crit fishing

[hoborobot]

so i decided to go critfishing and the only books available to me are Rokugan campaign, MiC, d20srd, and Races of Stone. Currently I feel that twin keen kurkiri would help, but is there any thing else i can do? maybe the person who is also in this campaign will show up and explain better.

[HalfQuart]

What level are you starting at and expecting to play through?

[hoborobot]

right now im at level 3 and dm gave us 3 free feats sea legs (mandatory) and two of our choice. i picked weapon finesse and two-weapon fighting. we will be playing up till level 20.

edit: also is there anyway to fit iujitsi focus in there as i have it right now and it would seem like a waste not use it unless the bard of our party goes first and casts grease, which is unlikely, since i have high dex, and soon will have speed of darkness-initiative also affected by int modifier which for me is 3 right now.

[Lightlawbliss]

What goal do you have with your crit fishing? Is there some feat/enchantment/other you want to take advantage of? Just so you can say "critical hit" a ton?

When do you want (level wise) to get your combo going by?

Which form of crit fishing are you thinking about, quantity or quality? (this is part of deciding the goal)

[hoborobot]

see the thing is im playing a rokugan ninja whisper gnome (sounds dumb right) but i just want to geet in geal a quate a bit of damage and get out if need be. i honestly have no idea what anything i need, but our group does have an artificer to help out if that helps. the thing is im kind of new to 3.5 and want to help my party without engendering too much.

[Lightlawbliss]

(typo correction in bold, changed to how I understand it)

see the thing is I'm playing a rokugan ninja whisper gnome (sounds dumb right)...
First rule of DnD and games in general: If everyone is having fun then you are playing correctly. Also, the class/race work well together.

... but i just want to get in get a quite a bit of damage and get out if need be. i honestly have no idea what anything i need, but our group does have an artificer to help out if that helps. the thing is I'm kind of new to 3.5 and want to help my party without endangering too much.

So you are playing a stealth/"sneak attack" build. You will likely want to maximize number of a attacks, hide and move silently (or equivalent), tumble (or equivalent), and likely pick up some different movement types. I would recommend looking up some handbooks (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=399.0) to help you get started, but remember that handbooks are not all the ways to play.

[Renen]

Also: "no idea" instead of now idea

[hoborobot]

Also: "no idea" instead of now idea

correct sir, i wass in hurry when typing and misread that.

[Alex12]

maybe the person who is also in this campaign will show up and explain better.

That's my cue, I think.
The DM has imposed book limits: 2 books of player's choice, the SRD, PHB2, DMG2, Complete Scoundrel, Cityscape, and recently opened up free access to BoVD (we're mostly in the deep end of the alignment pool). MIC is also permitted, but since that's items-only, it can be ignored for our purposes.
Hoborobot picked Races of Stone and Rokugan Campaign Setting. The DM also is allowing him to PrC into a class that's a hybrid of Butei and Nightsong Enforcer.

Furthermore, the DM is unbelievably generous with feats. We can train feats without having to level up. Doing so takes about 30 days of ingame time, during which we typically have to spend about 2 hours per day training. These feats can be from any of the books everyone has, from one of our own books, or from a book someone else in the party has (this adds ToB, Libris Mortis, Heroes of Horror, Complete Champion, Eberron Campaign Setting, 2 other books I don't remember, and one open book slot held by the guy playing a swordsage). Additional feats can also be granted at the DM's discretion. For example, for every 60 days we spend in the region we're in now (a frostfell region) we can pick one feat from Frostburn, though the DM highly recommends Cold Endurance. Additionally, the DM is pretty lenient in terms of wealth- we're all pretty much at or above WBL, and some of us are quite a lot above it.

Now, the current party consists of a weird homebrew Swashbuckler-variant that mainly functions through Charisma and uses Iaijutsu Focus, a Swordsage planning on multiclassing to Warblade so he can go Bloodstorm Blade, a modified Paladin (evil, with a few thematically-appropriate ACFs), an Artificer with a single level of Bard who wants to be Eddie Riggs, hoborobot, and a Necropolitan Dread Necromancer going Tainted Scholar (that one's me). Most of the group is fairly new to D&D, and are not always great at optimizing.

