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NeoSeraphi
2012-03-14, 11:35 AM
Critical Feats

A note on critical feats: They stack. All critical feats you possess trigger when you deliver a successful critical hit, unlike in Pathfinder where you can only use one for some unknown reason. Yes, it seems unfair, but you spent feats to get them, so why limit you when you're clearly expending incredibly valuable resources?

Striking Critical (Critical, Fighter)
Prerequisites: Power Critical
Benefit: Whenever you confirm a critical hit against a creature vulnerable to the extra damage from critical hits, you deal an extra +1d10 damage. This damage increases to +2d10 if your weapon's multiplier is x3, or to +3d10 if your weapon's multiplier is x4, and so on. This damage is multiplied by the number of attacks you gain from your base attack bonus. So a Fighter with +6 BAB and a x3 weapon would deal +4d10 bonus damage on a crit.


Striking Blow (Fighter)
Prerequisites: Striking Critical, BAB +8
Benefit: When you strike a creature with a weapon, you may apply some of your bonus damage from Striking Critical even on a normal hit. On an attack that is not a critical strike, apply Striking Critical damage as if you had 5 fewer points of base attack bonus. For example, a Fighter with +6 BAB and a x3 weapon would deal +2d10 bonus damage on a non-crit.


Impairing Critical (Critical, Fighter)
Prerequisites: Power Critical
Benefit: Whenever you confirm a critical hit against a creature vulnerable to the extra damage from critical hits, that creature is also blinded for one round, and deafened for 1 minute. The creature must also make a Fortitude save (DC 8+1/2 your character level+your Strength modifier+the critical multiplier of your weapon) or have the duration of both effects become permanent instead.


Weakening Critical (Critical, Fighter)
Prerequisites: Str 15, Power Critical
Benefit: Whenever you confirm a critical hit against a creature vulnerable to the extra damage from critical hits, choose a physical ability score. That creature also takes 2 points of ability damage to the chosen ability score.

As a constant secondary benefit of this feat, if you confirm a critical hit against a creature vulnerable to the extra damage from critical hits with a wounding weapon, you may increase the Constitution damage the wounding property deals to 1d6 for that hit only. (This is in addition to any Constitution damage you would deal with the effect of this feat).
Special: You may take this feat up to 3 times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, you choose an additional ability score to deal 2 points of damage to every time you confirm a critical hit. You may not choose the same score more than once per hit. (If you take this feat all 3 times, your critical hits will deal 2 points of Str, Dex, and Con damage).


Stupefying Critical (Critical, Fighter)
Prerequisites: Str 15, Power Critical
Benefit: Whenever you confirm a critical hit against a creature vulnerable to the extra damage from critical hits, choose a mental ability score. That creature also takes 2 points of ability damage to the chosen mental ability score.
Special: You may take this feat up to 3 times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, you choose an additional ability score to deal 2 points of damage to every time you confirm a critical hit. You may not choose the same score more than once per hit. (If you take this feat all 3 times, your critical hits will deal 2 points of Int, Wis, and Cha damage).


Halting Critical (Critical, Fighter)
Prerequisites: Power Critical
Benefit: Whenever you confirm a critical hit against a creature vulnerable to the extra damage from critical hits, that creature has all forms of movement speed reduced to 0' for 1d6 rounds. A successful Reflex save (DC 8+1/2 your character level+your Strength modifier+the critical multiplier of your weapon) reduces this duration to 1 round.


Paralyzing Critical (Critical, Fighter)
Prerequisites: Str 15, Power Critical, Weakening Critical, Halting Critical
Benefit: Whenever you confirm a critical hit against a creature vulnerable to the extra damage from critical hits, that creature is paralyzed for 1d4+1 rounds. A successful Fortitude save (DC 8+1/2 your character level+your Strength modifier+the critical multiplier of your weapon) reduces this duration to 1 round.


