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2009-07-29, 01:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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do keen and improved critical stack?
just read the title.
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2009-07-29, 01:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- In his throne room.
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Re: do keen and improved critical stack?
They used to. . .
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Elan.
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Join, join, join, join the Elan Fan Club!
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2009-07-29, 01:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2007
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2009-07-29, 01:41 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
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2009-07-29, 01:42 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2007
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2009-07-29, 01:42 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2008
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Re: do keen and improved critical stack?
They were probably worried about melee classes being too strong at high levels.
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2009-07-29, 01:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2007
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- Indianapolis
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2009-07-29, 01:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2007
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- Terra Australis
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Re: do keen and improved critical stack?
Last edited by Thurbane; 2009-07-29 at 01:59 AM.
My winning competition entries: Kinvig Arrumskor | The Great Pumpkinhead | Wynfrith d'Acker
Torn-City - Massively multiplayer online browser based crime RPG
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2009-07-29, 01:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
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2009-07-29, 02:02 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2009
Re: do keen and improved critical stack?
so they were worried about fighters getting overpowered when they have druid and wizard spell lists.
what's the intelligence score on these people again?
guess that's something I should houserule in my eventual 3.5 campaign. that or nerf casters.Last edited by Mystic Muse; 2009-07-29 at 02:03 AM.
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2009-07-29, 02:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
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2009-07-29, 02:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2009
Re: do keen and improved critical stack?
XD. unfortunately I bet that's true.
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2009-07-29, 02:12 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2008
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- Italy
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Re: do keen and improved critical stack?
There is something here and there to increase your crit chance.
See the cityscape web enhancement: an ACF of the barbarian increases the crit threat of 1, stacks with everything.
In BoVD, disciple of dispater has not been updated, so his critical threat increase stack, IMHO (even if is not for everybody become the minion of the lord of the second)
Sword and Fist and Oadv Weapon Master seemed updated by CW exotic weapon master, but there is a 3.5 enhancement in the mind eye with a psionic weapon master with similar rules. IIRC, both increase the threat of a weapon of election by 2.
In complete scoundrel, a lucky feats makes you treat a 1 as a natural 20, once/day. So, once day you mercurial greatsword threats 3/20 instead of 2/20. But this is not so useful, I guess
Hope can be useful.
Edit: about H-orc: go directly orc, make a charger powerattack fighter//barbarian with the best ACF and wotc morons be damned.
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2009-07-29, 02:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2007
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Re: do keen and improved critical stack?
To be fair:
- Spell overhauls are a massive effort and the one thing I've never homebrewed from scratch in great quantity in D&D.
- Due to the number of them, making large changes without providing a point by point guide to the changes makes it very likely that groups will miss things, which can make the whole thing feel like wasted effort.
- Natural Spell + Wild Shape is not remotely broken if a player isn't the sort inclined to search a Monster Manual, which in my experience, many are not.
- In fact, this is true of all of the upper levels of D&D -except- for Tome of Battle and Psionics; if you're inclined to play the class as it is presented to you that you should be playing it, your power is not out of control at all, and in fact tends to be underwhelming.
- Their target audience will never be optimizers. I mean, sure, everyone tries at least a little bit to make their character competent, but optimizers are in many ways a nerd's nerd, and thus represent a small portion of the buying community.
- Therefore - especially in a time when the internet was not quite as strongly felt in this market - it seemed more logical to make a game that is playable to the mechanically shallow. 'Pick a monster out of this book and BAM you're it!' is a lot cooler sounding than "add stats and roleplay it."
- The core of the game was built with an 'extra layer' of power for spellcasters intended to come off as a bonus 'minigame' for optimizers. This extra layer is probably far more than what they intended, but the idea of a 'bonus' to the patient gamer is something that's both traditional to D&D (Wizards were always more powerful in the end) and something they were applying from their experiences with M:TG.
While I don't agree with the results in many ways, ultimately it's a statement about the importance about appearing balanced and interesting to the uninitiated and naive rather than actually being so, inasmuch as such things can be objectively determined. I know when I picked up 3.5 I went "ooh, my druid can actually do stuff now in case I prepared a bad spell. That's great! -stocks up on goodberries-."
