Vorpal Blade

[VolcanicErupt]

Uhhhh, not sure what I want. Building a lvl 16 character and the Vorpal enchantment.

[JNAProductions]

Uhhhh, not sure what I want. Building a lvl 16 character and the Vorpal enchantment.

We the forum aren't sure either.

If I had to guess...

You want help making a character that uses a Vorpal weapon?

[liquidformat]

You should really be looking at doing a crit fisher build if you want to take advantage of the vorpal enchantment. Maybe look at Rogue3/swashbuckler16/swordsage 1 build dual wielding kukri. Get Swordsage around level 9, and see if your dm will let you taking daring outlaw with arcane stunt.

[Shadowquad]

Crit fishing doesn't really help with vorpal.
The beheading effect only occurs on a natural 20 on the attack roll. Feats like Power Critical or the Warblade's Battle Ardor can help you confirm, but that's about the only advantage you get.

[liquidformat]

Crit fishing doesn't really help with vorpal.
The beheading effect only occurs on a natural 20 on the attack roll. Feats like Power Critical or the Warblade's Battle Ardor can help you confirm, but that's about the only advantage you get.

weird I could have sworn it did, well apparently I have just had nice dms when I have used it in the past...

[VolcanicErupt]

We the forum aren't sure either.

If I had to guess...

You want help making a character that uses a Vorpal weapon?

That's the idea.


And what is the point of the Rogue class levels?

[Boggartbae]

Dual wield bastard swords without getting proficiency, and then find as many ways to trade BAB for other effects, like combat expertise. You'll never hit anything unless you roll a 20, at which point you'll kill the monster in one hit.

[ViperMagnum357]

always pair a vorpal weapon with the Surge of Fortune spell, Cleric 5, CC, treat your next attack roll as a natural 20. Make sure you have the attack bonus to confirm the crit, though.

[Silly Name]

There isn't really a lot of character building around Vorpal - all you need is a melee character with a slashing weapon. You only insta-kill on a natural 20, so Crit-Fishing is somewhat removed from Vorpal.

I would suggest you think a bit more about the character. Do you want a Fighter? A Barbarian? A Rogue? What does this character do, apart from having a Vorpal blade?

[zfs]

Better Lucky Than Good (CS, p. 74) will allow you to once a day treat a natural 1 as a natural 20. As already posted, Surge of Fortune works incredibly well with Vorpal as well.

Instinctive Consummator (CPsi, p. 55) requires burning your psionic focus but lets you auto-confirm a crit threat, and has no daily use limit.

Victor's Luck (CS, p. 82) will let you expend a swift to re-roll your crit confirm roll. It's not limited to once a day like Better Lucky Than Good, but it does take up one of your luck re-rolls. Depending on how many luck feats you have, you might have a bunch of those or you might only have a few.

Because you only activate vorpal on Natural 20's, instead of crit-fishing you just want to maximize attacks, so any generic blender build that works with slashing weapons is a good starting point. If you have Instinctive Consummator, you probably want to take Boggartbae's advise and abuse things that let you trade BAB for defense. You don't much care about your plus to attack or your weapon damage, because you're just going for 20's.

[daremetoidareyo]

Luck rerolls are probably the way to go here.

There is the first level maneuver that allows you to roll 2d20 on an attack roll in the shadow hand discipline in tome of battle.

There is an ancestor feat in the dragon #318 update to oriental adventures that allows you to roll 2d20 on any roll that you can only succeed on a 20 with, once per encounter, called audacious attempt.

The luck domain gives a reroll. And luck feats give a reroll that may work with the luck domain.

Victors luck rerolls confirmation, fortuitous strike rerolls an attack, and better lucky than good turns natural 1s into natural 20s. Paired with the feats above, that's like a 40% 1/day of vorping

Then find spells/psionics to auto confirm.

[liquidformat]

Luck rerolls are probably the way to go here.

There is the first level maneuver that allows you to roll 2d20 on an attack roll in the shadow hand discipline in tome of battle.

There is an ancestor feat in the dragon #318 update to oriental adventures that allows you to roll 2d20 on any roll that you can only succeed on a 20 with, once per encounter, called audacious attempt.

The luck domain gives a reroll. And luck feats give a reroll that may work with the luck domain.

Then find spells/psionics to auto confirm.

There are also a number of exalted spells that allow you to reroll once per day, which might be helpful.

