Devestating Critical

[Beard]

So, as a developer, this skill presents a challenge to balance, and it's extremely difficult.

I would present the following as a solution that balances the skill, keeps it worth taking, and adds an overall element of challenge back into Nordock.

Devestating Critical: Upon a successful attack roll, within Threat Range AND beating the creatures AC, they are given a save roll, that if failed results in instant death. (Not Death Magic) which on average occurs in about 5% of rolls which this average is increased as a players threat range and attack bonus are increased, IE a player with 15-20 threat range and a 45-50 attack bonus would average 35-40% success with Dev Crit

Part One: Death From Massive Damage (This applies to any successful attack roll, not just Dev Crit)
Note: Death From Massive Damage may or may not be calculated before or after damage is applied.

If any creature (player, NPC, monster) is able to do 50% of another creature, NPCs, or players health, a fort save equal to the fort save + 20 of the attacking creature must be met or instant death occurs (eg, I have 12 fort, and do 22 damage to a creature with 44 health, it must beat a DC of 32)

NOTE: This is open to discussion and is ONLY an example, better ideas for saves etc are welcome for discussion.

Part Two: Devestating Critical Revamp (This applies to anyone looking to get or currently has taken the feat)

Criticals would apply as normal, withing threat range and beating the AC would result in critical damage.

Rolling one natural 20, in this case, a secondary roll occurs, if the secondary roll is NOT also a 20, only critical damage occurs.

Rolling two natural 20s, in this case, critical damage is applied on the first roll of 20, and on the second roll of 20 a secondary effect is applied (eg, a stun, knockdown, or both?), and a third roll occurs, if the third roll is NOT also a 20, then nothing further occurs.

Rolling three natural 20s, in this case, critical damage, the secondary effect and regular damage are NOT applied, instead, with three natural 20s, the creature is instantly killed.

EXAMPLES:

Player 1: 100hp, 15 fort
Player 2: 100hp, 27 fort (boosted from items)

1: Player 1 damages Player 2 for 52 damage, a death from massive damage save occurs. Player 2 must roll a fortitude save for (15 + 20 = 35) Player 2 rolls a 3 + 27 = 30, Player 2 dies.

2: Player 1 damages Player 2 for 52 damage, a death from massive damage save occurs. Player 2 must roll a fortitude save for (15 + 20 = 35) Player 2 rolls a 12 + 27 = 30, Player 2 receives 52 damage less any damage reduction effects.

3: Player 1 attacks Player 2 and rolls a 20, 2d6 + 5, = 15 x 2 critical damage, secondary roll = 20, 2D6 + 5 = 15 x 2 Critical Damage aswell as Player 2 is stunned/knocked down, tertiary roll = 19, Player 2 takes critical damage totalling 30, and is knocked down.

4: 2: Player 1 attacks Player 2 and rolls a 20, 2d6 + 5, = 15 x 2 critical damage, secondary roll = 20, 2D6 + 5 = 15 x 2 Critical Damage aswell as Player 2 is stunned/knocked down, tertiary roll = 20, Player 2 is instantly killed.

Discuss, ask questions, feedback on this is important.

[artemishadow]

This seems like an overall good change, my concern is that will these effects still take place against, say for example, pale masters that are immune to critical hits?

[Lliira]

Interesting proposal. I approve of anything which will make devastating critical more balanced.

I have one character with it, she really does not need to insta-kill 30% or so of what she fights, and she does a lot of damage, regardless.

I have another character who will take the feat, eventually, she will be a tiny food processor. (Weapon Focus: Double-Axe)

And I am working on a monk. Sort of an experiment, because I did not know unarmed strike could cause dev crit, until recently. She has fighter levels for weapon specialization, etc.

I feel that rolling two 20's in a row should be a minimum requirement.

[Xillie]

Im not specialist on devastating critical, but:

Many epic characters are capable of almost instaslaying most that comes across their path.
I wonder when, where and why devcrit is "problematic".


I don't even know the specs of the overwhelming critical feat, but as a guideline I would ask "Does devastating critical give anyone a disproportional power that suddenly makes fights easy that are undoable without the feat?"

It's very brutal but most epic things are....but does devastating critical make you invincible? Are characters with the feat winning battles that they wouldn't without and should not in general? I really don't know.