Stunning Critical (Critical, Fighter)
Prerequisites: Str 15, Power Critical, Striking Critical
Benefit: Whenever you confirm a critical hit against a creature vulnerable to the extra damage from critical hits, that creature is stunned for 1d6+1 rounds. A successful Fortitude save (DC 8+1/2 your character level+your Strength modifier+the critical multiplier of your weapon) reduces this duration to 1 round.


Horrifying Critical (Critical, Fighter)
Prerequisites: Str 15, Power Critical
Benefit: Whenever you confirm a critical hit against a creature vulnerable to the extra damage from critical hits, you may choose to employ a devastating display that causes all who see it to scatter. If you choose to use this feat, that creature and all creatures within 30 feet who can see you are frightened for 1d6 rounds. A successful Will save (DC 8+1/2 your character level+your Strength modifier+the critical multiplier of your weapon) leaves a creature shaken for 1d6 rounds instead. This is a mind-affecting fear effect.


Disgusting Critical (Critical, Fighter)
Prerequisites: Str 15, Power Critical, Weakening Critical
Benefit: Whenever you confirm a critical hit against a creature vulnerable to the extra damage from critical hits, that creature is nauseated for 1d8+1 rounds. A successful Fortitude save (DC 8+1/2 your character level+your Strength modifier+the critical multiplier of your weapon) leaves the creature sickened for 1d8+1 rounds instead.


Absolute Critical (Critical, Fighter)
Prerequisites: Power Critical, Any one Critical feat
Benefit: You automatically confirm all critical hits that you threaten. Additionally, the DC for all saving throws allowed by your Critical feats increases by +2.


Alpha Critical (Critical, Fighter)
Prerequisites: Power Critical, Absolute Critical, Any one Critical feat, BAB +12
Benefit: Against attacks made by you, all creatures are vulnerable to the extra damage from critical hits.


Superior Critical (Critical, Fighter)
Prerequisites: Power Critical, Improved Critical, BAB +9
Benefit: Choose a weapon that you have the Improved Critical feat for. Your critical threat range for that weapon increases by 1. This effect is applied before all other threat range increasing effects are applied, and stacks with all other threat range increasing effects. (If you have Improved Critical (Rapier) and Superior Critical (Rapier), your threat range with a rapier is 13-20.


Dangerous Critical (Critical, Fighter)
Prerequisites: Power Critical, Improved Critical, Superior Critical, BAB +12
Benefit: Choose a weapon that you have the Improved Critical and Superior Critical feats for. When you wield a weapon of that type, its critical multiplier increases by 1. (x2 becomes x3, x3 becomes x4, and x4 becomes x5).

Kyuu Himura
2012-03-14, 07:22 PM
Where's Power Critical?? Is it like that Pathfinder feat??

wiimanclassic
2012-03-14, 08:19 PM
Where's Power Critical?? Is it like that Pathfinder feat??

Its in Complete Warrior.

Lord_Gareth
2012-03-14, 09:14 PM
Did we not just talk about critical hit feats on the other thread? Did we not discuss passive vs. active abilities? Not only are none of these feats worth the slot, none of them truly adds to a character's capabilities, alters how they conduct combat, or brings anything new or exciting to the game. Why take them?

NeoSeraphi
2012-03-14, 09:28 PM
Did we not just talk about critical hit feats on the other thread? Did we not discuss passive vs. active abilities? Not only are none of these feats worth the slot, none of them truly adds to a character's capabilities, alters how they conduct combat, or brings anything new or exciting to the game. Why take them?

I just felt like 3.5 needed some Crit feats. I was checking out the PFSRD for some stuff, and I discovered the whole section of them, and thought "Hey, pretty decent idea if they stacked, for a single-classed fighter who's got too many feats and doesn't want to take Weapon Specialization. Why not?"

And here we are. Sure, they're passive, but the majority of feats are passive anyway. As for "why take them", well, crit-fishers don't really have much going on for them in 3.5 except for Blood in the Water and extra damage. At the very least, the option has been opened up for a crit-fishing build.

