Devestating Critical

[Jeffi0]

I can't look up elsewhere cause I don't have the internet now, using the library. But is there any way to fix this feat? It's horribly broken, fighters can kill pretty muvh anything not immune to crits in just a few rounds. And it's so easy to get, any strength based warrior can get it in the mid 20s, a halforc at level 21. It completely ruins by supposedly "tough" NPCs because fighters mow through them with ease. Hell, the fighter doesn't even have to damage the creature, it'll kill it even if the fighter can't touch it through DR. But this is turning into a rant at Bioware's stupidity. Is there a way to fix Dev Crit? Like has Avlis done it?

[Emprod]

Don't get hit.

I think this is a discussion thing more than a scripting question. I'm sure the scripters could do it, but why?

[Midknight]

Don't think you can get Dev. Crit. at lvl 21, because you need Overwhelming Crit. first, which is another epic feat.

[Fuzz]

Don't think you can get Dev. Crit. at lvl 21, because you need Overwhelming Crit. first, which is another epic feat.

You can if it's an even numbered fighter level, and thus you get 2 feats. Both of those feats are combat feats.

[lloydy]

its not broken it does wat it says in the NWN manuel

llloydy

[Dirk Cutlass]

There have been several discusions in the past. I think the main conclusion was that it is not as easy to get this feat as you think, on paper yes, but in practise you would basically have to min-max a chatrcater build with the sole goal of getting this feat.

And any way, the character would be shit at everything else, including haveing a shit Will save, and almost any medium level mage could disable him with a few well chosen spells.

Has anyone got this feat yet? Is anyone close to getting it? How many Epic Fighters are there anyway??!

[Fire Monkey]

There have been several discusions in the past. I think the main conclusion was that it is not as easy to get this feat as you think, on paper yes, but in practise you would basically have to min-max a chatrcater build with the sole goal of getting this feat.

*cough* Wemic *cough

And any way, the character would be shit at everything else, including haveing a shit Will save, and almost any medium level mage could disable him with a few well chosen spells.

That goes for any straight fighter chraracter too (or figher/WM etc).

Has anyone got this feat yet? Is anyone close to getting it? How many Epic Fighters are there anyway??!

At least one person has this feat at the moment. Due to the requirements I would expect to see more people with it in the next few months as those that have designed there post HoU characters around it get up to the right sort of levels

I have played around with this feat elsewhere in other mods and at least there it is ridiculous. Combine it with dual weilding and/or weapons with wide crit hit ranges and you can kill epic monsters in a couple of hits most of the time. Mixing it up with WM after you get the feat and you get a truly devasting character.

It would certainly turn the tables on a lot of those newish avlisian epic monsters that we have all been whining about over the last few months.

[Lilith]

Just make em immune to Crits

[DAnjal Veskandar Rai]

Just make em immune to Crits

Now that is just plain EVIL.

[myzmar]

The problem of devastating critical is how difficult the fortitude save is. Lets take a 40 level char: 10+lvl/2 = 30 + str modifier, lets suppose 10, =40. I hardly see _any_ character with a high enough fortitude save to withstand this, even if its a straight fighter with iron and epic fortitude and putting almost all into CON - he would get a save of about 38-39. Frankly, it sounds a little ridiculous, and I can understand why we have this bunch of fighters all wielding funny looking little weapons with a good crit range. It is tempting. But, the heck, I decided against it and took dwarven waraxe with my fighter, it suits him better, looks better and I say : fek the devastating critical, we dont want every fighter on Avlis to be build the exact same way. Period.

/ yes that was the rant part


EDIT: and yes, about the low will save part. If you can take dev. crit. at level 21, you can then take 19 levels of a spellcasting class where your will save will increase dramaticaly. Especialy since the fortitude save in dev. critical takes into account only the character level, not the level of fighter-classes. Same save for a 40th level pure fighter/WM than for one with 19 levels of wizard.

[Psyco]

a little bit of flawed logic, saving throws increase at the same rate during epic levels reagrdless of the class you are taking.

*throws in his 2c then runs away again*

[Dirk Cutlass]

Well, I guess we should wait a couple of months and see what turns up. But personally, I have seen very very few characters taking the high STR fighter route all the way (which is basically what you need to do to get this feat... OK perhaps with the exception of Wemics).

