Swashbuckling Crit-Monster

[Fualkner Asiniti]

I just made up a build for a TWF Swashbuckler. It uses a homebrew weapon, but it's not broken. It's basically a dagger with a crit. of 17-20/x3. It is an exotic weapon that requires Weapon Fenesse to take proficenty. It's called a goblin deathspike Not broken, is it?

Okay, let's assume that this is a lvl. 7 swashbuckler. He has a keen flaming burst rapier and a keen Icy Burst GDS in the other. Each weapon costs aprox. 5000 gp. On a full attack, they will attack 3 times. there is a 20% chance he threatens a crit. with the rapier. Assume he hits with one crit. That's 1d10+2d6. With the other weapon, he has a 30% chance of crit. Assume he hits. It's 2d10+3d4. That's without adding up the extra INT and STR to the damage.

Your thoughts?

[NullAshton]

Don't forget to take critical confirmation rolls into account...

[Valairn]

Critical confirms ruin my day, I always roll like 2's on them!

[Halcyon_Dax]

I wouldnt say the weapon is Tooo broken, but still as a DM i wouldnt allow it. Here is why.

No core weapon, even among the exotic weapons, has 17-20 natural as its crit because with keen weapon or whatnot, its simply stupidly powerful.

Also, the Kukri, is a martial weapon that does 1d4 damage 18-20/x2.
Normally, when a weapon becomes exotic, one of its atributes increases by a bit. For example: increased to 1d6, increased to 17-20, increased to x3.

Thats a pretty standard pattern that the exotic weapons follow. Though it wont GROSSLY overpower you, and if you DM will allow it its fine, it is out of line power-wise with other exotic weapons.

[Lòkki Gallansbayne]

When I saw 17-20/x3 for the crit range, I immediately thought WTF?, but then again...

1d6, 18-20/x2 => 3.5 average damage on a normal hit, 7 damage on a critical, crits threatened 3/20 of the time, therefore 4.025 average damage per round assuming all attacks hit and all crits confirm.

1d4, 17-20/x3 => 2.5 average damage normally, 7.5 damage on a crit, crits threatened 1/5 of the time, thus 3.5 average damage per round with the same assumptions.

In other words, unless your build has earth-shattering superpowers that occur only on critical hits, your GDS is actually slightly worse than a short sword (which does 3.675 damage by the same formula), which is also a light weapon. Considering as well that you have to spend a feat (arguably two, depending on if you were going to take finesse anyway) to use it effectively, I wouldn't call it broken at all.

[Fizban]

The problem is that the weapon point system doesn't take into account increased crit range and crit multiplier at the same time, so it's new territory, however...

Unless you have a way of automatically confirming your crits, you can't have a crit monster, confirmation rolls will kill you. So make sure you get access to some Bless Weapon spells and only fight evil creatures, or get the Spell Compendium's Dolorous Blow for keen+auto confirm.

[Lòkki Gallansbayne]

If you want to do a more rigorous analysis, there's always this handy site (http://www.afterlifeguild.org/Thott/nwn/), which takes into confirmation rolls by plotting damage per round against AC.

[Pegasos989]

When I saw 17-20/x3 for the crit range, I immediately thought WTF?, but then again...

1d6, 18-20/x2 => 3.5 average damage on a normal hit, 7 damage on a critical, crits threatened 3/20 of the time, therefore 4.025 average damage per round assuming all attacks hit and all crits confirm.

1d4, 17-20/x3 => 2.5 average damage normally, 7.5 damage on a crit, crits threatened 1/5 of the time, thus 3.5 average damage per round with the same assumptions.

Your math is flawed. Or well, correct but you forgot bonus damage. Let's assume int 16, str 12 and +1 weapon.

1d6 +5, 18/x2 => 8.5 average on a normal, 17 on a critical hit, 3/20 chance, so 9.775 average
1d4 +5, 17/x3 => 7.5 average on a normal, 22.5 on a crit, 11.1 on average

It is already ahead but let's go a bit higher and keen

1d6 +10, 15/x2 => 13.5/27, average 17.55
1d4 +10, 13/x2 => 12.5/37.5, average 22.5

It gets even clearer with higher modifiers.

(EDIT: And these assume even 1 hits. If we assume that let's say, you need to roll 13 to hit, then range of 13 gives 100% of rolls as crits. So you know, 17/x3 is so far superior to 18/x2...)


In other words, unless your build has earth-shattering superpowers that occur only on critical hits, your GDS is actually slightly worse than a short sword (which does 3.675 damage by the same formula), which is also a light weapon. Considering as well that you have to spend a feat (arguably two, depending on if you were going to take finesse anyway) to use it effectively, I wouldn't call it broken at all.Swashbuckler gets finesse as a bonus feat.


EDIT: And crit confirmation isn't all that hard, especially if you take power critical (complete warrior) to grant +4 on confirmation. On average, a melee monster should hit on more than 50% of rolls. If we say he hits 60% of the time and then has power critical, 80% of crits are confirmed.

