I don't want any of my PC or NPC go around and have a nearly 50% chance to chop whoever's head in one single round just because they happen to dual wield 2 vorpal weapons and do a full attack.
I was thinking of this variant, Vorpal: The weapon's crit multiplier is augmented by TWO steps 9\(ie a battle axe has a crit of 20/x5, a longsword of 19-20/x4).
Not sure it's balanced. It pennalizes warriors with little crit-multipliable damage (rogues, paladins... their smite damage does not multiply on a critical, does it??) and makes warriors with high extra damage insane (specialized fighter, frenzied berserker on power attack or paladin if the smite damage multiplies)
Option number 2: A crit adds another 50 damage. Balanced but untasty and boring.
If the damage done brings the creature to 0hp or less, it is decapitated.
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I also dislike "it happens. deal." type of abilities, of which Vorpal is one. I actually like your crit multiplier increase, though a Vorpal Scythe in the hands of a 20th level fighter would have an x7 crit multiplier... OUCH. Then again, maybe that's fine. I would argue that it might be best to add "this increase only applies to creatures vulnerable to death effects" to the effect.
I dislike the absolute randomness of 1d20, 2d10 has an actual bell curve.
It's the same as 1000 archers shooting at a single target with an AC greater than 31...could even be a 60. Each of them has a 5% chance to hit. 50 hits out of 1000. 50d6 dmg.
make it so you have to roll 2 10s, and suddenly that chance drops to 1% for each shot. 10 hits out of 1000. 10d6 dmg
d20: 7 vorpal attacks 35% chance to roll a vorpal shot.
2d10: 7 vorpal attacks 7% chance to roll a vorpal shot.
Hey the scythe is Death's weapon for a good reason =)).
That multiplier sounds like fun...
But then indeed probably say that it doesn't work against death-effects immune creatures.
The 50 extra damage would force a massive damage save (in most cases) - failure = beheaded?
The 50 extra damage would force a massive damage save (in most cases) - failure = beheaded?
Yeah. Good idea for flavor/reminder of massive damage.
But in any case whatever choice we pick, it will probably force a save anyway.
The 50 damage would not force a massive damage save.
Massive Damage (Optional Rule): If you ever sustain a single attack that deals an amount of damage equal to half your total hit points (minimum 50 points of damage) or more and it doesn't kill you outright, you must make a DC 15 Fortitude save. If this saving throw fails, you die regardless of your current hit points. If you take half your total hit points or more in damage from multiple attacks, no one of which dealt more than half your total hit points (minimum 50), the massive damage rule does not apply.
But I do like the idea of vorpal increasing the crit modifier instead of being an instant win.
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The solution is very simple.
No vorpal blades.
Or if thats too harsh 'vorpal' becomes a MAJOR artifact ability.
But the final word on this or any other magic item in your game as the GM is yours.
Personally, achieving a SINGLE vorpal weapon let alone 2 should be the focus of the last 4-5 levels of the campaign. Unless you tailor the enemies to be immune to its effects it will literally cut its way through all your challenges and encounters.
Players taking the feat craft magic weapon should be told from the outset that certain formulars are lost and need to be rediscovered. As they progress through your campaign rumors of hints of fragments of shards of the formula may become discovered. Finally they learn that they need a chunk of Vorpanium (which sits just next to Unobtainium on the Alchemical Periodic Table)- the largest known concentration of which just happens to be the crown the Efreeti Emperor wears.
Or if you don't want it to be an epic adventure in its own right just let the player spend the money at his local Mage-Mart and pick one up off the rack. (and while they are there why not let them pick up a few Spheres of annihilation with keyed Talismans too? After all you need to have something to kill all the things that the Vorpal weapons cant, dont you?)
The upshot of my sarcastic rant above is really simple:
Epic items require epic deeds-otherwise they cheapen the value of the item and stuff up your campaign.
In the end it really is up to you how you want it to be in your game.
In mine powerful magic items are either guarded or owned by the most powerful.In yours,you may have a freer distribution of things.(but as you may have gathered by now Im very old school :) )
The point of view here is that a +6 weapon is obtainable by anyone with enough money (though there are only a handful of such individuals around the continent) and access to a caster powerful enough. Original vorpal would inbalance things from such a PoV.
This seems to be a suitable balanced replacement for the people who have checed this so far.
What about not allowing Vorpal enhancements on mere "+1" weapons?
Simply state that "Vorpal" is so powerful it must be placed at least on a "+3" or "+4" equivalent weapon to have any chance of working.
This should move the onset of vorpal weapons well into the future.
Man, that's just really, really sad. I know it's no your fault, maybe wizards, I don't know. But back in the day a Vorpal weapon was something RARE, and I mean as rare as a minor artifact.