Hoborobot's characters tend toward various forms of borderline-autistic-psychopath-ninja.

[Kennisiou]

Without Book of Vile Darkness for the Disciple of Dispater prestige and Tome of Battle for various useful warblade/swordsage maneuvers and stances, critfishing really doesn't get much better than dual wielding kukris with improved crit. I'd avoid going keen on the kukris, actually. You should be feat light enough to be able to take improved crit, and that's important since your cash/enhancement space on your kukris is likely to be more of a limiting factor than not having enough feats. Good enhancements are collision (MiC, +2 enhance, +5 to damage), "energy burst" weapons like "icy burst" or "acid burst" are good but average out to worse than collision (DMG for most, MiC for sonic, force, and some others, +2 enhance, +1d6 damage with +1d10 additional on a critical hit -- suggest going with acid, sonic, force, or lightning since they're not commonly resisted, avoid fire and ice since they are), Speed (DMG, +3 enhance, gives the extra attack of haste with that weapon, doesn't stack with haste so if you've got a haster helping you skip it), Enervating is practically a must (MiC, +2 enhance, critical hits cause negative levels), Metalline or Transmuting (MiC, both +2 enhance, both use various means to get around damage reduction), CurseSpewing (MiC, +3 enhance, crits give a -4 penalty to many things). Prismatic burst is also a must (MiC, +30,000 gold, whenever you critical a target they're subject to a prismatic spray effect as the spell, even if immune to critical damage). That's not quite the full list of good TWF critfisher enhances, but it's certainly most of the high points. Another good thing to do would be to try to grab an item that gives you a bane effect on your weapons, since the +2 bonus enhancement and +2d6 damage die will be very nice. Don't get the bane enhancement itself, but iirc there's both bracers and a weapon sheath you can get that you can activate a number of times/day to make your weapons treated as bane against a type of your choosing for a period of time.

As for other things... if you're critfishing you usually want lots of attacks and also to get numeric bonuses to damage. Criticals multiply numeric bonuses but do not multiply bonus die. A high strength score can help here, but isn't great since off-hand weapons only get 1/2 strength modifier to damage. You'll want to try to find ways to get stats other than strength to be added to your damage. If you can get your DM to approve material from Complete Warrior then Swashbuckler for three levels can be helpful. First level you get weapon finesse as a bonus feat (see if your DM will allow you to retrain our previous instance of weapon finesse for another feat at that time), second level you get nothing special, and third level you get your intelligence modifier as a bonus to damage against anything that isn't critical hit immune as long as you're wielding a finessable weapon. If the DM is willing to approve any Tome of Battle content then you may be able to get the Shadow Blade feat, which adds your dexterity to damage as long as you're in a shadow hand stance wielding a shadow hand weapon (kukris are not shadow hand weapons, but there's a weapon enhancement from Tome of Battle called Aptitude that's +1 and says it counts as any type of weapon for the purpose of feats). Shadow hand in general has a lot of stances and maneuvers that are good for ninjas, so if the DM is okay with ToB it's definitely a good source for you. If the DM is willing to allow content from Champions of Ruin and also willing to allow sudden strike to be transparent with sneak attack for the purposes of feats, then the Craven feat is helpful as well. You take a -2 penalty on saves against fear effects and cannot be fear immune ever in exchange for adding +your level in bonus damage to every sneak attack you make. Since it's a numeric bonus it does get multiplied on criticals. If you make a lot of sudden strikes in a round that can add up very fast. Since all of those rely on content being added to your game that currently isn't there, it may be a bit of a risky proposition. If you can't get any content at all other than what's specified in the books you listed, then you wind up with a lot fewer options for gaining numeric bonuses to damage. Ranger's favored enemy bonus works nicely, and the class gives you Two Weapon Fighting feats as you progress which is helpful. Grabbing some ranger levels could be really helpful if you know there's a few enemy groupings you're going to be fighting very frequently. You could also take four levels of fighter to qualify for Weapon Specialization: Kukri, but... don't. Don't do that at all. You're really better off just taking more ninja levels and getting better sudden strikes even if crits don't multiply their damage. If you can get someone to cast greater magic weapon on you every fight then you'll probably make better use of it than anyone else, since the bonus damage from the spell will get multiplied by your many crits (and if you're hasted/have a speed weapon you'll be making more attacks than your friends, too). If your DM allows more spells from outside sources then Greater Magic Weapon: Legion's is a spell from Magic of Eberron that's just Greater Magic Weapon cast on all weapons in a 20 foot circle as a level 5 spell for sorc/wiz -- great for you in particular since it'll effect both of your weapons with one spell. Having a bard in the party is helpful as well, since the bonus damage from inspire courage gets multiplied on criticals and the bonus to hit helps with the fact that TWF is a combat style that loses accuracy. Marshals and support-oriented martial initiators (PHB II support class and the tome of battle classes respectively) can also use various ways to give you numeric damage bonuses, but they're more situational.

