meabolex's page

Why is there an assumption with no opposable thumb that a gorilla of any size would be able to proficiently use a sword or bardiche?

...the GM is the final arbiter of what abilities depend on form and are lost when a new form is assumed.

Eh, why not stack?

First of all, untyped bonuses from different sources stack. They're definitely not circumstance bonuses.

Second of all, the FAQ ruling above only addresses ability bonuses being added to other things (e.g. Add your Strength bonus to intimidate checks). It doesn't reference lots of other things that can be used to determine the scale of an effect: character level, hit dice, caster level, number of sneak attack dice, etc. I get not letting two abilities that add your Strength bonus to something not stacking. . . but extrapolating this to not letting things stack that reference your character level or number of sneak attack dice is beyond what the FAQ addresses.

Third, compare dirty trick to disarm. At fairly low levels, you can get a character focused around disarm having a pretty much "guaranteed to hit" bonus. The comparison to sunder isn't factoring that you don't use your weapon to accomplish the dirty trick. . . so you don't add in weapon bonuses. Also, remember that since weapons aren't used to do this, you need Agile Maneuvers to apply Dexterity to the CMB roll. With this particular rogue 9/slayer 3 build, it's unlikely that you're going full-out Strength to do it. Comparing this to classes like fighters that use Strength as a primary stat is a little misleading.

Disarm, sunder, and trip are normally the only kinds of combat maneuvers in which you’re actually using a weapon to perform the maneuver, and therefore the weapon’s bonuses apply to the roll.

Considering the negatives (not a substitution for melee attacks/only one dirty trick per round/you don't add in weapon bonuses/has to be done in melee) and what the dirty trick is accomplishing (relatively minor status ailment, compared to prone, disarmed or destroyed weapons/undone with an action that doesn't provoke), I don't think this is a big deal.

Fourth, you're doing (*gasp*) multiclassing, which is definitely not cause for concern given Pathfinder class scaling.

Well. . . shoot.

When you cast this spell, you can assume the form of any Small or Medium creature of the animal type.

When you cast this spell, you can assume the form of any Small or Medium creature of the humanoid type.

The same text is in all these spells |:

I don't know. The entire spell line seems to be broken. If you can't do skeleton, zombie, lich, juju zombie, skeletal champion, penanggalen, graveknight, jiang-shi, and vampire. . . you're going to miss out on a lot of the functionality.

Bleh.

OK, so I did some thinking about this. I think the entire undead anatomy spell line is a bit weird.

So it turns out zombies and skeletons are also templates applied to a base creature. Technically speaking, you shouldn't be able to polymorph to those creatures ever. However, undead anatomy I says (bold for emphasis)

When you cast this spell, you can assume the form of any Small or Medium corporeal creature of the undead type, which must be vaguely humanoid-shaped (like a ghoul, skeleton, or zombie).

So perhaps the spell is saying that there's an exception to the rules for polymorphing. You can assume *any* undead creature. . . including those with templates. . . as long as they're vaguely humanoid shaped. There are a number of templated undead creatures, so this opens the door for lich, juju zombie, skeletal champion, penanggalen, graveknight, jiang-shi, and vampire.

I've had a lot of success with a max Cha gnome sorcerer using the arcane bloodline. At 11th level, he can do a Piercing phantasmal killer using a rod of persistent spell (self-crafted) for DC 27 (reroll successful saves). Barring immunity/specific resistances, that's pretty much instant death.

AHHH I answered my own question.

Polymorph spells cannot be used to assume the form of a creature with a template or an advanced version of a creature.

So lich would not work. Lich is an acquired template. Good to know!

Technically can't because of the polymorph restriction of sizes but well if you are the DM...do whatever is appropriately dramatic.

Polymorph restriction of sizes?

Would you be able to take the form of an Atomie Lich using Undead Anatomy III?

