Vorpal and Fortification Revamp

[Cabral]

After some discussion about whether Fortification defends against Vorpal, some house rules came to mind.

First,

I have left it as an option at +2 to threat range and +1 to the multiplier, and in my games improved crit and keen stack.

So, a normal 18-20/x2 range weapon could go to 10-20/x3, but as the majority of creatures at this level are resistant or immune it hasnt been a problem.

This is obviously better for some weapons than for others, and I havent seen it in play often enough to tell if it is balanced or not, but just about anything is better than the normal vorpal ;/ Whenever possible I prefer to keep options open instead of shutting them down entirely.

I could create a thread in the houserule forum if someone would like to run the numbers on it and/or help with overall balancing for it

What I was thinking was no change to the threat range, on a successful roll to confirm the critical, it does bonus damage equal to the normal critical damage. Ugly wording I know. What it would mean is that, for example a longsword would do a bonus 1d8 damage versus all foes (even those immune to critical hits). A potential problem is vorpal scythes (on a vorpal hit would be doing a bonus 6d4 damage plus 8d4 if critical hit damage applies)

Fortification armor, by contrast would be: light fortification would provide -5 to confirm a critical against the wearer; medium fortification would provide -15 to roll to confirm a critical against the wearer; and heavy fortification would provide immunity to confirmation.

 

[Fieari]

Upper Krust and some others in the Immortal's Handbook thread did the math pretty extensively and came up with the following article with reccomended changes along these lines: http://www.immortalshandbook.com/sermon1.2.htm

Excerpts:

Vorpal/Brutal: This property can only be applied to melee weapons. Upon a roll of a natural 20 (followed by a successful roll to confirm the critical hit) the weapons critical multiplier is increased by 5. If the damage dealt by the blow is sufficient to slay the opponent then its head is either severed (vorpal) or pulped (brutal). This ability stacks with the Overwhelming Critical epic feat, but only overlaps with the Rending weapon special ability.

Strong Necromancy and Transmutation; CL: 18th; Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, circle of death (both), keen edge (vorpal), Market Price: +5 bonus.

Fortification: This property produces a magical force that protects vital areas of the wearer more effectively, decreasing a weapons critical hit multiplier.

Strong Abjuration; CL: 13th (Light-Heavy), 21st (Liquid), 27th (Gaseous) and 33rd (Incandescent); Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor (Light-Heavy), Craft Epic Arms and Armor (Liquid-Incandescent), limited wish or miracle; Market Price: See Table Two.

Revised Fortification Armour/Shield Special Ability: Table Two
Fortification Type Critical Multiplier Base Price Modifier
Light 25% chance of -2 +1
Moderate 75% chance of -2 +3
Heavy (Solid) 100% chance of -2 +5
Liquid 100% chance of -4 +7
Gaseous 100% chance of -6 +9
Incandescent 100% chance of -8 +11

The same article goes into changing sneak attack immunity into a sneak attack reduction, and a bunch of other stuff related to critical hits. I highly reccomend it.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=138184&page=15&pp=40 has some discussions about this stuff.

 

[Cabral]

The website is apparently down. The thread is going to take a lot of time to go through... 27 pages!

I like the vorpal modification, but I don't understand the fortification modification. Is that a chance of a -2 modifier to critical hit multipliers? (for light, moderate, and heavy versions)

 

[XeviatTranion]

I also like the idea of vorpal increasing the critical muliplier of a weapon, but I feel that that would require one to reduce the cost of it.

I'd like to have keen increase threat range by one and vorpal increase the multiplier by 1, and have them stack with improved critical. I'm not up on my damage equasions though, so I can't test it.

I also don't like fortification as it stands, so I'd rather see it grant bonus AC vs. sneak attacks and critical confirmations. Perhaps +4 AC per +1 enhancement?

 

[Blue]

Static additions differ in effectiveness by weapon

I'd like to have keen increase threat range by one and vorpal increase the multiplier by 1, and have them stack with improved critical. I'm not up on my damage equasions though, so I can't test it.

I'm not as big a fan of this because it means different things to different weapons. Compare a falchion (18-20/x2) and a scythe (20/x4). Both do, on average, the same about of critical damage over time. The scythe has a 5% chance of adding +300% damage, and the falchion has a 15% of adding +100% damage. (Yes, other factors like DR, missing on 18-19, etc, come into play. Ignore those for now.) So both average to +15% damage over a number of swings (bonus damage times chance to get it).

Vorpol, increasing the multiplier by one makes the falchion much better - it double the bonus damage, making it do +30% damage. The scythe, on the other hand, only goes up by 1/3, so it does +20% damage. Clearly not as powerful.

The propsed keen does has the saem problem, in reverse. The falchion's threat range goes up but 1/3, to +20% average damage, but the scythe's threat range doubles, as does it's damage. In this case, the keen does as much for the falchion as the vorpal did for the scythe.

Cheers,
Blue