[Quertus]

weird I could have sworn it did, well apparently I have just had nice dms when I have used it in the past...

It did back when 3e first came out. 3.5 decided that martials can't have nice things, and made it only work on a natural 20. :smallfrown:


There isn't really a lot of character building around Vorpal - all you need is a melee character with a slashing weapon. You only insta-kill on a natural 20, so Crit-Fishing is somewhat removed from Vorpal.

Crit fishing for infinite attacks, so that you eventually behead anything?

[Andezzar]

Crit fishing for infinite attacks, so that you eventually behead anything?D2 crusader with two aptitude keen vorpal kukris..

[Silly Name]

Crit fishing for infinite attacks, so that you eventually behead anything?

At that point, you only need to fish for infinite attacks/rerolls, not critical hits. Remember, the main objective of a crit-fishing build is to have a critical range as large as possible, which is redundant with a Vorpal weapon.

[Crake]

There are a lot of different ways to gain bonuses to crit confirmation, combine with surge of fortune to basically guarantee insta-kills.

For extra fun, add on a couple of levels of paladin for bless weapon to auto-confirm vs evil, or a couple of levels of blackguard for curse weapon for the same effect vs good.

[Quertus]

At that point, you only need to fish for infinite attacks/rerolls, not critical hits. Remember, the main objective of a crit-fishing build is to have a critical range as large as possible, which is redundant with a Vorpal weapon.

Redundant? Well, dealing zero damage (thanks, DR) infinite times is not nearly as inconvenient to most monsters as decapitation. Also, you don't always go infinite, so it's an alternative kill method - especially if it relies on some limited time per day resources to guarantee its success.

Besides, it's a style thing.

[Silly Name]

What I meant is that in a crit-fishing build, you are trying to maximise the chance that every attack you make is a critical hit. This is usually accomplished by having a large critical threat range.

A Vorpal weapon's automatic decapitation ability is activated only on a Natural 20. If you want to build around this, what you want is to have as many attacks as possible and to be able to reroll Attack Rolls multiple times per day. Crit-fishing can still be there, but it's not going to be particularly useful if your focus is going snicker-snack.

[Quertus]

What I meant is that in a crit-fishing build, you are trying to maximise the chance that every attack you make is a critical hit. This is usually accomplished by having a large critical threat range.

A Vorpal weapon's automatic decapitation ability is activated only on a Natural 20. If you want to build around this, what you want is to have as many attacks as possible and to be able to reroll Attack Rolls multiple times per day. Crit-fishing can still be there, but it's not going to be particularly useful if your focus is going snicker-snack.

I guess I skipped a step. Crit fishing into infinite attacks, for, well, the "as many attacks as possible" that Vorpal demands.

[Deophaun]

Redundant? Well, dealing zero damage (thanks, DR) infinite times is not nearly as inconvenient to most monsters as decapitation.
There are three entire classes of monsters that Vorpal will not have any practical effect on, plus several instances outside of it. If you're doing infinite attacks, you're much better off taking that +5 and using it to overcome DR instead. Collision will go a long way. And infinite attacks is infinite crits, so your GMW Collision sword already kills anything with DR 20 with nothing else (or DR 30 if you were smart and took something with a x3 multiplier), which leaves you with fewer monsters immune to you than if you were relying on Vorpal.

[Andezzar]

Redundant? Well, dealing zero damage (thanks, DR) infinite times is not nearly as inconvenient to most monsters as decapitation.D2 crusader does not do small damage many or even infinite times but infinite damage on each attack. That should inconvenience anything not immune to damage completely.

[Saintheart]

For extra fun, add on a couple of levels of paladin for bless weapon to auto-confirm vs evil, or a couple of levels of blackguard for curse weapon for the same effect vs good.

Very regrettably and for much less fun, thank you Monte for nerfing crits once again -- Bless Weapon and Curse Weapon by their explicit terms shut down Vorpal. Or vice versa.


In addition, all critical hit rolls against evil foes are automatically successful, so every threat is a critical hit. This last effect does not apply to any weapon that already has a magical effect related to critical hits, such as a keen weapon or a vorpal sword.

[Quertus]

D2 crusader does not do small damage many or even infinite times but infinite damage on each attack. That should inconvenience anything not immune to damage completely.

