Crit fishing

[adb82]

Hi everyone guys,
I was thinking a build for crit fishing. I like a lot the idea of an half orc 3 LV champion/x lv Zealot barb. Getting savage attack, GWM and orchish fury as feats and using a great axe. He will be devoted to Tempus and act like a viking of the north. My point here is: better start with 5 lv barbarian for get second attack asap? Or better start with the 3 LV of champion for increase the crit range asap? That said, someone have some other funny build for crit fishing? I don't like the idea of using a paladin, any suggestions with rogue, ranger, cleric or wizard are welcome. 😅

[PhantomSoul]

The classic is that if you're allowed Elven Accuracy, you've got a huge leg up (especially if you have some way to increase the consistency of having advantage).


Whenever you have advantage on an attack roll using Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma, you can reroll one of the dice once.
See: https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/comments/ba7b1a/elven_accuracy_what_it_is_how_it_works_and_who/

[bid]

You understand that your crit fishing build has bad DPR until at least level 12, right?

If you're in it for the fun of big damage, it's great though.

[adb82]

The classic is that if you're allowed Elven Accuracy, you've got a huge leg up (especially if you have some way to increase the consistency of having advantage).


See: https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/comments/ba7b1a/elven_accuracy_what_it_is_how_it_works_and_who/

This suppose a dex or cha based build, I would like to use a character in malee that is not a paladin MC with any cha based full caster.


You understand that your crit fishing build has bad DPR until at least level 12, right?

If you're in it for the fun of big damage, it's great though.

That's so true, maybe 5 LV of fighter (champion)/5 LV sorcerer (or even 3)/10 (or 12) LV rogue (assassin) works better, two weapon fighting, 2 attacks per turn, and lots of dice to be doubled with advantage between sneak attack, elven accuracy and shadow blade (still better if get access to booming blade that I actually haven't bcs I haven't the book sadly), with an auspicable autocrit for turn surprising enemies, some good spell like shield, making he use rapier and the shadow blade, getting mobile as feat, the feat that gives +5 on initiative, and elven accuracy and needing just hight dex and cha (boosted with elven accuracy) with possibly some cos, not so MAD...probably half elf. Work better in this way? In case in which order should take levels?

Ps it's really sad that the barbarian that seem created for crit fishing don't work so well till so hight LV...really a pity lol.

[RogueJK]

Ps it's really sad that the barbarian that seem created for crit fishing don't work so well till so hight LV...really a pity lol.

Barbarians are decent at getting Crits from the get go, thanks to their frequent Advantage. Not quite as crazy as, say, an Elven Accuracy Hexblade1/PaladinX or Hexsorcadin, but still plenty good.

It's the 3 levels of Champion Fighter that throw it off. That's a significant delay to your Barbarian levels just for the increased critical range. That's what delays it to Level 12.

A straight classed Half Orc Barbarian can do basically the same at Level 9 once Brutal Critical comes online (further boosted at Level 13), but even before Level 9 can still be doing Reckless+Savage Attack crits from Level 1+, and Reckless+GWM+Savage Attack crits from Level 4+, with an extra chance to roll a Crit from Level 5+.

You're not going to pop out the gate at Level 1 with massive criticals, no matter how you slice it. But you can start out with solid crits, and build up to amazing crits across the course of a campaign. Dipping into Fighter just delays that.


That's so true, maybe 5 LV of fighter (champion)/5 LV sorcerer (or even 3)/10 (or 12) LV rogue (assassin) works better, two weapon fighting, 2 attacks per turn, and lots of dice to be doubled with advantage between sneak attack, elven accuracy and shadow blade

Similarly, you won't have Extra Attack+Shadow Blade until Level 8, and once you throw 3 levels of Rogue in there for Assassin stuff it just delays that even further to at least Level 11. (Not to mention that you'll be a Level 11 character that's only had 1 ASI so far...)