Finally, when you're two-weapon fighting you'll find that by the rules there's a bit of trouble sometimes. See, under the rules you don't get to take extra attacks at all unless you take what's called a full attack action. You can only do this by spending a full-round action, which means you have to use both your move action for the turn and your standard action for the turn to do it. So unless you do that, instead of getting all your nice extra attacks from two weapon fighting every turn you get... one attack. Just one. Yeah, I know. It's rough. Fortunately, there's some solutions. First off, just because you've spent your move action doesn't mean you can't move. You still have infinite free actions (limited by DM permissiveness), one swift action, and one five foot step. Two Weapon Fighting is all about finding ways to use those resources in order to move so you can spend your other resources in a turn attacking. Most basic is to rely on your allies for battlefield control effects to hold enemies near you and just five foot step and attack every turn. Another step up is providing that control yourself some through wands and scrolls (spells like grease and web are good for this). You can get a wand chamber from Dungeonscape which is just a 100g hole in the hilt of your weapons that a wand is stored in, basically, that lets you hold a wand while holding a weapon. Very useful. There's also spells that your allies can use to move you, like slide and greater slide (both in miniatures handbook and spell compendium), which can be helpful in making sure you can close to enemies. Talk to your artificer about carrying a wand of greater slide around, since it's a really useful thing for him to do if he's focusing on buffing and battlefield control. There's also magic items that help here, like chronocharm, which allows you to move as a swift action once per day and doesn't take up any of the normal spaces on your body for a magic item or need to be held to be activated (it's like a piece on a charm bracelet basically). Another old standard is the travel devotion feat (complete champion), which allows you to move as a swift action instead of a move action for a whole minute per activation once per day. If you can get an undead turning pool then you can spend two turn undead attempts for another activation (one level cleric dip can give you the turn undead pool and you can also trade the travel domain for the travel devotion feat instead, you can also trade in the knowledge domain for a feat called knowledge devotion that allows you to deal bonus damage to foes based on how well you identify them with a knowledge effect which is just stellar for two weapon fighting crit-fishers and should've been mentioned earlier, my bad). Finally, you can find a way to gain pounce. Pounce is an effect that allows you to full attack on a charge instead of the normal single attack. It's very useful since it's flexible. Sadly, it's also very hard to gain access to. Dragon Magazine has it as a feat for the Catfolk race and if complete champion is allowed then there's an alternate class feature for barbarians called "spirit lion totem" that allows them to trade their first level bonus movement speed for pounce. This is the one I'd talk to your DM and artificer about the most. The most elegant solution for you if none of the options are available or of the constant one-level dipping doesn't appeal to you is speaking to the DM about the possiblity of a custom magic item that allows swift movement or one that gives pounce. You can point out the custom magic item rules in the DMG and cost for bonus feats on items and suggest them as a jumping off point. Pounce on an item would probably cost a tad more than what is suggested for a bonus feat, and swift movement for one minute three times a day on an item should only cost a little more than two feats (since it can be accomplished by anyone with a turning pool with travel devotion feat + extra turning feat). As with the rest of the custom magic item rules, costing should vary since a lot of the effects these items would emulate vary in strength, your mileage may vary about convincing the DM to allow those items. Also, the necessity of that kind of self-sufficiency is debateable, since you may be able to use stealth skills or have allies aid you in keeping yourself near your enemies to make up for that lack. The self-sufficiency just makes things a lot easier and makes it so all of combat for your team isn't about holding the dragon in place and shoving you into him.

