20%, when it used to be only +15%. Also, remember the lesson of the "CR1" orc warrior with the greataxe. The more x3 and x4 weapons there are, the harder it is to not kill off your players on freakish rolls.

Yeah I realized that 19-20/x3 would be the best in the game. Maybe just collapse everything into 20/x2-4, and not only allow improved crit and keen to stack, but add even more feats to the mix (probably not magical abilities pre-epic though).

The orc crit problem can happen to anyone! 4th level players even - thwack!-thwack!... Scythes are worse. This is a bit game dependant though.

I've long disliked starting players at 0 experience, however, as if they've had no life history at the age of 19. I want to redo the entire system, but hmm...

 

[Felon]

Instead of putting yes or no, however, you gave the extreme range of opinions.

Yep, and unfortunately that's the way ENWorld polls are typically set up. A good example of a past question was "Do you think dwarves needed all these little extra bonus abilities they're getting in 3.5e?", where the poller didn't just ask for a simple "yes", "no", or "undecided". Instead what you get is:

"Yes, dwarves were hopelessly weak before."
"No, dwarves were already way too powerful."
"I hate dwarves."

Usually this is indicative of a poller who is ever-so-subtly trying to get his own bias across. It goes a long way towards invalidating the poll before it even starts.

Also, pollers usually don't preface their polls with the proper reference for what they're polling about. They just assume everyone's on the same page with them. Using the above example, no explanation was provided as to what the dwarf bonus abilities are, or what the source of the info was

Likewise, with this poll I don't know where it was initially disclosed that crit range increases don't stack. I'd like to check out the source before I submit my vote.

 

[rounser]

The comments that I've seen from Andy Collins on the matter seem to boil down to "critical hits should be special and exciting, therefore critical hits should be rare."

Sounds like the kind of logic that house rules are based on.

 

[Kai Lord]

Yep, and unfortunately that's the way ENWorld polls are typically set up. A good example of a past question was "Do you think dwarves needed all these little extra bonus abilities they're getting in 3.5e?", where the poller didn't just ask for a simple "yes", "no", or "undecided". Instead what you get is:

"Yes, dwarves were hopelessly weak before."
"No, dwarves were already way too powerful."
"I hate dwarves."

Usually this is indicative of a poller who is ever-so-subtly trying to get his own bias across. It goes a long way towards invalidating the poll before it even starts.

Changing the rule either improves the game or it doesn't. So if you vote "yes" you thought the revision was an improvement. If "no", then the rule obviously didn't need to be changed. Hence the two categories. Nice and simple. For people who play in games where no one ever increases their threat ranges, the issue is irrelevant, and there is no need for a third category to cater to people who have no basis for an opinion either way.

I really don't see what the problem is, but with two complaints out of over 200 participants, I'm not going to worry about it.

 

[Gothmog]

Originally posted by Wolfen Priest:

I don't see what's humorous about it (and I sure doubt the fools at WotC do, either). Shelling out ~$90 for 3 books that I have to houserule the hell out of doesn't seem like too good a deal to me, anyway. So far, the few rules changes that I don't disagree with are very minor points IMC (like some of the spell changes), and if I want to house rule them into 3.0e, that would be easier than house-ruling almost everything in 3.5e.

Just house-rule it. I have heavily house-rules 3E since the day it came out because frankly too much of the rules were powergamerish or munchkiny to me. I still buy the books though, and make the necessary changes for my campaign. Expecting WotC to anticipate your every need and cater to it is ridiculous. 3.5 is trying to rectify some of the power inflation that occurred in 3E, and people are going to complain when their characters take a hit in power.

Originally posted by Wolfen Priest:

I wish Hasbro would sell D&D to some people who have a clue, or at the very least hire back some of the people whose ideas actually made sense, mathematically or otherwise.

Agreed here. I'd love to see Green Ronin or Kenzer get the rights to D&D- they would do a top-notch job with it.

 

[Felon]

Hence the two categories. Nice and simple.

"Yes" and "No" are nice and simple categories. OTOH, tacking on "there has never been the need for the slightest bit of change" seems like a more highly polarized comment than was required to get the point across. Someone could be of the opinion "no, I don't like this new rule" without adopting the position that it was absolutely 100% perfect the way it was. That's the camp I'm in.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Okay, it's 2:30, this idea has just popped to mind, and I haven't sat down to analyze it yet. So I can't promise it's even remotely balanced...

What say that if you have either keen or Imp Crit, it improves the threat range. If you have both, one improves the threat range, the other counts as a bonus to confirm the crit.

For instance, keen or Imp Crit would increase a rapier's critical threat range by three. So if you have both, you might say that the range is increased to 15-20, and you gain a +3 bonus to the confirmation roll. For a greataxe, it increases the range to 19-20, and you get a +1 bonus to the confirmation roll. And so on.

Thus, it once again becomes useful to have both, and they both technically increase the odds of successfully criting, but they don't increase the threat range to obscene levels.

Thoughts? Comments? Critiques?