Author Topic: Critical Hits: A common thing?  (Read 7675 times)

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Barbarossa

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Critical Hits: A common thing?
« on: July 09, 2011, 01:19:22 PM »
This fits into the YBIYBI board because you'll have to convince your DM to let you use the original printing of Sword and Fist to let you acquire the Bladed Gauntlets that had a 17-20 critical range.

17-20 is already pretty good, what with the 20% chance and all. Improved Critical will bring this up to a 40% chance. Even better. Now, what if I told you that you can double that again? An 80% chance is ridiculous, but possible. All you need is the spell Hero's Blade, a level 9 spell from the ECS. It doubles your critical range, explicitly stacking with Improved Critical. 5-20 isn't too bad of a critical range, and the spell adds damage to boot. If your DM is even more of a lunatic, he might let you get a magical item with Hero's Blade as a constant/charged effect. Even without that, it's a fairly good Deathless spell with all the other bonuses it gives.

Throw in a few critical-activated abilities, maybe some kaorti resin, and hey presto you have a critical monkey.

Endarire

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Re: Critical Hits: A common thing?
« Reply #1 on: July 09, 2011, 06:12:47 PM »
Use a Deep Crystal Bladed Gauntlet with Disciple of Dispater and Psychic Weapon Master.  Yeah.
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Barbarossa

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Re: Critical Hits: A common thing?
« Reply #2 on: July 09, 2011, 09:14:30 PM »
Iron Power only works with iron/steel weapons, so the Deep Crystal is a no-go. Also, the Psychic Weapon Master thing only works with crystal weapons.
« Last Edit: July 09, 2011, 09:16:06 PM by Barbarossa »

EjoThims

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Re: Critical Hits: A common thing?
« Reply #3 on: July 10, 2011, 01:23:47 PM »
Iron Power only works with iron/steel weapons, so the Deep Crystal is a no-go. Also, the Psychic Weapon Master thing only works with crystal weapons.

Iirc, there is a material type that counts as both crystal and metal. It may be Deep Crystal (I can't recall). Making it metalline then lets it count as any metal, iron included.

Bauglir

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Re: Critical Hits: A common thing?
« Reply #4 on: July 11, 2011, 01:44:38 AM »
Mundane Crystal (see XPH) possesses "the properties of a similar masterwork steel weapon or armor, except for visual appearance." Whether this qualifies is debatable, because you have to decide which is the more specific rule. Leaving fluff aside, it seems obvious to me that Iron Power's requirement is more specific and thus trumps the general steel-mimicking properties of mundane crystal; as far as I'm aware, no other material is closer in terms of mechanical description to real steel, not even Crysteel. So unless you accept that as working, I don't think you're going to find anything.
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Maat_Mons

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Re: Critical Hits: A common thing?
« Reply #5 on: July 11, 2011, 03:38:29 AM »
intent that mundane crystal counts as metal for interaction with class features. 

Prime32

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Re: Critical Hits: A common thing?
« Reply #6 on: July 11, 2011, 10:10:51 AM »
Mundane Crystal (see XPH) possesses "the properties of a similar masterwork steel weapon or armor, except for visual appearance." Whether this qualifies is debatable, because you have to decide which is the more specific rule. Leaving fluff aside, it seems obvious to me that Iron Power's requirement is more specific and thus trumps the general steel-mimicking properties of mundane crystal; as far as I'm aware, no other material is closer in terms of mechanical description to real steel, not even Crysteel. So unless you accept that as working, I don't think you're going to find anything.
I thought crysteel was mechanically steel with crystal in it?
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Bauglir

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Re: Critical Hits: A common thing?
« Reply #7 on: July 11, 2011, 05:14:59 PM »
intent that mundane crystal counts as metal for interaction with class features. 

Metal, sure. Iron or steel, no.

Crysteel's fluff is as an alloy of iron and crystal (just pretend that makes sense for the moment), but it doesn't even have mundane crystal's "considered metal" or "properties of a similar steel" phrases.
So you end up stuck in an endless loop, unable to act, forever.

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archangel.arcanis

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Re: Critical Hits: A common thing?
« Reply #8 on: July 11, 2011, 05:19:50 PM »
a speed bump that needs to be addressed:
Quote from: SRD
You need to make sure that roll of a 5 is still enough to hit for this to be of any use. I'm sure we can easily make that happen but it needs to be addressed.
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Bauglir

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Re: Critical Hits: A common thing?
« Reply #9 on: July 11, 2011, 10:42:19 PM »
Not really a speedbump. It just means that at some point any hit that hits is a threat; optimizing attack bonus is a whole other question, I think.
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Stormcrow

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Re: Critical Hits: A common thing?
« Reply #10 on: July 12, 2011, 02:02:32 AM »
Iron Power ? what book

Echoes

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Re: Critical Hits: A common thing?
« Reply #11 on: July 21, 2011, 08:03:39 PM »
Iron Power ? what book

It's a class feature of the Disciple of Dispater, from BoVD.
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Re: Critical Hits: A common thing?
« Reply #12 on: August 08, 2011, 11:31:11 PM »
a speed bump that needs to be addressed:
Quote from: SRD
You need to make sure that roll of a 5 is still enough to hit for this to be of any use. I'm sure we can easily make that happen but it needs to be addressed.

Of course you don't need to optimize attack bonus. You just need to make it an Aptitude Weapon and then get Lightning Maces. Everytime you threat a critical, you attack again. You'll get a lot of natural 20's if you're rolling 200 thousand dice...

altpersona

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Re: Critical Hits: A common thing?
« Reply #13 on: August 09, 2011, 12:27:14 AM »
intent that mundane crystal counts as metal for interaction with class features. 

Metal, sure. Iron or steel, no.

Crysteel's fluff is as an alloy of iron and crystal (just pretend that makes sense for the moment), but it doesn't even have mundane crystal's "considered metal" or "properties of a similar steel" phrases.

if aluminum can form a crystal why cant iron? just because it doesn't, whats that matter..

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Bauglir

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Re: Critical Hits: A common thing?
« Reply #14 on: August 09, 2011, 12:39:41 AM »
Because "crystal" is not the same thing as "a crystal", and the rules don't treat it as such.
So you end up stuck in an endless loop, unable to act, forever.

In retrospect, much like Keanu Reeves.

Amechra

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Re: Critical Hits: A common thing?
« Reply #15 on: August 12, 2011, 07:03:26 AM »
I personally prefer to do the same thing with a stump blade; it has a 19-20 threat range, which becomes 17-20 if you use it on someone you have attacked in melee as long as you are in melee with them. It hasn't been updated, so the DM can't argue (it may or may not be Dragon. Can't remember at the moment)
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Sounds fine to me.
probably over on "Off-topic".
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Jackinthegreen

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Re: Critical Hits: A common thing?
« Reply #16 on: October 17, 2011, 02:24:18 PM »
Might as well do some necro work here.

Stump knife can be found at least in Sword and Fist and Arms and Equipment Guide.  The possible interpretation issue might be a DM saying 19-20 is the base no matter what and so it doubling to 17-20 counts as a keen effect, meaning each doubling would be an extra two numbers and not four.

At 17-20 base I'm pretty sure there are builds that could get the full 1-20 crit range.  Better hope your DM doesn't use the fumble rules, else you're likely to crit yourself hard.  And since we're already going nuts, there's the obvious Aptitude Weapon+Lightning Mace+Blood in the Water combo.  Screw the line in Lightning Mace were it says "wield in each hand."  The knives ARE my hands!