improved crit and keen

[comrade raoul]

Personally I see what they are doing kindof like not letting a +modifier weapon stack with bab, just nonsensical ;/ but the designers shall have their own personal pet peeves, too bad no one was able to talk sense into them this time.

I completely agree with you.

Falchion? A 3.5e power attack with a falchion with full stacking of imp crit and keen might get a little sticky. The issue is the ease with which additional bonuses can get added together on the crit.

I also think the 3.5e Power Attack is as stupid an idea as the 3.5e crit stacking rules. Both of them should be consigned to the house-rule garbage can.

Here's my solution: you only multiply weapon dice on a crit, and Keen & Imp. Crit stack as in 3.0e. The exception is Weapon Specialization, which is multiplied on a crit.

Thus, a crit from a battle axe is going to be far more scary than a crit from a dagger -- N+3d12 is just better than N+2d4, since you don't multiply N under my house rules.

Also IMC I changed the elemental Burst enchantment to deal (Crit x d12) dice of damage, replacing the normal d6 of elemental damage with a d12. So, a Flaming Burst Glaive deals:
Normal: N + 1d10 + 1d6 Fire
Critical: N + 3d10 + 3d12 Fire

So, if you want exciting crits, you can buy them.

-- N

Leaving your burst enchantment rules aside, the problem with this rule is that keen and Improved Critical become extremely weak. Consider a character who has Weapon Specialization with his scimitar. Improved Critical or keen given him an additional 15% chance (somewhat lower, actually, because he might not confirm his threat) to deal (in the best case) 1d6+2, or an average of 5.5. (5.5 * 0.15) is just 0.825, and +0.825 expected damage (in the best case) is NOT worth a feat or a +1 weapon ability. Under your system, nobody will take Improved Critical, and Keen is always a waste of money. (I once had a DM change to this system mid-campaign; needless to say, my keen/Improved Critical character wasn't happy.)

Do your burst abilities help? Well, now let's suppose that he has flaming burst on his scimitar, too. This means he has a 15% chance to deal 2d12 points of (fire) damage -- that is, the burst effect adds (11 * 0.15) or 1.65 expected damage for the extra +1 (that is, its +2 price compared to flaming's +1), which isn't that great. Each ability that expands his threat range adds a +15% chance to cause 1d6+2+2d12, or (16.5 * 0.15) 2.475, which is a lot better.

Now a character with an Improved Critical, keen, flaming burst scimitar that he's specialized in has a 45% chance to cause 1d6+2+2d12 damage, for a total expected critical damage of (16.5*.45), or 7.425 (compared to his original total of 0.825). One feat and two +1-equivalent enhancements give him a total of +6.6 expected damage. This still isn't a great deal, but it's within the realm of reason.

So I suppose the conclusion with your system is that critical hits are worthless unless you have burst weapons, in which case they're not great but okay. It's not a system I'd be really interested in playing in, but hey, YMMV.

 

[Storm Raven]

OK, have you seen it often?

I have seen more "large multiplier/small threat range" keen-improved critical combinations than I have seen the opposite. People, in my experience, just seem to like the occassional big hit over the semi-frequent moderate hit.

 

[Nifft]

So I suppose the conclusion with your system is that critical hits are worthless unless you have burst weapons, in which case they're not great but okay. It's not a system I'd be really interested in playing in, but hey, YMMV.

Crits are worth pleanty in my system, it simply doesn't allow weak weapons like the Scimitar to compete with strong weapons like the Glaive, Battleaxe or Heavy Pick. If you build a character that depends on crits to do decent damage, you're in trouble the first time you see an undead, ooze, construct or fighter with Fortified armor.

Here's a change I'm considering, though: Keen improves the crit range (per normal), while Imp Crit improves the crit multiplier. Thus, a Keen / Imp Crit scimitar would do 15/x3 damage (or 25% chance to deal +2d6). The Feat would be worth more than the 3rd-level spell, which is as it should be -- it's a high-end Feat.

-- N

 

[comrade raoul]

Crits are worth pleanty in my system, it simply doesn't allow weak weapons like the Scimitar to compete with strong weapons like the Glaive, Battleaxe or Heavy Pick. If you build a character that depends on crits to do decent damage, you're in trouble the first time you see an undead, ooze, construct or fighter with Fortified armor.

Okay, let's take a high-damage weapon like a greatsword, which turns out to be only slightly better: Improved Critical with a greatsword that you're specialized with provides an extra 10% chance to do an extra 2d6+2 damage (assuming you confirm your threat -- again, not confirming is a real possibility, since of course characters don't hit all the time). That's an average of (9 * 0.1), or +.9 expected damage. If you don't confirm half the times you threaten, that's less than half a point of expected additional damage for one feat. You might call that "plenty," but I think that's a nearly worthless feat.