It was and still should be the stuff of legend, in the greatest Campaign Setting that existed (Forgotten Realms) I know there were like 3 Vorpal blades mentioned in ALL Forgotten books, which were like 200? And there was ONE wielder that I remember that was King Azoun of Kormyr.
I pity the way things have come to now...
Well it's not common anyway... What I said about only a handful of people in an entire continent being able to get such stands true. uhmm that sounded a little too defensive from me.
Am just thinking about when, speaking only in technical terms for a techincal discussion and leaving the flavour out, my party ov lv 21-22 guys face THE lv25 epic dual wielding dude with 10 attacks per round.
And when the dual-wielding barbarian loots him. Am jsut thinking about mechanics really, not the flavor. I agree to the general flavor posts and rarity mentioned.
Am not going to spam bunchs of vorpal wielding NPC or sell it around at every (or any) big city either. Seems that's what I sounded like.
Am just thinknig about a particular encounter, and it's loot.
Well it's not common anyway... What I said about only a handful of people in an entire continent being able to get such stands true. uhmm that sounded a little too defensive from me.
Am just thinking about when, speaking only in technical terms for a techincal discussion and leaving the flavour out, my party ov lv 21-22 guys face THE lv25 epic dual wielding dude with 10 attacks per round.
And when the dual-wielding barbarian loots him. Am jsut thinking about mechanics really, not the flavor. I agree to the general flavor posts and rarity mentioned.
Am not going to spam bunchs of vorpal wielding NPC or sell it around at every (or any) big city either. Seems that's what I sounded like.
Am just thinknig about a particular encounter, and it's loot.
Well, it's exactly like a save or suck spell really. It will kill anything it hits, most of the time. So, I don't see a problem with it. If the first roll is a 20 well, it happens. There are still creatures imune to it, and I believe most people wouldn't go toe-to-toe with a guy wielding 2 vorpal blades.
Just for the record, I don't believe ANY epic adventurer should have 2 vorpal blades, they are rare for a reason. I believe someone with 2 of those would be facing an epic level rogue at night trying to get them pretty soon.
The difference being that the fighter using them will be able to do his normal full attack action AND have almost a 50% of dealing a NO SAVE suck spell, as opposed to a save or suck.
His mage party member spends most of his round only doing such a spell- losing the ability to do anything else- that has to overcome SR, Saves, a bunch of protection spells negating it that have to be dispelled in the first place, and only can do so a few times a day.
Only thing stopping vorpal is the lack of a useful head as per the rules. In light of all this, "vorpal" should NOT just be some +5 generic modifier like, say, flaming burst and +3, IMO.
Another could be denying vorpal vs anti death effect spells, and granting a ST.
Replacing the generic thing with crit multiplier and some extra minor rules with flavor could be one choice. And make the real vorpal thing a different matter from generic +5 modifier.
And yeah heheh ofc... rogue ambush, scry and die tactics on the party, etc... Not that it's anything new...
Just for the record, isn't even near a 50% chance. And come on, a guy with 2 vorpals, who would be crazy enough to stay there and take ALL attacks?
I like vorpal the way it is and has always been. Nine lives stealer is not that different in my book, nor is slaying arrows. The thing is, death is a common thing. The guy can come back, he can have immunity to vorpal (second edition had a spell like that) And he can have an item that makes him imune to it (Manshoon made one cause he was one of Azoun's enemies) and it's great stuff! If you reward someone with a vorpal (or 2) he should behead lo's of guys, but some of them wouldn't mind AND some of them would be immune, cause it's great plot. I don't think it's umbalaced at all.
Believe me that +5 will be missed... other abilities are WAY better than vorpal most of the time.
I guess houseruling negating vorpal with a death-ward and the like spells would make me agree with all of what you just said. Interesting new points of view here all around.
Though when I said near 50% for an epic fighter maxing dual wielding, it comes from 9 attacks. Haven't bothered doing the exact maths but I'd bet it's in the 40% range.
The crit multiplier increase thing seems still interesting, for a weapon thematically tied to raw destruction and chaos or slaughtering.
Could be tied to vicious the way flaming burst is to flaming.
What would be the modifier for a crit multiplier by one step?
Two steps?
The 50 extra damage would force a massive damage save (in most cases) - failure = beheaded?
Only if you use the optional massive damage rule.
Anyway, adding another 2 points to the multiplier might sound "tame", but now you have fighters with weapons with a 15-20/x4 crit range. With the amount of damage a warrior does on a simple hit, this is devastating. And happens so much more often than a vorpal hit, which only activates on a natural 20.