[Kennisiou]

DOUBLE POST BECAUSE THIS POST FEELS TOO BIG TO FIT IN AN EDIT:

So given the nature of the restrictions you face, I'd honestly suggest you consider changing the books you have available to you if you really like the idea of TWF critfishing. The books you picked give you basically nothing that aids in that combat style, but Tome of Battle, Complete Champion, and Book of Vile Darkness all have classes/feats/acfs/prestige classes that are very useful for critfishing. A quick list of things that are useful for that combat style and the books they come from is below. I'll highlight things that are feats only since given your DM's liberal feat distribution and rulings you may be able to get access to them very easily without choosing the book they're from as one of your books.

Disciple of Dispater: Prestige Class from Book of Vile Darkness.
They get a class feature that doubles the crit range of metal weapons they wield. This class feature stacks with improved critical (it specifies that, but not stacking with keen, so by RAW they don't stack. Another reason to use the improved critical feat rather than the keen weapon enhancement). This one class feature is enough to make it probably the best prestige class for crit fishing. Even if you don't use anything else from this book it's worth it just for this class.

Shadow Blade: Feat from Tome of Battle
Dex to damage while in a shadow hand stance and wielding a shadow hand weapon. You can make kukri's shadow hand weapons with the aptitude weapon enhancement, which is a +1 enhancement from tome of battle. If gear/enhancements from any book are valid on your build then it's absolutely worth it to take this feat. If not then you may want to look to other sources for bonus damage.

Assassin's Stance: Stance from Tome of Battle
While in this stance you have sneak attack for 2d6 if you don't already have sneak attack. If you do have sneak attack you have +2d6 sneak attack damage. A solid stance mostly notable for being a good shadow hand stance to be in for the shadow blade feat. You can gain this stance via the Martial Stance feat, but to qualify you must have a shadow hand maneuver. To qualify for the Martial Stance feat you must also have at least one maneuver. Worth noting that this would be a great use of the bonus feats your DM gives you.

Shadow Hand and Tiger Claw Maneuvers: Maneuvers from Tome of Battle
Shadow Hand has a lot of good mobility and stealth maneuvers and it's great for sneaky types. Tiger Claw has a lot of great maneuverability and damage based on jumping around and pouncing and is great for two weapon fighters since it gives them a lot more ways to move and still full attack as well. You can get any maneuver you want from either of these schools by taking the Martial Study feat, which would be a good use of your DM's bonus feats. Remember that manuevers often have prerequisites that require you know other maneuvers, so it may be worth considering tome of battle so that you can take a ToB class for a few levels to gain maneuvers you want more easily. You'll probably want to use these to gain your maneuverability or one of the options I list later from Complete Champion. Choose whatever you think fits your character best, since when it comes down to it you can make a strong TWFer using any of the options for mobility listed here, you just... you kind of need to use at least one of them. If you don't you'll have trouble actually being able to move and attack.

Swordsage: A class from Tome of Battle
Notable for having acces to both shadow hand and tiger claw discipline maneuvers, as well as a few class features that work nicely together with ninja.

Travel Devotion: A Feat from Complete Champion
Gives you swift movement 1/day for a minute. If you have a turning pool you can send 2 turning attempts to have this another time per day. If you don't get a turning pool you'll probably want to grab an item or a maneuver or two to supplement this.

Knowledge Devotion: A Feat from Complete Champion
When you roll a knowledge check to identify a creature you get a bonus to hit and damage dependent on how well you rolled. Solid source of bonus damage.

