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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5017104" data-attributes="member: 4937">On the subject of vorpal and sharpness, I've never been happy with the rules for such weapons.Back in 1st edition, I used the 'good hits and bad misses' table from Dragon Annual 4 (IIRC).  The table had entries like, 'double damage', 'triple damage', all the way up to 'remove limb at knee' and decapitation.  It wasn't long after playing with it that I realized that it could be used to balance 'sharpness' and 'vorpal' weapons a little better.  My rule for 1e was that a sharpness weapon automatically scored a critical on a natural 20 without the need for a confirmation role, and a vorpal weapon scored a critical on any modified 20 or higher without the need for a confirmation roll.  (Normally, you had a % chance of a critical equal to the amount you'd exceeded your required to hit target.)  Not that this rule ever came into play, because even toned down I considered the weapons too powerful to really come into play.My feeling is pretty much the same for 'sharpness' and 'vorpal' weapons in 3e, but if I was going to introduce them it would be with the same sort of reforms - ei, the 'sharpness' enhancement means crits would not need to be confirmed.   Or alternately (and I haven't play tested either idea) 'sharpness' would mean that every hit threatened a critical.  'Vorpal' would just mean a particular combination of enhancements that was particularly devestating (keen and sharp, or perhaps sharp and brutal).</blockquote>

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