I have a similar build on my illusion-focused sorcerer played from 1 to 12. I focus on boosting things like initiative (anticipate peril) and hit points (false life) as well as the standard evasion techniques (dd, invisibility, major images). It works for the most part as long as you don't slack on saving throws and hit points. Having an ability to negate a crit is tremendous.

In my experience, the low magic feel tends to come from restricting the availability of magic spells and items, e.g., learning new spells requires actually finding someone with the spell and paying for it, while magic items (beyond +1) require the party to obtain rare components. Alternatively, you can add expensive components to troublesome spells.

I think a lot of the confusion here is "low-fantasy" versus "low-magic". I think low-fantasy doesn't necessarily imply low-magic -- maybe "higher difficulty"?

I think I've had a lot more problems implementing "low magic" (as opposed to "low-fantasy") without drastically changing the game rules. I'm sure some of the alternative systems presented in this thread do make a "low-magic" game to some extent, but I'm not entirely sure the 3.X system supports the idea of low-magic very well.

@Meabolex: Reducing the point buy and wealth is really not going to affect the game in the way the OP suggests.

Both is going to harm the martial characters more than the full casters, as they are more dependant on multiple stats and gear. Full casters doesn't need more than their primary ability score and the spellcasting ability (although the like the extras).

*shrug* The developers simply disagree with you. All three of those modifications are all explicitly listed as making a low-fantasy game a low-fantasy game. It's not like I made them up or anything (:

Maybe you disagree about the definition of what constitutes low-fantasy?

meabolex wrote:

- 10 point buy

Oh God why!?

Anything under 20 is just asking for stat dumping. 10 makes it mandatory.
I wouldn't play in such a campaign. I have a steam library that could use that time.

It's the default rule in the book. If you don't like low-fantasy, then don't play in a low-fantasy game.

It might encouraged the GM to instead start having the weapons break.

This is a very common behavior I've observed in GMs. At one point in a game I had to keep 4-6 similar weapons on me to deal with ridiculous situations where my weapons are either destroyed or slip out of my hands.

But at least in PF there's an entire system for breaking weapons. . . however if the disarm behavior is a precedent, it will probably be ignored too.

I bounced these ideas around for a while. It's just too complicated to completely strip casting classes from the game without resulting in dealing with massive game changes. I eventually decided on keeping all the classes but focusing the "low fantasy" elements of the game:

- 10 point buy
- NPCs get half gear budget
- Character wealth by level cut in half

(Other than the point buy, I wouldn't mention the NPC/character wealth changes.)

This makes a lot of people "unhappy" with a "low fantasy" system. Many players hate low point buys/lower wealth advancement. But changing other game elements (like limiting the availability of magic items for purchase) just don't seem to work out well.

It could be much, much worse.

As was pointed out, the common question in regard to combat moves is CMB versus CMD. . . which would have been easy for the GM: simply have the CMB roll automatically succeed.

There's really not much you can do if your GM really wants you to get disarmed. Consider a backup duplicate weapon as an easy alternative to this problem. Also: locked gauntlet might be a good idea.

Barbarians seem to do better when they're not tied to a weapon. I like to switch between sword/board and two-handed weapons when I play a barb in the early levels.

Since you'll probably be a meatshield more often then not, I'd try to keep uncanny dodge if you can.

Since one advantage of barbarians is hit points, I'd try to focus on that. Toughness/Raging Vitality are fairly decent choices.

Ability Score Damage, Penalty, and Drain

Diseases, poisons, spells, and other abilities can all deal damage directly to your ability scores. This damage does not actually reduce an ability, but it does apply a penalty to the skills and statistics that are based on that ability.

For every 2 points of damage you take to a single ability, apply a –1 penalty to skills and statistics listed with the relevant ability. If the amount of ability damage you have taken equals or exceeds your ability score, you immediately fall unconscious until the damage is less than your ability score. The only exception to this is your Constitution score. If the damage to your Constitution is equal to or greater than your Constitution score, you die. Unless otherwise noted, damage to your ability scores is healed at the rate of 1 per day to each ability score that has been damaged. Ability damage can be healed through the use of spells, such as lesser restoration.