Wouldn't giving more hostiles a higher AC be a better idea? (not higher fortitude).

greets,

Xillie

[artemishadow]

Im not specialist on devastating critical, but:

Many epic characters are capable of almost instaslaying most that comes across their path.
I wonder when, where and why devcrit is "problematic".


I don't even know the specs of the overwhelming critical feat, but as a guideline I would ask "Does devastating critical give anyone a disproportional power that suddenly makes fights easy that are undoable without the feat?"

It's very brutal but most epic things are....but does devastating critical make you invincible? Are characters with the feat winning battles that they wouldn't without and should not in general? I really don't know.

Wouldn't giving more hostiles a higher AC be a better idea? (not higher fortitude).

greets,

Xillie

To put it plainly, yes, many of the servers more difficult runs challenge ratings are dropped exponentially because of this feat, elder wyrm can be deved, plague lands can be cut in half with the feat, many of the runs you would do on the server become so much easier after gaining this feat that you can essentially go anywhere you like.

[Xillie]

It's always been like this on epic right?

I wonder what would be left of "epic" if the feat were to be crippled.
On the old classic server, with levelcap 20, everything was a challenge but nothing impossible (the elder wyrm needs a wicked spell ok).

Completely besides this, I think many people would not like to see their years-old devcritter build suddenly get nerfed (supposing they would play anyway).

<personal "epic" rant>

So far, epic levelling is even more "useless"/"worthless" than I ever feared back on classic when I only heard these stories on the fora.

It's too apparent the system was first designed upto level20, after which at some point some "epic ruleset" was overlayed as a patch. Most probably this implementation was even way more unbalancing so they stripped alot. You can say the only good thing is that fighterclasses being underpowered at lvl20 relatively get some more powers in epic.

Dev crit, hellball, greater ruin, epic dodge, .......what cool other epic feats am I missing?

Levelling above 20 brings you few more hitpoints and skillpoints and now and then +1 AB.......thats the basic of being epic right?

Completely besides these points as well, I don't consider any content in the module specifically "epic" asin supposed to be visited by demigod beings that only dabble in divine prestige projects. To me, the areas that generally are considered "epic" are just ordinary but cool adventuring places where spawns do scale beyond lvl20. Most of those places are however much more challenging when visiting at lvl 15.

I suspect I still lack insights in epic, but personally I think lvl26 is way more than enough as max lvl for this nordock mod, not setting being able to spawn and kill the highest northern orc in the mod as a goal.

What about this advice if you think devcrit is too overpowered: Make another character without the feat.

greets,

Xillie

[Valikar]

Nordock was designed with level 20 as a cap. The epic content was not well balanced, it was quantity over quality. We have discussed making level 25 a cap now, so that players are able to choose some epic feats and still likely do most or all of the content in epic. The fact that level 25s with decent builds can still do all of the epic content is a testament to its imbalance.

In regards to Dev crit, I have considered a similar way to balance it if it is possible in the scripting tools.

Well most spell casters have instant kill spells with very high DC saves if they aren't multi-classing around, but the idea is that they are actually limited in use and dev crit circumvents death immunity and is only prevented if you are immune to crits.

I would ballpark it and say I'd like dev crit to do x2 of your DC modified by their save. So DCx2 - Fort roll total = extra damage done. Probably works out to be for instance, DC40 (so 80 damage extra to start modified by their fort roll) monster rolls 24, 80-24= 56 extra damage added to your critical strike damage.

This is only a quick guess, I would like to see what sort of DC values different builds can field with only a cap of level 25 and adjust accordingly.

[raradra]

Please refrain from commenting here unless you have(or plan to have) this feat.

[artemishadow]

It's always been like this on epic right?

I wonder what would be left of "epic" if the feat were to be crippled.
On the old classic server, with levelcap 20, everything was a challenge but nothing impossible (the elder wyrm needs a wicked spell ok).

Completely besides this, I think many people would not like to see their years-old devcritter build suddenly get nerfed (supposing they would play anyway).

<personal "epic" rant>

So far, epic levelling is even more "useless"/"worthless" than I ever feared back on classic when I only heard these stories on the fora.

It's too apparent the system was first designed upto level20, after which at some point some "epic ruleset" was overlayed as a patch. Most probably this implementation was even way more unbalancing so they stripped alot. You can say the only good thing is that fighterclasses being underpowered at lvl20 relatively get some more powers in epic.