I personally would rule that the vorpal hit is a coup-de-grâce.
The most important thing is to remember that vorpal weapons are supposed to be very, very rare - even in Pathfinder!
Nevermind that a +1 vorpal sword is "only" a +6 weapon with a market value of 72300 (plus weapon base price). To add the vorpal quality to any weapon, the crafter needs caster level 18.
Unless you play in Forgotten Realms on Steroids, 18th-level spellcasters are a rare thing. And those that exist certainly have better things to do than take on contract work for some adventurers.
So unless you find the thing, you'll have to make your own damn sword. Which means that the warrior in question either needs to take the feats himself (including Master Crafter), or get a spellcasting party member to take the right feats and do it for you.
Either way, it takes at least 35 days to craft that weapon. Which can be a problem since some GMs won't give you that sort of downtime at 18th level, which in many campaigns is really close to the grand finale. Well, in other campaigns it's several levels beyond the grand finale.
In conclusion, unless the GM pampers the players, this should not be a problem until very near the end (assuming you play that long). And if the GM pampers his players like this, this will be the least of his problems.
Another option would be that to use the vorpal ability you must make a beheading strike or a cleave attack which are both standard actions, thus they are only able to make 1 vorpal attack per round and they have to give up all their extra attacks.
Every time I come into one of these threads, I always get an impression of "I hate martial characters."
Every time I come into one of these threads, I always get an impression of "I hate martial characters."
Then get over it?
I am looking at it from the DM side. If the players came up against an NPC with a vorpal weapon and 4 attacks per round. Worse, make it a monk with a vorpal monk weapon and have him flurry. 8 attacks if you use a Ki point
1. There is not any really good way for them to know the guy has a vorpal weapon. Thus, the players don't know to avoid a full attack from that NPC.
2. 4 attacks with a vorpal weapon is an 18.5% chance that one of the players dies with no save. 8 attacks is a 33.7% chance of getting a vorpal hit.
3. Odds are it will be one of the melee based martial characters that takes the full attack and dies.
Now explain to me how wanting to limit the power of a vorpal weapon when used AGAINST martial characters is "hating" martial characters?
As a player I would not want to be on the recieving end of an instant death attack that I had no way of avoiding or preventing.
I'm not sure really which side I agree with.
The main problem though is.. How do you know Bob the Barbarian has twin vorpal swords? (axes, whatever). Its not like there is a label floating above it saying "warning, this blade is VORPAL!". Generally speaking, you'll know its vorpal when 1) your (or your buddy's) head is laying beside your feet.
Or 2) when you kill him, loot him, check the loot and "hey neat, this guy had two vorpal blades".
The same goes for the "rogues stealing it" bit. How do they know?
Finding a beat up body with the head chopped off won't make most people think "omg, vorpal!" it makes them think "omg, over kill!" or maybe it was a vampire or something. or just a weirdo who chops off heads after folks die to help prevent resurrection.
From a balance stand point:
Firstly: You don't know you are up against Vorpal unless the person with them has made it clear. Either though reputation (fair or foul) or whatever, you really won't know.
Secondly: There are several Anti-Mage critters in the game. i.e. creatures where the mage just backs off and lets the melee do their job. I'm fine with that.
Shouldn't Vorpal wielding badddies be the reverse? Creatures where the melee back up, and the casters step up to force-wall + cloud kill or something to contain/murder the menace?
Myself- I've never Used one but i've had them used against me before.. and yeah- we didn't go toe to toe with them. We used every crowd control spell and mechanic in the universe to Not Get Swung At.
From the DM standpoint though, I also see the issue. What do you do when the Players get vorpal? Is it the end of the world, or just the natural balance of things to where melee finally start to hold their own against CoDzilla? I dunno.
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You think that given how long most high level combats can last you'd enjoy the advantage of having a player with a Vorpal weapon or two to speed things up?
Of course you only have the 5% chance per swing of having it activate given that it only starts when you roll a natural 20, not simply when you critical something, and it does need to be confirmed. It doesn't work on a number of creatures and creature types and I've even seen relatively cheap neck items that completely negate the ability. Don't think there are any in the Pathfinder RPG (yet) but I know I've seen them in 3.5.
Where the hell are people getting dual Vorpal weapons from? Start reigning in your games.
There are several solutions at 20+ level to deal with a dual vorpal sword wielding machine.
Hit by Disjunction, slow, greater dispel the weapons, wish or miracle on the weapons to not function for 1 minute, Mage pops antimagic field and stands behind the parties fighters.
How about time stop mage walks over to BBEG pops a prismatic sphere then walks away. That will soften him up some.