However tempting the end goal is, it is still a very long and hard journey to make a fighter like this in the low-magic item world that is Avlis. Sure there will be a few, but I think it will be a very small number. But I'll be prepared to eat my hat if I'm wrong

[Flakey]

HMmm what is the favorate saying of the mages when they are accused of being too powerful..

Oh yes "Classes are not balanced and never will be".

[Flakey]

The problem of devastating critical is how difficult the fortitude save is. Lets take a 40 level char: 10+lvl/2 = 30 + str modifier, lets suppose 10, =40. I hardly see _any_ character with a high enough fortitude save to withstand this, even if its a straight fighter with iron and epic fortitude and putting almost all into CON - he would get a save of about 38-39.

Which means he has to roll a 2 to save from the check..ps you leaving out items.

The other fault in your post has already been pointed out.

[myzmar]

The problem of devastating critical is how difficult the fortitude save is. Lets take a 40 level char: 10+lvl/2 = 30 + str modifier, lets suppose 10, =40. I hardly see _any_ character with a high enough fortitude save to withstand this, even if its a straight fighter with iron and epic fortitude and putting almost all into CON - he would get a save of about 38-39.

Which means he has to roll a 2 to save from the check..ps you leaving out items.

The other fault in your post has already been pointed out.

Now here I am feeling more and more stupid. Isn't it that both the fighter with DC 40 AND I roll a d20? I mean, I would have to save to a DC of 40+ the guy's roll, with my fortitude save of 38+ my roll?

Second question about that (seems I misunderstood quite a few 3e rules... hehe) - if I roll a 1 I always fail? For exemple, if I have a fortitude save of 30, do I roll against a DC 20 or 10, and if I get a 1, it always fails?

[Tharliss]

The problem of devastating critical is how difficult the fortitude save is. Lets take a 40 level char: 10+lvl/2 = 30 + str modifier, lets suppose 10, =40. I hardly see _any_ character with a high enough fortitude save to withstand this, even if its a straight fighter with iron and epic fortitude and putting almost all into CON - he would get a save of about 38-39.

Umm...not that you don't realize this, but what 40th level character ISN'T scary?

Would you rather face this person, or a 40th level mage? How about 40th level thief who knocks you down and pummels you with sneak attacks?

Devastating Crit is very nice. I personally know of only one PC who has it and I'd say it's very fitting. I would not want to fight him.

But like all things, there are drawbacks. Many higher level NPC's are immune to critical hits. Therefore, fighters who devoted a ton of feats for this type of fighting style have all of those feats negated versus a large set of enemies.

[Nob]

Epic saves would look like this(At level 40):
20 levels of fighter = +12 base fortitude
30 constitution = +10
Epic Saves Bonus = +10
(FYI, base of this character is a dwarf, 40 straight levels of fighter, starting stats were 15/9/20/8/8/8)

Works out to +32

Even with the fort save feats this works out to +38.

Likewise same level fighter with dev crit assuming he still only has 30 strength:
10 + 20 + 10

DC40 so save on 2 or higher, which is nice, but both the feat and resisting it encourage massive amounts of min-maxing.

A fighter that exists on CoPaP for example with buffs and items looks like:
10 + 14 + 13 = 37 at level 28.

I'm not sure if there's anything that can save against that outside of something being horribly maxed out in fort saves, which in that case will also completely screw over casters.

What I find more disturbing is the fact that ranged weapons will also have dev crit post 1.63.

And as this is the scripting forum, is there anyway to edit the script so weapons that only have the appropriate mighty bonus are able to make use of dev crit?

[storminj]

All I have to say is two things:

Fighters have it tough let em have something.

Palemaster Deathless Mastery Feat

[dougnoel]

I can't look up elsewhere cause I don't have the internet now, using the library. But is there any way to fix this feat? Is there a way to fix Dev Crit?

This is a question that has been asked on the Bioware boards many times. There is no way to script a change to the feat. A hak would enable the removing of this feat. I suggest you read the discussion in this thread on the Bioware boards: http://nwn.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic ... um=77&sp=0. It concerns the 1.63 patch. It's a long read.

And as this is the scripting forum, is there anyway to edit the script so weapons that only have the appropriate mighty bonus are able to make use of dev crit?