Some spells and abilities cause you to take an ability penalty for a limited amount of time. While in effect, these penalties function just like ability damage, but they cannot cause you to fall unconscious or die. In essence, penalties cannot decrease your ability score to less than 1.

So the penalty by feeblemind would not limit the number of casts of your spell-like abilities. It would simply weaken them.

Hide from dead = correct.

Archer ranger with Improved Precise Shot. . . no cover bonuses to AC granted unless it's total cover (see feat). Soft cover is a lesser state than cover, so it should be ignored entirely.

Feeblemind. . . implies you can't understand language or coherently communicate. Saying a word is coherently communicating and implies understanding language, so the "the final gestures, words, and so on" of spell completion and the requirement that "a single word that must be spoken" for spell trigger items rules that out. SLAs have no components and don't require anything special to use (they aren't casting spells), so I don't believe those are affected by feeblemind (except for save DCs of course).

Since the errata adding Channel Energy as an exception for the 50% damage reduction, I've assumed that meant Command/Turn Undead aren't affected by the incorporeal miss chance. I guess there's no evidence to support that though. . . .

So the consensus is that command undead (the spell) is affected by the incorporeal miss chance. That would make 7th level control undead also subject to the miss chance. That's pretty crazy, but I guess it makes Ectoplasmic Spell a better deal.

This question came up the other day. . . .

Corporeal spells and effects that do not cause damage only have a 50% chance of affecting an incorporeal creature.

Does the spell Command Undead really have a 50% miss chance against incorporeal undead? Would you need the Ectoplasmic metamagic feat to affect incorporeal undead normally?

3.0: Nope (FAQ)

Suppose an ally of mine is attacking one foe, then I

somehow become invisible, draw my sword, and move to
the other side of that foe, thus flanking the foe. Does my ally
still get a flanking bonus even if I am invisible?

You get a flanking bonus from any ally your foe can see (and
who is in the correct position to flank). If your foe can’t see
you, you don’t provide a flanking bonus to any ally.
Sharp readers will note that this means you cannot flank a
blind creature; however, truly blind creatures are effectively
flanked already (they can’t use their Dexterity bonus to AC and
you a +2 bonus to attack them). Creatures with the blindsight
ability effectively “see” within blindsight range and can be
flanked.

3.5: New flanking text ties flanking to threatening, but not much else is explained from the 3.0 ruling. Therefore, it is assumed that an invisible creature can indeed provide a flank. Also, blind creatures can be flanked.

Pathfinder: Extension of same text from 3.5.

Um. Has anyone read the actual pdf?

Creatures that fail to beat your Stealth check are not aware of you and treat you as if you had total concealment.

versus

Creatures that fail to beat your Stealth check are not aware of you and treat you as if you had concealment.

I think there's a typo in the prd. . .

While you're at fixing it Paizo:

This:

Breaking Stealth: When you start your turn using Stealth, you can leave cover or concealment and remain unobserved as long as you succeed at a Stealth check and end your turn in cover or concealment. Your Stealth immediately ends after you make and attack roll, whether or not the attack is successful (except when sniping as noted below).

should say this:

Breaking Stealth: When you start your turn using Stealth, you can leave cover or concealment and remain unobserved as long as you succeed at a Stealth check and end your turn in cover or concealment. Your Stealth immediately ends after you make an attack roll, whether or not the attack is successful (except when sniping as noted below).

They brought plenty of water breathing and other utility potions.

A simple hallway underwater. . . say. . . 100 ft long. . . or even better, an intersection of 2 long hallways.

In the middle of the hallway/intersection, apply an unhallow spell with a dispel magic attached. Set the caster level very high, try around 13. It'll be unlikely that the PCs will be able to dispel the unhallow.

