Sean K. Reynolds: Rant: If Keen and Improved Critical Don't Stack, the Terrorist Will Have Won!
Does SKR's reasoning still hold true for the PFRPG?
Would it be a reasonable houserule to allow keen and improved critical to stack?
And, does anyone know why PF didn't adopt the philosophy that keen and improved critical should stack?
I don't know if SkR still feels as he did when he posted that, but if so, I have to say I respectfully disagree.
The rapier, for example, is one-handed. This means the rapier-wielder is free to use a shield in his free hand, or a second weapon with TWF, or an empty hand for crane style or whatever. Meanwhile the greatsword warrior uses both hands for his greatsword. Therefore a straight up side by side damage comparison of the two weapons simply isn't fair.
Comparing a rapier to a longsword would be a much better comparison, or comparing the greatsword to the Elven Curve Blade. I don't think high crit weapons come out behind here.
You can houserule whatever you like, but personally, I would advise against it.
maybe a stronger point than that is that allowing imp. crit to stack with keen ought to even out.
Take the Keen Imp Crit Elven Curve blade, crits on a 12, for x2.
Vs the Keen Imp Crit Falcata, crits on a 15, for x3.
15% less chance for critical on the falcata, but with 50% greater damage. The Falcata still wins here.
Sean K. Reynolds: Rant: If Keen and Improved Critical Don't Stack, the Terrorist Will Have Won!
Does SKR's reasoning still hold true for the PFRPG?
Would it be a reasonable houserule to allow keen and improved critical to stack?
And, does anyone know why PF didn't adopt the philosophy that keen and improved critical should stack?
Those calculations were based on a comparison of 3.0 and 3.5 at a point when there weren't any feats (or at least no significant number of feats) that imposed anything more than damage from a critical hit. Pathfinder's critical focus feats would become noticeably more powerful if improved crit and keen were allowed to stack... more powerful than planned in their design.
Plus, having kitted up some 3.0 character with keen and improved crit stacking, I can tell you that having crit ranges down to 12 made confirmations come up a bit too often. Mathematically, in 3.0 they may have not been problematic, but math isn't everything in game design. It's also an art form, particularly when balancing things that are mathematically OK but take more time at the table and clutter the play with more mechanics. I think 3.5 made the better decision in not allowing them to stack.
... Does SKR's reasoning still hold true for the PFRPG?...Would it be a reasonable houserule to allow keen and improved critical to stack?
No, and if he shows here I bet he'll confirm that.
PF isn't 3.0 3.5. Crits in it, others have mentioned crit feats but also the magus class and a few other changes, are NOT the same as the crits from it's parent system.
It would be an unbalancing houserule unless you nerfed Magi in particular, would skew DPS numbers, and would make high crit range weapons broken.
YMMV but I'd avoid it.
It was his opinion in 2004. As it is now 2013, I'd recommend sending him a message and asking him.
While I agreed with most of his rants, that was one I never did. And still don't. 12-20 crit ranges are not a good idea.
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Sean K. Reynolds: Rant: If Keen and Improved Critical Don't Stack, the Terrorist Will Have Won!
Does SKR's reasoning still hold true for the PFRPG?
Would it be a reasonable houserule to allow keen and improved critical to stack?
And, does anyone know why PF didn't adopt the philosophy that keen and improved critical should stack?
If you do stack those, you're looking at a 10-20 critical range with several weapons. Katana is a great example.
If I were DMing, I wouldn't ever allow it.
12-20 crit range are a bad idea when you have feats like Blinding, Stunning or Staggering critical.
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While I agreed with most of his rants, that was one I never did. And still don't. 12-20 crit ranges are not a good idea.Oh no! 12-20 crit range could allow a rogue to be moderately competent in combat! It must be destroyed!
Am I missing something? Wouldn't a rogue be one of the classes helped the least by a big threat range?
Unless the 12-20 threat range somehow manages to bring the martials to greater power levels than the primary spellcasters ... probably not a problem.
Am I missing something? Wouldn't a rogue be one of the classes helped the least by a big threat range?While I agreed with most of his rants, that was one I never did. And still don't. 12-20 crit ranges are not a good idea.Oh no! 12-20 crit range could allow a rogue to be moderately competent in combat! It must be destroyed!
