Improved Critical vs. Keen

[fluffymoose]

I've been trying to decide between getting improved critical or keen (or none at all) and I was hoping someone could give me advice. It seems like, if I have the cash, going for keen would be the better idea since you can only get so many feats, and putting keen on a rapier won't put me out too much. If that was the only issue, then, I'd probably just stick keen on the rapier and be done with it. I'm having trouble making a decision because, it seems to me, it's more beneficial to have an elemental damage enhancement (like sonic) than to increase the crit threat range. And, if I have a +1 rapier doing +1d6 sonic damage, and decide to add something else, I'd be better served putting another 1d6 of some other elemental damage on rather than keen.

So, what would you recommend I do? Take improved critical, and enhance the rapier with a couple elemental damage enchants if I can afford them; put keen on the rapier and free up a feat slot for something fun; or forget the increased threat range?

[Just Alex]

Keen in the short term, Improved Crit in the long term. Early on, if you can afford to toss Keen on an item, you can use it until you are high enough level to take the feat. The feat is better in the long run because
a) you can get more magical fun on your weapons
b) you can use any weapon of that type in a pinch

[Khantalas]

Keen doesn't give you new feat options. Improved Critical does.

Keen doesn't increase the threat range of a bludgeoning weapon. Improved Critical does.

Keen doesn't eat up your feat slot. Improved Critical does.

I just wanna go to sleep...

[Weezer]

I prefer imp. critical because if use loose your +2 keen rapier you don't have the bonus any more, but if you have the feat and find a rapier you use the bonus on the rapier.

[Thomas]

Feats are precious. If you can "buy a feat" for the price of one more +1 on your weapon, it's worth it. Take keen.

Take Improved Critical only if you need it for another feat (are there any good ones?) or a Prestige Class.

[PinkysBrain]

Bless weapon also doesn't work with keen, but it does work with improved critical.

[Dhavaer]

Unless you really can't decide on what feats to get, Keen will probably be better. Money is easier to come by than feats. And besides, it's my last name.

[Amiria]

Bless weapon also doesn't work with keen, but it does work with improved critical.

Yes, the Keen enchantment can get into the way of nifty spells or makes their effects redundant. Like Bless Weapon, Holy Sword, Exacting Shot (SC), Foebane (SC), Lawful Sword (SC), Weapon of the Deity (SC, only some deities), etc.

In the typical D&D campaign most enemies are evil. Improved Critical is well worth a feat slot then. Hmm, Champion of Correllon Larethian (RoW) with Improved Critical and a +x blessed (BoED), holy elven courtblade (RoW). Evil begone !

[daggaz]

I would think that keen is better. If you take the feat, you are only doubling the *chance* of a critical. So instead of 1/20 threats, you get 1/10. Its nice, but most people take feats to do something a whole lot more important than just up their damage. (battlefield control, metamagic, PrC qualifing, etc, etc.., all of it can effect the game even when you aren't rolling a dice and hoping to hit a monster) And as many have pointed out, there are lots of spells that will do this for you, as well as just puttin a few gp down for it too.

[fluffymoose]

Okay, looks like everyone is a little divided on the improved critical vs. keen thing. My other question is, if I decided that keen was better, how does a +1 keen rapier compare with, say, a +1 shocking rapier? Or, how does a +1 keen, shocking rapier compare with a +1 shocking, flaming rapier?

[The_Ferg]

We house-ruled at one point that imp crit and keen stacked for the reason that keen is an improvement on the weapon and that imp crit is an improvement on your use of the weapon. So, yeah, your keen rapier on which you have placed improved critical has a 12-20 crit range. That's pretty smoking. So, if you can convince the DM, get BOTH.

[That Lanky Bugger]

On a purely damage-dealing scale, Keen is better versus low AC opponents while enchantments like Shocking or Flaming are better versus high AC opponents. It also depends on your bonus to damage. If you've got a low damage bonus, scoring a critical hit doesn't help as much, while if you've got a damage bonus in the double digits, the Flaming and Shocking enchantments are less useful.

