Oil of sharpness

[Thunder Pants]

"So, in short, I am quite happy Keen weapons do not exist, or are atleast very rare."

to my knowlege there is only one keen weapon in Layo, it's only a dagger, and it doesn't have any elemental enchantments on it, and will likely stay that way, because Lue isn't selling it (sentimental value)

[Talan Va'lash]

Pankoki - 8/24/2005  7:44 AM    Keen will never be made permanent. Period.
  The recipe was created to balance the power of the ability. It is at this point what the team considers to be fine, powerwise.
  So the recipe will remain as it is for now, these components can be obtained all in mass quantities.

 Good call.  What amazes me is that I've NEVER seen a mage cast keen edge on this server.  Awesome spell.  -TV

[Etinfall]

Eiight Bit and Zhofe,

Thanks for the info. Interesting stuff. Do this with a different spell every two weeks and I will love yo....errr, be happy I mean.

Thanks,

Etinfall

[cappyra]

I WANT KEEN!  Har!

I thought Titanium Rods made a weapon keen...  I must have been mistaken.

Also I thought Keen only added 2 to the critical threat range... not doubled it.

OK So Since Zhofe brought up Derrick the Weapon Master

Derrick is a dual weilder.  I also took improved two handed AND improved critical

As a level 5 Weapon Master my crit multiplier is x3

Lets Haste Derrick Mwhahaha

I crit on a 17-20, 7 attacks per round.  When I crit...  I do around 62  Mwhahah

At level 7 weapon master my critical threat range goes up by 2...  so I will crit on 15 - 20

So I would be able to dish out massive damage... but hey I should I'm a Weapons Master.   Honestly giving permanent keen to a Weapon Master would not really give him that much more power. (unless it does in fact double the critical threat range)

And besides... with a Will of 4, a level 1 colorspray spell pretty much does me in.

[GhostWhoWalks]

If the weapon has a natural 1 crit rating, it doubles it to two.
If the weapon has a natural 2 crit rating, it doubles it to four.
If the weapon has a natrual 3 crit rating, it doubles it to six.

Stacking in D&D doesn't work like one would necessarily think though.

Two doubles doesn't make a x4. It makes a x3.

Which is important when factoring things like Improved Critical and such.

[GhostWhoWalks]

So with a scythe like the example above... which is a 1 point crit rating with a 4 point multiple for damage...

With keen and and improved crit that goes to a x3 (since a x2 and a x2 == x3 instead of a x4), or an 18-20 x4.

With the weapon master talents that becomes a +2 or 16-20 with a +1 damage multiplier or x5.

The ending threat and damage multipler are 16-20 with x5 damage. In the hands of a strong half orc a weapon like that can do in the hundreds of damage.

A level 20 fighter with a 30 natrual strength would go up to a 42 buffed. That's a +11 bonus.

A +2 weapon, of course with a GMW cast upon it for a +4 bonus.

Improved  Power attack adds an additional +10.

The scythe damage is a base of 2d4.

So on a minimum roll, thats 2+10+4+11. Or 27x5 which is an astounding 135.

Given proper buffs, elemental damage, and so on the number will can can skyrocket even higher.



Then we take something like a rapier. Perhaps a duelist and a weaponmaster to boot at high levels.

The rapier beings at an 18-20 crit rating, with imp crit and keen it drops to a disturbing 12-20. With the weaponmaster talents it becomes 10-20 x3.

Now, the run of the mill duelist isn't overly strong, so you won't have the massive strength bonuses. But with you doing x3 damage 50% of the time... and when you consider it will x3 the precise strike and the elemental damage it can and will sustain as much as that big half orc can burst for.


Anyway...

There you go. A min/max review of crit ratings and why the Oil of Sharpness is hard to make. Will never become perm and why it requires fairly hard to get ingredients.


The above numbers should be fairly solid, I haven't had to really do that since I was building PrC's and such and having to compute things like that... but I think I still remember all the tricks.

[Talan Va'lash]

"A level 20 fighter with a 30 natrual strength would go up to a 42 buffed. That's a +11 bonus."


Should read:

A level 20 fighter with a 20 natural strength could go up to a 32 buffed.  That's a +11 bonus.


if it was 42 the bonus would be +16, and I dont think a natural str of 30 is possible at level 20 even if you ridiculously min/max

-TV

[FlameStrike]

The highest natural strenght that a character would have at level 20 would be 25, by starting with an half-orc and putting every ability increase on Strength.

