Ways of Guaranteeing a Critical

[Heikold]

I've been talking through a build with a friend and we're considering the implications of a Master Thrower who throws heavy picks or even scythes. In either case Deadeye Shot makes their crit multiplier a x5, but if you're only critting on a 20, or with Improved Critical/Keen a 19-20 it's not worth it.

Is there a spell, enchantment or ability out there that can guarantee critical hits (presumably for a limited number of hits per day)? Or at least make them easy enough for the build to be worth it?

[Crake]

I've been talking through a build with a friend and we're considering the implications of a Master Thrower who throws heavy picks or even scythes. In either case Deadeye Shot makes their crit multiplier a x5, but if you're only critting on a 20, or with Improved Critical/Keen a 19-20 it's not worth it.

Is there a spell, enchantment or ability out there that can guarantee critical hits (presumably for a limited number of hits per day)? Or at least make them easy enough for the build to be worth it?

It's not quite an guarenteed crit, but about the closest you'll get: Surge of fortune makes one roll you make act as a natural 20. Then you just need to confirm the crit. If you combine it with the paladin/blackguard spell bless/curse weapon, your crit auto confirms against evil/good enemies respectively, but against neutral opponents, you'll need to confirm the crit normally.

Works great with a scythe cleric, as you can full power attack for extra damage, without the need to worry about missing, in your case though, the cleric will need to cast surge of fortune on you.

[Heikold]

It's not quite an guarenteed crit, but about the closest you'll get: Surge of fortune makes one roll you make act as a natural 20. Then you just need to confirm the crit. If you combine it with the paladin/blackguard spell bless/curse weapon, your crit auto confirms against evil/good enemies respectively, but against neutral opponents, you'll need to confirm the crit normally.

Works great with a scythe cleric, as you can full power attack for extra damage, without the need to worry about missing, in your case though, the cleric will need to cast surge of fortune on you.

Good call! Now I just need to find a way of casting that four times so that my Rogue 7/Master Thrower 3 can leap out of the shadows and throw four (pretty much) auto-critting pickaxes at someone for 36D6 damage :P

[Telonius]

EDIT: Nevermind, ninja'd

[Crake]

Good call! Now I just need to find a way of casting that four times so that my Rogue 7/Master Thrower 3 can leap out of the shadows and throw four (pretty much) auto-critting pickaxes at someone for 36D6 damage :P

Honestly, if you're using sneak attack, critting isn't an ideal strategy, since sneak attack dice aren't multiplied. You'd be better off doing something like picking up craven, and focusing on getting extra damage on all your attacks, critting is better for single, large hits where most of the damage is multiplied along with the crit, otherwise its not worth the effort just for an extra few D6.

It's also worth noting that the target of the spell needs to spend their immediate action to actually get the benefit of the auto-20, so you can't do it more than once per round anyway.

Edit: Oh, and i just realised it's personal and 5th level, so you'd need to craft an item to be able to use it in the first place.

[Someonelse]

If you're using 3.0 rules you can crit on a 15, they closed that loophole in 3.5 though.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Dolorous Blow (wizard 3) adds a keen effect and autoconfirms critical on one weapon for minutes/level, if you pick a couple of Bloodstorm Blades you can cast this on a single scythe, which allows you to pile on weapon enhancements, do note that you can't cast this on weapons which magical effects related to crits, so you can't use those enhancements that add d10 on crit effects, but pile on effects like collision (+20 damage on a crit!) and the like.

[Ferronach]

Honestly, if you're using sneak attack, critting isn't an ideal strategy, since sneak attack dice aren't multiplied. You'd be better off doing something like picking up craven, and focusing on getting extra damage on all your attacks, critting is better for single, large hits where most of the damage is multiplied along with the crit, otherwise its not worth the effort just for an extra few D6.

Crake brought up a good point. Do things to get your sneak attack range up as well as your SA dice/die step.
Lots of things are immune to crits but if done correctly, you can bypass the SA immunity a little easier than crit immunity IIRC...
Also make sure that you are considered flanking (pretty easy if you have ameatshield of some sort) to help guarantee SA.

[Fax Celestis]

Honestly, if you're using sneak attack, critting isn't an ideal strategy, since sneak attack dice aren't multiplied. You'd be better off doing something like picking up craven, and focusing on getting extra damage on all your attacks, critting is better for single, large hits where most of the damage is multiplied along with the crit, otherwise its not worth the effort just for an extra few D6.

It's also worth noting that the target of the spell needs to spend their immediate action to actually get the benefit of the auto-20, so you can't do it more than once per round anyway.

Edit: Oh, and i just realised it's personal and 5th level, so you'd need to craft an item to be able to use it in the first place.