Per the attack rules, you need to confirm the critical by rolling another "hit" with the weapon. Versus a high AC opponent (let's say you needed to roll a 16 or better to hit), that means that you're only going to be confirming your critical 1 in 4 times. While that might effectively double your damage, the benefit depends on your damage bonus. If you're using your rapier and have a measly +6 to your damage, the critical would only take that to a +12. You may as well take Shocking and Flaming at that point.

However, if you've got a damage bonus of +15, doubling it takes it to a +30. That's an extra 15 damage on top of the extra die to roll. Even if you're only critting and confirming one fourth of the time, that's a meatier pie than the Shocking or Flaming.

Shocking and Flaming are also capable of being reduced by immunities. Hitting a Balor with a Flaming, Shocking weapon is going to be a waste of the +2 equivelant enchantment you put on the thing.

I'd personally take the feat and stick the extra damage enchantments on your weapon, because it gives you the best of both worlds.

[Khantalas]

We house-ruled at one point that imp crit and keen stacked for the reason that keen is an improvement on the weapon and that imp crit is an improvement on your use of the weapon. So, yeah, your keen rapier on which you have placed improved critical has a 12-20 crit range. That's pretty smoking. So, if you can convince the DM, get BOTH.

You could as well play 3.0 and get a +1 vorpal keen bladed gauntlet and have Improved Critical (bladed gauntlet).

Heads are off about 30% of the time.

[Indon]

I'd base it on how easily you could get magical weapons in your campaign, and how much you have to spend on them.

If it's just a matter of making a bit of money and dropping by your local magic shop for a purchase, I'd go with keen.

That way, if you want you can get _another_ weapon without keen to use against opponents immune to criticals (Because after a while, it gets cheaper to buy a new weapon than to continue upgrading an old one).

On the other hand, if magic/money's pretty hard to come by, you might be better off with the feat.

[iceman]

I agree with lanky bugger to a point. I agree that if you have a small damage bonus that the keen effect would be little help to you, but so would the imp. crit feat. I'm going to assume that you are some type of rogue character (probably wrongly but oh well) you should focus on feats and abilities that would strengthen your strong points and not worry so much about your damage out put from your rapier, excepting of course when you are using it to sneak attack someone. I would personally stay away from both seeing as how neither imp. crit or keen will help you all that much. The Bane property meanwhile can be a good choice if you are fighting a lot of the same thing. Also the higher the overall bonus to the weapon the harder it is for someone to sunder. A +5 weapon can only be sundered by a weapon with a +5 or higher enhancement bonus.

[grinner666]

We house-ruled at one point that imp crit and keen stacked for the reason that keen is an improvement on the weapon and that imp crit is an improvement on your use of the weapon. So, yeah, your keen rapier on which you have placed improved critical has a 12-20 crit range. That's pretty smoking. So, if you can convince the DM, get BOTH.

I've done the same thing, for much the same reason. It actually kind of honked me off that Wizards decided arbitrarily that the two don't stack, when their rationale all along for effects not stacking has been (and still, for the most part, is) similarity of source. Yet Keen Weapon is an enhancement bonus but Improved Critical, while not defined by the rules, is obviously a skill bonus ... or at the very least not enhancement.

And kindly don't harp about game balance. Please. The only weapons (all two of them) that have really good threat ranges do a big d6 damage. That's just about the cruddiest damage in the game, THE cruddiest for a martial weapon. I have no problem with a critical nearly half the time for such a feeble weapon.

But even without that particular house rule I prefer the feat to the magical enhancement for several reasons. First, as has been mentioned before, if you lose that keen rapier or scimitar you won't be doing those criticals anywhere near as often. Second ... because adding an extra elemental damage die is usually a more reliable way to double your damage on those d6 weapons.

[Legoman]

I've also houseruled that they stack ... I'm just scared of one of my players finding that Tiger Stance from ToB, where you get +1 to attack and damage as an un-named bonus, that keeps stacking as long as you keep getting criticals.