Cloistered Cleric: A Class Variant from Unearthed Arcana (part of the SRD)
A version of cleric that gains knowledge domain for free in addition to their other domains as well as more skill points/level and a larger spell list in exchange for worse hitdie, base attack bonus, and less armor proficiency. Notable here mostly because it allows you to trade in the travel domain and knowledge domain for their respective devotion feats, letting you get two of the most useful feats for two weapon fighting for free, and also because it gives you a turning pool to power your travel devotion. Especially nice since you still have another domain for free, which is great for flavor reasons. If you like playing tricky characters a cloistered cleric with Knowledge Devotion, Travel Devotion, and Trickery Domain gives you a nice cleric that gives you a lot of the skills you'll want as class skills for that cleric level and is a great thematic conversation for a travelling trickster type character.

Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian: A Barbarian Alternate Class Feature from Complete Champion
Gives you pounce at l1 barbarian instead of +10 ft movement speed, meaning you can full attack whenever you can charge. Really strong. If neither travel devotion nor maneuvers appeal to you, this is kind of your last option. It's less flexible than either since sometimes you're not able to charge a foe due to battlefield conditions, but has the benefit of always being on. For twf critfishers it synergizes nicely with the other option.

Whirling Frenzy: A Barbarian Alternate Class Feature from Unearthed Arcana (SRD)
A variant of the Barbarians Rage class feature, instead of being able to enter a rage you instead are able to enter a whirling frenzy. While in a Frenzy you get an extra attack every turn at a -2 penalty, +4 strength, a +2 dodge bonus to AC and to Reflex saves. Notable for that +4 str and the extra attack, which is great for TWF. Remember, even if you're using something that gives you dex to damage, that doesn't mean you don't also get str to damage, so more attacks and a bit of extra bonus damage on top of that is nice. Makes the one level for pounce a lot stronger.

Ranger: A class from PHB
Self-explanatory as to why it's good. Free TWF and favored enemy are both nice.

Rogue: A class from PHB
Sneak attack and qualifying for craven.

Craven: A feat from Champions of Ruin
+your level damage every time you sneak attack. Multiplied on crits. Really nice. Good if you go Rogue or Ninja.

Swashbuckler: A Class from Complete Warrior
1 level gets weapon finesse. 3 Levels gets +int to damage. You can take a feat that combines rogue and swashbuckler levels for sneak attack and a couple minor swashbuckler class features. Also gains Acrobatic Charge at 7th level, which lets you charge over difficult terrain. Nice for if you went for a pounce build to gain your mobility.

So yeah. Looking at this list it looks like you probably want to look at replacing one of your books with either Complete champion or Tome of Battle. If you replace Oriental Adventures, consider using Swordsage, Ranger, and/or Rogue to replicate the ninja class. If you replace Races of Stone you can check out some other races. If you're sold completely on both of those books, see what the DM's stance is on ACFs from other books, and if he's not cool with that then you'll want to use your feats to gain martial maneuvers for mobility, assassin's stance, and shadow blade.

[Snowbluff]

Oh wow he cast Wall o' Text. :smallwink:

Warblade (and therefore Blood in the Water) is free. Would your DM allow online material?

[hoborobot]

Oh wow he cast Wall o' Text. :smallwink:

Warblade (and therefore Blood in the Water) is free. Would your DM allow online material?

im not sure, ill have to ask him today when we meet, but definatly no Dragon Magazine

[Immabozo]

Holy wall of text Batman!


Hoborobot's characters tend toward various forms of borderline-autistic-psychopath-ninja.

This literally made me lol. Sounds like a player I used to play with.

[hoborobot]

Oh wow he cast Wall o' Text. :smallwink:

Warblade (and therefore Blood in the Water) is free. Would your DM allow online material?

he said as londg as its not overpowered

[Snowbluff]

he said as londg as its not overpowered

Here is the warblade. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060802a&page=2) Here are the maneuvers. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20061225a) It's considered to be pretty well balanced, but some lower optimization groups may have trouble with it.

I think the only vital bit you are missing is the max level of maneuvers you may select, which is your (warblade level + 1/2 your levels in other classes +1)/2, I believe.

