Math question for Critical hit house rule

[Grayhawk]

I have a house rule where a critical hit only lets you multiply the weapon's damage die. (Whether or not that's a good idea is not the subject of this thread )

I know that this severely lessens the worth of the Improved Critical feat, and so far I have reduced the prereq of that feat to BAB +6. (But the feat is still weak...)

Instead I'm thinking about changing the feat to just do away with the confirmation roll, letting you crit every time you hit and roll within your threat range.

I know that some of you are pretty good at math, so could you please help me understand the implications of such a rule? Will this - on average - increase damage more than specialization, for instance?

Thanks for your help!

 

[CRGreathouse]

Weapon Specialization adds +2 damage per hit. If you hit 50% of the time, it adds 1 point of damage per attack.

IC on a longsword 17-20 would give it 0.45 damage per round, on average, against creatures vulnerable to crits, assuming a 17 hits. (If 18 hits, but not 17, it adds 0.225 damage; if 18 misses then it's useless.)

Assuming the lowest threat still hits:

IC for a greatsword would add 0.7 damage. A rapier or heavy pick adds 0.525 damage.

 

[Grayhawk]

Weapon Specialization adds +2 damage per hit. If you hit 50% of the time, it adds 1 point of damage per attack.

IC on a longsword 17-20 would give it 0.45 damage per round, on average, against creatures vulnerable to crits, assuming a 17 hits. (If 18 hits, but not 17, it adds 0.225 damage; if 18 misses then it's useless.)

Assuming the lowest threat still hits:

IC for a greatsword would add 0.7 damage. A rapier or heavy pick adds 0.525 damage.

Is this assuming that the feat also increases the threat range? The idea was for the threat ranges to remain the same.

That is, a Longsword with Improved Critical would crit on all rolls of 19 or 20.

(This has the added benefit of letting Imp Crit be different from the Keen effect.)

 

[evilbob]

This isn't exactly an answer to your question, but perhaps you could have the Improved Crit feat just resolve all crits as per normal, instead of just x damage roll. That would certainly put it back up there in importance.

 

[ichabod]

I ran a spreadsheet, and checked the more common one handed martial weapons. Weapon Specialization comes out better unless you only need a 3 or 4 to hit.

 

[Grayhawk]

This isn't exactly an answer to your question, but perhaps you could have the Improved Crit feat just resolve all crits as per normal, instead of just x damage roll. That would certainly put it back up there in importance.

Assuming the thread range stayed the same, I'm not sure what the implications of this would be, but I think that would make it deal too much damage for my purposes.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Is this assuming that the feat also increases the threat range? The idea was for the threat ranges to remain the same.

Yes it is. I also concur with ichabod's findings -- unless you have real trouble hitting, WS is better. (This is as should be.)

 

[Grayhawk]

I ran a spreadsheet, and checked the more common one handed martial weapons. Weapon Specialization comes out better unless you only need a 3 or 4 to hit.

Thanks a lot! This was without an increase to the threat range, right?

Any chance of checking it against my current house rule? (Improves threat range as normal, requires confirmation roll, only multiplies weapon's damage die.)

I'm hoping it comes out somewhere between Specialization and the method mentioned above.

Would it be possible to work out specific examples for 3 different weapons, each time comparing the two variants (v1: As normal, but only multiplies weap's damage die, v2: Doesn't increase threat range, only multiplies weap's damage die, but doesn't require confirmation roll) with Specialization, for a total of 27 calculations:

Someone with a Scimitar hitting on a rol of 10, a roll of 15, and a roll of 20.

Someone with a Longsword hitting on a rol of 10, a roll of 15, and a roll of 20.

Someone with a Battleaxe hitting on a rol of 10, a roll of 15, and a roll of 20.

Thanks to those that'll take up the challenge

 

[CRGreathouse]

I don't know how powerful you want IC to be wrt WS. If it were to double threat range *and* auto-crit, the two would be of similar power against creatures subject to crits.

 

[Grayhawk]

I don't know how powerful you want IC to be wrt WS. If it were to double threat range *and* auto-crit, the two would be of similar power against creatures subject to crits.

I would like it to be weaker than WS.

I was just hoping that the 'no need to confirm, threat range stays the same' would be better than my current house rule.