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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 2211213" data-attributes="member: 3146">It's not just giants that are lethal. Pretty much anything CR 8+ and a lot of things with CRs as low as 1 basically drop anyone on a critical hit. An ogre? 2d8+7 with a greatclub. 15 points on average is enough to exceed most characters wound points. A half-orc barbarian? At first level, he will typically do between 2d6+7 and 2d6+12 depending upon starting stats and power attack. An 8th level fighter type will typically do somewhere around 2d6+14 points of damage on a successful hit without buffing. (2d6 greatsword, +6 (18 strength), +2 weapon specialization), +2 enhancement bonus, +4 power attack). Factor in that most of the time such characters will be using scythes or falchions in an unmodified system and as soon as they get Imp Crit, they'll crit on 1/3 of their attacks and you have a system where an 8th level fighter type will take drop his foe on roughly half of his full attacks--2/3 of them if hasted. (Improved crit grants a 30% threat ratio (15-20) and, assuming that a character confirms the majority of threats, the chance to NOT be critted is 70% for one attack, 49% for two attacks, and 34.3% for three attacks). 2d4+14 wound points is enough to pretty reliably stun anything it doesn't drop outright.Add in buffing or non-core materials, and it gets really ugly. An 2/6 barbarian/fighter with leap attack and shock trooper (or heedless charge or Reckless Assault (Player's Guide to Arcanis)) will routinely do weapon damage +38 points of damage (power attack 8 x3=24 points plus 10 (starting strength 16+2 half-orc+2 levels+4 rage) plus 2 enhancement bonus (Greater Magic Weapon in a low-magic game) plus 2 weapon specialization). Give him bardsong and that's +40. (If the bard has access to Complete Adventurer's Inspirational Boost, the weapon damage is +41). Add prayer and it's +42. And his attack bonus at that point is at least +16 (+7 str, +2 charge, +3 morale, +1 luck, +1 weapon focus, +2 enhancement) +23 if he's doing the Shock Trooper thing. If you get Recitation instead of prayer, the damage goes down to weapon damage +41 but the attack bonus goes up to +18 (normal) or +26 (dumping the Power Attack penalty to AC). And that's within the NORMAL range for a character of that level. A paladin with Divine Might will routinely do weapon damage +8 even with a one-handed weapon--weapon damage +16 on a smite without power attack. Given a two-handed weapon and power attack, things will get even uglier. And I'm not mentioning what will happen if you're silly enough to allow spikes (Complete Divine) into your game.Lethal does not begin to describe an unmodified UA wound points/vitality points system as soon as the game reaches even the middle levels. That the writers commented that the system makes sneak attack deadly only demonstrates that they have no clue how high normal damage routinely goes. A good BDF will deal more damage per hit than a full level rogue will with sneak attack.The reason the system works in Star Wars, etc. is that characters are mostly using energy weapons, etc. and don't get to add their strength bonus to damage (even once), nor do they power attack, nor do they routinely get damage bonusses from spells or aother abilities (and, IIRC, the only Star Wars weapon with a threat range better than 20 is the lightsaber).</blockquote>

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