You're not missing anything. SA doesn't benefit from a crit, huge str bonuses to damage, power attack, etc... do.
He's off his rocker and/or desperate to find some way to criticize me.
You could go to something like 8-20 threat range in 3.0. Stump Knife+Improved Crit+Keen+Weapon Master, if I'm not mistaken. You had to sacrifice your fist for that though...
I played with imp. crit and keen stacking and critical feats, and there was no problem...it made fighters with high init surprise wizards, and I liked that.
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Stacking the improved critical feat and keen weapon property would be a huge boost to magi every where. I have to admit that the two not stacking never made sense to me. Keen is applied to a weapon to make it "sharper" as it were. Improved critical feat shows that the wielder is capable of wielding the weapon in such a way that he/she is better able to land blows that can fell a foe. This is like saying you can't apply dodge and dexterity to your standard AC or some other combo of two different bonuses applying to the same end result.
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Lets look at some classes that would benefit greatly from this
Magus:Well, this might seem like a bit of a problem. You now critical with a shocking grasp every time you hit. The downside, Lots of things are immune to electricity at the level you find Imp Crit come into plaly
Rogue:No response needed really. SA doesn't crit.
Barbarian:This is a bit of a problem because either A.)8-20/x2 crit for double damage on basically every hit with 2 attacks a round, B.)Barbarians running around with 18-20/x4 crit Scythes Critting about 15% of the time for x4 Damage, C.)Barbarians running around with falcata's having a 13-20/x3 crit which means triple damage a lot. Possible problem
Fighter:See Barbarian
Monk:Congratulations, you now have a good enough crit to use medusa's wrath. Big Whoop.
Cavalier:On a Charge I believe a lance can still crit on a mounted charge(not up to date with charge FAQ's and know the rules are odd) so you would be doing triple damage instead of double damage, again big whoop.
Yep, other than the Barbarians and Fighters, this seems like a balanced solution.
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So basically martials could get an avoid-or-suck-type effect that works less often than a save-or-suck spell and requires you to be in melee range AND only works against creatures vulnerable to critical hits? Cool, melee characters now have an inferior version of one kind of spellcasting. The only thing wrong with it I can see is that it won't do ENOUGH to make martials more powerful.
To be fair, it would be like a caster having a 40% chance to cast a free blindness/deafness / daze / etc. whenever they hit with any spell. Including a cantrip. Considering some of the spell levels that those conditions are bared behind, I would say that yes, it would be incredibly overpowered and shove end-game martials high above the spellcasters. If the dice love you.
I honestly think people are jaded by 3.5 in regards to the level of "power" that a fighter possesses. Martial characters are awesome if you have a bit of system mastery.
It does very very little for the rogue, while it helps every other martial class markedly. So in terms of class balance, yes it does actually hurt the rogue. He's even weaker compared to his peers now.
And it does help spellcasters. Druids are spellcasters. Summoners are spellcasters. Amulet of Mighty Fists with keen works great with wildshape and eidolon. Magus...holy crap is it a good deal for him, especially since at level 5+ he can just give any weapon Keen anyway. Not just shocking grasp; frigid touch is possibly even nastier.
I dislike the martial-caster gap, too. The solution isn't to make the martials broken, too, though. And quite frankly, while PF nerfed the hell out of martials, damage dealing is the one area they didn't really beat to death, so it's the LAST area I'd be looking to help them out with.
Turn it around: How would your PCs deal with critters & bad guys often getting similar crit ranges on their damage? If the PCs get stacked keen and Improved Critical, all your moderately-intelligent antagonists are going to try to get it too.
Turn it around: How would your PCs deal with critters & bad guys often getting similar crit ranges on their damage? If the PCs get stacked keen and Improved Critical, all your moderately-intelligent antagonists are going to try to get it too.
Absolutely right, that's one of my biggest problems with it. Increased randomness is always worse for the PCs than the NPCs. The game is stacked in the PCs' favor so that they'll pretty much always win an equal CR encounter as long as multiple dice don't take big swings toward the low or high end. Because verisimilitude or not, they're expected to survive WAAAAAAAAY more battles than any NPC is.
Furthermore, if the enemies do start sporting these super crit weapons... guess who is the most likely member of the party to take it to the face? That's right! The very same martial guy we were trying to empower! Being the front line means...being the frontline. For whatever horrible offenses the enemy may have.