Heck have a mage spell up defensively, teleport next to him. Hit him with a disjunction then quickened teleport out. Do this till nasty sword are gone. The BBEG cannot stay in his forbanced area forever. Same if your PCs get the sword, someone may want to eliminate the threat.
Unless your DWVSWM has pounce stick and move. Attack and move away. Yeah everybody only gets one attack, and the bad guy gets one for his movement and 1 for the attack of opp, but that is far better than 10 attacks! That reduces the chances of a vorpal.
If you do not want your party getting the swords, then enchant the sword further, make the very evil, and intelligent. So holding the sword can cause them to attack the nearest creature if they do not follow the whim of the sword. Must behead a good creature(or innocent elf child) once a day or it stops functioning until 100 innocent children are slain by the weapon.
Yeah it is an awesome weapon, but using that will surely cause the attention of other epic level good guys to come and stop the party.
An extra note, if you do not want to risk accidently popping an artifact with the disjunction have the rogue come with the mage. So in 1 round Mage Greater teleports next to BBEG, rogue gets off readied action to use use magic device to read disjunction on BBEG (he does not care about lossing spell casting ability), then mage quicken teleports him and rogue back out.
All done in one action in 1 round. Talk about Surprise round!
An alternate vorpal method. Pretty much, if you roll a natural 20 and confirm it, then the critical multiplier is increased by 5. 14d6 on a medium vorpal greatsword even before adding in any strength bonuses, crit feat bonuses, etc. It's not explicitly an instant kill, but it sure hurts like hell.
Don't forget that with a Balor any slashing weapon it wields becomes vorpal. A standard balor has 7 vorpal attacks a round, bump him to a Balor Lord and you get your 10 vorpal attack a round without giving up a vorpal sword. They only last an hour after the Balor releases drops it.
So same with your BBEG, maybe it is not the sword but the BBEG that gives his weapons Vorpal. Maybe have them last X days, so the party can enjoy the weapon a little for it to crumble to dust later. ahhh the jaw dropping of the players, hahahaha
Personally I just added a save to vorpal and lowered the +x modified or the weapon cost. I like the idea of a vorpal weapon, but the no save on a high crit/improved crit or keen weapon is pretty rediculous.
Every time I come into one of these threads, I always get an impression of "I hate martial characters."Then get over it?
I am looking at it from the DM side. If the players came up against an NPC with a vorpal weapon and 4 attacks per round. Worse, make it a monk with a vorpal monk weapon and have him flurry. 8 attacks if you use a Ki point
1. There is not any really good way for them to know the guy has a vorpal weapon. Thus, the players don't know to avoid a full attack from that NPC.
2. 4 attacks with a vorpal weapon is an 18.5% chance that one of the players dies with no save. 8 attacks is a 33.7% chance of getting a vorpal hit.
3. Odds are it will be one of the melee based martial characters that takes the full attack and dies.Now explain to me how wanting to limit the power of a vorpal weapon when used AGAINST martial characters is "hating" martial characters?
As a player I would not want to be on the recieving end of an instant death attack that I had no way of avoiding or preventing.
1) Each attack has a 5% chance of possibly being vorpal, independently.
2) After they get the 20, they then have to confirm the critical.Given those two, I don't see how anyone is coming up with a flat percentage chance for "head removal."
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Every time I come into one of these threads, I always get an impression of "I hate martial characters."Then get over it?
I am looking at it from the DM side. If the players came up against an NPC with a vorpal weapon and 4 attacks per round. Worse, make it a monk with a vorpal monk weapon and have him flurry. 8 attacks if you use a Ki point
1. There is not any really good way for them to know the guy has a vorpal weapon. Thus, the players don't know to avoid a full attack from that NPC.
2. 4 attacks with a vorpal weapon is an 18.5% chance that one of the players dies with no save. 8 attacks is a 33.7% chance of getting a vorpal hit.
3. Odds are it will be one of the melee based martial characters that takes the full attack and dies.Now explain to me how wanting to limit the power of a vorpal weapon when used AGAINST martial characters is "hating" martial characters?
As a player I would not want to be on the recieving end of an instant death attack that I had no way of avoiding or preventing.
1) Each attack has a 5% chance of possibly being vorpal, independently.
2) After they get the 20, they then have to confirm the critical.Given those two, I don't see how anyone is coming up with a flat percentage chance for "head removal."
Fighter with Weapon Mastery for the weapon. 5% flat chance no matter the enemy. Other than that, the math changes based on the AC.
Oooh, monky math, yay!
Eight strikes from a level 20 monk with a 5% chance for each one to be a natural 20 (95% chance to not be), gives about a 33.66% chance that one of the hits will be a natural 20. There's a 5% chance of the confirmation roll being a natural 20 as well, so there's about a 1.68% chance that the monk goes Red Queen on you, regardless of your AC.