Might be worth it if he takes the Telling Blow feat, as it adds the "on critical" trigger to sneak attack.

Victor's Luck lets you reroll a crit confirmation for a luck reroll. Like all luck feats, they get better the more you have.

CPsi (ew) has Instinctive Consummator, which lets you expend your psionic focus to automatically confirm a crit threat. Requires Power Attack and Cleave.

The CDiv version of Zealot Pact (Clr 6, Pact 6, Competition 6) gives +4 attack, x2 damage, and automatically confirms threats, but only works on creatures of an alignment diametrically opposed to the casting cleric's deity. Unfortunately, this was updated in Spell Compendium, removing the autoconfirms.

Power Critical in CWar gives +4 to confirm, requires Weapon Focus and BAB +4.

Dolorous blow was already mentioned. Bard/Sor/Wiz 3. Double threat range, auto-confirm for minutes/level, but only targets one weapon.

Exacting shot (CAdv) autoconfirms, but is Rgr 1, only works on one weapon for ranged attacks, and only works against favored enemies.

Sense weakness (MoE), Clr/Sor/Wiz 2, gives the touched creature the ability to automatically confirm one roll in the next 24 hours, discharging the spell.

Critical strike (SC), personal range, swift action cast, 1 round duration, As/Bard/Sor/Wiz 1, doubles threat range, deals +1d6 damage, and gives +4 insight to confirm, but only works against dex-denied opponents.

Bonecrusher (ToB), a 3rd level Stone Dragon strike, gives a whopping +10 untyped to confirm crit threats and deals +4d6 damage, but offers a DC 13+STR save to resist the crit confirm boost.

Warblade 3 gives you an insight bonus equal to your INT modifier to confirm crits.

Marshal 1 and choosing the Accurate Strike minor aura gives you a circumstance bonus to confirm crits equal to your CHA mod. Also provides the same bonus to any allies you have within 60'.

Those are the greatest hits.

Marshal 1/Warblade 5 with Bonecrusher gives you +Cha+Int+10 to confirm, which is practically autoconfirm. Go from there into Bloodstorm Blade and go to town.

You can also add on a psionic race or take Wild Talent (synad is the best for this, keep reading), then take Power Attack, Cleave, Instant Clarity, and Instinctive Consummator. Get your threat range as large as possible: a keen enchantment on a naturally 18-20 weapon, for instance. This will allow you to make a strike, critically threaten (because you'll threaten on a 15+), burn your psionic focus to automatically confirm your critical, and then spend a swift action to regain your psionic focus. If you drop your opponent, you can cleave. Won't be able to do it again, unfortunately, because you'll be out of swift actions...or you can be a synad for your race (also CPsi) to get an extra swift action once per day by spending a PP (which you'll get three of for being a synad). Take Improved Synad Multitask so you can burn your other PP for extra extra swift actions too.

[Bronk]

There's also a pair of ranger spells - Hunter's Mercy and Hunter's Eye - that do what you want, but only for bow attacks. However, it doesn't specify attacks using arrows, so you could probably throw the bow itself. I think there are a few bows that double as melee weapons that would fit the bill.

[Bullet06320]

if 3rd party is allowed Stargate SG-1 d20 has feats that improves the chance criticals
my book is out on loan right now, so I cant confirm, but if memory serves we managed to get it down to 10 or 12 using some of those feats once

[Lathund]

A Blessed weapon (BoED) autoconfirms threats against evil opponents. This, sadly, also has a 'doesn't stack with other crit effects' clause

[Andezzar]

If you're using 3.0 rules you can crit on a 15, they closed that loophole in 3.5 though.In 3.0 the number was much lower. In 3.5 any keen weapon with a base threat range of 18-20 produces critical threats on 15+

[AvatarVecna]

My only two cents to add in is that, if you think you can get SA often enough for it to be worth a feat, pick up Craven; it's a straight damage bonus, so it would get multiplied on a critical.

That said...Let's run a little weapon comparison, shall we?

With 5 levels of Master Thrower, focused on throwing a particular 2-H martial weapon, there are 4 main weapons to be hurling: falcions, greatswords, greataxes, and scythes. With this PrC, their critical threats/multipliers are 15-20/x3, 17-20/x3, 19-20/x4, and 19-20/x5. I'm gonna compare their damage at three points of accuracy: maximum accuracy (hits on everything but a nat 1), average accuracy (hits on 11 or higher), and minimum accuracy (only hits on nat 20). Note that this is before taking into account any critical confirmations bonuses. Also, keep in mind that you can't threaten a critical on an attack that misses, and only a nat 20 is an auto-hit.

Base damage will be factored in, while the various damage bonuses will be indicated by an "X".