[hoborobot]

the thing is in this campaign, the dm is giving us extra time to learn extra feats, so i should be able to have the the necessary requirements for shadow hands manuevers and gloom razor i believe its called by level 6 im also planning to take a 1 lvl dip in swordsage and 1 in warblade before going to that book of vile darkness PrC

the reason i want to crit-fish is so i can do thing other try to roll for a really high iujitsu strike and be mostly useless the rest of the battle.

[hoborobot]

double post: i found a feat but im not sure if it will stack with improved critical, and that disciples addition. the feat is called Needle Strike.

[Snowbluff]

double post: i found a feat but im not sure if it will stack with improved critical, and that disciples addition. the feat is called Needle Strike.

IIRC, it specifically states that it stacks, so it works. That's how most 3e material for crits works.

[Angelalex242]

If you're good aligned and have a paladin pal, bless weapon's autocrit vs. evil will serve you well. If you're evil aligned and have a blackguard pal, corrupt weapon's autocrit vs. good will likewise serve you well.

However, they work only with improved crit the feat, never with keen the weapon property.

Note Book of Exalted Deeds lets you make Bless Weapon permanent for a +1 mod, just like keen.

[hoborobot]

If you're good aligned and have a paladin pal, bless weapon's autocrit vs. evil will serve you well. If you're evil aligned and have a blackguard pal, corrupt weapon's autocrit vs. good will likewise serve you well.

However, they work only with improved crit the feat, never with keen the weapon property.

Note Book of Exalted Deeds lets you make Bless Weapon permanent for a +1 mod, just like keen.

yeah our party is lvl 4 and mostly evil exept 2 chaotic good and yes i have an evil aligned paladin (not blackguard)

[hoborobot]

IIRC, it specifically states that it stacks, so it works. That's how most 3e material for crits works.

i know im the one who found this feat, its just im not sure which book its from. when i read thhe description it didnt say the book and you seem to know where its from.

[Snowbluff]

i know im the one who found this feat, its just im not sure which book its from. when i read thhe description it didnt say the book and you seem to know where its from.

I think it's a third party book. Rokugan Campaign Setting.

[Shining Wrath]

There are some awesome Warblade maneuvers and stances which support crit fishing.

The Warblade is available from the WotC website, no 3rd party involved. In the following, IL = Initiator Level = Warblade level, divide by 2, round up (i.e., same as max spell level for a wizard). You can have one stance active at a time, and use a maneuver once until you recover maneuvers (by making an attack which is not a maneuver - Warblades are awesome sauce)

Tiger Claw, Blood in the Water, IL 1, Stance: While in this stance you get a +1 to Dam / Atk for each critical hit, and they keep on stacking

Tiger Claw, Claw at the Moon, IL 2, Maneuver: grants a +4 to confirm critical hits scored using the maneuver

Tiger Claw, Flesh Ripper, IL 3, Maneuver: If maneuver hits, target takes a to-hit and AC penalty for 1 round; if you crit, the penalty lasts a number of rounds equal to weapons crit multiplier (2 for a kukri)

Stone Dragon, Bonecrusher, IL3, Maneuver: If you hit and target fails Fort save, target grants a +10!!!! to confirm critical hits until such time as it is *fully* healed.

One Bonecrusher while in Blood in the Water, while dual-wielding kukris, and you may go into full out critical-frenzy.

There are also some nice maneuvers granting extra attacks, the most famous of which is the Diamond Mind (IL 9) Time Stands Still Maneuver, wherein you make two full attacks. A level 20 Warblade (BAB 20) dual-wielding kukris would get (counts on fingers & toes) 16 attacks, assuming you've paid the feat tax for all those extra off-hand attacks. Imagine following a successful Bonecrusher with THAT. While in Blood in the Water.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that one of the early Warblade class features grants a bonus of your INT modifier to all crit confirms.

[Snowbluff]

You mean Maneuver Level. IL is like Caster Level for Initiators ("Martial Adepts").

[Shining Wrath]

You mean Maneuver Level. IL is like Caster Level for Initiators ("Martial Adepts").

Hmmmmm. OK.