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2009-07-29, 02:15 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2007
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2009-07-29, 02:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
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2009-07-29, 03:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
Re: do keen and improved critical stack?
Sooooo for some reason, turning into a bear (which is often the first idea of even the greenest of druid players) and tossing out spells at the same time doesn't completely overpower straight melee classes HOW??
There are other issues I have with your "list," but I think pointing out the blatant wrongness on this point is enough.
As far as the OP and why they did it, I would go as far to say that it is a tad unbalancing at the lower levels, where it is entirely possible to roll up a keen masterwork weapon on the treasure charts. You then have a core melee character who can and will pretty much one shot any CR appropriate encounter without using some odd build and without taking any countering risks. Simply stack keen with improved critical, use a x3 or x4 crit weapon, and power attack like mad.
As well.. it kinda takes the flavor out of criticals if you are basically critting every time you roll higher than a five or whatnot. At high lvls, I wouldnt have any problem with it considering... but it does feel kinda cheap fluff wise, and as well, flat out tripling damage output like that hardly fixes all the problems with meleers -not to mention, clerics and the like will now be using the same trick as well.Last edited by daggaz; 2009-07-29 at 03:35 AM.
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2009-07-29, 03:43 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- Switzerland
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Re: do keen and improved critical stack?
Actually, our first game went like this:
Player one: I'm gonna play a monk! They can hit people with fists!
Player two: Hmm... druids seem nice.
Player one: Yeah, but they are hippies and tree-huggers.
Player two: Right. Wizard, then.
Player three: I'm a Sorcerer! I get more spells than you do!
Player two: That's so unfair.Resident Vancian Apologist
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2009-07-29, 03:52 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2007
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Re: do keen and improved critical stack?
You pointed out what blatant wrongness?
These things are broken and are elements of bad design. However, to someone not attempting to think like this, it is very possible to run a non-broken druid - many new players (not all, certainly) assume the druid should be standing back and healing and wild shape is a disguise, not an attack form. You have no idea the number of druids I've seen that run animal companions as pets and messengers, not combat sponges. The word 'druid' calls to mind different things for different people, and with only an 'okay' BAB, no metal armor, a weird weapon list, 9th level spells...? I think it's perfectly logical for an initiate to believe that they're not meant to be frontliners, and I believe this is what they had in mind that people would be doing.
I was trying to explain their thought processes as I understand them, which make a certain twisted amount of sense. This is very different from them going "YAR YAR!" and giving class abilities out at random, which a lot of people assume once they become familiar with the game mechanics. And it is counterintuitive to assume that anyone intentionally creates things in a game which are supposed to break its balance. So we should assume they had reasons for doing what they did; few people do anything really at random and I think it's useful for anyone interested in homebrewing and game design to try and analyze why 3.5 has the screw-ups it does and not just what the screw-ups are.
We have the benefit of a large community analyzing, breaking down, pointing out every single issue in perfect, crystal-clear shouts. There is little ground gained from continuing to explore the level of brokenness that can be achieved in the system. The lessons to be gained from analyzing how 3.x came to be so - how popularity of a system can often result from how interesting the system appears to the casual user and that contrariwise, that bad game design can occur when you don't think very far outside of what you intended something to do, in my opinion - bear repeating.
To me, it says you want to avoid making things balanced by hinging on things that are not immediately obvious. You should put in big, bold underline what your designs are capable of. And you should, of course, playtest and have other people playtest for you. Some with the big bold text and some without, to see what they come up with.
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2009-07-29, 05:05 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
Re: do keen and improved critical stack?
Its not "remotely broken" is my main issue. The if clause you add in there does nothing to stop the brokenness. A player does not need to scour the monster manual to come up with the idea that they can turn into a bear. In fact, most players will come up with that one as one of their first ideas. That in itself is highly outbalancing melee classes. Toss in simultaneous full progression spellcasting which is both highly offensive and healing, and you have broken in its very definition so far as game balance is concerned.
You should probably just change your whole statement to "Natural spell + wildshape is not remotely broken IF the player goes out of their way to never use it in any of the combinations which are obviously and inherently broken, for example by never actually combining the two, or if so, by only doing so when out of combat." There, fixed that for ya.