Erm, maybe. But it would most likely require giving a OnHitCast property to every weapon to "regulate it". A hak change might be more feasible, but that'd take a bit o' research to answer. Let me know what you find out.

Doug

[Paul]

And it's so easy to get, any strength based warrior can get it in the mid 20s, a halforc at level 21.

I have to question this statement.

To get this feat you need to be at least 21st level and have cleave, greater cleave, improved crit, overwhelming crit, weapon focus, power attack and a strength of at least 25. That isn't what I call easy. Even a power gamer would have to work their asses off for months to get this far. I say anyone who makes it here deserves to kick the crap out of whatever they face.

[eNTrOpY]

What I find more disturbing is the fact that ranged weapons will also have dev crit post 1.63.

I'm not so bothered by this. If someone wants dev crit they need 25 STR. That means that their DEX score (or WIS for zen archers) isn't as high - which is pretty important for archer types at lower levels.

Furthermore, examining the crit stats of longbows and shortbows reveals that you only crit on 20, 19-20 with improved crit. Also, you can't take bows as the weapon of choice as a weapon master to extend the crit range. Finally, keen is a property not available on ranged weapons. You get all your attacks per round, and can add one using rapid shot. However, 19-20 is still the best you can do for a crit range for the bows.

Looking at the crit stats of crossbows you have a crit range of 19-20, 17-20 with the improved crit feat. Like the bow, you can't choose the crossbows as your weapon of choice nor is keen available. Also, you can only have 1 attack per round with the crossbows and can only get 1 more attack if you take the rapid reload feat (since the feat doesn't work as described). Rapid shot does not work with crossbows. So the best crit range for crossbows possible is 17-20, however you only get 2 attacks per round (without haste - i don't even know if haste will add one).

Slings act exactly as bows do with respect to crit range.


The dismal crit range of the bows and slings, and the laughable number of attacks you can have with the x-bows balances the ability to dev. crit. from range IMO.

[Ravan Seiryu]

Only thing that bothers me with Devastating Critical is that,
eventually all monsters or character with no "immunity to crit" will
fall victim to this. You know, the auto-fail on 1...
Though I can't say for sure how powerful this feat is. I have
never built strength based char.

[Dirk Cutlass]

Just out of curiosity, what's the DC for a monks "quivering palm" death attack?

To be honest, I think the DC on the Devestating Crit is too high - but I really think that nerfing it would be silly, it will literally be a handful of characters (very dedicated STR based fighter characters) that get this feat. Why spend all that effort nerfing it. Of course, if we start seeing hundreds of NPCs with this, then I'd say nerf it right now!!!

Actually, just hypothectically, if nerfing it was on the cards, then I'd suggest something on the lines of this: IIRC, before they introduced this feat, in one of the patches and on "difficult setting", NWN had a rule that if you were hit for more than 50 points damage in a single hit, then you had to make a save or die. That sort of thing would be much more appropriate, and would get around the rather strange current situation were you can critical someone, but don't even damage them due to DR, but they still have to make a save, and maybe making the save lower more in line with other instant death saves. *shrugs* but I still reckon it will only be a handful of folk that get this. The biggest problem will almost certainly be with evil DMs that like to load the dice against unsuspecting PCs

[Vanor]

But is there any way to fix this feat? It's horribly broken, fighters can kill pretty muvh anything not immune to crits in just a few rounds.

This feat works exactly as writen in PnP. In fact it's easier to get in PnP, as it's easier to get a 25 str in PnP. The DC is exactly the same in NWN as it is in PnP.

There is nothing broken about this feat period.

[lloydy]

as for damaging them due to DR does anyone have dr 50 vs slashing out there cose all eds crits are all over that u just dont see the crit damage unless u save and if u have less HP left that the crit will do it does not make u save u just take the damage and die eds had this feat for quite a while now and yes it is powerfull but can still not kill things as quick as a mage of the same lvl ie time stop chain lightening chain lighteng chain lightening or time stop wilting wilting wilting

its a feat that give a fighter an edge if there where no good fighter epic feats why would u ever play an epic fighter

mages have hell ball and dragon knight and i bet they can have higher ac than most fighters as soon as they take epic mage armor

i think dev crit makes an epic fighter more feared which in my opinon is a good thing

lloydy