If you want something that comes online at lower levels, think a little simpler. Half Orc Barbarian with GWM is ready to go at Level 4, and just gets better from there. Blade Pact Hexblade Warlock with Elven Accuracy and Eldritch Smite is ready to go at Level 5, and just gets better from there. Elven Accuracy Arcane Trickster comes online at Level 4 (and bumps up even further at Level 7 with Shadow Blade), and just gets better from there. Elven Accuracy TWF Champion Fighter or Samurai 5/Assassin X is ready to go from Level 7 (4/3), and just gets better from there. Etc.

Those may not be quite as powerful in a couple rounds per day at specifically Level 11 as a Champion 5/Sorcerer 3/Assassin 3 could be, but will do just fine throughout the adventuring day, and will be a lot more viable from Levels 1-10. Plus you'll be able to have solid criticals starting at early levels, rather than just being stuck waiting the majority of the campaign for your uber-specialized crit-fishing build to finally "come online" in Tier 3 and finally start fishing crits, with you most likely feeling disappointingly underpowered or behind the curve until then. (That's the main drawback of these "one trick pony" builds that don't come online until late levels... When you've built it around that one cool trick, but can't really use that one cool trick yet.)

Save the Champsorcassin for a Level 11 one-off, or a perhaps a campaign that starts in Tier 3, although I think it would be underpowered overall for a Tier 3 to 4 campaign since it lacks any higher level spells or abilities.

[adb82]

Barbarians are decent at getting Crits from the get go, thanks to their frequent Advantage. Not quite as crazy as, say, an Elven Accuracy Hexblade1/PaladinX or Hexsorcadin, but still plenty good.

It's the 3 levels of Champion Fighter that throw it off. That's a significant delay to your Barbarian levels just for the increased critical range. That's what delays it to Level 12.

A straight classed Half Orc Barbarian can do basically the same at Level 9 once Brutal Critical comes online (further boosted at Level 13), but even before Level 9 can still be doing Reckless+Savage Attack crits from Level 1+, and Reckless+GWM+Savage Attack crits from Level 4+, with an extra chance to roll a Crit from Level 5+.

You're not going to pop out the gate at Level 1 with massive criticals, no matter how you slice it. But you can build up to it across the course of a campaign, and dipping into Fighter just delays that.



Similarly, you won't have Extra Attack+Shadow Blade until Level 8, and once you throw 3 levels of Rogue in there for Assassin stuff it just delays that even further to at least Level 11.

If you want something that comes online at lower levels, think simpler. Single classed Half Orc Barbarian with GWM is ready to go at Level 4, and just gets better from there. Single classed Blade Pact Hexblade Warlock with Elven Accuracy and Eldritch Smite is ready to go at Level 5, and just gets better from there. Elven Accuracy TWF Champion Fighter or Samurai 5/Assassin X is ready to go from Level 7 (4/3), and just gets better from there. Etc.

Yep, I'd probably go with 5 LV fighter/x assassin...was thinking maybe also something like:

4 LV champion/3 LV assassin/1 lv champion/2 LV barbarian/x LV assassin...just for rackless attack, I lose 1d6 of sneak attack and delay evasion and uncanny dodge, but having advantage at will with elven Accuracy looks just great... do you think it works as well? Maybe still dalaying asi it's not a great idea...

[bid]

Ps it's really sad that the barbarian that seem created for crit fishing don't work so well till so hight LV...really a pity lol.
Barbarian is ok, it's just that "crit in 19" is not worth 3 levels until you stack enough brutal/HO extra crit bonus.

[RogueJK]

Exactly. If you're gonna be crit-fishing, you have to have something useful to apply once you get that crit. If it's just doubling the weapon dice, it doesn't really matter if you crit often, as you can't make much use of it.

It's only once you start stacking on multiple instances of abilities that add additional dice to be doubled, such as Divine Smite, Eldritch Smite, Sneak Attack, Upcast Shadow Blade, Booming Blade, Brutal Critical, Savage Attacks, etc., plus potentially bonus attacks from Great Weapon Master, that there's a good reason to be fishing in the first place.