Dev crit, hellball, greater ruin, epic dodge, .......what cool other epic feats am I missing? Dragon Shape and Undead Shape and Outsider Shape are by far some of the most broken feats in the game, beside dev crit.

Levelling above 20 brings you few more hitpoints and skillpoints and now and then +1 AB.......thats the basic of being epic right?

Completely besides these points as well, I don't consider any content in the module specifically "epic" asin supposed to be visited by demigod beings that only dabble in divine prestige projects. To me, the areas that generally are considered "epic" are just ordinary but cool adventuring places where spawns do scale beyond lvl20. Most of those places are however much more challenging when visiting at lvl 15.

I suspect I still lack insights in epic, but personally I think lvl26 is way more than enough as max lvl for this nordock mod, not setting being able to spawn and kill the highest northern orc in the mod as a goal.

What about this advice if you think devcrit is too overpowered: Make another character without the feat. This notion won't dissuade players from wanting to have that one character that's decked out head to toe that can frollick through the server slaughtering everything in sight unfortunately.

greets,

Xillie

I personally think that if a viable change could be made to this feat, simply removing the base +10 added to the dc would make this feat much less overpowering and still give players who have this feat a feel of 'epic status' while not being over the top.

Take a half orc ftr rdd with max strength and +12 gear (believe you can hit around a 56 strength like that, so effectively a 23 mod). This build can reach I believe a dc of 53 upon hitting level 40. Now unless you're the elder wyrm or some other stupid epic monster within the server with a ridiculous fort, then this isn't really all that high, but when you consider the magic level of the server, that base +10 is crucial, it's the difference between monsters/players failing a fort save by no less than 50%. So take this away, we now have a max strength build, that can reach a dc 43, that's -pretty- in line with the challenge rating of the server, and keeps things to a happy medium when it comes to actually soloing epic runs and dropping epic level minos everytime you score a crit (or any epic level monster for that matter).

I believe this would be a viable nerf to the feat.

[artemishadow]

Interesting proposal. I approve of anything which will make devastating critical more balanced.

I have one character with it, she really does not need to insta-kill 30% or so of what she fights, and she does a lot of damage, regardless.

I have another character who will take the feat, eventually, she will be a tiny food processor. (Weapon Focus: Double-Axe)

And I am working on a monk. Sort of an experiment, because I did not know unarmed strike could cause dev crit, until recently. She has fighter levels for weapon specialization, etc.

I feel that rolling two 20's in a row should be a minimum requirement.

Actually I'd probably have to disagree with this, while the random generator that's used for dice rolls is fine and all, the fact of having to roll a 20 as opposed to having the above listed effects be applied as a result of a critical hit would make the feat near worthless. Nobody would make a dev critter if they had to rely on 20s to get anything done. I know this is only an example but lets alter this a little bit to be more in lines with realistic expectations of someone wanting to make a dev critter or for someone who already has it.



Part Two: Devastating Critical Revamp (This applies to anyone looking to get or currently has taken the feat)

Criticals would apply as normal, withing threat range and beating the AC would result in critical damage.

Rolling one natural 20, in this case, a secondary roll occurs, if the secondary roll is NOT also a 20, only critical damage occurs.

Rolling two natural 20s, in this case, critical damage is applied on the first roll of 20, and on the second roll of 20 a secondary effect is applied (eg, a stun, knockdown, or both?), and a third roll occurs, if the third roll is NOT also a 20, then nothing further occurs.

Rolling three natural 20s, in this case, critical damage, the secondary effect and regular damage are NOT applied, instead, with three natural 20s, the creature is instantly killed.



Honestly the first two seem a bit far fetched, I know this is going against what I originally posted but I've given it some more thought since reading it and realized that nobody in their right minds would ever take this feat if these were the conditions of which the feat were to be viable still.

Lets make it more like this:

Rolling a critical hit, beating the opponents AC by less than 5, critical damage occurs.

Rolling a critical hit, beating the opponents AC by 5-9, critical damage and secondary effect occurs (KD,stun, etc.)

Rolling a critical hit, beating the opponents AC by 10 or more, critical damage, secondary effect, and a modified fort save of 10 + half level + half strength modifier, rounded down.