Benly
2012-03-14, 09:33 PM
As for "why take them", well, crit-fishers don't really have much going on for them in 3.5 except for Blood in the Water and extra damage.

Don't forget Prismatic Burst weapons! I built a character around those things once, they are the best weapon enchantment.

NeoSeraphi
2012-03-14, 09:35 PM
Don't forget Prismatic Burst weapons! I built a character around those things once, they are the best weapon enchantment.

Prismatic Burst? I'm not familiar with that weapon enchantment, but the name has "prismatic" in it, so that makes it automatically amazing in D&D. What book is it in?

Benly
2012-03-14, 09:45 PM
Prismatic Burst? I'm not familiar with that weapon enchantment, but the name has "prismatic" in it, so that makes it automatically amazing in D&D. What book is it in?

Magic Item Compedium, page 40. On crit the target gets to eat Prismatic Spray, even if it's normally immune to crits. Also, it costs +30,000 GP instead of having a bonus-equivalent cost, which is a little weird but is actually a pretty acceptable deal since it means it doesn't increase the cost of your other enchantments.

I used them for a dual-kukri Swiftblade critfisher, and decided to run with the theme, making him a sorcerer with prismatic-dragon heritage and picking up as many prismatic and rainbow spells as I could cram between the essential buffs.

Lord_Gareth
2012-03-14, 09:46 PM
I just felt like 3.5 needed some Crit feats. I was checking out the PFSRD for some stuff, and I discovered the whole section of them, and thought "Hey, pretty decent idea if they stacked, for a single-classed fighter who's got too many feats and doesn't want to take Weapon Specialization. Why not?"

Viable fighter builds, like most decent builds, are feat-starved and don't have the room to devote any of them to these feats. Yes, even the crit-fishers - they get more mileage out of abilities that increase their raw, multiplicable damage than they'll ever get out of these.

NeoSeraphi
2012-03-14, 09:50 PM
Magic Item Compedium, page 40. On crit the target gets to eat Prismatic Spray, even if it's normally immune to crits. Also, it costs +30,000 GP instead of having a bonus-equivalent cost, which is a little weird but is actually a pretty acceptable deal since it means it doesn't increase the cost of your other enchantments.

I used them for a dual-kukri Swiftblade critfisher, and decided to run with the theme, making him a sorcerer with prismatic-dragon heritage and picking up as many prismatic and rainbow spells as I could cram between the essential buffs.

That...that may be the single greatest weapon enchantment EVER! :smallbiggrin: Thank you for showing me!


Viable fighter builds, like most decent builds, are feat-starved and don't have the room to devote any of them to these feats. Yes, even the crit-fishers - they get more mileage out of abilities that increase their raw, multiplicable damage than they'll ever get out of these.

Who cares about whether the build is "viable" or not? A 20th level fighter has 18 feat slots. A 20th level human fighter with two flaws has 21 feat slots. I'm sure if he's a crit-fisher, he doesn't need all of those slots for existing 3.5 feats.

Regardless of whether you think they're worth it or not, they are something that exists in Pathfinder, and not in 3.5. More options is always better than fewer options.

Lord_Gareth
2012-03-14, 09:54 PM
Who cares about whether the build is "viable" or not? A 20th level fighter has 18 feat slots. A 20th level human fighter with two flaws has 21 feat slots. I'm sure if he's a crit-fisher, he doesn't need all of those slots for existing 3.5 feats.

Probably the guy who wants his 20th level fighter to be able to contribute to CR-appropriate encounters. I'd certainly be concerned if my build was viable to be fighting level-appropriate enemies or not.


Regardless of whether you think they're worth it or not, they are something that exists in Pathfinder, and not in 3.5. More options is always better than fewer options.

Untrue. Sometimes more options just muddy the waters and make things harder on new players. Pathfinder 'created more options' by splitting a bunch of feats up into multiple feats and introducing a slew of new ones - all of them traps. By creating traps, you perpetuate a counter-intuitive system that makes it easier to fail at what you do, not easier to do something different.