[Were-Sandwich]

Power Critical gives you +4 to crit confirms

[Quirinus_Obsidian]

Fighter/Dervish/Disciple of Dispater
Wielding 2 steel (or iron) Dire and Crystal Laced Scimitars (Becomes Exotic Weapons)
(Dire and Crystal Laced weapon enhancements are in Monte Cook's Transcendence)
EWP: Scimitar, Exotic Mastery (Quintessential Fighter) Improved Critical and Power Critical feats
12-20x4 Threat/crit
Get a +4 enhancement and Collision. Maybe Thundering burst, or whatever the Sonic energy damage weapon enhancement is called.
Totally by the book. Just have to get up to Epic Levels, and that darn Evil alignment, and you're all set =_)

There was also a feat that allowed one to critical an Undead creature... kinda forgot what it was. That one would help too; because if you make something like this, the only things that a DM would even try to throw at you are things that cannot be critted.

[JoeFredBob]

What I want to know is how you get +4 equivalent weapons (keen is +1, bursts are +2, can't enchant with special qualities unless it has a straight +1)
for 5000 gold, when a +2 equivalent weapon costs ~8000. Unless you meant 50,000, which would be +5 equivalent, and you definitely shouldn't be able to afford 100,000 gold worth of weapons at level 7.

[Quirinus_Obsidian]

I just gave a generic idea... no restrictions. I should have made that clearer... my apologies.

[Catharsis]

No D&D weapon has x3 and a crit range beyond 20. Also, no D&D weapon has a crit range beyond 18. Combine both and you do get a somewhat broken-smelling weapon. The d4 damage doesn't really play a role, it's the Str/Int/Enhancement/Weapon Specialization damage that will be multiplied on a crit.

Look at the Elven Lightblade for an official crit-happy light exotic weapon. Admittedly, not worth the feat (unless maybe if you take the improved racial proficiency to wield a lightblade and a thinblade, both using weapon focus: rapier and improved crit: rapier).

[Kaerou]

The weapon makes me giggle.

17-20 AND x3?

The base dice doesnt really matter for any character that has a high strength, along with power attack. Its just cheese, simply. Theres a reason that theres no weapon that has a x3 without a 20 range.

Lets take a Human Fighter, that isnt even min max and start with 16 strength. at 4 and 8 he put points into strength and has an 18. He has a belt of +4 strength for a 22. Now he attacks with your dagger and gets a 4 damage, including 6 strength, thats 30 damage without even a magic weapon, thats he's threateing 40% of the time. Now lets assume its a +3 flaming dagger, and he has improved crit. Nothing special, he would have been better to go for +2 and flaming burst right?

Well, even with his suboptimal weapon 40% of hits will be hitting for

1-4 + 6 + 3 + 1d6. = 31 - 57

Thats 13-20 range, meaning 40% of hits threatens a crit, with power critical and full BaB he's pretty sure to confirm. I'm sorry, but the weapon is really cheesy.

[Lòkki Gallansbayne]

Your math is flawed. Or well, correct but you forgot bonus damage. Very good point, you're quite right. That's my fault for over-abstracting and just the weapons themselves and not considering the character wielding them. Righty-ho, re-analysis using a slightly different abstraction technique.

Keep what I said about base damages being 4.025 and 3.5 respectively. Now assume that each weapon has a damage bonus of x due to ability score modifiers, weapon enhancements, etc. (basically anything that gets multiplied on a crit).

The rapier does 4.025 + 17x/20 + 3(2x)/20 = 4.025 + 23x/20 damage per attack on average.

The GDS does 3.5 + 16x/20 + 4(3x)/20 = 3.5 + 7x/5 average damage per attack.

As x becomes large, those constant terms become negligible, so in effect, for the price of one feat, this weapon lets you add a quarter of any applicable damage bonuses you have on to every attack compared to using a rapier. Yeah, now it's starting to look broken.

Include Improved Crit as suggested above and the x term is 3x/5 + 2(3x)/5 = 9x/5. In other words you apply of all your damage bonuses almost twice over every attack. Oh dear.

[Necomancer]

No core weapon, and most non-core, only have higher then x2 to crit if they have only twenties counting as crits. They also don't go 17-20 because with improved crit you're getting 12-20 crits. Add on a few crit boosting enchantments like the burst.Its much much stronger and abusable then most standard weapons. I wouldn't allow it myself.

[Draco Ignifer]

Basically, the way things work out mathematically, increasing a weapon's critical threat by one is approximately the same as doubling its threat range, while increasing it by two is the same as tripling, and so on. Technically, the multiplier increase is a bit better, because 20s are autohits while the higher multiplier may not be, but it's close enough. In other words, this means that your spike is as powerful as a weapon which has a 13-20 range. One damage die decrease is not going to make up for that.

If you want to make a weapon which criticals often and strong, then I'd say an exotic medium weapon dealing 1d6 with 19-20 x3 criticals is fair, although possibly pushing things. Decreasing the damage die any further isn't really making up for any further increases.

[Matthew]

Yeah, I wouldn't allow this Dagger into my game. It's typical of Homebrew Weaponry, in that it is clearly 'better' than other Exotic Weapons, with prerequisites that are already desirable (Weapon Finesse?). Just make it magical and be done.

[JaronK]

Yeesh, 17-20/X3 critical is just asking for horrific abuse. It's light, so no power attack, which is good, but slapping on extra damage via Swashbuckler/Dervish/High Strength is just going to break this thing into tiny pieces. Ugh.

JaronK