Imp Crit + Keen = ???

[FreeTheSlaves]

That "tedious" comment deserves a bit of thought.

A primary fighting-type will hit 1/2 the time if we exclude iterative attacks, and a threat of 12+ is almost half the die roll which is the upper end of the to-hit roll. So most successful attacks will threaten and the iterative attacks will definitely threaten because they have to spring from the upper limit of the d20 roll.

Okay, that might be tedious and might be worth thwarting but there are 2 natural solutions as I see it:

1) Ban the stack.
2) Make either imp crit or keen increment the critical modifier rather than the threat. This would radically change the mechanic between core & revision but it would eliminate tedium while not invalidating previous character choice. Like Andy points out, the critical modifier needs to be incremented by 2 but I'm a little confused with base*2 weapons.

We need to run some numbers but I think a 17+*2 weapon is the same to 19+*4 weapon?

****

17+*2weapon, 50% to hit, 1d8 damage, 100% confirmation
4.5 damage + (20% chance to do +100% damage)
0.5*(4.5)*(1+(0.2*4.5)) = 2.7

19+*4weapon, 50% to hit, 1d8 damage, 100% confirmation
4.5 damage + (10% chance to do +300% damage)
0.5*(4.5)*(1+(0.1*13.5)) = 2.925

Woops! I'll change that *4 to *3

19+*3weapon, 50% to hit, 1d8 damage, 100% confirmation
4.5 damage + (10% chance to do +200% damage)
0.5*(4.5)*(1+(0.1*9)) = 2.7

****

So that clarified the *2crit question and confirmed Andy's numbers; increasing the normal crit multiplier of *2 to *3 is the same as doubling the threat range but for superior crit multiples, they need to be incremented by (1+(crit multiple-2)).

*2 becomes *3
*3 becomes *5
*4 becomes *7 (?? need to work this number too)

 

[apesamongus]

That "tedious" comment deserves a bit of thought.

A primary fighting-type will hit 1/2 the time if we exclude iterative attacks, and a threat of 12+ is almost half the die roll which is the upper end of the to-hit roll. So most successful attacks will threaten and the iterative attacks will definitely threaten because they have to spring from the upper limit of the d20 roll.

And since they confirm less will not be any more common.
Numerically, there is no difference (with the exception of when something would be a threat on the initial roll, but still not high enough to hit) between just giving a percentage to crit based on the weapon.

In other words...
"Crit on 20/roll to confirm" is identical to "5% of hits are crits."
"Crit on 19-20/roll to confirm" is almost identical to "10% of hits are crits." The only exception being if you only normally hit on a 20.
And so on, down the line.
So, changing an 17-20 crit range to a 15-20 crit range does absolutely nothing except change the change of critting from a 20% to a 30%, and I fail to see how that introduces any tedium that wasn't already there.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

The tedium would kick in, if it ever was going to, when most successful hits require a confirmation roll.

The improved critical feat is used by higher level characters with iterative attacks - you are increasing the number of rolls they make by aproximately 50% in the worse case scenario. I can't so easily dismiss the "tedious" accusation as higher level combat begins to really bog down sometimes.

 

[Scion]

There are a lot of tricks to speed up high level combat (roll lots of dice at once: attack roll, confirmation to crit, and damage without crit all at the same time, then it takes only a second at most to roll the extra dice if needed; make sure everyone knows what they are going to do before their turn, no stalling without a very good reason; limit interparty talking; etc) without having to resort to getting rid of options for no better reason than, 'I felt like it'.

Crit stacking was fine, it made for an interesting character choice. Well, 'fine' is relative, overall the power level of the character decreased in comparison to characters who didnt rely on crits to deal damage (if for no other reason than because as levels go up more and more creatures can ignore crits to some degree).

I allow them to stack in my games, never had a problem with it. If anyone ever had a real problem with it I would guess it came from simply having two many things that worked at the same time (spell + prc + feat + other feat + other spell + other prc + 5 other things to get a 1-20 crit range). But even then they are looking at such high diminishing returns and investment unless everything was really cheap it seems unlikely to cause massive problems.

 

[DungeonMaster]

Andy Collins couldn't reverse engineer a nut off of a bolt. He didn't understand there was a formula for saves in 3rd edition, wrote the steel predator and made it deaf but also speak terran, wrote the 3.5 "darkness" spell with wording such as "shadowy illumination", the 3.5 "holy word" spell and well just about everything that is wrong with 3.5 has it's direct root in his work.
So let's not talk to much of Andy's "arguments" because they make as typical, no mathematical or game mechanical sense at all. It's just his opinion, often without basis except in his own mind.
Improved critical stacking with keen is a perfectly sound mechanic . Sean k. Reynolds has it right - the terrorists will have won.

 

[comrade raoul]

... and well just about everything that is wrong with 3.5 has it's direct root in his work.

Don't get me started on that stupid dwarf, too.

 

[DungeonMaster]

You know the story about the 3.5 dwarf right?
Lifted almost straight from Steve Jackson's "munchkin". I'm not kidding.
Anyhow. Just an aside.

Not that I dislike munchkin. It's hilarious. I just can't beleive the whole carrying capacity joke was taken seriously.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Yeah Andy Collins is only the senior game designer of the worlds most popular RPG. Our unrealized, potential genius, game designing talents clearly blow his tangible success out of the water.

If I'm going to put my faith in someones rule-set, I'll choose the proven winner everytime.

 

[Banshee16]

You know the story about the 3.5 dwarf right?
Lifted almost straight from Steve Jackson's "munchkin". I'm not kidding.
Anyhow. Just an aside.

Not that I dislike munchkin. It's hilarious. I just can't beleive the whole carrying capacity joke was taken seriously.

I'm not sure when Steve Jackson's "Munchkin" was released....if it's the D20 system version, then the whole dwarf carrying capacity issue was included in D&D *way* before Munchkin was released.

Dwarves had the ability to carry loads as if their STR was 4 points higher than what they adtually had....this was in 2nd Ed. AD&D...in the setting of Birthright. And that was, what....1997?

If there was a version of Munchkin out before that, then I won't raise the point again.

Banshee

 

[Goolpsy]

Well, the Tedious part isn't a part to get fixed, its a Flavor part that COULD get fixed, i.e. by making one of them improving the Crit multiplyer instead.