d20 modern, no improved crit feat?

[Ghost2020]

Sorry if this has been covered already,
why doesn't d20 modern have the improved crit feat?

Massive damage threshold rules take its place maybe?

 

[Roudi]

d20 Modern really doesn't need an Improved Critical feat.

With the Massive Damage rules being what they are, being able to increase the chance of scoring critical hits is a little redundant.

 

[takyris]

Pretty much what the Roudmeister said.

You can get Improved Critical, in effect, from the Soldier Advanced Class, and it's fairly deadly. To nitpick, I wouldn't specifically say that Massive Damage takes the PLACE of Improved Crit, but I'd say that they're pretty dangerous together.

In the same vein, so are weapons with x3 damage multipliers. I'm running a Grim Tales game, and man, when that axe-wielding mook rolls a 20, it's pretty much a guaranteed Massive Damage check -- d8+3 becomes 3d8+9 in one fell swoop.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Sorry if this has been covered already,
why doesn't d20 modern have the improved crit feat?

Two reasons I can think of.

1) Critical hits are super-dangerous. The majority of weapons only have a x2 multiplier and it still is deadly enough to panic the receiver of a crit.

2) It makes the Soldier class feature more interesting and valuable. Note that the Soldier feature only widens threat ranges by one; less than many weapons get with the Improved Critical feat.
It's still nasty due to number 1 and the fact that, at tenth level, Soldiers automatically confirm their critical threats.

 

[Vigilance]

A couple of traditional warrior abilities were moved to the Soldier class, especially Weapon Specialization and Improved Crit.

Chuck

 

[Owen K.C. Stephens]

As an additional note, high base attack bonuses are rarer in d20 Modern than D&D, as only the Strong hero and Martial Artist have a 1/1 BAB progression out of the core book. That means for -most- characters (all characters that don't have at least one of those two classes) you couldn't get Imp Crit until 12th level. But we want a dedicated soldier to have access earlier, so they get something similar (though as noted not quite as good) at 5th, which can easily be 8th character level -- same level Imp Crit becomes available in D&D.

Once we have that as a class ability, we don't want to steal its thunder by also having it as a feat. Since criticals are more dangerous in d20 Modern (because of lower massive damage thresholds), -and- healing is rarer in the vast majority of campaigns, it's best to exclude that feat.