When they walk in, those low level potions/wands are probably getting dispelled. Even better is to force the PCs to go through the hallway multiple times. A good idea is to put some sort of chase or time sensitive situation that involves moving through the hallway(s) multiple times.

all-time favorite spell: Dispel Magic (even with PF nerfs)

So many bad situations are negated by liberal dispel magic use.

(specifically I'm considering a big ticket purchase for a 10th level PFS character - possibly buying a cloak of displacement (minor) - the 20% miss chance alone is pretty solid as an always on ability - but if it also allowed this character to get his sneak attacks in more frequently that would make it quite valuable - though whether it is more valuable than say buying a Cloak of Resistance +5 is somewhat debatable.)

Here's the beef with stealth. . . or at least my understanding of it. . .

Stealth is supposed to prevent you from being noticed. Obviously it's hard to not be noticed if you're cutting someone down with a sword. But before you attack, if you aren't noticed, you are effectively invisible. I treat attacking from stealth mostly the same way I would treat attacking from the invisibility spell. Before you hit, you are invisible relative to the opponent. When you hit, you are visible, but the consequences of invisibility (denied Dex bonus to AC) have already happened (sneak attack).

But that's it for stealth unless you have some special abilities. Once you attack, you're noticed. You can't typically use stealth while being observed. So if you have 50 attacks to dish out, only the first from stealth will happen against an "unaware" opponent. The opponent has Dex bonus to AC against all the other attacks. Also, any ability that helps you retain your Dex bonus against invisible attackers works here (Uncanny Dodge against about everything/Blind Fight against melee). If you Whirlwind Attack a group of orcs while stealthed, the first attack is from stealth, but all the other attacks have no stealth benefit. . . you're being observed by them.

Blur mentions giving you concealment, so it should help you make a stealth check. But once you are observed, you can't make a stealth check. You typically make a stealth check as part of movement, so if you're surprised, it doesn't help you. You have to actively try to stealth in order to not be observed.

Emperor Palpatine

Today I Learned (although I probably should have known):

Phantasmal killer is not listed as a death spell (as per the text in UM that ties the death descriptor to a death effect).

Phantasmal killer is actually now an emotion spell.

The death attack by an assassin, while it is probably a non-magical death effect, cannot be mitigated by death ward.

The subject gains a +4 morale bonus on saves against all death spells and magical death effects.

. . . interesting.

OK, this is probably cheating, but here's what I'd do:

Human wizard - evocation specialist - 26 Int - with +3 inherent bonus granted by wishes (not magical equipment, thanks Planar Binding efreeti!). 15 ranks in spellcraft.

1 - Spell Focus (evocation)
H - Varisian Tattoo
3 - Spell Specialization (delayed blast fireball)
5 - Greater Spell Focus (evocation)
5B - Extend Spell
7 - Elemental Focus (fire)
9 - Greater Elemental Focus (fire)
10B - Empower Spell
13 - Maximize Spell (meh, not used)
15 - Spell Perfection (delayed blast fireball)

trait: Magical Lineage (delayed blast fireball)

Base DC for delayed blast fireball -> 10 + 8 Int + 2 SF + 2 GF + 7 = DC 29

Base DC for forcecage -> 10 + 8 + 2 + 7 = DC 27

plan:

1. Forcecage on target (since someone mentioned forcecage as being crappy today)

2. Cast 4 Extended Empowered Delayed Blast fireballs -- 18d6 * 1.5 + 9 or 103.5 avg damage each. Set them to go off at some time within 10 rounds.

3. Delay initiative to the initiative count before the fireballs will go off.

4. Ready an action to dismiss the forcecage when the DBF will go off.

5. Readied action interrupts the DBFs going off.

6. All the beads go off. . . 414 damage on average.

Ravingdork, isn't the +37 points of damage from fixed bonuses also increased by 50% by Empower Spell in Pathfinder? I think that FAQ stated something to that effect?

