Critical Hitting

[Kost76]

What if you change Critting to "Skill" instead of "Weapon used"...

So...you remove the Threat Range and Crit Modifier from the weapon tables and replace them with :

Base Attack 0-5 you Crit on a 20
Base Attack 6-10 you Crit on a roll of 19-20
Base Attack 11-15 you Crit on a roll of 18-20
Base Attack 16-20 you Crit on a roll of 17-20

Improved Critical feat gives a +2 Crit

This only works with weapons you have proficency in...any other weapon is just a straight 20 all the way.

This is meant as a way to choose a different weapon NOT based on Crit, but for flavor/looks. (Now to find a way to have all weapons deal the same kind of damage, IE all Two-Handed weapons deal 2d6 dam-kind of thing)

[TxSam88]

can you still make the weapon keen, or take improved crit, or have the fighter capstone ability that increases the multiplier by one? if so, then this is pretty much over the top. without that, as you have written it pretty much nerfs fighters.

[Oli Ironbar]

Scaling it to BAB is interesting, but removes some flavor provided by crit ranges. I am more afraid of an enemy with a greatsword as a lvl 1 PC because it has twice the chance of critting me dead as a greataxe does, since the x2(19-20) sword kills me outright nearly as well the x3 axe.

Consider making a homebrew that adds more factors to compete with crit range, in the style of blocking, disarming, tripping, etc. Perhaps some weapons ignore a shield bonus or impose some penalty to movement because of their reach.

[yukongil]

scaling in Crit multiplier might be a better way. There are typically less ways of increasing that and could mitigate SOME of the insta-dead crits at lower levels, while making them more impressive at higher levels when opponents might have 300+ hit points

Of course then that takes some of the umph! out of nat20/x3(x4) weapons and guarantees nothing but scimitar/rapier/kukri builds.

[Tacticslion]

.

[MrCharisma]

I kinda like this, but there are a few classes that increase/use crits, and tbis would change their value. Or classes like Warpriest and Monk who have scaling damage, which might change things a bit. I don't know if this would drastically change the balance of anything, but just something to think about.

The main thing I think this would do is to increase balance and decrease variation. That' as good or bad as you think it is.

[Mysterious Stranger]

For the most part this is going to diminish martial classes. Critical hits are the one area that martial classes have an advantage over spell casters. Since most casters have a limited selection of weapon, they often end up using weapons that are less effective at critical hits. So this ends up diminishing the less powerful classes more than it does the powerful classes.

Swashbucklers in particular are going to take a massive hit to their effectiveness. Without a way to replenish their panache they are severely weakened. A swashbuckler using a rapier has a 15-20 threat range at 5th level when using a rapier. Under your rules the threat range becomes an 18-20. That is a 50% reduction in the chances of being able to regain panache. As they level up the chances improves, but their chance until the swashbuckler reaches 16th level his chance of regaining panache are less than that of a 5th level swashbuckler under standard rules.

This is only going to increase the marital/caster disparity.

[MrCharisma]

To be fair it'll be worse on a Magus.

5th level Magus is usually at 15-20 (Keen Scimitar using Arcane Pool)

With these rules a Magus is at
L5: 17-20 18-20
L8: 16-20 17-20
L15: 15-20 16-20
So they never catch up.

EDIT: Derp, I can has numbers.