That's all you can get as a definite flat percentage chance, and only as the bare minimum. The actual chance is in most cases higher (unless you've got an AC of (38 + monk's strength bonus) or higher), since they only need to confirm the crit, not get a natural 20 on it.
Fighter with Weapon Mastery for the weapon. 5% flat chance no matter the enemy. Other than that, the math changes based on the AC.
So a level 20 fighter has 5% chance of outright killing something? I think a Wizard/Sorcerer have better odds.
Oooh, monky math, yay!
Eight strikes from a level 20 monk with a 5% chance for each one to be a natural 20 (95% chance to not be), gives about a 33.66% chance that one of the hits will be a natural 20. There's a 5% chance of the confirmation roll being a natural 20 as well, so there's about a 1.68% chance that the monk goes Red Queen on you, regardless of your AC.
That's all you can get as a definite flat percentage chance, and only as the bare minimum. The actual chance is in most cases higher (unless you've got an AC of (38 + monk's strength bonus) or higher), since they only need to confirm the crit, not get a natural 20 on it.
That is why I stated the chance for a vorpal hit, not a vorpal confirmation.
The fighter with 4 attacks can garantee they will confirm the vorpal hit, and a fighter could have 5 attacks with boots of speed for a 22.6% chance to insta-kill anything they get a full attack on.
So a level 20 fighter has 5% chance of outright killing something? I think a Wizard/Sorcerer have better odds.
Fighter with Weapon Mastery for the weapon. 5% flat chance no matter the enemy. Other than that, the math changes based on the AC.
Try again. 5% chance per swing, so 22.6% chance with a full attack and haste. Dual wielding + haste pushes it up to 8 attacks and a 33.7% chance to kill something with no save.
Again, not majorly overwhelming, but if it was my character who just died with no save and not chance to avoid it, I would be somewhere between annoyed and pissed.
Oooh, monky math, yay!
Eight strikes from a level 20 monk with a 5% chance for each one to be a natural 20 (95% chance to not be), gives about a 33.66% chance that one of the hits will be a natural 20. There's a 5% chance of the confirmation roll being a natural 20 as well, so there's about a 1.68% chance that the monk goes Red Queen on you, regardless of your AC.
How are we getting 33.66%?
How are we getting 33.66%?Oooh, monky math, yay!
Eight strikes from a level 20 monk with a 5% chance for each one to be a natural 20 (95% chance to not be), gives about a 33.66% chance that one of the hits will be a natural 20. There's a 5% chance of the confirmation roll being a natural 20 as well, so there's about a 1.68% chance that the monk goes Red Queen on you, regardless of your AC.
5% chance per swing is a 95% chance to not get vorpaled.
to survive you have to not get vorpaled 8 times in a row.95% * 95% * 95% * 95% * 95% * 95% * 95% * 95% = 66.34% chance to not get vorpaled.
100 - 66.34 = 33.66% chance at least one attack vorpals you.
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So a level 20 fighter has 5% chance of outright killing something? I think a Wizard/Sorcerer have better odds.
Fighter with Weapon Mastery for the weapon. 5% flat chance no matter the enemy. Other than that, the math changes based on the AC.Try again. 5% chance per swing, so 22.6% chance with a full attack and haste. Dual wielding + haste pushes it up to 8 attacks and a 33.7% chance to kill something with no save.
Again, not majorly overwhelming, but if it was my character who just died with no save and not chance to avoid it, I would be somewhere between annoyed and pissed.
Or 33.66% chance if the fighter somehow possesses 8 vorpal handaxes and does a rapid shot + two-weapon fighting trick. Then he can even do it at up to 50ft.
My figure was only supposed to be for 1 attack, obviously.I think I prefer "increase crit multiplier by 2" for the normal conditions under which vorpal would work and allowing players to make it easily. That way it hurts, but won't end the world. Make the original vorpal a minor artifact or otherwise rare ability.
Try this on for size for new vorpal rules
Vorpal weapons bypass all damage reduction no exceptions.
As a full round action a character can make a Single Vorpal attack. If this attack hits on a roll of 19-20 and is confirmed the target is decapitated.
This way chacrter can go for the decapitation but chopping off somone's head during combat is no easy feat, and it take an entire round of combat to try and create an opening to strike.
So for the chance to end the fight in one hit the character is giving up all thier other damage attacks for the round.