EDIT: Empower Spell FAQ. Seems to me that your fireballs should increase their average damage by 18.5 points each.

That's referring to the numerical bonus set by the spell itself. For instance, if a spell does 1d4 + 1 damage, you apply Empower Spell to 1d4 + 1 damage, not 1d4 damage.

Bonuses like the bonus damage from the Draconic bloodline are external to the spell. Empower Spell only applies to damage from a spell, not additional damage from a class ability.

And trust me, you don't need to make the additional damage mechanics (Draconic bloodline/intense spells) more powerful. *Other than caster level increases*, they're the best thing you can do to increase your damage output with spell damage.

Because you can give the ring to someone who doesn't cast spells.

Shift is probably too good.

Swift action, ok.
Supernatural ability, ok.
Scaling to 20, ok.

All three. . . eh. . . I'd pick 2 of the above.

1. Paladin and or with Archetype:
Hospitaler + Warrior of the Holy Light + Oath of Charity

2. Creature Type of any choice(No Drows):
Gnome

with favored class option:

Paladin: Add +1/2 hit point to the paladin's lay on hands ability (whether using it to heal or harm).

racial changes:

3. Stats are (2x18's, 17, 16, 15, 14):
16 Str (-2 racial), 15 Dex, 19 Con (+2 racial), 14 Int, 16 Wis, 20 Cha (+2 racial)

4. 2 Traits of Choice:
Reactionary + Dangerously Curious

5. 14 levels(CR counts too):
Uh, too lazy.

Solo character?

Half-orc bard. Balanced blend of healing, skills, damage output, and arcane utility. Can probably get out of most situations. Can sneak around in the dark.

Two-man party?

Dwarven cleric and half-orc rogue. Cleric can function as a tank and a healer. Rogue can provide arcane utility (through UMD) and skills. Can sneak around in the dark.

Three-man party?

Human paladin, half-orc ranger, and elven wizard. Human is classic front-line with support healing. Half-orc ranger can be skills guy with more support healing. Elven wizard is iconic wizard for arcane utility.

Party of four?

Human fighter, elven wizard, dwarven cleric, half-orc rogue. My favorite "classic" party.

Same problem with ear-piercing scream.

Fort save -> targets creature -> doesn't work on undead/constructs.

Edit:

My question is, is the same errata meant to apply to the Ice Tomb hex for witches? Is it meant to be a reflex save instead of a fort save?

The errata for icy prison is in the current prd, and ice tomb still is a fort save.

DR/- wouldn't apply if regular DR wouldn't apply. It's just like other DR and doesn't reduce spell damage.

Okay, to summarize for my own understanding

- You can split the damage among the whole party
- Stoneskin / resist elements only applies for the guy actually getting hit

Those specific effects, yes. Something like ablative barrier (which applies to all damage), no.

It's not optimization in general I'm worried about (that's a natural consequence of the game, players adapt if something's not working and mine don't build completely useless characters), it's finding a diplomatic way to work with players to tone it down.

By "tone it down" I assume you mean the following:

Take the focus of the game away from mechanics crunching and focus on the entire game.

Mechanics crunching is part of any game. You typically don't try to purposely lose games. You try to succeed at them -- whatever the definition of success is. For some people, the definition of success is having a good time. For others, the definition of success is killing a powerful bad guy in 1 round. The problem is that these purposes might not align. The guy wanting to play for a good time might be annoying the combat dude -- and vice versa.

Think of it as a balance issue. In the case you mention, you want to move some of the game balance away from mechanics crunch. That's possibly a good idea. . . but is it what your players want to do? If your players are divided, it's all about balance. Put some game elements in that use a wide range of mechanics. Allow lots of alternate ways to defeat a given challenge. Let a "good" idea work (with a bonus!) and punish "bad" ideas -- even if they don't work exactly as written with game mechanics. A single judgement call should follow the rules, but over time there's enough gray area to slant a game one way or another. You can steer your players in the direction you want by shaping your judgements to favor non-optimized or non-mechanically crunched ideas.