And quite frankly, while PF nerfed the hell out of martials, damage dealing is the one area they didn't really beat to death, so it's the LAST area I'd be looking to help them out with.
Honest question, did you play a Fighter in 3.5? My Fighter got ten-thousand times better in Pathfinder then he was in 3.5. For one, the number of feats he got increased by 25%. The sheer amount of tricks in his arsenal is ridiculous.
The feats are greater in quantity, but the quality is degraded, and many were split up into two feats (like all the Improved maneuver ones) and in MANY cases the requirements got harsher.
And yes, I did play fighters in 3E. PF is better than core 3E for fighters. Once you start including splat books (for both; PF's splats haven't added much aside from Dazing Assault and Pin Down), it gets really ugly. Hell, even in core 3E, my fighter can grab a spiked chain, Improved Trip, have the wizard Enlarge him, and he dominates the field.
EDIT: Here's one example, it's even on the open gaming licensed SRD even though not technically core. It's a 1st level feat, and it's better than pretty much ANYTHING a PF fighter can get. That feat, with a good reach and combat reflexes alone, meant a fighter in 3E could actually *control* the battlefield and keep monsters from getting to the squishies. The PF version of Stand Still is a pale imitation and a sick joke.
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Funny, I asked the exact same question a little while back. Never got a response from Mr. Reynolds, though the thread ended up being pretty amusing.
Magus...holy crap is it a good deal for him, especially since at level 5+ he can just give any weapon Keen anyway. Not just shocking grasp; frigid touch is possibly even nastier.
I've never played or seen a magus in play.
I didn't realize that the magus' attack benefitted twice from getting a confirmed critical. I would have thought only the weapon could've scored a critical and the spell damage wouldn't be multiplied.
Spellstrike (Su)
At 2nd level, whenever a magus casts a spell with a range of “touch” from the magus spell list, he can deliver the spell through any weapon he is wielding as part of a melee attack. Instead of the free melee touch attack normally allowed to deliver the spell, a magus can make one free melee attack with his weapon (at his highest base attack bonus) as part of casting this spell. If successful, this melee attack deals its normal damage as well as the effects of the spell. If the magus makes this attack in concert with spell combat, this melee attack takes all the penalties accrued by spell combat melee attacks. This attack uses the weapon’s critical range (20, 19–20, or 18–20 and modified by the keen weapon property or similar effects), but the spell effect only deals ×2 damage on a successful critical hit, while the weapon damage uses its own critical modifier.
Yes, I was just reading that.
That really seems unique (and surprising), to me. I would have thought delivering the spell through the weapon should have negated the possibility of scoring a crit with the spell.
That's how it worked in 3E with things like Spell Storing weapon (and still does for the PF version) - the weapon is the primary vehicle for the damage and the part that gets multiplied on a crit; the spell damage becomes a sort of rider effect much like sneak attack is and since it is additional dice of damage, it does not get multiplied by the crit.
Magus's Spellstrike is a departure from that standard. Which, being a class feature, is fair... it should be doing something better than "normal." But it can get pretty nasty.
Thank you, StreamOfTheSky.
That's very interesting.
And, it makes the magus quite scary without the proposed houserule. Makes me thing magi have the best potential crits in the game at 5th level.
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Per the game system, some things stack and others don't.
From a design standpoint, if it's the same effect twice then it doesn't stack, but dissimilar effects do.
So your Str bonus and your sword's enhancement bonus and your bonus from Weapon Specialisation and your bonus from Weapon Group etc. all stack.
Given this, if you were considering the case for Improved Critical and keen for the first time (without knowing the answer), how would you rule it?
Are the two things essentially the same or are they different?
Improved Critical represents training in using a particular weapon to strike vital points in a target, keen makes a weapon magically sharp.
According to the design principles of the game, they should stack. They did stack when the d20 system first came out, and when 3.5 stopped them stacking it didn't make sense in game, so it must have been from a game balance perspective.
But that never made sense to me either. If both stack, nothing happens to the target that didn't happen before. The crit damage didn't alter, just the attacker's chance of threatening a crit increased.
And it's balanced by the fact that it uses up resources. That's a feat choice AND the gold piece value of a +1 weapon enhancement; either choice is instead of whatever you would have used the money/feat slot for. It's not a free lunch.