[stoutstien]

Honestly if I was building a crit focused character I would look at the slasher and crusher feat. It takes a ton of resources to get any noticeable damage increases from criticals where the Debuff riders from those feats are stackable and then you have nice crit effects.

[adb82]

Well, I probably can get advantage flanking, it's better than dip 2 LV barbarian just for rackless attack, bcs rage won't work anyway with dex...so I should go something like this:

Half elf or wood elf 4lv fighter (Champion)/3lv rogue (assassin)/1lv fighter champion/xlv rogue (assassin)...getting asi at LV 4, 9, 13, 17...

Assuming I will be enough lucky with dice to get at least a 17 in dex (+2 dex from elf or +1 dex from half elf if I roll an 18), I think the first asi is for elven accuracy (especially if I get 19 in dex), than I can try adding mounted combat (even it's kinda situational) for make getting advantage easier, than i can get mobile, and than alert maybe...so I don't waste time multiclassing in a third class.

[mistajames]

If you want a solid Critfishing build, your best bet is to grab GWM, Elven Accuracy, Champion, and an easy source of advantage. All of these feats synergize. This basically requires taking either Hexblade or Battle Smith to get Cha or Int to-hit.

Unless you're going Hexblade 1 -> Champion X, you're not getting online until fairly late.

[RogueJK]

If you want a solid Critfishing build, your best bet is to grab GWM, Elven Accuracy, Champion, and an easy source of advantage. All of these feats synergize. This basically requires taking either Hexblade or Battle Smith to get Cha or Int to-hit.

Unless you're going Hexblade 1 -> Champion X, you're not getting online until fairly late.

Unless you're only after the first half of the GWM feat, Hexblade 1 can't use CHA for two-handed weapons, so GWM's full effect wouldn't apply. You'd have to go all the way to at least Warlock 3, and take Pact of the Blade, in order to make a two-handed fully-GWM-compatible weapon your Pact Weapon and use CHA for attacks with it.

So either way, with Hexblade or Battle Smith, it would require at least a 3 level commitment in order to get INT/CHA-based fully-GWM-compatible attacks.

(GWM isn't really worth it just for the bonus attack on criticals alone. You'll get a lot greater mileage out of the +10 to damage, provided you have a good way to help mitigate the attack penalty, which Elven Accuracy's Triple Advantage does nicely.)

[N810]

You would be beter off if you can convince your DM to let you upgrade you Great Axe or quest for a magical one with a expanded crit range.

[mistajames]

Unless you're only after the first half of the GWM feat, Hexblade 1 can't use CHA for two-handed weapons, so GWM's full effect wouldn't apply. You'd have to go all the way to at least Warlock 3, and take Pact of the Blade, in order to make a two-handed fully-GWM-compatible weapon your Pact Weapon and use CHA for attacks with it.

So either way, with Hexblade or Battle Smith, it would require at least a 3 level commitment in order to get INT/CHA-based fully-GWM-compatible attacks.

(GWM isn't really worth it just for the bonus attack on criticals alone. You'll get a lot greater mileage out of the +10 to damage, provided you have a good way to help mitigate the attack penalty, which Elven Accuracy's Triple Advantage does nicely.)

You are absolutely correct, my mistake. I was using both ends of the GWM for the build type (i.e. - crit triggers BA attack, Elven Accuracy mitigates -5 to-hit). It all synergizes really nicely, though your crit chance will likely never get better than 15%.

Kind of makes me think that melee critfishing isn't really the way to go at all compared to ranged critfishing via the Sharpshooter/Crossbow Expert/Elven Accuracy route. That way you don't even need to multiclass, just go straight Champion, pick up your feats and extra attacks, and go to town. The problem then is that it's really tough to slap bonus damage dice on a Champion to really take advantage of the crits, but your damage output is pretty good anyways just from doing lots of high-damage attacks, even if they don't crit. Also, you probably need help to guarantee advantage, whereas classes like Warlock have ways to get easy recurring advantage.

[DarknessEternal]

You don't need to invest any extraneous class levels in trying to get a 19-20 crit range when Butcher's Bib exists.

