Improved Critical

[Tholas]

I'd like to see an update or even a total makeover for that feat. At least in our group the established lore is never to take a feat if you can have the same effect on an magic item. In any case I'm not a fan of the feat or the enhancement. Unless you can add alot of extra damage with a critical hit the actual benefit is not very good. See here for details.
Ok, the keen enhancement only works with slashing and piercing weapons but the majority of serious melee/ranged builds are not limited to bludgeoning weapon. And iirc in some WotC Splat Book there is a keen equivalent for bludgeoning weapons.

So here are my ideas:

1. Leave Improved Critical as it is but add some nice feats which have it as a prerequisiste.

2. Add a +4 bonus on the confirmation roll.

3. Improved Critical does no longer double the weapons thread range but auto confirms a critical.

[Zaister]

You forget that landing a critical hit is mostly not about dobling the damage dice, but about doubling the damage bonus, eespecially in high level play. I play in a group (around level 16) where the main fighter does +28 damage per hit in addition to his weapon standard damage (including Power Attack, which is limited to -5). Increasing the chance to double this damage is indeed worth a feat, especially for a character with bonus feats.

It's not about going from from 1d10 to 2d10, it's about going from 1d10+28 to 2d10+56.

I don't think it's necessary to add to Improved Critical. Auto-confirmation would be totally crazy at high levels.

[modus0]

Don't forget that even in situations where the Keen enchantment is useless (like an anti-magic field), the feat is still applicable.

With the Keen enchantment, you also loose the benefit if you lose that particular weapon, unless you pay to have it put onto a new one. Improved Critical, OTOH, applies to any and all weapons of the kind chosen.

Frankly, I'd rather have an ability that improves my chance of a critical that can't be disjoined or stolen, and works with the replacement to my main weapon, without costing me more money.

[Captain Sir Hexen Ineptus]

There is a feat called power critical, that grants +4 to confirm criticals already, making it require this feat would be a bit of a power down. As is, yeah a lot of people opt to take the magic effect instead, and this might be something to consider as a requirment feat for a new feat tree. Maybe an improved power critical? It could require power critical and improved critical and could allow you take a minus to to hit to add double to confirm rolls, for a communitive +1 to confirm rolls?

So if you have a bonus of +10 to hit, using this feat you take a -1 to hit bringing it to +9 to hit, but +11 to confirm critical of the hit that threatens.

[Jal Dorak]

Captain Sir Hexen Ineptus wrote:

There is a feat called power critical, that grants +4 to confirm criticals already, making it require this feat would be a bit of a power down. As is, yeah a lot of people opt to take the magic effect instead, and this might be something to consider as a requirment feat for a new feat tree. Maybe an improved power critical? It could require power critical and improved critical and could allow you take a minus to to hit to add double to confirm rolls, for a communitive +1 to confirm rolls?

So if you have a bonus of +10 to hit, using this feat you take a -1 to hit bringing it to +9 to hit, but +11 to confirm critical of the hit that threatens.

Power Critical allows you to take the feat multiple times, stacking the bonus to the same weapon each time if you want. Theoretically, a level 20 human fighter could have +52 to confirm criticals with this feat (assuming they took Improved Critical at 8th level).