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Cavalier:On a Charge I believe a lance can still crit on a mounted charge(not up to date with charge FAQ's and know the rules are odd) so you would be doing triple damage instead of double damage, again big whoop.
The lance is a x3 crit weapon, the Mighty Charge ability doubles your crit range as well. Stack Keen, Imp. Crit and Critical Focus. Add in Challenge damage (multiplied *how* many times?). Hell, add in the Order of the Sword's Mounted Mastery bonus for laughs.
You'll be allowed to do it precisely once, either because your GM has every encounter from then on occur in 5' corridors full of difficult terrain, or because Golarion passes a Cavalier Arms Limitation Treaty in the hopes of preventing the devastation that might be caused by all-out Cavalier warfare.
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Cavalier:On a Charge I believe a lance can still crit on a mounted charge(not up to date with charge FAQ's and know the rules are odd) so you would be doing triple damage instead of double damage, again big whoop.The lance is a x3 crit weapon, the Mighty Charge ability doubles your crit range as well. Stack Keen, Imp. Crit and Critical Focus. Add in Challenge damage (multiplied *how* many times?). Hell, add in the Order of the Sword's Mounted Mastery bonus for laughs.
You'll be allowed to do it precisely once, either because your GM has every encounter from then on occur in 5' corridors full of difficult terrain, or because Golarion passes a Cavalier Arms Limitation Treaty in the hopes of preventing the devastation that might be caused by all-out Cavalier warfare.
ImpCrit and keen stacking does not increase the damage your lance does on a crit.
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ImpCrit and keen stacking does not increase the damage your lance does on a crit.
Cavalier:On a Charge I believe a lance can still crit on a mounted charge(not up to date with charge FAQ's and know the rules are odd) so you would be doing triple damage instead of double damage, again big whoop.The lance is a x3 crit weapon, the Mighty Charge ability doubles your crit range as well. Stack Keen, Imp. Crit and Critical Focus. Add in Challenge damage (multiplied *how* many times?). Hell, add in the Order of the Sword's Mounted Mastery bonus for laughs.
You'll be allowed to do it precisely once, either because your GM has every encounter from then on occur in 5' corridors full of difficult terrain, or because Golarion passes a Cavalier Arms Limitation Treaty in the hopes of preventing the devastation that might be caused by all-out Cavalier warfare.
*looks puzzled*
I'm not saying it does. I'm suggesting that you might not want people getting easy x5 crits (double damage on charge, x3 weapon) on a class that's already capable of a staggering static damage bonus under the right conditions.
(well, to tell the truth, I don't really mind... I love the Cavalier. I'm just pointing out that it's more significant than first suggested.)
Anyone who thinks lance charges are an "easy" path to anything needs to actually play the build. :)
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ImpCrit and keen stacking does not increase the damage your lance does on a crit.
Cavalier:On a Charge I believe a lance can still crit on a mounted charge(not up to date with charge FAQ's and know the rules are odd) so you would be doing triple damage instead of double damage, again big whoop.The lance is a x3 crit weapon, the Mighty Charge ability doubles your crit range as well. Stack Keen, Imp. Crit and Critical Focus. Add in Challenge damage (multiplied *how* many times?). Hell, add in the Order of the Sword's Mounted Mastery bonus for laughs.
You'll be allowed to do it precisely once, either because your GM has every encounter from then on occur in 5' corridors full of difficult terrain, or because Golarion passes a Cavalier Arms Limitation Treaty in the hopes of preventing the devastation that might be caused by all-out Cavalier warfare.
*looks puzzled*
I'm not saying it does. I'm suggesting that you might not want people getting easy x5 crits (double damage on charge, x3 weapon) on a class that's already capable of a staggering static damage bonus under the right conditions.
(well, to tell the truth, I don't really mind... I love the Cavalier. I'm just pointing out that it's more significant than first suggested.)
Game system: double damage on a x3 crit = a x4 crit.
The damage done by a charging lance on a crit, if so huge it makes your DM's jaw drop, will make that Jaw Drop independently of ImpCrit and keen stacking.
The only difference it will make is that instead of threatening on 19-20 it threatens on 18-20; a 5% chance to turn a hit into a crit more than he had anyway, doing no more damage than the crit would have done anyway.
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Game system: double damage on a x3 crit = a x4 crit.
