Grim Reaper optimisation?

[Mrark]

Hi everyone!
I have a new character idea but I have no particolar clue on how to do it. I wanna play a martial who is specialized in the scythe, and I want it to be played around the x4 crit of the scythe. All I know is that I want to take the Critical Strike feat (by taking a -10 on your attack roll, you ensure it is a crit; similiar to power attack in some aspects but for critting), power attack, and leap attack. Do you know any other feats, prestige classes, races or Item that can fit with my idea?

[Kayblis]

I assume this is a homebrew feat, because no such feat exists in 3.5. If it's just as simple as you state, then the standard Shock Trooper build goes pretty well with it(you already have Leap Attack), and enough levels on a spellcasting class able to cast Wraithstrike(all attacks in one round are resolved as touch attacks). If you don't want to lose much BAB, I suggest the Assassin PrC or a Battle Sorcerer(an ACF from UA).

[Goaty14]

Try getting the +2 Collision enchantment from the Magic Item Compendium. It adds a flat +5 damage to your strikes, which means it multiplies on a critical hit. +5 damage is pretty good, but if you use Critical Strike on every hit, +20 damage is phenomenal. Get it. Get it now and never look back.

The +5 Vorpal ability explicitly only works on a natural 20, but if you start to lag behind the rest of the party (probably not, but who knows), asking the DM to extend it to critical hits in general would make decapitating most foes on all attacks pretty worthwhile, for such a high price (as, instead of Vorpal, you could have 2 energy burst and 1 energy enhancement, which is around +33 energy damage on a crit)

[vasilidor]

the feat is from dnd wiki, and nowhere near as broken as some of the things that casters can do just using the core rule book, nor as nasty as some of the ubercharger builds i have seen. potentially nasty, but once you get to the point where you can one shot the monster, extra damage becomes pointless, and it is relatively easy to get to the point where you can one-shot cr appropriate monsters, as long as the gear is available, and you are not restricted to core only.

[SpicyBoi_Nezu]

I'm going with the whole angel of death vibe on this one, so it may not be what you're looking for.

Take levels in rogue, make sure you take Exotic weapon proficiency, and get the assassin prestige class (Dungeon Master's Guide). Utilize the assassin's Death Attack ability. With one swing of your scythe, enemies are instantly dead.

Another option, is to take the Either Kensai (Complete Warrior) or Kensei (Oriental Adventures) (Two different prestige classes) and specialize in the scythe. Make sure you get a Keen enhancement on your Scythe if you're picking Kensei, because you get an extended crit range. Regardless of which one you choose, you want to take either the Dragon Magazine #310 Kensai Fighter Variant or the Exoticist Fighter Variant from the same magazine.

And for the real greatest crit attack, you're gonna need to pull some cheese. Take the first 5 levels in fighter, pick up all of the feat requirements as fast as possible. Then you need to take 7 levels in the Kensei prestige class, this allows you to increase your crit modifier to x5 3 times per day as well as making your scythe do extra damage, while you do this, sometime before that 7th level, you need to take the improved critical feat, as well as the prerequisite feats for Disciple of Dispater (Book of Vile darkness). You then take the remaining 8 levels in disciple of dispater, and you increase your crit range. In the end, you get a scythe that has these stats [8+2+{str*1.5}+{power attack*2} (13-20/x5)] That doesn't seem like all that much, but that is the stats for 3 attacks, and you get a total of attacks in a round equal to (Enemies in your range when you whirlwind attack)+(However many enemies are dumb enough to provoke attacks of opportunity from your superior combat reflexes). That means that if you crit on all hits as well as throw all of your BaB into power attack, which isn't hard to do, you can do an average of 285 damage per hit on the first 3 hits and 228 on each successive hit, multiplied by however many enemies are dumb enough to be within your range at any given time. That's not including any enhancements on the scythe, or the Iron Hews and Greater Iron hews abilities from Disciple of Dispater.

Here are all of the abilities
Ki Damage (Ex): After scoring a hit with his weapon of choice, a weapon master can choose not to roll dice to determine the damage. Instead, he figures the normal maximum damage he can inflict and deals that much damage to the target. A weapon master wielding a katana with a 17 Strength deals 13 points of damage (10 + 3 for Strength) when he chooses this option.
Increased Multiplier (Ex): A weapon master of 2nd level or higher can deal extra damage with a critical hit. The damage multiplier of the weapon master's favored weapon is increased by 1. For example, the katana has a critical multiplier of ×2. Using this ability, the weapon master can increase that multiplier to ×3 once per day at 2nd level. As a weapon master increases in level, he can use this ability more frequently. The weapon master must declare the use of this ability before rolling any damage dice.
Ki Critical: When a weapon master reaches 7th level, he gains the "Improved Critical" feat for free. If he already possesses this feat, he adds an additional +2 to the threat range for his weapon of choice. This +2 bonus is applied last, after any multipliers, such as those given by the Improved Critical feat or by keen weapons.
Iron Power (Ex): When using an iron or steel weapon, a 4th-level disciple of Dispater gains a +1 insight bonus on attack and damage rolls. Furthermore, his threat range is doubled as if he were using a keen weapon. At 8th level, the insight bonus improves to +2, and the threat range triples. This ability does not stack with the keen weapon quality, but it does stack with the Improved Critical feat.


If you want to go full angel of death, you need to play as a skeleton, grab a cloak, maximize Dexterity (Hide) and Intelligence (DC for the Death attack) and take Ability focus (Death Attack). Take all 10 levels of assassin, and optionally 3 levels of Uncanny trickster for another 2 levels of assassin. Grab the Feathered wings graft (Fiend Folio) for those sick wings. And pick up the Void Scythe (Technically PF, but I don't expect you to actually do this) which makes it so anyone killed by that scythe cannot be resurrected by anything short of True Resurrection, or a carefully worded Miracle or Wish spell.

[vasilidor]

oo, if using stuff from oriental adventures, get the skill iaijutsu focus for extra damage. stacks with sneak attack. so all that on a scythe with a *4 crit... ouchie (yes, i am aware that sneak attack and iaijutsu focus do not get multiplied on a crit). with the scythe and the *4 crit, the +# after the dice for damage is very important, so see what you can add to that (get strength boosters, avoid power attack if you can with the -10 to hit you already have). actually if you get your strength up high enough, it can mitigate the power attack problem. now if you can find ways to make it so that most of the time you target flat footed & touch at the same time, that would be awesome.