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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Griffith Dragonlake" data-source="post: 3334474" data-attributes="member: 40379">Abe, I agree with some of your intentions. Here is what I do:Melee Weapon Critical Multipliers<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Bludgeoning weapons have a crit multiplier of ×2</li> </ul> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Slashing weapons have a crit multiplier of ×3</li> </ul> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Piercing weapons have a crit multiplier of ×4</li> </ul>Melee Weapon Critical Threat Range<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">One-handed bludgeoning 20</li> </ul> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Two-handed bludgeoning 19–20</li> </ul> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">One-handed slashing 19–20</li> </ul> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Two-handed slashing 18–20</li> </ul> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">One-handed piercing 18–20</li> </ul> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Two-handed piercing 17–20</li> </ul> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Rapier 17–20</li> </ul>Your knife fighter has a base critical threat range of 18–20. Upon a confirmed crit he will do ×4 damage. Improved crit will increase his threat range.Critical hits are open-ended (taken from Rolemaster). That is, upon confirmed crit, roll again. If you confirm the crit a 2nd time, the multiplier increases by 1 and keep rolling until you no longer confirm the crit. In this way a rapier, spear, or dagger with keen edge and improved crit (I allow stacking but only +1 for each) with some lucky rolls could end up with ×5, ×6, or ×7 damage.If you use armour as DR then it will be easier to hit and confirm crits. However a dagger will be useless against plate armour unless it is a critical hit. Which is also what happens in real life—the dagger is effective only when it gets underneath the plates, eye slots, etc.If you go the VP/WP route then you can't multiply critical damage. Otherwise every critical hit = instant death.  Myself and most of my players find it more fun to multiply damage than to do WP or Con damage. And as mentioned above, multiplying critical damage works well with DR.  Whereas VP/WP assumes that every critical hit bypasses armour DR regardless of how much armour DR there is.Allowing weapons to have an Attack bonus instead of a critical threat range and requiring all critical hits to be a target number rather than a flat % chance (natural 20, natural 19-20, etc.) is a better reflection of real combat than the current system IMHO. However, high level fighters with their huge BABs would score critical hits all the time (esp. when combined with armour as DR). Even if you granted all classes a defence bonus, your wizards would have to constantly maintain a Protection from Arrows spell. It might still be workable but would require extensive playtesting to get right.</blockquote>

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