Have you got a page reference for that? I've seen people double, then triple the damage (I wrote x5 as a less generous interpretation).
The only difference it will make is that instead of threatening on 19-20 it threatens on 18-20; a 5% chance to turn a hit into a crit more than he had anyway, doing no more damage than the crit would have done anyway.
Mighty Charge + Imp. Critical + Keen, since you've created a precedent for that also stacking. 17-20. But if people are talking about getting down to 12-20 or 8-20 with other weapons, there's presumably some cheese I'm not considering. Cavalier static damage does surprise people, in all honesty, but it's why halfling and gnome cavaliers work so well (because you're more likely to get a charge in, and your strength bonus + weapon damage are relatively minor parts of the equation).
Game system: double damage on a x3 crit = a x4 crit.Have you got a page reference for that? I've seen people double, then triple the damage (I wrote x5 as a less generous interpretation).
Page 12 of the Core Rulebook.
Multiplying: When you are asked to apply more than one multiplier to a roll, the multipliers are not multiplied by one another. Instead, you combine them into a single multiplier, with each extra multiple adding 1 less than its value to the first multiple. For example, if you are asked to apply a ×2 multiplier twice, the result would be ×3, not ×4.
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Have you got a page reference for that? I've seen people double, then triple the damage (I wrote x5 as a less generous interpretation).
Game system: double damage on a x3 crit = a x4 crit.
Multiplying: When you are asked to apply more than one multiplier to a roll, the multipliers are not multiplied by one another. Instead, you combine them into a single multiplier, with each extra multiple adding 1 less than its value to the first multiple. For example, if you are asked to apply a ×2 multiplier twice, the result would be ×3, not ×4.
So, a double double is a triple. ImpCrit doubles the threat range, keen doubles the threat range, if they stack then it would result in a tripling of the threat range.
20->19-20->18-20
19-29->17-20->15-20
18-20->15-20->12-20
Since a lance threatens on a 20 and does x3 damage on a crit, a creature with both ImpCrit(lance) and a keen lance stacking, with Spirited Charge, would do x3 damage on a normal hit, would threaten on 18-20 and do x5 damage on a crit. Nasty!
But the stacking of ImpCrit and keen does not affect the crit damage in any way! Allowing them to stack just means that it increases the threat range from 19-20 to 18-20.
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Since a lance threatens on a 20 and does x3 damage on a crit, a creature with both ImpCrit(lance) and a keen lance stacking, with Spirited Charge, would do x3 damage on a normal hit, would threaten on 18-20 and do x5 damage on a crit. Nasty!
I wasn't counting Spirited Charge (though that's an excellent point), I was counting Mighty Charge which gives another threat range increase.
But the stacking of ImpCrit and keen does not affect the crit damage in any way! Allowing them to stack just means that it increases the threat range from 19-20 to 18-20.
Again, I really don't think anyone in this thread is saying that it does.
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I'm unfamiliar with Mighty Charge, but if it doubles the threat range that would still make it 17-20.
Does Mighty Charge stack with anything else that would increase the threat range?
Either way, if it's the huge amount of damage a charging lance could do on a crit that makes a jaw drop, then the stacking of ImpCrit and haste isn't what makes it overpowered.
I haven't done any kind of analysis of this in PF.
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I'm unfamiliar with Mighty Charge, but if it doubles the threat range that would still make it 17-20.
Does Mighty Charge stack with anything else that would increase the threat range?
Not currently, but we're creating a precedent that says these things do stack, aren't we?
Either way, if it's the huge amount of damage a charging lance could do on a crit that makes a jaw drop, then the stacking of ImpCrit and haste isn't what makes it overpowered.
I would assume that the current situation is predicated on the idea that lance crits are unlikely. If you make them three times more common? Different story. Not that I think the idea is game-breaking or anything, just very amusing.
...however, there's a non-mathematical way of looking at it. Namely, that wider crit ranges interfere with the predictability of having escalating points of ablative health (e.g. hit points), which is one of the major tactical considerations of D&D/Pathfinder.
And spellcasters violate that all the bleedin' time. 'Rocket tag', it's called.
This really just sounds like another 'casters rule, warriors drool' thing.
I haven't done any kind of analysis of this in PF.
Hi, Sean.
Thank you for your reply!
Very much appreciated.