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Woland
2007-10-06, 03:06 PM
Things like improved critical and keen weapon don't stack, I know. But I was wondering, once the character levels got fairly high, what would be a good way to make it so they can? With gear limitations, you can increase the cost of an item to make it not take up a slot, so what would be a good way to deal with something like critical threat range modifiers?

On a similar note, I'd like to know a good way to take the limit off inherent ability score bonuses and gear stat bonuses. Capping inherent bonuses at +5 and gear bonuses at +6 just isn't very fun. Making an exponential increase in cost/time is completely fine, it's just that at a certain point there's not much more to stat out and I want to take that limit off.

Dullyanna
2007-10-06, 03:11 PM
I'm pretty sure you have to houserule those away. By RAW's definition, all those things can't be done.

Seffbasilisk
2007-10-06, 03:14 PM
Epic gear is more then +6.

Dullyanna
2007-10-06, 03:57 PM
Ah, right. I forgot about that.

Person_Man
2007-10-06, 05:19 PM
The Psychic Weapon Master can increase the critical beyond normal stacking rules. So can one of the variant Barbarians. They're both on the WotC website - I'm just too lazy to look them up right now.

It's also worth mentioning that improving your critical is generally a sub-optimal way of improving your average damage output. It's unreliable. It's not particularly effective against high AC enemies. And large categories of common enemies are immune to it.

Buy a scabbard of keen edges. But beyond that, I wouldn't bother.

Mavian
2007-10-06, 05:23 PM
Disciple of Dispater from the BoVD has an improved crit range ability that stacks with improved crit.

Woland
2007-10-06, 05:29 PM
I mean more of a houserule cost type of thing.

As in, what's a good level requirement/monetary cost/adventure difficulty setting for getting a stacking threat range increase?

And same question for the stat increases. I'm not talking about class features.

Jannex
2007-10-06, 06:33 PM
One of my DMs just houseruled it so that Improved Crit and Keen stacked automatically if you had them both (the way I think I remember it being in 3.0); since, as Person_Man says, it's not necessarily an optimal strategy, and it's fun, it's not really a game-breaking houserule by any means.

MaxMahem
2007-10-06, 06:51 PM
The is no big deal with letting improved critical ranges stack. Thats how it was done in 3.0 and frankly its not that good of a deal. Improved critical is generally worse then other feats you might take (weapon specialization for example) just as keen is generally a worse enhancement then other enchantments you might take (such as a flaming weapon). Similarly a rapier is worse then a longsword damage wise. Even in optimal situations letting keen and improved crit stack isn't gamebraking at all, it merely brings these otherwise sub-par feats up to the same level as other options you might take. Its how I homerule it in my games.

A fairly good analysis on the statistics can be found here (http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/rants/keenimprovedcritstacking.html)

As for allowing bonuses greater then +5 or +6, there is nothing wrong with that as long as it is applied evenly to monsters and characters. I have been known to allow the odd piece of epic equipment to fall into pre-epic characters hands. Just relise that this will increases their abilities proportionally and so even level CR monsters may become less of a challenge.

Fax Celestis
2007-10-06, 07:15 PM
One of my DMs just houseruled it so that Improved Crit and Keen stacked automatically if you had them both (the way I think I remember it being in 3.0); since, as Person_Man says, it's not necessarily an optimal strategy, and it's fun, it's not really a game-breaking houserule by any means.

It can be. I remember my Fighter/Weaponmaster from 3.0 who had a 9-20/x7 crit with several magic properties that multiplied on a critical.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-06, 07:21 PM
And with the feats and items that allow you to do critical hits on immune people, those tactics are VERY serious stuff.

Lord Iames Osari
2007-10-06, 07:22 PM
It can be. I remember my Fighter/Weaponmaster from 3.0 who had a 9-20/x7 crit with several magic properties that multiplied on a critical.

Ah, I remember the Weaponmaster. That was a fun class. Pretty damn cheesy, though.