I can understand the practicality behind this behavior but seriously... it's creeping me out!

*shrug* I think it's smart playing. NEVER punish/prohibit/look down upon smart playing.

If the discussion of mutilation really bothers you, make an agreement with the players that they will do said mutilation every time to creatures that speak or creatures that walk. This prevents the players from having to constantly repeat the same gory details over and over.

With the above said is this good? Should I change something? I know alot like to summon alot but I tend to play debuff and suck or saves. I know the rods are alot of wealth for my level but we're playing a heroic level campaign with alot of the BBEG are very well equiped.

You know you can only use one rod per spell, right?

A caster may only use one metamagic rod on any given spell, but it is permissible to combine a rod with metamagic feats possessed by the rod's wielder.

That's also 100+ spells worth of charges. . . no way you can have enough spells to use all them |:

Kind of a big waste. . .

PCs use the universal monster rules as well, and monsters use conditions too.

Well, in 3.X, there was a specific rule (I think in the FAQ?) that said that a primary source overrides a secondary source. So for rules involving monsters, a monster manual ruling would override anything in the PH -- and vice versa for PCs.

But since that rule doesn't apply in Pathfinder, I guess it depends on what your GM feels like ):

Haha, good catch (:

If you want to get technical, the bleed in the bestiary is supposed to be categorized as universal monster rules -- thus, when you see the word "bleed" in the monster description, it links back to this definition. So in that sense, the universal monster rules definition of bleed in the bestiary is simply different than the rules that govern bleed in the core rulebook. In a literal interpretation, that means the rules for monsters are simply different for PCs and NPCs. PC bleeds cannot be removed by channeled energy but monster bleeds can.

Does that make sense? No. It's more likely an editing mistake. If I had to choose (as a GM), I'd use the bestiary definition. It makes way more sense that any magic ability would work versus simply spells. How are spells more potent than supernatural abilities when it comes to stopping bleeds?

RumpinRufus wrote:

Thomas, the Tiefling Hero! wrote:

Grace can only help me for 1 round, so I have to recognize the need, cast it, and have it still be worthwhile on my next turn.

It's a swift action to cast Grace - you can cast it, move (probably into flanking), and then attack on the same turn.

One of these days I'll learn to start reading my spells' casting times. :P

Even so, that's a 2nd-level spell just to not get attacked, when I've got a pretty solid AC anyway. Pass.

It's not a bad spell when you're fighting big, scary things. I don't think at 4th level it's probably a good choice, but I'd seriously consider it at level 7+.

I'm currently 4th level, and I always have trouble deciding what spells to prep, particularly in my 2nd-level slots.

I usually take this route when thinking about cleric spells:

* If I need to be in melee, what's the go-to melee spell. You typically get one shot here, so it better be pretty good, usually the highest level spell.

* If I need to cast a damage spell, what would it be? Sometimes you just need spell damage. What kind of spell depends on the situation, but I usually don't prep them 3 levels below your highest spell level. Note: I consider spells that indirectly cause damage to be damage spells.

* If there's no other option, can I buff the party? Always have a buff spell ready to go. Particularly strong is piercing damage reduction, so try to always have that option available.

* Is there a good battlefield control/escape spell available at a given spell level? If so, I usually take it.

* If a status condition occurs on someone in the party, can I do something about it? I usually fill up other slots with debuff removers.

So for second level with 15 Wisdom and no knowledge of party composition, I'd do something like:

4 (light, stabilize, detect magic, guidance)
3 + 1d + 1b (sun metal, remove fear, bless, obscuring mist, domain: shield of faith)
2 + 1d + 1b (sound burst, communal protection from evil, bull's strength, domain: bless weapon)

-Bleed damage, RAW, cannot be stopped by Channeled Positive Energy, Fast Healing, or Regeneration.