NeoSeraphi
2012-03-14, 10:01 PM
Probably the guy who wants his 20th level fighter to be able to contribute to CR-appropriate encounters. I'd certainly be concerned if my build was viable to be fighting level-appropriate enemies or not.

If you're a dual-wielding, crit-fishing fighter, you're probably not going to have Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, or Shock Trooper, so that's 3 feats opened up right there.

Weapon Finesse, Improved Critical, Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, Two-Weapon Pounce, Martial Study (Shadow Hand), Martial Stance (Shadow Hand), and Shadow Blade. That's only 9 feats. What other 12 feats would make this build "more viable"? Seriously. There aren't that many feats that just passively increase your damage, and even the ones that do don't do it by very much.

Seerow
2012-03-14, 10:06 PM
All these critical hit feats and nothing to let you crit creatures that are normally crit immune? You expect a fighter to spend even 2-4 feats, let alone 12-14 as you potentially could with all these feats, on something that won't work against half the creatures you run into at high level, that's a problem.

Weakening, Wounding, and Hampering could probably be rolled into a single feat just like the mental damage feat is. The status effect feats could just require the single feat with a note saying you can take only one of them, if that's your reasoning.

Absolute critical should just be you auto-confirm crits. Really you're spending three feats on it, why not?


Also something to improve crit multiplier or crit range a bit more than normal might not go amiss. I know 3.5 really cracked down on crit stacking, but if you want to improve the crit fisher deal, that's really what you need to reopen up. Just bury it far enough into a chain (3-4 feats deep probably) that casuals won't try to snag it.

NeoSeraphi
2012-03-14, 10:10 PM
All these critical hit feats and nothing to let you crit creatures that are normally crit immune? You expect a fighter to spend even 2-4 feats, let alone 12-14 as you potentially could with all these feats, on something that won't work against half the creatures you run into at high level, that's a problem.

Hmm...that's a fair point. What would you suggest the prerequisites be for a feat that lets you crit creatures that are normally immune?



Weakening, Wounding, and Hampering could probably be rolled into a single feat just like the mental damage feat is. The status effect feats could just require the single feat with a note saying you can take only one of them, if that's your reasoning.


No, I was actually intending for someone to be able to take multiple status feats if he wished, so he could stack them. Same with the physical ability score ones.



Absolute critical should just be you auto-confirm crits. Really you're spending three feats on it, why not?

True. I'll fix that now.

Edit:
Also something to improve crit multiplier or crit range a bit more than normal might not go amiss. I know 3.5 really cracked down on crit stacking, but if you want to improve the crit fisher deal, that's really what you need to reopen up. Just bury it far enough into a chain (3-4 feats deep probably) that casuals won't try to snag it.

Good idea. Around what level would you suggest be the earliest I should set the prerequisites for to make that accessible?

The Mentalist
2012-03-14, 10:13 PM
I think that an option would be to make the benefits go up as crit multiplier goes up. (Just because I think it sounds right)


Gareth, as for a 20th level fighter contributing (and most of these only have fighter dips anyway): Ubercharger, Chain tripper, Warblade... these are the options. I have never seen a crit fisher be "optimized" other than as thought experiments. This is a sub-par option that people like. It's a fun little thing for a low op group.

Lord_Gareth
2012-03-14, 10:16 PM
Warblade

This is more-or-less where you find effective crit-fishers. I made one in a campaign where the DM said it would be heavy on Humanoid opponents, used Thinblades (because, hell, why not?) for it. Pretty fun, surprisingly nice for use with Mongoose/Nightmare Blade stuff.