If they're not going for decapitation then they don't need to worry about any sort of DR by having the right type of weapon material to bypass, the vorpal cuts through anything
Or
You leave Vorpal rules as is but you add in a Save vs Decapitation.
e.g. roll natural 20, confirm and then target gets to roll Fort or Ref (whichever is higher) Save DC10+BAB
so beheading weak critters is easy since they're liekly to fail the save but major solo monster fights will probably have high Fort/Ref saves reducing the chance of an instant win.
Plus with this a DM can fudge a roll to save his monster if a vorpal hits during the first/second round of combat without the players seeing the roll, to keep the fight going and keep it fun.
So a level 20 fighter has 5% chance of outright killing something? I think a Wizard/Sorcerer have better odds.
Fighter with Weapon Mastery for the weapon. 5% flat chance no matter the enemy. Other than that, the math changes based on the AC.Try again. 5% chance per swing, so 22.6% chance with a full attack and haste. Dual wielding + haste pushes it up to 8 attacks and a 33.7% chance to kill something with no save.
Again, not majorly overwhelming, but if it was my character who just died with no save and not chance to avoid it, I would be somewhere between annoyed and pissed.
He has several chances of avoiding it, don't stand toe-to-toe with the guy. That's the best way. Disarm, trip, graple. All those option are available.
And how would they know? It's a RARE blade, everyone that LOOKS at it, should have a hint of it's power, and once you behead your first dude, word is gonna travel. It's not simply "OMG, overkill" Vorpal blades deal a PERFECT strike, it's otherwise impossible by normal means, it even chops of heads whose necks are larger than the blade, like some colossal creatures or dragons.
It's an awesome thing to have, but it's a very dificult thing to keep. If you go by the way things are right now, everything can become comom place, and that sucks A LOT, don't let it happen to your game, or it's simply not fun.
So a level 20 fighter has 5% chance of outright killing something? I think a Wizard/Sorcerer have better odds.
Fighter with Weapon Mastery for the weapon. 5% flat chance no matter the enemy. Other than that, the math changes based on the AC.Try again. 5% chance per swing, so 22.6% chance with a full attack and haste. Dual wielding + haste pushes it up to 8 attacks and a 33.7% chance to kill something with no save.
Again, not majorly overwhelming, but if it was my character who just died with no save and not chance to avoid it, I would be somewhere between annoyed and pissed.
He has several chances of avoiding it, don't stand toe-to-toe with the guy. That's the best way. Disarm, trip, graple. All those option are available.
And how would they know? It's a RARE blade, everyone that LOOKS at it, should have a hint of it's power, and once you behead your first dude, word is gonna travel. It's not simply "OMG, overkill" Vorpal blades deal a PERFECT strike, it's otherwise impossible by normal means, it even chops of heads whose necks are larger than the blade, like some colossal creatures or dragons.
It's an awesome thing to have, but it's a very dificult thing to keep. If you go by the way things are right now, everything can become comom place, and that sucks A LOT, don't let it happen to your game, or it's simply not fun.
And how exactly are you supposed to know not to stand toe to toe with the guy? Do all vorpal blade have a glowing neon sign that says beware this thing is really sharp?
No, that is the point I made earlier. You are the party fighter, it is your job to stay in melee and fight things. Since you have no reason to know you shouldn't be in melee with that other level 20 fighter, what are you going to do? Charge in and fight him, a round later you are dead. No save, no warning, just dead.
Of course he could just have a scythe and crit you too - that's what? Average 100+ damage?
So a level 20 fighter has 5% chance of outright killing something? I think a Wizard/Sorcerer have better odds.
Fighter with Weapon Mastery for the weapon. 5% flat chance no matter the enemy. Other than that, the math changes based on the AC.Try again. 5% chance per swing, so 22.6% chance with a full attack and haste. Dual wielding + haste pushes it up to 8 attacks and a 33.7% chance to kill something with no save.
Again, not majorly overwhelming, but if it was my character who just died with no save and not chance to avoid it, I would be somewhere between annoyed and pissed.
He has several chances of avoiding it, don't stand toe-to-toe with the guy. That's the best way. Disarm, trip, graple. All those option are available.
And how would they know? It's a RARE blade, everyone that LOOKS at it, should have a hint of it's power, and once you behead your first dude, word is gonna travel. It's not simply "OMG, overkill" Vorpal blades deal a PERFECT strike, it's otherwise impossible by normal means, it even chops of heads whose necks are larger than the blade, like some colossal creatures or dragons.
It's an awesome thing to have, but it's a very dificult thing to keep. If you go by the way things are right now, everything can become comom place, and that sucks A LOT, don't let it happen to your game, or it's simply not fun.
And how exactly are you supposed to know not to stand toe to toe with the guy? Do all vorpal blade have a glowing neon sign that says beware this thing is really sharp?