Well, sure, but it does it as limited number of times per day. A good crit Fisher build doesn't run out of gas. And a good Vorpal build does. They compliment each other well, in that regard.


There are three entire classes of monsters that Vorpal will not have any practical effect on, plus several instances outside of it. If you're doing infinite attacks, you're much better off taking that +5 and using it to overcome DR instead. Collision will go a long way. And infinite attacks is infinite crits, so your GMW Collision sword already kills anything with DR 20 with nothing else (or DR 30 if you were smart and took something with a x3 multiplier), which leaves you with fewer monsters immune to you than if you were relying on Vorpal.

Well, outside a few edge cases (get it?) you won't get a x3 multiplier on something with a good crit range. So that's kinda rare to see in crit fisher builds IME. Also, you're looking for things that work even when you don't go infinite (or, at least, I tend to think that way) - Vorpal is more of a double gamble, for those who really love living on the edge.

Sure, 3.5 Vorpal is not the TO approved most efficient use of GP ever invented... But, um, it is kinda the point of the thread's topic, so I figure it's not wrong to explain a build that would optimize your odds of beheading things.

[zfs]

I have at least a sketch of a build now, but it's very feat intensive. Definitely would help to have flaws.

But something like Psy. Warrior 2/Cleric 14 (since you said Level 16). Psy War levels get you the PP to use Instinctive Consummator without needing to take Hidden Talent, and the bonus feats can be used towards the Pre-reqs for Instinctive Consummator (Power Attack and Cleave are both bonus feats). Could also use them to start the feat chain for more effective use of psionic focus in battle (Psicrystal Affinity, Psicrystal Containment and Psionic Meditation all being used for that). Take the Cautious Trait, have your vorpal enhancement be on a Broadblade Shortsword (which would again require a feat - you don't care about the minus to attack from not being proficient, but unfortunately the defensive bonus only applies if you're proficient), worship a God that has both War and Law domains so you can trade them out for the Devotion feats, take the Combat Expertise line (even moar feats!), and pick up both Quicken Spell and Divine Metamagic. Belt of Battle would be a nice addition. If you have time to prep for battle, one of your Psy War powers should probably be Force Screen for an easy shield bonus. On the front line, you're a complete one-trick pony - fighting defensively while using max combat expertise and activating Law and War devotion when you get a chance, you have a ludicrous AC. You're going to be preparing Surge of Fortune in a ton of slots. If your DM allows night stick abuse, pick some up to fuel DMM. Your normal routine is going to be free action Surge of Fortune, move action to either move into range or regain psionic focus, standard action attack. End Surge of Fortune as an immediate action to auto-20, burn psionic focus to auto-confirm. Boom, headshot.

Seems potentially fun, until a construct or undead shows up and you basically just shrug your shoulders. At least it'll have trouble hitting me!

Edit: Belt of Battle probably isn't worth it since activation is a swift action and ending Surge of Fortune for an auto-20 is an immediate action. Still can be useful to get a full move action the same turn you re-focus as a move action, but it has to be a turn you're not planning to denogginize someone.

2nd Edit: Derp, my brain was in 3.0 mode for some reason - quickened spells are swift actions, so you can't cast a quickened Surge of Fortune and activate the auto-20 ability in the same round. Oh well, at least that cuts down on how feat intensive the build is (no need for Quicken or DMM) and makes it less cheese-laden because you don't need something questionable like night stick stacking. So the trick really only works every other round.

[Deophaun]

Well, outside a few edge cases (get it?) you won't get a x3 multiplier on something with a good crit range.
We're talking about infinite attack builds. Crit range doesn't matter. 1/20th of infinity is the same as 3/10ths of infinity.

[Quertus]

We're talking about infinite attack builds. Crit range doesn't matter. 1/20th of infinity is the same as 3/10ths of infinity.

... Sorry, the infinite attack builds I'm talking about are crit fishers, who get a bonus attack on a crit threat, and another bonus attack on a confirmed crit. So... crit range really, really matters!

[Deophaun]

... Sorry, the infinite attack builds I'm talking about are crit fishers, who get a bonus attack on a crit threat, and another bonus attack on a confirmed crit. So... crit range really, really matters!
Then you throw the maiming enhancement on it and get infinite x4.

[Quertus]

Then you throw the maiming enhancement on it and get infinite x4.

Pity that got a nerf update, otherwise, it'd be rather amazing for that build.