Benly
2012-03-14, 10:17 PM
Also, looking over the feats, Striking Critical is kind of meh except as a speedbump to Stunning Critical (which is nice, but not enough nicer than Disgusting or Paralyzing to merit having a speed bump.) A critfisher will be using broad-crit-range weapons most likely, which means probably x2 crit, which means 1d10 damage, which means 5.5 average damage, which means once you stop fighting things with less than 5 HD Wounding Critical is going to be flat-out better - its damage (from HP bonus loss/HP penalty) scales to enemy HD, it imposes a Fort save penalty (which the lockdown-crit feats target), and enough of it will flat-out kill whatever you're whaling on regardless of how many HP it has left. It doesn't work on things immune to ability damage or lacking a Con score, but I can't think of any such targets that aren't also immune to criticals. (It could be a concern once you add a "crit on critproof enemies" feat, though.)

Basically, I feel like Striking Critical could use some kind of damage scaling, although I'm not sure what.



Gareth, as for a 20th level fighter contributing (and most of these only have fighter dips anyway): Ubercharger, Chain tripper, Warblade... these are the options. I have never seen a crit fisher be "optimized" other than as thought experiments. This is a sub-par option that people like. It's a fun little thing for a low op group.

The aforementioned swiftblade was pretty well optimized, but he didn't have any fighter levels so I don't know if he counts. :smallsmile: Because there's so little that feeds into crit fishing as it stands, it's currently a feat-light option. Most of the best stuff for it comes from magic items (delicious, delicious Prismatic Burst) or class features (ain't no feat gonna let you spam all those attacks after a move, so you're gonna have to get fancy).

NeoSeraphi
2012-03-14, 10:25 PM
Okay, how about Striking Critical becomes 1d10 per 2 BAB, effectively transforming it into a crit-fisher's Sneak Attack?

Edit: Ugh, I dunno if I like how it looks now. +30d10 BAB at level 19 for one feat? Sure, it only works on scythes and minotaur greathammers, but...

What do you guys think? Should I just make it 1d10/2 BAB for every weapon, or is it okay as is?

Seerow
2012-03-14, 10:37 PM
Hmm...that's a fair point. What would you suggest the prerequisites be for a feat that lets you crit creatures that are normally immune?

Maybe prereq of Absolute Critical, and set a BAB prereq of around +12.



No, I was actually intending for someone to be able to take multiple status feats if he wished, so he could stack them. Same with the physical ability score ones.

I was thinking more the flexibility of being able to choose the attribute you're hitting makes the feat more worth it, as opposed to the option of spending 3 feats to hit all 3. Maybe make it a single feat, that you can take multiple times, each time letting you apply to an extra attribute when you hit.



Good idea. Around what level would you suggest be the earliest I should set the prerequisites for to make that accessible?

That I'd set to become available around level 6-10 for a fighter.




Anyway, I do agree with The Mentalist that an increased effect with a higher crit multiplier for a lot of these feats wouldn't go amiss.



I am curious as to how a fighter focusing on these feats and TWFing would stack up not to another TWF fighter, but up against a TWFing rogue, or some other precision based class with lots of bonus damage. The Fighter -should- win by a fair margin, but I doubt he will.

Possible suggestion: Have sickening critical multiply based on attacks from BAB (so a x3 weapon with 16 BAB would deal +8d10 damage on a crit), and add in another feat that lets you deal damage equivalent to that minus one attack on even non-crit strikes (so same fighter would add +6d10 to his normal attacks). You'd have to make it kick in at +6 BAB at earliest (at which point with a x2 weapon you'd get +1d10 on every attack), but it seems like a good way to keep competitive with a rogue in average damage while still clearly being a crit fisher.




Edit: Wow I got all sorts of ninjad. But hopefully the above suggestion works for you.

NeoSeraphi
2012-03-14, 10:59 PM
Okay, major overhaul. What do you guys think now?

Seerow
2012-03-14, 11:13 PM
Okay, major overhaul. What do you guys think now?

Superior Critical example should show 13-20 as the crit threat range, or should read that the +1 crit threat range gets applied last, if the example was correct.

Paralyzing critical still requires hampering, which has been removed

Disgusting still requires wounding, which has been removed.