[Darthnazrael]

I've been looking at doing this with Gunner/Piercer/Sharpshooter/Elven Accuracy on a Samurai or Rune Knight with a Butcher's Bib and a Musket. Rune Knight is a bit riskier as their advantage is less consistent than Samurai, but they get extra GM damage to double and extra Rune effects. It'll need to be a customized Bib to affected Ranged/Piercing rather than Melee/Slashing, but my dm is a fan of tailoring the magic items to the PCs' preferences/builds.

[bid]

You would be beter off if you can convince your DM to let you upgrade you Great Axe or quest for a magical one with a expanded crit range.
Since greataxe with expanded crit range is about the same damage as maul without, your DM should have no problem following your concept. {WAGging the numbers from memory}

[adb82]

Barbarian is ok, it's just that "crit in 19" is not worth 3 levels until you stack enough brutal/HO extra crit bonus.

That's true, but other classes gain damage benefits similar with brutal critical (even much better better) at earlier levels. Think about a paladin: +2d6 with a spell of first LV (or second im not sure) and not only when he crit, smite (that we can compare with rage for how much is good, even probably is better than rage), heavy armors, fighting style...I'm not complaining about the barbarian that it's anyway one of my favorite classes for other reasons, especially funny builds like a 1 LV barbarian/8 LV warlock pact of blade/2 LV barb/xlv warlock, for great use of armor of agathys and fire shield, but i just mean that there are better ways to crit fishing (paladin/sorcerer, hexblade/paladin, champion/rogue, probably also gloomstalker/assassin it's better), while the barbarian should be the core of a crit fishing build for that brutal critical that could probably come up a bit earlier as it's not that OP.


If you want a solid Critfishing build, your best bet is to grab GWM, Elven Accuracy, Champion, and an easy source of advantage. All of these feats synergize. This basically requires taking either Hexblade or Battle Smith to get Cha or Int to-hit.

Unless you're going Hexblade 1 -> Champion X, you're not getting online until fairly late.

This is interesting, to use GWM and elven accuracy...but hexblade 3/champion x have a poor number of dice to double I suppose, even with 18/20 to crit and many attacks...



You don't need to invest any extraneous class levels in trying to get a 19-20 crit range when Butcher's Bib exists.

Well, it's a rare, Wondrous item, if I'm lucky to find it i can easily go for straight half orc barbarian, or can think something like: eldricht knight 12 (or 11 depending if need that asi or not)/shadow sorcerer or hexblade 8 (or 9) for use shadow blade with elven Accuracy with hight LV spell slots and BB/GFB also give a big boost to damage dices.

[adb82]

Maybe also something with a planar warrior is possible for the 3 attack that it's situational but gonna happen kinda often and for having haste...11 LV planar warrior/3 LV sorcerer it mean he already have 2d8 (PW bonus action) + 3d8 (SB 4th LV) +5 (dex) + 2D8 (BB/GFB) that is already a medium amount of 40 damage with one single attack, critting is 75 damage at LV 14 (while before he just go straight PW so I'm assuming no problems till LV 11...it can suffer something maybe on LV 12 and 13)...with haste, elven accuracy, eventually the teleport ability for go out from nasty situations, and hopefully 4 attacks for turn without use any magic (or less if using booming blade against one single Target, but I suppose better using BB only when in haste in the second action, or when it's not possible to use the 3rd attack). From here can maybe go straight rogue assassin till the end or probably better 3lv Champion (action surge with haste fit always well giving 3 actions in one turn, probably the first one)/3 LV arcane trickster for higher slots of shadow blade...losing 1d6 SA, assassination and uncanny dodge for have a 19/20 crit chance, +1d8 SB and action surge...in this way we gonna add 1d8 + 2d6 more...that mean a crit of 94 damage with 19/20 and elven accuracy that is still not as good as the hex/paladin but i suppose is viable.

I though about this actually only bcs Im already playing a PW LV 11, so i could adjust this crit fishing build for that campaign if it can work...What do you think about?