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Here's a thought. It seems on these boards that people favor a wide crit range over a high crit multiplier. I seem to remember back in 3.5 it was possible for powergamers to crit on a 12. Suppose a GM wanted to curb this behavior.
Here's my proposed house rule: Improved Critical and Keen don't double the crit range of a weapon. Instead, they double its crit multiplier. Thus, 18-20/x2 weapons become 18-20/x4 weapons, and x4 weapons become x8 weapons.
Would this rule change conventional wisdom about which crit range is the "best"? Would x4 weapons finally get some love?
What if, instead of doubling the multiplier, it added 1 to them?
What if only Keen were changed and Improved Critical left as is (or vice versa)? Which would you rather have? If they worked differently, would allowing them to stack be too powerful?
And most importantly, would you want to play at a table where that rule is in effect?
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Doubling the critical multipler is really dangerous. While 20 x 8 might not happen very often when it does it will almost certainly result in massive damage to the victim.
This increases the swinginess of combat which almost always favors the NPCs (they are assumed to only face one battle) vs the PCs (who end up facing a lot of potential criticals over the course of their lives).
Even adding +1 to the multiplier is dangerous.
18-20 x3
19-20 x3
20 x 4
20 x5
etc.
I don't really care for imp. crit and keen as they currently work simply because they make 18-20 x2 weapons unreasonably desirable but there is some danger in throwing around big crit multipliers.
Maybe make one do one and the other do the other.
Say Keen increases the range and ImpCrit increases the multiplier.
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that is a solution. wow x8!
what about if we make the critical feats increase in effectiveness not just with a keener weapons but also with slugger weapons?
example:
Stunning Critical (Combat, Critical)
Your critical hits cause opponents to become stunned.
Prerequisites: Critical Focus, Staggering Critical, base attack bonus +17.
Benefit: Whenever you score a critical hit, your opponent becomes stunned for 1d4 rounds. A successful Fortitude save reduces this to staggered for 1d4 rounds. The DC of this Fortitude save is equal to 10 + your base attack bonus. For each critical multiplier increment over x2, increase the duration by +1 rounds and the save DC by +1. The effects of this feat do not stack. Additional hits instead add to the duration.
Special: You can only apply the effects of one critical feat to a given critical hit unless you possess Critical Mastery.
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@vuron: I honestly never considered the idea that NPCs would use Keen or Improved Crit. In most of the campaigns I've played we've fought mostly monsters, and even against NPCs I can't remember ever seeing an enemy with a widened crit range.
@rainzax: I do like the idea of making crit multiplier matter more instead of just "whenever you crit". Right now I think Burst weapon properties are just about the only things that make it matter. I was so sad when I found out PF changed the whip's crit multiplier from x4 to x2 because Shocking Burst Whips were so much fun in 3.5!
I can see why x8 would be fairly scary to go up against, but what about x5? Is x4 the highest multiplier the game is prepared to handle, and only on a natural 20?
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Hehehehehe I would love a 20/x8 weapon.
"I don't always crit, but when I do, my enemy ends up as little more than a stain on the dungeon floor. Stay bloodthirsty my friends."
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20x2 grants 21 dice over a d20 scheme
19x2 grants 22 dice over a d20 scheme
20x3 grants 22 dice over a d20 scheme
18x2 grants 23 dice over a d20 scheme
20x4 grants 23 dice over a d20 scheme
19x3 grants 24 dice over a d20 scheme
15x2 grants 26 dice over a d20 scheme
but!
20x8 grants 27 dice over a d20 scheme
so actually a statistically equivalent 'doubled' crit modifier would double the excess over x1.
x3 thus 'doubles' to x5
x4 thus 'doubles' to x7
...
this wouldn't be wrong, running around with an axe or scythe at x5 and x7, but as vuron pointed out, 'swinginess' would increase.
So if Keen turned a x4 weapon into a x8 weapon instead of a 19-20/x4 weapon, then x4 weapons would actually benefit more from Keen than 18-20/x2 weapons? Interesting...
Depending on what variable you are manipulating the doubling is always going to benefit one weapon over another weapon.
Doubling threat range from 18-20 x2 to 15-20 x2 is dramatically more 19-20 x2 doubled to 17-20 x2 or 20 x3 doubled to 19-20 x3.
3.x in generally wanted there to be system mastery elements which rewarded certain weapon = feat combos like the imp crit falchion. I just don't think it's particular good design.
My problem with this is that 20 x8, 20 x6 or even 18-20/x4 and 19-20/x4 create really unbalanced weapons and lead to massive mortality simply because optimized characters are going to have such massive static damage bonuses meaning that a big crit will be absolutely lethal
I just realized where you guys were getting x8 from.
If someone took this route I would hope they would use "adds +1 to the crit multiplier" rather than "doubles the multiplier" >_>
Here is the one I am playtesting that seems to work well.
Keen: Doubles the Critical Threat range of the weapon. If you have the Improved Critical feat or similar effect you instead increase the Critical Multiplier by 1/2 the Weapon's enhancement bonuses on attacks (Minimum +1 increase). Even Enhancement Modifiers like Bane or Furious.
So +1-3 is +1 Critical Modifier, +4 is +2 Critical Modifier, & +6 is +3 Critical Modifier. If you have a Furious Bane Weapon you can get a +4 Critical Modifier.
It seems to be going over well. Very well.
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Here is the one I am playtesting that seems to work well.
Keen: Doubles the Critical Threat range of the weapon. If you have the Improved Critical feat or similar effect you instead increase the Critical Multiplier by 1/2 the Weapon's enhancement bonuses on attacks (Minimum +1 increase). Even Enhancement Modifiers like Bane or Furious.
So +1-3 is +1 Critical Modifier, +4 is +2 Critical Modifier, & +6 is +3 Critical Modifier. If you have a Furious Bane Weapon you can get a +4 Critical Modifier.
It seems to be going over well. Very well.
This version sounds a little math-intensive, but it's hard to argue with success. I like how the change makes Keen, an enhancement, care about a weapon's enhancement bonus.
Also, I just realized that changing one the way I proposed but not the other and allowing the two to stack would create the possibility of a 19-20/x8 weapon. That's... a little scary.
It is somewhat math heavy, but it is similar to Courageous in Math but It clarifies it works with Bane and such.
Mine allows for some High Critical Numbers, but those numbers lead to you needing to spend a massive amount of Gold. & if you are like My players, Ravingdork, & Myself you have the numbers all figured up.
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I just realized where you guys were getting x8 from.
If someone took this route I would hope they would use "adds +1 to the crit multiplier" rather than "doubles the multiplier" >_>
This.
Game system; doubling a multiplier adds one to the multiplier.
• x2 -> x3
• x3 -> x4
• x4 -> x5
Not too unbalancing like that, I think.
I like the idea that if you have Improved Critical and keen then the crit range is still only doubled, but the multiplier is doubled also. N.B. doubling the multiplier= adding one to the multiplier.