Striking Crit/Striking blow seem on the high side. I still prefer the numbers I gave (which by level 20 would give you 3d10/4d10 for a x2 weapon, all the way up to 12d10/16d10 for a x5 weapon). Your version is much more powerful for a low crit multiplier weapon, mine helps even out the average damage per round slightly. As an aside, 30d10 is just really annoying to roll/count regardless. [Though admittedly 16d10 isn't a whole lot better >_>]


Also, I thought of a way to roll crit multiplier into the fold of the status effect abilities: Add crit multiplier -2 to save DCs. So a x5 crit multiplier weapon would have a +3 to DCs against his saves. (Balanced by the fact that even with all the feats, he is proccing on a 17-20 rather than a 13-20)

NeoSeraphi
2012-03-14, 11:21 PM
Superior Critical example should show 13-20 as the crit threat range, or should read that the +1 crit threat range gets applied last, if the example was correct.

Paralyzing critical still requires hampering, which has been removed

Disgusting still requires wounding, which has been removed.


Thank you, fixing.



Striking Crit/Striking blow seem on the high side. I still prefer the numbers I gave (which by level 20 would give you 3d10/4d10 for a x2 weapon, all the way up to 12d10/16d10 for a x5 weapon). Your version is much more powerful for a low crit multiplier weapon, mine helps even out the average damage per round slightly. As an aside, 30d10 is just really annoying to roll/count regardless. [Though admittedly 16d10 isn't a whole lot better >_>]


You said you wanted the guy to end up dealing damage comparable to a rogue, right? Rogues are dealing 20d6 per attack at 19th.

The damage for a normal attack only ends up at 5d10/10d10/15d10 at 20th, so...I dunno, seems fair to me. As for the 10d10/20d10/30d10, well...you guys wanted scaling. 4d10 extra damage on a crit at 20th seems...weak. That's only twice as much damage as a monk's unarmed strike. 4d10 is an average of 22 extra damage, per attack.




Also, I thought of a way to roll crit multiplier into the fold of the status effect abilities: Add crit multiplier -2 to save DCs. So a x5 crit multiplier weapon would have a +3 to DCs against his saves. (Balanced by the fact that even with all the feats, he is proccing on a 17-20 rather than a 13-20)

An excellent suggestion, adding in now.

Seerow
2012-03-14, 11:32 PM
You said you wanted the guy to end up dealing damage comparable to a rogue, right? Rogues are dealing 20d6 per attack at 19th.


Where are they getting 20d6? I could understand saying 12d6+20 (rogue 20, assassin stance, and craven), and that is probably about equivalent (average of 62 as opposed to 70), but 12d10 still averages out to 66 damage, which is pretty close.

While admittedly, x2 multiplier is a fair bit weaker, if you're fully focused on the crits, you have a minimum x3 multiplier, so will have 6d10 per non-crit strike (8d10 on a crit), averaging out to 33 average damage per hit, which is coincidentally very close to what a normal rogue gets, except the normal rogue doesn't get your bonus damage on a crit, nor crit nearly as often, so your average damage should be considerably higher.







Aside, another idea I had: what if Horrifying Critical instead of frightening the target, frightened enemies within 30ft of the target? You have a lot of status effect inducing riders, but not a whole lot of variety. I'm not entirely sure all of the status effects are really necessary, but it'd be nice if more of the ones you did have were differentiated a bit more.

NeoSeraphi
2012-03-14, 11:39 PM
Where are they getting 20d6? I could understand saying 12d6+20 (rogue 20, assassin stance, and craven), and that is probably about equivalent (average of 62 as opposed to 70), but 12d10 still averages out to 66 damage, which is pretty close.

I meant 10d6 per weapon, in a two weapon rogue. Yes, the crit-fisher will be dual-wielding as well, but even with the best threat range optimization, he's still probably only getting his bonus damage 1/2 the time. So instead of comparing it to a rogue's single strike, I feel you should be comparing it to two of a rogue's strikes at once. (If you really want him to average out even with a rogue)



While admittedly, x2 multiplier is a fair bit weaker, if you're fully focused on the crits, you have a minimum x3 multiplier, so will have 6d10 per non-crit strike (8d10 on a crit), averaging out to 33 average damage per hit, which is coincidentally very close to what a normal rogue gets, except the normal rogue doesn't get your bonus damage on a crit, nor crit nearly as often, so your average damage should be considerably higher.


