By “Gambling Weapons” I mean weapons that have, usually, a low Damage and Threat Range but very high Critical Multipliers: Picks and Scythes being the forefront of such weapons. These weapons are favored, generally, by people who don’t mind getting smaller gains on average if the chances for a extreme one can occur (hopefully when you really need it).
Err I’ll just cut right to the point.
As it is currently written other weapons practically ones like the Greatsword (high-Damage; Mild-Critical Threat and Multiplier) suddenly become MUCH more powerful than the “Gambling” weapons when they (the high critical weapons) are suppose to shine.
Simple and Short Example:
Not taking in other random factor just the base stats.
A Greatsword would be considered: 2d6 Damage; 18-20/x3 Critical
While the Scythe (a two-handed weapon in fair comparison) is only: 2d4 Damage; 19-20/x4 Critical.
Just at a glance the Greatsword does more damage on average; will score critical hits a little more often; and taking anything into account will out-perform the scythe when it does score a critical hit.
My only desire is that the limit of (x4) be changed to (x5) so that those players that favor those weapons don’t feel like the made a bad choice latter down the road…that is all!
Err perhaps it came off a little wrong; here’s the feat and its effects.
[Powerful Critical (Combat, Critical)
Your critical hits cause an amazing amount of damage. Choose one type of weapon that you have already selected for Improved Critical.
Prerequisites: Critical Focus, Improved Critical, base attack bonus +13.
Benefit: Whenever you score a critical hit with the selected weapon, the damage multiplier increases by 1, to a maximum of x4.
Special: You can only apply the effects of one critical feat to a given critical hit unless you possess Critical Mastery.]
Pretty much it allows weapons to increase their multipliers by +1 but if the weapon is already x4 there is no benefit at all. I do realize that unless Critical Mastery* is taken they can only have this in effect but even though the rest of the Critical Feats are fine this feat alone is incredibly powerful in and of itself, it gets even more powerful with the other feats combined.
While the other feats may allow you to add a status effect and win easier this feat can end the fight all the faster. I just want it to be fairer to the weapons of the X4 category, hence changing the maximum to x5.
*[Critical Mastery (Combat)
Your critical hits cause two additional effects.
Prerequisites: Critical Focus, any two critical feats, 14th-level fighter.
Benefit: Whenever you score a critical hit, you can apply the effects of two critical feats in addition to the damage dealt.
Normal: You can only apply the effects of one critical feat to a given critical hit in addition to the damage dealt.]
In your example, the Scythe-wielder JUST WOULDN'T TAKE THIS FEAT, obviously.
This lets them instead take ANOTHER Crit Feat.
So they can apply two "de-buff" effects with Critical Mastery instead.
It seems there's a design decision to limit the Crit Multiplier to x4 GLOBALLY.
Using a Scythe means you get these big Crits early and without much Feat investment,
and ultimately SAVES YOU A FEAT, by not needing to take Powerful Crit.
I don't see a big prob.
You are right, this heavily favors weapons with high crit ranges and multiple attacks. I agree that something should be done to manage both aspects.
Well, ByronD made a good suggestion on the "Announcement: New Feats for playtesting" post...
Just an quick thought would be to have these effects all key off a natural 20 and confirmed crit.
If you assume that an axe and a scimitar are balanced as is, then adding a special effect that works more often for a scimitar is not going to maintain that balance.But if you add the exact same special effect to all weapons, then the balance is retained.
This is an elegant solution that has already a precedent (the Vorpal effect), so I think it could be good.
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Actually, I have been wondering for a while if the gambling weapons are not a tad disadvantaged at higher levels. My personal choice for amending that is through the Improved Critical feat. I would change that so it increases threat by 2 - i.e. a gambling weapon crits on an 18-20, a 19-20 weapon on a 17-20 and a high threat weapon on a 16-20. As it stands, a gambling weapon is a big gamble that won't come off too many times, and those with bigger threat ranges get much more bang for their feat buck. This increase the threat of all weapons by 10%. A pick should be a really cool weapon (and warpicks were common enough - the real-world warhammer was really a pick for punching through plate armour, not a big blunt hammer) but virtually no one takes it.
