Nyaricus said:
sorry that i might have some off a bit offensively, i was just trying to say that improved crit should stayas it is. You originally said that it should work in a differnt way, whereas Sean K. points out that improved crit already works well enough as it is. Maybe not perfect, but well enough.
Please excuse my zealousness (sp?) in my "Read. This. Rant." post - I didn't mean to peeve you off man.
I've never said that Improved Critical should work in a different way. I've said that the mechanic of 'add +1 to critical multiplier' should work (or at least be worded, if the intention is different than it sounds) in a different way to be _in line_ with the benefit from Improved Critical.
To put it simply: A critical hit is the equivalent of a number of additional hits.
A longsword gains one additional hit two times over a series of rolls. (2)
A battleaxe gains two additional hits once over a series of rolls. (2)
Improved Critical makes the longsword gain an additional hit four times. (4) It makes the battleaxe gain two additional hits two times. (4)
Simply adding +1 to the critical multiplier doesn't provide that type of evenly distributed benefit, however. Counting Improved Critical, a longsword gains two additional hits four times (8). On the other hand, a battleaxe gains three additional hits two times (6).
Thus, the additional benefit gained from a +1 critical multiplier is twice as good for a longsword (+4 hits) over that of a battleaxe (+2 hits).
The solution is to _double_ the additional hits baked into the critical multiplier, rather than add a flat +1. Then the longsword gains the same benefit as above (8), while the battleaxe now gains four additional hits two times (also 8). This is necessary to retain the proportionality between the weapons' base stats, by which they are balanced. Otherwise, the average damage output will increase more for a longsword or other weapon with a larger critical threat range than for a weapon with a larger base critical multiplier, like a battleaxe.
Improved Critical retains the base proportionality between the weapons. A feature that improves the critical multiplier should do the same, or it'll be favoring the big threat range weapons. It annoys me a bit when the designers of some books add stuff like a +1 critical multiplier (like IIRC in Sword & Fist), because it shows they don't understand how the numbers fit together.
And as for Improved Crit stacking with keen, it's never stopped doing that in any games I'm running. It was always one of the things about the revision that I didn't like and seems the product of a rather curious idea about balancing. The advantage gained from having one is a 100% increase in the number of crits. The advantage gained from having both is a 50% increase over the advantage of just having one (200% total). It might be worth noting that the advantage of an increased multiplier, you get much more mileage out of these (×2 ×2, or a 300% increase for greater multiplier and threat range, and ×3 ×2, or a 500% increase with both keen and Improved Crit, as well as a greater multiplier).