This bleeding can be stopped by a successful DC 15 Heal skill check or through the application of any magical healing.

Supernatural Abilities (Su): Supernatural abilities are magical but not spell-like.

Channel Energy (Su)

I'm pretty sure that channeled positive energy is magical, thus it stops bleeding.

LOL Which would you pick?

Answer: ANOTHER CLASS.

For the record, I don't think either option is that bad. But then again, I spent a lot of time playing rogues who didn't get *any* talents (3.X), so I guess I'm appreciative to get something (:

So which would you take if you had to pick:

Bleeding Attack or Powerful Sneak?

Goodness!

And while i'm thinking of it we better factor in the fact that a keen weapon has to be a +1 weapon first. I'm not sure if you add the +1 to damage before or after the crit multiplyer and I'm also not sure if you add strength damage before or after the multiplyer.

A critical hit means that you roll your damage more than once, with all your usual bonuses, and add the rolls together. Unless otherwise specified, the threat range for a critical hit on an attack roll is 20, and the multiplier is ×2.

Exception: Precision damage (such as from a rogue's sneak attack class feature) and additional damage dice from special weapon qualities (such as flaming) are not multiplied when you score a critical hit.

So yes you would multiply the +1.

But I *assure* you mathematically 20/4x = 18-20/2x. I did the exhaustive math above.

lets take a d8 weapon with c18x2 and a d8 weapon with c20x4
4.5+4.5*3/20*3/20=4.601
4.5+13.5*1/20*1/20=4.53375

I think what you mean to do here is this:

Assume that a natural 2 will always hit.

18-20/2x -- 4.5 avg damage * (0.8 -- we have 16 possible regular hits, remember to fail on natural one) + 4.5 avg damage * (0.0075 -- we have 3 possible threats, but each threat will be a regular hit on a natural one confirmation, so we factor that in) + 9 avg crit damage * (0.1425 -- the chance we get a successful crit) = 3.6 + 0.03375 + 1.2825 = 4.91625

sanity check -- .8 + .1425 + .0075 = .95, which is correct (5% chance for a natural one)

20/4x -- 4.5 avg damage * (0.9 -- we have 18 possible regular hits, remember to fail on natural one) + 4.5 avg damage * (0.0025 -- we have 1 possible threat, but it will be a regular hit on a natural one confirmation, so we factor that in) + 18 avg crit damage * (0.0475 -- the chance we get a successful crit) = 4.05 + 0.01125 + 0.855 = 4.91625

Thus, in terms of pure math, 18-20/2x = 20/4x

Vincent Takeda wrote:

It is easier to confirm a critical using a weapon of a threat range of 15-20 than it is to confirm a critical using a weapon with a threat range of 19-20.

Why would that be? Both can take critical focus! If you compare crit focus vs no crit focus sure your damage is different! Especially if the difference is 10% vs 30%!

I guess what he means is that if you have enough threats, you're more likely to get more chances to confirm a crit. With more chances to confirm, you're more likely to confirm. This is possible, especially if you can only confirm on a 20.

But I think it's one thing to say "how often will I confirm a critical hit" and another to say "how often will a given critical hit confirm". In the first case, you will confirm more critical hits on average if you have more chances to crit. In the second case, threat range has no bearing on how often you will confirm a given critical hit.

It does not matter at all how often you have to confirm a critical hit. Even if you had to confirm every single point of damage, rolling 30+ dice the average outcome would not change.

It's not an issue of how often critical hits get confirmed. It's an issue of the importance of confirming the critical hit. If the following situation happened:

* You confirm a critical hit, combat ends.
* You fail to confirm a critical hit, combat doesn't end, next round TPK.

Confirming the critical hit is pretty important.

Over time, you are correct that the average outcome doesn't change. We're not talking about average outcome. We're talking about the tempo of damage in a combat. If you can guarantee the 4x crit will hit, it's better than guaranteeing a 2x crit will hit.