No, that is the point I made earlier. You are the party fighter, it is your job to stay in melee and fight things. Since you have no reason to know you shouldn't be in melee with that other level 20 fighter, what are you going to do? Charge in and fight him, a round later you are dead. No save, no warning, just dead.
Ahh... if you mean that you just "happen" to find another 20th level fighter that just "happens" to have a vorpal... then, yeah!
I thought that people that got to 20th level got to plan stuff, gain knowledge as well as power and know their enemies. Oh, and I would imagine a fighter of that level would know the most famous weapons in the world by name and description at least... but hey, that's just fluff, never mind me.
Just point this out. A vorpal weapon costs 72,000 gold pieces. Under the new Pathfinder rules, the only "automatically available" items are 16,000 gp even in a metropolis. Everything else is available either by random roll or GM fiat.
An item crafter can still make one if they have 36,000 gp, the right feat, and access to keen edge and circle of death.
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The 50 damage would not force a massive damage save.
Massive Damage (Optional Rule): If you ever sustain a single attack that deals an amount of damage equal to half your total hit points (minimum 50 points of damage) or more and it doesn't kill you outright, you must make a DC 15 Fortitude save. If this saving throw fails, you die regardless of your current hit points. If you take half your total hit points or more in damage from multiple attacks, no one of which dealt more than half your total hit points (minimum 50), the massive damage rule does not apply.But I do like the idea of vorpal increasing the crit modifier instead of being an instant win.
It is just me or are those rules weak for massive damage. I don't like the idea of outright death, but for any character who has > 50 hp the 15 fort save doesn't seem so hard?
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Well it's not common anyway... What I said about only a handful of people in an entire continent being able to get such stands true. uhmm that sounded a little too defensive from me.
Am just thinking about when, speaking only in technical terms for a techincal discussion and leaving the flavour out, my party ov lv 21-22 guys face THE lv25 epic dual wielding dude with 10 attacks per round.
And when the dual-wielding barbarian loots him. Am jsut thinking about mechanics really, not the flavor. I agree to the general flavor posts and rarity mentioned.
Am not going to spam bunchs of vorpal wielding NPC or sell it around at every (or any) big city either. Seems that's what I sounded like.
Am just thinknig about a particular encounter, and it's loot.
Ok now that I understand where you are coming from Id like to apologize if I came across a tad harsh.
As a lot of posters have stated before one of the best solutions is to align and imbue intellect such as to make the weapon to be unusable by the players. Actually this can be really interesting as it may well be that the SWORD is actually the campaigns BBEG and not the wielder!
On an other note does it have to be vorpal? I would have thought that 10 hits with (element of choice)burst would be far more damaging BUT the party can deal with that sort of damage through various forms of DR to mitigate it.
Just a thought
Okay, thank you guys, all of this perspectives and ideas were really helpful =). So in short, I think we can see that (and sorry for my bad English, it's my 3rd language):
*Vorpal should be very rare. There should not be any random encounter with people having chances to behead others with no save or means of avoidal (as opposed to spells allowing saves and SR)
*A fight involving Vorpal [i]could[/i} be foreseen by a party of high-level knowledgeable characters, who thus would use strategies that can reduce or remove the flat chance of no save head removal: surprise one action dispelling/disjuncting, specifical protection spells, crowd control...
*The above along with makign the swords evil and cursed can remove
the chances of players decapitating your BBEG the first round. It's
just another save or suck spell with different mechanics: no save, no SR, but still means of avoiding described above. The unprepared ennemies will more likely be minor and be the ones allowing a vorpal wielding character to shine and show off his cool beheading abilities.
*The problem as I see it for a lot of the people is this "surprise, the ennemy just chopped your tank's head in the first round" scenario which still can happen. No save or means of avoidal, just hope the DM does not get lucky with his roll, no matter how mighty or epic your
character is. A party of prepared players can come apply some of the very efficient tactics listed above to negate the chance of this happening for more than a round.
*Vorpal cost is +5, even in the case of an epic TWFVWM, losing a +5 in 10 attacks a round is costly to have a less than 40% chance to decapitate someone ONLY if they are not prepared AND for one time because the rest of the fight his "vorpality" can be denied by an adventuring party worth its salt. He will fight the rest of the fight without vorpal, whereas he could probably have enjoyed his +5 bonus if he has had a weapon other than vorpal.
I think in my games, mechacnically speaking, I will deny vorpal by death-ward effects (not goign to bothr with a vorpal-ward spell) and perhaps rule a vorpal hit as a coup-de-grace. Maybe the bonus would then be +4. Let the players have their vorpal weapon, minimize the risks with proper strategies, and have the strong important ennemies prepared for vorpal as well. The "must decapitate an elven innocent children" kind of ideas sounds good too for an evil campagin.