And I always thought weapon choices were more interesting of "weak" weapons like the scimitar were balanced with weapons like the longsword -- after all, they're both medium martial weapons, and the current system makes them mechanically balanced. Why change it?

 

[Grayhawk]

I use the same house rule as Nifft (where you only add your damage bonuses once on a crit).

It seems that for a feat like Improved Critical (IC) to be worth it, you need a bunch of static damage bonuses, making it a worthwhile choice only for those that already deal great damage. When using the 'only add your damage bonuses once on a crit' rule you make the IC feat or Keen weapon ability equal appealing for those with lower or no damage bonuses, which I like.

I'm aware of the way that this houserule reduces the power of criticals, but that was the general idea. That it also reduces the value of the Keen enchantment doesn't bother me, as you can't buy magic in my campaign. So someone finding a Keen weapon is certainly getting a benefit, as it won't be at the exclusion of some other 'like priced but tougher' ability.

So far I was planning on using the 3.0 way of stacking Keen and IC (and I reduced the prereq of IC to BAB+6), but after reading this thread I might let IC add 1 to the crit multiplier instead.

Letting it work this way might be a greater boon to certain weapon types, but I'm OK with that, as I don't mind if everything isn't 100% balanced (actually I feel that some imbalances can add to the flavor of the game).

Considering the above house rule in play, is a +1 to the crit multiplier always preferable to an increase in threat range?

 

[Staffan]

(assuming you confirm your threat -- again, not confirming is a real possibility, since of course characters don't hit all the time).

Math time: Assuming no "wasted threat range," the proportion of hits that will be crits is exactly equal to the proportion of attacks that will be threats. That's because the probability of confirming the threat is equal to the probability of hitting in the first place.

In other words, let's say you need to roll 13+ to hit your opponent, and you're fighting with a sword (threat range 19-20). Your chances are:
Hit: 40% (13-20 on 1d20)
Threat: 10% (19-20 on 1d20)
Crit: 4% (19-20 followed by 13-20 on 1d20)
Hit/Crit = 1/Threat.

 

[comrade raoul]

Math time: Assuming no "wasted threat range," the proportion of hits that will be crits is exactly equal to the proportion of attacks that will be threats. That's because the probability of confirming the threat is equal to the probability of hitting in the first place.

In other words, let's say you need to roll 13+ to hit your opponent, and you're fighting with a sword (threat range 19-20). Your chances are:
Hit: 40% (13-20 on 1d20)
Threat: 10% (19-20 on 1d20)
Crit: 4% (19-20 followed by 13-20 on 1d20)
Hit/Crit = 1/Threat.

Yes, I know. And this is why you can use normal critical hit systems to express percentile increases to expected damage (taking chances to hit into account) according to threat range and multiplier.

But I wanted to express the marginal damage increase that threat improvements provide under Nifft's system, which, because the extra damage you caused on a crit was more or less constant with respect to your weapon, could be expressed largely in a strict numeric increase. And unless you're reporting critical damage as proporitional to the damage you cause (again, rather than as a constant value), you can't take advantage of this relation.

 

[Nifft]

Let's see. Weapon Focus (X) will net you a +1 to hit, and a +1 to confirm crits. Ignoring crits (which you claim are unexciting under my rules), that's a 5% extra chance to do damage, or a benefit of N+3.5/20 (in the case of the Scimitar). Unless your bonus damage (N) is over 16 points worth, this popular Feat is getting you less than one point of damage per attack! In fact, unless you have 18 Str, Weapon Spec. and a +1 weapon, you're doing less than .5 extra damage per swing.

Seen in that light, a +0.9 damage/swing benefit isn't anything to sneeze on. Remember that there are a LOT of swings in the average combat.

Context, comrade.

-- N

 

[comrade raoul]

Let's see. Weapon Focus (X) will net you a +1 to hit, and a +1 to confirm crits. Ignoring crits (which you claim are unexciting under my rules), that's a 5% extra chance to do damage, or a benefit of N+3.5/20 (in the case of the Scimitar). Unless your bonus damage (N) is over 16 points worth, this popular Feat is getting you less than one point of damage per attack! In fact, unless you have 18 Str, Weapon Spec. and a +1 weapon, you're doing less than .5 extra damage per swing.

Seen in that light, a +0.9 damage/swing benefit isn't anything to sneeze on. Remember that there are a LOT of swings in the average combat.

Context, comrade.

-- N

Yes, you're right -- unless you do more than 20 points of average damage (which is feasible, but not until high levels), Weapon Focus always adds less than one point of average damage per attack. But it is a prerequisite for Weapon Specialization, which is much more powerful. Improved Critical isn't a prerequisite for anything that good.

Also, this does nothing to justify the keen enhancement, which is still always worse than the regular +1 (unless, arguably, you have a burst weapon.)