Hi all! I'm someone who has been interested in the Pathfinder system (and/or it's spiritual predecessors) for a while, but just very recently managed to get a game together to actually play. And since my character of choice wound up being a Swashbuckler who gained sneak attack dice through a prestige class, precision damage in particular has become important to me and I have a couple of questions along those lines.
1: Are there any magical enchantments/items of note which either enhance or modify precision damage? Other than the type which modify "Precision Dice", since the Swashbuckler ability uses a flat number instead of rolling dice so a good chunk of my character's damage output would be unaffected by those as far as I can tell.
And more curiously: Is precision damage truly as scary as it seems to be handled by the game?
To elaborate, I'm not asking for advice on finding ways to boost precision damage because I'm too lazy to look myself. I've taken a good search around, and mostly come out empty handed. There seems to be a very tight leash on tampering with precision damage like one would metamagic for spells or damn near any other class trait via feats and miscellaneous shenanigans. I've found it easier to find ways to give any class the ability to Lay on Hands or Inspiration/Panache/Grit than to give them a bonus to just precision damage in general. Even the Rogue, who the damage type was essentially built for, more commonly has optional perks to take away dice worth of precision damage in exchange for an effect than add alongside the damage or enhance it. Or even broaden it. Like, the only thing I've found to circumvent precision damage on those normally immune is a feat which might do the job roughly 25% of the time. And the only thing I've found which allows precision damage to be affected by crits (with a doubling no matter the multiplier, no x3s or the like) is a mythic bonus in the very last 'Tier' of bonuses in the mythic Trickster archetype. For comparison, this is also the tier which allows the Hierophant to ignore all crits forever, the Champion to either always confirm criticals then give the max damage output or punch enchantments to death, the Guardian the ability to reroll saving throws as a free action for 1 Mythic point which can be repeated as many times as he wants (for reference, a Mythic hero at this point has ~20 of those points a day), and the Archmage.
The Archmage.
I want you all to take this little adventure with me, if slightly compacted:
Star Walker: Expend two uses of mythic power to surround yourself with a bubble of air enclosed by a thin iridescent layer of force. While this bubble offers no protection from attacks, you can propel yourself through the air at great speed. As long as you concentrate, you gain a fly speed of 240 feet per round.[...]In the void of outer space, the bubble’s speed is much faster. Although exact travel times vary, a trip within a single solar system takes 3d20 hours, while a trip beyond takes 3d20 days[...]. Ceasing concentration while in the void of outer space has no effect on the bubble—it continues traveling in the previously stated direction at the same speed until an outside force slows it down. The air in the sphere is constantly refreshed and kept at a constant temperature, protecting occupants from the void of space[...]By expending two additional uses of mythic power, you can increase the size of the bubble to a 10-foot-radius sphere and you can bring along up to 11 Medium creatures within the bubble.
Now, this may not be statistically the most useful of encap powers, but think about this. This wizard can, at any point he wishes, gather the entire party together and leave. Leave the planet. Leave the galaxy. Leave the cosmos. Wave at Desna as they soar by, veer around Carcosa, and keep trucking out into the great unknown forever. All they have to worry about is sustenance, and if this mythic team did not already take the lower mythic perks which allow them to live without it a spellcaster who's thought of this most surely has some sort of magic to make sure it never becomes an issue during his (very lengthy) downtimes. Aging to death may not even be an threat either, since that's one of the first perks a mythic character can pick up.
Taking this all in: Allowing a character to double his precision damage on a crit is apparently comparable to/roughly as game-breaking as being able to forcefully convert a Pathfinder adventure into a Starfinder adventure at will. Is this... I dunno, correct? Because if so, I shudder to think what x3 precision crits would entail.