Your explanation from before is still confusing me. Exactly what is the formula for this bonus damage you suggested? Can you explain it in a different, more direct way please?



Aside, another idea I had: what if Horrifying Critical instead of frightening the target, frightened enemies within 30ft of the target? You have a lot of status effect inducing riders, but not a whole lot of variety. I'm not entirely sure all of the status effects are really necessary, but it'd be nice if more of the ones you did have were differentiated a bit more.

Sure, I can do that.

Benly
2012-03-14, 11:48 PM
While you're at it, you should probably add a bit of text making Horrifying Critical optional just in case you for some reason don't want to send your enemies scattering in every direction at top speed. Frightened is a powerful effect, but not one that you always want to use - it can turn what would be a straightforward fight into a messy and drawn-out chase, as opposed to Nauseated and Stunned which there's basically no reason to ever not use.

Seerow
2012-03-14, 11:49 PM
Before responding to anything else, I just saw your powerful critical feat increases x3 to x5 and x4 to x7. That is really unnecessary. Just a flat +1 (so x3 to x4, x4 to x5) is enough to be worth it.


I meant 10d6 per weapon, in a two weapon rogue. Yes, the crit-fisher will be dual-wielding as well, but even with the best threat range optimization, he's still probably only getting his bonus damage 1/2 the time. So instead of comparing it to a rogue's single strike, I feel you should be comparing it to two of a rogue's strikes at once. (If you really want him to average out even with a rogue)

I was referring to the bonus damage from Striking Blow (ie non-crit bonus damage) not crit bonus damage.




Your explanation from before is still confusing me. Exactly what is the formula for this bonus damage you suggested? Can you explain it in a different, more direct way please?

Okay sure. To start, you have Striking Critical giving you 1d10 per crit multiplier. x2 is 1d10, x3 is 2d10, x4 is 3d10, x5 is 4d10. You gain these bonus dice an extra time for every attack per round you gain from BAB.

So a +6 BAB character with a x4 weapon has +6d10 crit bonus damage. At +11 that increases to +9d10. At +16, that increases to 12d10. If you have a x3 weapon that is instead 4d10/6d10/8d10. And so on.


Striking Blow then would let you apply damage to non critical hits equal to the critical hit damage bonus from Striking Critical, as if you had 5 BAB less. So a x4 weapon at +6 BAB normally does +6d10 damage on a crit, on a non-crit you now deal 3d10. At +11 you go up to 6d10. At +16 you go up to 9d10.




Is that more clear?

NeoSeraphi
2012-03-14, 11:53 PM
While you're at it, you should probably add a bit of text making Horrifying Critical optional just in case you for some reason don't want to send your enemies scattering in every direction at top speed. Frightened is a powerful effect, but not one that you always want to use - it can turn what would be a straightforward fight into a messy and drawn-out chase, as opposed to Nauseated and Stunned which there's basically no reason to ever not use.

Fixed.


Before responding to anything else, I just saw your powerful critical feat increases x3 to x5 and x4 to x7. That is really unnecessary. Just a flat +1 (so x3 to x4, x4 to x5) is enough to be worth it.


I thought that was how other crit multiplier increases worked. But I'm just going from memory here. (Can't even remember where I originally saw it).





Okay sure. To start, you have Striking Critical giving you 1d10 per crit multiplier. x2 is 1d10, x3 is 2d10, x4 is 3d10, x5 is 4d10. You gain these bonus dice an extra time for every attack per round you gain from BAB.

So a +6 BAB character with a x4 weapon has +6d10 crit bonus damage. At +11 that increases to +9d10. At +16, that increases to 12d10. If you have a x3 weapon that is instead 4d10/6d10/8d10. And so on.