As far as only the nerds' nest of gamers going for optimization... i find there is striking high number of people who are gamers who are also highly interested in the numerical mechanics of the systems which make up their games, especially when we are talking about DnD...
But anyhow, I gave my response to the actual OP so /hijack.
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2009-07-29, 05:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2007
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Re: do keen and improved critical stack?
Wrong. I'm sorry, but... wrong. Yes, it occurred to you. Yes, it occurs to many people. But I know plenty of gamers who it didn't occur to; not everyone who wants to play a druid goes "I want to turn into a bear and maul things." Some people just do not have optimization mindsets at all naturally. I don't propose to make any knowledge of the ratios, but I've met enough of them to know that it can't be all that uncommon. If your average person turns into a bear once because he's getting beat on and proceeds to use his natural spell to cast down a bunch of flamestrikes because hey I'm a bear and I'm burning everything - awesome - he has not managed to pull off anything a straight spellcaster druid wouldn't have.
I've had druids who didn't even use Wild Shape because they didn't see the point in it. Note: I regularly draft new players for campaigns.
As far as only the nerds' nest of gamers going for optimization... i find there is striking high number of people who are gamers who are also highly interested in the numerical mechanics of the systems which make up their games, especially when we are talking about DnD...
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2009-07-29, 05:13 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2006
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- Sunnydale
Re: do keen and improved critical stack?
Read an article by Sean K. Reynolds on the issue.
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2009-07-29, 05:22 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2005
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- Flawse Fell, Geordieland
Re: do keen and improved critical stack?
Just read the SRD.
I think it's a case of Liberal Arts majors on the writing staff deciding that "Math is hard!"
You can see exactly the same happening live and in real-time over at Paizo.
It's like a clown car of bad design. More stupid just keeps pouring out.Last edited by bosssmiley; 2009-07-29 at 05:29 AM.
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2009-07-29, 05:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
Re: do keen and improved critical stack?
lol... It occurs to many people. In and of itself, all by itself (and good luck getting a majority on this board not to agree with me on this point) the combination is broken or at least highly out of balance. So.... if many people do it... and all by itself that combination is broken... .ummm... so how IS IT NOT BROKEN AGAIN??! Just because you know "plenty of people" who dont use it in unbalancing ways, doesnt make it not broken.
Its like saying shooting a gun isnt inherently dangerous, because you never point it at people or cars, and neither do your friends.
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2009-07-29, 05:32 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2007
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Re: do keen and improved critical stack?
Note that the entire segment is written from the standpoint of trying to understand why they did what they did. I've already said multiple times it's terrible game design. I am not calling this balanced, I am trying to understand why they thought it was balanced. I've already reiterated several times that it is overpowered. Stop trying to put words in my mouth. I can understand that my first post was worded unclearly, but I've now restated this often.
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2009-07-29, 09:16 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2006
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Re: do keen and improved critical stack?
It's also worth mentioning that you can increase your critical threat range with the Psychic Weapon Master and variant Barbarian in 3.5 D&D (and some 3.0 PrC as well, if you allow such things).
When you read a 3.5 book, forget about balance. Somebody gets an idea. They think "Wow, I wish I could roleplay this!" The come up with some rules to simulate it. Then they publish it. They assume that you the reader are smart enough to sort through it figure out what works and what doesn't work, and that if it doesn't work for your group then you won't use it. Sometimes this process yields gems (Expanded Psionics Handbook, Tome of Battle, PHBII, Magic of Incarnum) and sometimes its unworkable garbage (Complete Psionics, Tome of Magic, Miniatures Handbook). The goal of most authors is to write and get published, not create a perfect system in which we can simulate medieval fantasy themed combat. If you can do the latter while keeping it fun and interesting, please do so, and I will gladly buy and play your game.Last edited by Person_Man; 2009-07-29 at 09:19 AM.
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2009-07-29, 09:20 AM (ISO 8601)
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2009-07-29, 09:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2008
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2009-07-29, 09:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2008
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Re: do keen and improved critical stack?
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2009-07-29, 09:30 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2007
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