@Nicolaus: Yes it has to be vorpal, it's is going to be one of the mechanical cool aspect of the NPC that will frighten the players. "DUAL WIELDING vorpal dude????"
He has several chances of avoiding it, [snip] Disarm, trip, graple. All those option are available.Try again. 5% chance per swing, so 22.6% chance with a full attack and haste. Dual wielding + haste pushes it up to 8 attacks and a 33.7% chance to kill something with no save.
Fighter with Weapon Mastery for the weapon. 5% flat chance no matter the enemy.
[rules correction]
Actually those options would not affect the chance whatsoever.
Starting a grapple merely imposes a -2 penalty on the fighter's attacks - which does not lower the chance of vorpaling at all, since natural 20s auto hit and a fighter with weapon mastery auto confirms.
Tripping is exactly the same as grappling except that attacking from prone is a -4 penalty. It still has exactly the same chance to vorpal as attacking standing up does.
A fighter with Weapon Mastery cannot be disarmed.
Just for the record, isn't even near a 50% chance. And come on, a guy with 2 vorpals, who would be crazy enough to stay there and take ALL attacks?
I like vorpal the way it is and has always been. Nine lives stealer is not that different in my book, nor is slaying arrows. The thing is, death is a common thing. The guy can come back, he can have immunity to vorpal (second edition had a spell like that) And he can have an item that makes him imune to it (Manshoon made one cause he was one of Azoun's enemies) and it's great stuff! If you reward someone with a vorpal (or 2) he should behead lo's of guys, but some of them wouldn't mind AND some of them would be immune, cause it's great plot. I don't think it's umbalaced at all.
Believe me that +5 will be missed... other abilities are WAY better than vorpal most of the time.
I agree Vorpal is way overrated. It's an instant win with a 5% change to come up. Wizards can instant win a lot more than 5% of the time if they really want to. If a DM gave me a vorpal weapon I would just try to trade it in for something that I know will always be useful.
How are we getting 33.66%?Oooh, monky math, yay!
Eight strikes from a level 20 monk with a 5% chance for each one to be a natural 20 (95% chance to not be), gives about a 33.66% chance that one of the hits will be a natural 20. There's a 5% chance of the confirmation roll being a natural 20 as well, so there's about a 1.68% chance that the monk goes Red Queen on you, regardless of your AC.
5% chance per swing is a 95% chance to not get vorpaled.
to survive you have to not get vorpaled 8 times in a row.95% * 95% * 95% * 95% * 95% * 95% * 95% * 95% = 66.34% chance to not get vorpaled.
100 - 66.34 = 33.66% chance at least one attack vorpals you.
You also have to take into account that if the nat 20 falls on one of the lower modified attack rolls the crit may not be confirmed. The first attack and the last attack will give vastly different results.
He has several chances of avoiding it, [snip] Disarm, trip, graple. All those option are available.Try again. 5% chance per swing, so 22.6% chance with a full attack and haste. Dual wielding + haste pushes it up to 8 attacks and a 33.7% chance to kill something with no save.
Fighter with Weapon Mastery for the weapon. 5% flat chance no matter the enemy.[rules correction]
Actually those options would not affect the chance whatsoever.
Starting a grapple merely imposes a -2 penalty on the fighter's attacks - which does not lower the chance of vorpaling at all, since natural 20s auto hit and a fighter with weapon mastery auto confirms.
Tripping is exactly the same as grappling except that attacking from prone is a -4 penalty. It still has exactly the same chance to vorpal as attacking standing up does.
A fighter with Weapon Mastery cannot be disarmed.
Sunder :). I will admit I forgot about the auto-confirm, but adding a +5 for a chance to instakill a monster off random chance, and a low one at that is not efficient IMHO.
Seriously people. +5 Keen Scythe > Vorpal anything.
When calculating percent chance to instat kill a PC with a vorpal weapon you must take into account defensive magic items.
At 20th level there is a good chance the PC has a greater cloak of displacement. 50% miss chance even on that nat 20.
The PC may have some way of making them immune to criticals. PC may have a contingency of some sort up.
Plus at 20+ level your priest can cast miracle a couple times a day, and it is within the power of miracle to bring that headless PC back up and fighting with a 'simple' miracle.
On the "The PCs won't know they BBEG has vorpal" Well if they are going after said BBEG I am sure they have heard legends about him, or heard stories of him (bard, or knowledge skil). They will surely have heard that X BBEG could swing his swords so hard and fast that the heads of his foes would fall to his feet while their bodies were still standing, only to fall as well.