Striking Blow then would let you apply damage to non critical hits equal to the critical hit damage bonus from Striking Critical, as if you had 5 BAB less. So a x4 weapon at +6 BAB normally does +6d10 damage on a crit, on a non-crit you now deal 3d10. At +11 you go up to 6d10. At +16 you go up to 9d10.




Is that more clear?

I get it, but I'm having a hard time representing it in text in my mind. Could you please write it up so I can just copy/paste it?

Seerow
2012-03-15, 12:10 AM
Striking Critical (Critical, Fighter)
Prerequisites: Power Critical
Benefit: Whenever you confirm a critical hit against a creature vulnerable to the extra damage from critical hits, you deal an extra +1d10 damage. This damage increases to +2d10 if your weapon's multiplier is x3, or to +3d10 if your weapon's multiplier is x4, and so on. This damage is multiplied by the number of attacks you gain from your base attack bonus. So a Fighter with +6 BAB and a x3 weapon would deal +4d10 bonus damage on a crit.


Striking Blow (Fighter)
Prerequisites: Striking Critical, BAB +8
Benefit: When you strike a creature with a weapon, you may apply some of your bonus damage from Striking Critical even on a normal hit. On an attack that is not a critical strike, apply Striking Critical damage as if you had 5 fewer points of base attack bonus. For example, a Fighter with +6 BAB and a x3 weapon would deal +2d10 bonus damage on a non-crit.

NeoSeraphi
2012-03-15, 12:22 AM
Thank you, Seerow. Fixed.

Cieyrin
2012-03-15, 11:06 AM
I thought that was how other crit multiplier increases worked. But I'm just going from memory here. (Can't even remember where I originally saw it).

You saw it in Draconomicon, I would guess, since the Dragondoom feat increased the crit mod in that way against dragons.

If Superior Critical supposedly got fixed, it didn't take, as the example still seems wrong by the wording of the feat. Rapiers normally have 18-20 crit range, which is 3 numbers. Improved Critical double that range to 6 or 15-20. Superior Critical's wording sounds like it should increase the crit range to 17-20 before IC's multiplier, which would give it a range of 8 or 13-20.

As for the way PF handles Critical feats, they all hand out status effects for the most part and you generate them by hitting a specific critical point. If you go for the head to nauseate them, it doesn't make sense to also be fatigued, since that would be hitting them in the solar plexus. Critical Mastery lets you hit two of those vulnerable spots each time, Sneaking Precision lets you use a Critical feat on the second sneak attack of a round, 3.5's Telling Blow lets you get sneak attack dice each time you crit, stacking on top if you already had sneak attack dice. It just feeds into Paizo's policy on feats that I call "There's a Feat for that!TM," where the fact that PF characters have at least 3 extra feats over their lifetime than 3.5 characters fed to them that you have to spend them going through feat chains, which PF seems to love.

As for these feats as a whole, seems to work out fine, especially for Fighter/Rogues crit fishers with Telling Blow. Looks like a nice bit of spike damage every now and again. :smallwink:

Lord_Gareth
2012-03-15, 11:16 AM
Yeah, that's more-or-less a symptom of Paizo's belief that a greater number of raw 'options' leads to a better system, rather than worrying about the quality of those options and how easily a player can parse that quality out.

Lord_Gareth
2012-03-15, 11:20 AM
Did forum glitch eat my post?

Sypher667
2012-03-15, 11:59 AM
In a Dark Sun enhancement there were 2 feats kinda like this, but one made the nearby enemies make a will save vs fear, the other gave nearby allies a buff. Perhaps some feats like that could be warranted here as well.

DerTollUdo
2012-03-15, 02:56 PM
These are cool. Very cool. I am now a fan of Seraphi Homebrew TM

NeoSeraphi
2012-03-15, 03:10 PM
These are cool. Very cool. I am now a fan of Seraphi Homebrew TM

Why thank you. :smallsmile:


Cieryin, I'm going to update Superior Critical again (must have 503'd the first time and I didn't notice).