Non-Damage Critical Build ...Possible?

[Graha013]

I've been researching with the help of the Vorpal optimization thread ways to increase the number of chances you can deal a crit, and only a crit. There are:

Luck Feats: Better lucky than good, Fortuitous Strike, Victor's Luck, Unbelievable Luck

That allow you to reroll to get a crit or confirm a crit

Regular feats: Two weapon fighting chain, improved critical and power critical, multiweapon fighting, slashing fury

That give you additional attacks in a round with various penalties, or bonuses to confirming a critical.

Races: Tako, Thrikreen, Anthropomorphic Octopus/Squids, etc.

That give you multiple arms that can give you multiple attacks and thus, multiple chances to crit..

Equipment: Arms of frenzy, gloves of the balanced hand, phylactery of change (change into something with more hands),

That give you ways to get more attacks and more weapons held to do said attacks

Enchantments: Speed, Keen, etc.

That give you extra attacks and larger crit ranges

Stances: Raging Mongoose,
Spells: Surge of Fortune, True Strike, etc.
Classes: Rangers, Dervish..

and of course Weapons: Scimitars, Scythes, Rapiers - that have larger critical ranges than others.


So my question is, how do you optimize a character with all sources available (excepting eberron, and dragon mag) to just crit a lot? He could deal all of 1d2-2 per hit for all I care, damage wise - I'm looking for a way to get the highest chance per roll for a critical.

This can be achieved mixing and matching: # of attacks, # of confirming modifiers, # of arms, # of class abilities or feats...

Something to make you think. Ideas that we've already had and know exist are continuous surge of fortune effects/true striking on weapons - which I can only say are neat ideas but defeat the mechanical aspect of the build. All else is fair game.

[aquaticrna]

there is a class in BoVD that (while it doesn't help vorpal at all) will eventually triple your threat range and it stacks with keen and improved crit. So if you start with some 18-20 threat range weapon you end up with a 9-20 crit range. combine that with as many attacks as you can manage and you're golden

[Graha013]

there is a class in BoVD that (while it doesn't help vorpal at all) will eventually triple your threat range and it stacks with keen and improved crit. So if you start with some 18-20 threat range weapon you end up with a 9-20 crit range. combine that with as many attacks as you can manage and you're golden

shut up. BoVD?....I'm not familiar with the acronym

edit: Never mind, Book of Vile Darkness. found it. And it's a class? That's crazytalk. Gonna dive in. thanks

[Graha013]

there is a class in BoVD that (while it doesn't help vorpal at all) will eventually triple your threat range and it stacks with keen and improved crit. So if you start with some 18-20 threat range weapon you end up with a 9-20 crit range. combine that with as many attacks as you can manage and you're golden

Not finding it in any of the PrC's there.. got a name?

[BillyBobJoe]

Not finding it in any of the PrC's there.. got a name?

Disciple of Dispater.

[Arbitrarity]

Disciple of Dispater, IIRC. Ability is called Iron Power.
EDIT: Swordsages everywhere

[Necroticplague]

Not finding it in any of the PrC's there.. got a name?

disciple of dispater.

[Graha013]

Found it. Thanks e'eryone. Now to bone up on it and see how to make it fit. I'm looking for a previous crit range post of a 9-20 reported using improved crit, this class apparently, another one from tome of battle that may stack...will be an interesting hunt.

[TroubleBrewing]

Keep in mind that BoVD is 3.0 material. Not sure if it was updated to 3.5 or not.

Also: under your Weapons entry in the first post, you had the Rapier listed as a potential weapon. Rapier does not qualify for Vorpal by virtue of only being a Piercing weapon; Vorpal requires a Slashing weapon.

[Graha013]

Also: under your Weapons entry in the first post, you had the Rapier listed as a potential weapon. Rapier does not qualify for Vorpal by virtue of only being a Piercing weapon; Vorpal requires a Slashing weapon.

True story, forgot about that. I could probably replace it with kama's if we consider flurry of blows as a mass-way to get rolls for possible crits while considering this build..

[Groverfield]

Vorpal only triggers on a confirmed nat 20, no matter what weapon its on, so threat range does not do anything for the build. Scratch off keen or any specific weapon. Only thing that you can do is force rerolls, make more attacks (Flurry monk with a slashing weapon? 4 weapon fighter?) and bonus to confirm.

[Graha013]

Vorpal only triggers on a confirmed nat 20, no matter what weapon its on, so threat range does not do anything for the build. Scratch off keen or any specific weapon. Only thing that you can do is force rerolls, make more attacks (Flurry monk with a slashing weapon? 4 weapon fighter?) and bonus to confirm.

Yeah, we got that much in the vorpal optimization thread. This is more so about how high of a percent can we get chance to crit based on feats and # of attacks.

Something that has a range of 9-20 4x crit range and the chance to lop off your head? Interesting.

[BillyBobJoe]

Make it an aptitude weapon and take lightning maces. Two Weapon Fighting with keen aptitude scimitars can keep on making attacks for a very long time.

[Graha013]

Make it an aptitude weapon and take lightning maces. Two Weapon Fighting with keen aptitude scimitars can keep on making attacks for a very long time.

is aptitude a weapon spec feat or a magic enchantment? I'm not familiar with it

[BillyBobJoe]

is aptitude a weapon spec feat or a magic enchantment? I'm not familiar with it

Aptitude weapon is a weapon enhancement in Tome of Battle, I believe.

[Necroticplague]

is aptitude a weapon spec feat or a magic enchantment? I'm not familiar with it

Magic enchantment from Tome of Battle. It counts as any weapon for the purpose of feats that specify a weapon (in this case, lightning maces to a kurki).

Edit: Darn, that's the second time in this thread you've ninja'd me.

[noparlpf]

there is a class in BoVD that (while it doesn't help vorpal at all) will eventually triple your threat range and it stacks with keen and improved crit. So if you start with some 18-20 threat range weapon you end up with a 9-20 crit range. combine that with as many attacks as you can manage and you're golden

That is amazing. Do you have a page number?

Edit: Never mind, I didn't scroll down and see the name. With a name I can find it myself easily enough.

[Vandicus]

I've heard stump knives mentioned before. Their base crit range upgrades to 17-20 after a successful hit.

[Vandicus]

That is amazing. Do you have a page number?

Edit: Never mind, I didn't scroll down and see the name. With a name I can find it myself easily enough.

Page 60 of BoVD. Its one of my favorite prestige classes for both my evil NPCs and when I'm an evil PC.

[dextercorvia]

Keep in mind that BoVD is 3.0 material. Not sure if it was updated to 3.5 or not.


It wasn't, but the stacking of Keen,Improved Critical, etc. were updated in 3.5. This leaves the unaltered version of DoD requiring some "tweaking" by the DM which is mentioned at the beginning of every 3.5 book, where it talks about backward compatibility.

[Groverfield]

Why TWF over Thri-kreen MWF? Sure it's 4 levels behind, but if we're optimizing for four attacks, then having four (sixteen at BaB of +16) attacks beats two (eight at BaB of +8)