Wherefore critfisher?

[Oscredwin]

I was out of the gaming net for several years now. When I stopped paying attention to boreds like these, the PHB2 was a new thing. My interest has renewed and I scope these boards out on the interwebs for fun and to have knowledge should I get back into a game.

Conventional wisdom on communities like this have grown, there were things I had to learn (what the heck is a Factotum? AWESOME) but there's a contradiction that I can't seem to put straight. People are perpetually down on rogues due to the multitude of things that are just immune to sneak attack. People keep making "critfisher" builds. My understanding is that things that are sneak attack immune are crit immune too, so why is one good and the other bad?

Also, even assuming you just fight dragons and orcs etc, what makes crit fishing so good? Is it just a style thing?

[eggs]

There are ways to make it playable (3.5 has Lightning Maces, Blood in the Water, weapon crystals/X-strike spells to get around immunities; pathfinder got rid of most immunities and added some tagalong crit effects). It's still swingy enough that the resources would likely be better spent on a different strategy, but critfishing means rolling the most criticals - and that's usually the point.

[nyarlathotep]

It's usually something everyone is aware of but is especially important to rogues and advice on how to avoid it is something that rogues need. If you're well versed enough at optimization to build something as specialized as a critfisher you likely don't need to be given the advice and already know of the weaknesses.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Actually, you have it backwards.

Things immune to critical hits are immune to sneak attacks. The reverse is not inherently true.

Critfisher builds are marginal at best, yes, but they're fun to come up with, particularly with the advent of Aptitude + Lightning Mace + Roundabout Kick which triggers infinite attacks upon confirmation of crit, regardless of the target's immunity to the additional damage. The goal here is not to do damage by crit, but produce a NI chain of attacks.

[Person_Man]

List of ways to optimize critical hits:

Lightning Mace Feat (Complete Warrior) gives you a free attack each time you roll a critical hit with a Mace.
Aptitude weapon enhancement (Tome of Battle) makes any weapon (in this instance, something with a high crit range) count as any other weapon for the purposes of Feats. Like making a kukri count as a mace for Lightning Mace.
Blood in the Water stance (Tome of Battle) gives you a stacking bonus to-hit and damage whenever you crit (that carries over from round to round).
You can get lots of armed attacks via a variety of methods (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=127463).
Kaorti Resin (online WotC material (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031014a)) increases the crit multiplier of any weapon to *4.
Bless Weapon (Paladin 1) allows you to automatically confirm critical hits against Evil enemies.
Gravestrike, Golemstrike, and Vinestrike spells (Spell Compendium) allow you to crit against Undead, Constructs, and Plants.
Resounding Blow (Book of Exalted Deeds) makes an Evil Foe Cower when you Crit.
Quell the Profane Feat (Book of Exalted Deeds) deals Str damage against an Evil Foe when you Crit.
If you know you're going to be fighting a lot of Dragons, then the Dragondoom Feat (Draconomicon) dramatically increases the crit multiplier against dragons (though it has sucky pre-reqs).
Psychic Weapon Master (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20020927a) and the Streetfighter Barbarian (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) variant increase the crit threat range beyond the normal Keen bonus. Though they're generally not worth it when compared to a strait Psychic Warrior or Warblade.


There's a few other things which help on the margins (including dozens of ways to increase your crit confirmation roll), but those are the big ones.

However, I would say that from a metagame perspective, crit fishing is similar to Power Attack optimization, but worse. The end result is tons of damage. Once you achieve tons of damage, your DM just throws more enemies at you. If you've invested most of your resources in optimizing damage, and not other options (battlefield control, mobility, utility, defense, etc), then in the you're probably making combat more difficult for yourself, especially when your DM decides to throw enemies that are immune to crits at you.

[Oscredwin]

Thanks! I thought it was a build for fun, but it's not to my taste. Glad to know I wasn't missing something.