Accuracy
Falchion
Greatsword
Greataxe
Scythe


Maximum
31x+155
27x+189
25x+162.5
27x+135


Average
22x+110
18x+126
16x+104
18x+90


Minimum
3x+15
3x+21
4x+22
5x+25


Now, since X represents the damage bonuses that could get multiplied on a critical, X is the same in all instances, since there's not a damage bonus that could only be applied to one weapon, and not another (that is, there's no rule saying you can only take Weapon Specialization with a Greatsword, for instance).

So which weapon is better? I'll show you! It varies by both accuracy and damage bonus, but you see pretty quickly which is superior.

In a maximum accuracy situation, if your damage bonus is less than 9, the order of superiority (from greatest to worst) is greatsword-falchion-greataxe-scythe; if your bonus is anywhere from 9 to 13, the order is falchion-greatsword-greataxe-scythe; if your bonus is 14 or higher, the order is falchion-greatsword-scythe-greataxe.

In an average accuracy situation, if your damage bonus is less than 4, the order of superiority (from greatest to worst) is greatsword-falchion-greataxe-scythe; if your damage bonus is anywhere from 4 to 7, the order is falchion-greatsword-greataxe-scythe; if your damage bonus is 7 or higher, the order is falchion-greatsword-greataxe-scythe.

In a minimum accuracy situation, it doesn't matter what your damage bonus is, the order of superiority (from greatest to worst) is scythe-greataxe-greatsword-falchion.

How hard is it to get a +10 to damage from Str, feats, and other stuff? Not exactly difficult, right? In that case, in just about every situation you're going to come across, the falchion is the superior weapon. The only situation where the scythe is even decent is the situation where it's the best option for a terrible situation: namely, when your Master Thrower, who targets Touch AC, needs a nat 20 to hit the enemy.

The usual issue with wielding weapons with huge crit ranges (the lower part of the crit range isn't a hit, so doesn't count) isn't going to be a problem as often for you, since you're targeting Touch AC and have a dozen ways of increasing your crit confirmation roll. Also, since you're taking Warblade and Bloodstorm Blade for this build anyway, take the high crit threat range weapon and use your Weapon Aptitude feature on Lightning Mace (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-warrior--61/lightning-mace--1770/).
TL;DR

Scythe sucks for this unless you can only hit your enemy on a nat 20. Go for a high crit range weapon (I suggest falchion) and use the Warblade/Bloodstorm Blade "Weapon Aptitude" class feature to apply Lightning Mace (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-warrior--61/lightning-mace--1770/) to it.

On a similar note, while I haven't run the numbers, I have a sneaking suspicion that certain exotic weapons (goliath/minotaur greathammer) might have higher damage numbers to work with. Should you have any interest in making such a Bloodstorm Blade/Master Thrower, I suggest you take a peek at the build I submitted for the "Zinc Saucier: Fighter" competition: Thor Odinson! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17807146&postcount=35)

[Andezzar]

Scythe sucks for this unless you can only hit your enemy on a nat 20. Go for a high crit range weapon (I suggest falchion) and use the Warblade/Bloodstorm Blade "Weapon Aptitude" class feature to apply Lightning Mace (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-warrior--61/lightning-mace--1770/) to it.
It does not normally work that way. You cannot apply lightning mace to a Falchion. You would have to wield one in each hand. Without using too small falchions you cannot do that. Two kukris would be a much better choice.

That is if Weapon Aptitude even applies to that feat. The benefit is restricted to feats only apply to a single weapon. Lightning mace only applies to two or more light maces*.

*technically it would apply to a single light mace but only to creatures with a single hand. Thats the only way to satisfy "while using a light mace in each hand" with a single mace.

[AvatarVecna]

It does not normally work that way. You cannot apply lightning mace to a Falchion. You would have to wield one in each hand. Without using too small falchions you cannot do that. Two kukris would be a much better choice.

That is if Weapon Aptitude even applies to that feat. The benefit is restricted to feats only apply to a single weapon. Lightning mace only applies to two or more light maces*.

*technically it would apply to a single light mace but only to creatures with a single hand. Thats the only way to satisfy "while using a light mace in each hand" with a single mace.

1) Okay, fair point about Falchions not working. I've just been building a similar character who uses katanas, and those are 1-H, so I got mixed up. Katanas are great for this, because.

2) That's a rather questionable interpretation of the Lightning Mace RAW, but I've been awake far too long by this point to be bothered looking up the ways it could work no matter who's right.

Also, in the same vein as the Weapon Aptitude thing, there's the Aptitude weapon enchantment that might do the trick.

EDIT: Also, whether or not you could make katanas or falchions work with Lightning Mace, the fact remains that scythes are terrible for what the OP is trying to optimize.