Scary.

[Vik]

Who cares about the damage dice ? At high level - the ones where you'll have a good Keen weapon and Improved critical, base damage dice is not a great part of the damage.


By the way, if you're going the crit way, forget about additionnal elemental damage dice - they won't use all the efforts put on the crit enhancement. Better stick with simple enhancement bonus, unless you have a comprehensive wizard/cleric willing to cast Greater Magic Weapon daily. anyway, take Keen unless you want to take some feats with IC as a prerequisite.

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

Also the higher the overall bonus to the weapon the harder it is for someone to sunder. A +5 weapon can only be sundered by a weapon with a +5 or higher enhancement bonus.

The first sentence is correct, but the second is not in 3.5.

Hardness and Hit Points
Dungeon Master’s Guide, page 222
Problem: The first paragraph is not consistent with similar information for shields on page 217.
Solution: Delete the first sentence after the boldface header.
Change the next sentence to read as follows:
Each +1 of enhancement bonus adds 2 to a weapon’s or
shield’s hardness and +10 to its hit points.

[Ramza00]

Can't believe this hasn't been mentioned

Scabbard of Keen Edges

This scabbard is fashioned from cured leather and fine silver. It can shrink or enlarge to accommodate any knife, dagger, sword, or similar weapon up to and including a greatsword. Up to three times per day on command, the scabbard casts keen edge on any blade placed within it.
Faint transmutation; CL 5th; Craft Wondrous Item, keen edge; Price 16,000 gp;Weight 1 lb.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems...ardofKeenEdges

[Rigeld2]

But it doesnt stack with Improved Crit... since the spell doesnt, and the scabbard simply casts the spell... for less than 3 hours a day. Nifty, but not a breakthrough.

[Catharsis]

Well, the 16k for the scabbard are certainly cheaper than putting Keen on a +5 weapon...

[Thomas]

But it doesnt stack with Improved Crit... since the spell doesnt, and the scabbard simply casts the spell... for less than 3 hours a day. Nifty, but not a breakthrough.

Nothing stacks with Improved Critical. In 3.5, critical range expansions just don't stack.

[Roderick_BR]

Get Improved Critical. You can save money if you don't need to make your weapons keen.

Improved Critical: Any weapon (the one selected) that you use, will have a better threat range.
Keen: This weapon, for any person that wields the enchanted weapon, will have a better threat range.

[Rumda]

Convinvce your dm to let them stack then get a +x keen elemental burst rapier for 1d6+d10 damage against everything most of the time

[Thomas]

That's pretty pointless.

If they stacked, you should get Improved Critical (scythe), a keen scythe, and Power Attack.

[purple gelatinous cube o' Doom]

As far as I know keen is a weapon property, not a feat (unless it's in one of the splat books that I haven't seen). So to answer your question take improved crit., then get the +1 enhancement and you have both.

[Khantalas]

As far as I know keen is a weapon property, not a feat (unless it's in one of the splat books that I haven't seen). So to answer your question take improved crit., then get the +1 enhancement and you have both.

Huh? What? Why would you wanna have both, when they clearly don't stack as mentioned?

[Shhalahr Windrider]

And kindly don't harp about game balance. Please.

Indeed.

In addition to the relatively low damage on most high-threat-range items, consider the fact that a 12-20 threat range is useless if you can only hit on a 19 or 20. It is for this reason weapons with larger multipliers are better than weapons with larger ranges in 3.5.

[grinner666]

Nothing stacks with Improved Critical. In 3.5, critical range expansions just don't stack.

Yeah, we know. Read the above house rules posts. But even in 3.0 a keen enhancement wouldn't've stacked with another keen enhancement.

Again, I prefer to take the feat and spend my gold on multiple elemental damage enhancements (or with an already-high-threat-range weapon, multiple elemental burst enhancements). But with the current rules it's pretty much a matter of choice.