[GhostWhoWalks]

Close enough.

[regnus]

Talan Va'lash - 8/24/2005  7:06 PM
Good call.  What amazes me is that I've NEVER seen a mage cast keen edge on this server.  Awesome spell.
-TV

I am not a mage but I cast Keen Edge ALL the time.  But not on myself.  I use a rapier and Keen Edge has to be used on slashing weapons I believe so it doesnt do a thing for me.  I cast it on Iradril and he crits all over the place with his bastard sword.  

I agree with everyone here that it should be a non-permanent effect though.  On the other hand, I think there should be a handful(maybe less) of keen weapons out there that can be found.  Make them extremely hard to obtain, but it would be cool if they existed.  Of course they might exist and I just dont know about them.

This is semi-off topic but related to critical attacks.  When did D&D change to where if you roll a critical hit then you roll again to make sure you hit or something like that?  Am I the only one who finds this a little silly?

[Talan Va'lash]

"I agree with everyone here that it should be a non-permanent effect though. On the other hand, I think there should be a handful(maybe less) of keen weapons out there that can be found. Make them extremely hard to obtain, but it would be cool if they existed. Of course they might exist and I just dont know about them.  "

I only know of one in existance currently.  There are probably some in the loot tables somewhere, and I guarantee they're extremely hard to obtain

"This is semi-off topic but related to critical attacks. When did D&D change to where if you roll a critical hit then you roll again to make sure you hit or something like that? Am I the only one who finds this a little silly?"

3rd edition.  Its to allow for the fact that a natural 20 is an automatic hit, so, you can hit and get hit by something that cant even match your AC on a roll of a 20, but ensures that said creature won't crit against you since it needs incredible luck even to hit you.


Question:

in 3.5 improved crit doesn't stack with keen - is it a 3.0 thing that it does? or an NWN thing?

in 3.5 elemental damage (at least the elemental damage on the swords described in the DM guid) is not multiplied on a crit.  Same question as above, change in 3.5? or NWN thing?

-TV

[Gulnyr]

This is semi-off topic but related to critical attacks.  When did D&D change to where if you roll a critical hit then you roll again to make sure you hit or something like that?  Am I the only one who finds this a little silly?

You don't roll again to make sure you hit.  You already hit.  You roll again to see if you critically hit.  The range of numbers is not the critical range for the weapon, but the critical threat range, meaning when you roll within that range you haven't gotten a critical hit, but threatened a critcal hit.  But that's all semantics.

What it means is a harder-to-hit enemy is harder to get a critical hit on, which makes sense.  There must be some reason they are hard to hit in the first place, whether that's good armor or good reflexes or whatever.  That better defense is going to make what would have been a critical hit on a less protected target into a more glancing (normal damage) hit, and that's what the second roll represents.  

Rolling a single die for determining criticals would make it just as easy to crit against a well-protected target as a moderately protected one (though the moderately protected one would still be easier to hit).

Sorry if that's not very clear.

[Dorganath]

I had a system once for 1st Edition AD&D for critical hits and critical misses.  I took it from Dragon magazine, and it covered all types of critical hits for major types of weapons, as well as critical miss effects.
  The way it worked (or at least the way we used it) was that if you rolled a natural 20 on the to-hit roll, you get to roll a critical hit on the appropriate table (edged, missile, blunt, etc.).  The roll was d100, and the majority of results were double damage, with another range of about half the size being triple damage.  Then it got interesting...anything from incapacitating a limb to amputating said limb to causing excessive bleeding (death within 1d8 rounds if unhealed) to decapitation/arrow-through-the-eye/crushed skull (i.e. instant death). 
  But the flip side was the critical miss.  If you rolled a natural 1 on the to-hit roll, you had to roll against the critical miss/fumble table, which could be anything from drop weapon, to break weapon (magic weapons took a permanent -1 penalty...a +2 sword became +1), to hitting oneself for half/full damage, to hitting one's party member for half/full damage, etc.
  They really made combat interesting....especially when an archer somehow hit himself...heh.

[Talan Va'lash]

*points up* Gul said it better than I did.

-TV

[miltonyorkcastle]

yeah, in 3.5 PnP Dnd, Keen and Improved Crit do not stack, unlike in NWN where you can stack the living begeezes out of everything.