User:Liosrakia/Critical Threat Range v 4

Critical Threat Ranges for version 4e
Rules for critical threat ranges and criticals based off of version 3.5 for version 4e.

Basic Rules; The threat range in v3.5 is where on a natural dice roll you could attempt to hit a critical strike. In order to do this you must roll a number in the threat range. This is called a threat. Most weapons had a critical threat range of 20, meaning they could only attempt to score a critical strike on a natural roll of 20. I say "attempt" because you are not actually scoring a critical strike but are attempting to. Basicly If I rolled a 20 in v3.5 with a weapon that had a 20 threat range, I would hit, but I would also score a threat. Because I have scored a threat I roll again to see if i can hit the defence of the creature again with the same bonusus you used the attack you just made. If you hit you have successfully scored a critcal strike! If you didn't, you roll the damage as normal as if you had make the attack you were making as normal.

We're gonna switch that up just a little bit. A threat range is ALWAYS below 20, because in v4, 20 is always an "automatic crit". If you have a weapon with a threat range of 19-20, it is a threat on 19 and a "automatic critical strike" on 20. More below...like below this section.


 * For the second attack roll to confirm a critical hit it doesn't matter what number for the roll as long as it hits.


 * In v3.5 most critical damage was 2x your weapon. Some was more. If it makes it easier to think about, getting a critical strike with 2x damage (or more) was effectively  like making TWO attacks, which makes the rolling the second die to see if you hit the critical make more sense. It certainly made more sense to me once I understood that.

Critical rules
A role of 20 is always a critical strike, hitting max damage unless a a feat, weapon trait, or power somehow alters this. A roll in the threat range is not always a critical, and uses the v3.5 rules to confirm a critical hit from a threat.(above). Critical hit rates stack (below)

Altering Pre-existing Feats,Weapon Traits,or Powers
Natural crit ranges stack together- the same goes with threat crit ranges. The do stack together, but only in a very specific way.

Issues:
 * You gain a feat (etc) that increases your natural critical range, but your natural critical range is already larger than the designated range.

Fixes:
 * Additively increase your current natural crit range by the numeral value of the range shown in the feat

Examples:
 * A Rogue Daggermaster has a crit range of 19-20 with daggers. If the Daggermaster takes light Blade Mastery, which normally increases atural crit range with light blades by 19-20, he instead adds the numeral value of 19-20, which is a range of 1, to his already existing crit rate (19-20), and ends up with a crit rate of 18-20 while using daggers.

Unfinished: (but your critical range is already above the designated number. Whenever an automatic critical range is increased by a number, also increase your critical threat range by that number. If the weapon does not already posses a critical threat range, For instance, regularly, as a DaggerMaster, you will always score a critical hit on 19-20 with a dagger. Assuming that dagger's can normally only hit criticals on a natural 20, your critical threat range will increase by one )

Also, once you understand the 1 up automatic critical range=also 1 up threat range, it's pretty simple.

For the record, this is designed so that magic weapon ability or power or paragon path feature or some feat, they all stack when determining critical  threats or automatic critical range.

Weapons Affected by Threat range
Some weapons are not included here. That either means they are not affected by threat range as they don't have entries in v3.5, or they have not been implemented by me yet, because I am either to lazy, or don't have enough time. Probably a mixture. Use your common sense to evaluate what weapons might be affected by this that may be not listed. Gotta love common sense.

Some weapons with the "high crit" trait in 4e, are actualy weapons that had a larger threat range in v3.5 Below is a list of threat ranges for most weapons, and rules for replacing the "high crit" trait with a larger threat range as well as a the rules for a "double high crit" trait.

Table

 * Some weapons have increased or decreased in HD (hit die, d6, d8 etc). For instance battle axe and warhammer have both moved up one HD, making them more powerful, but take away other effects (such as in 4e, if converted from v3.5 they should have high crit trait based on what other weapons that had 3x crit rate in v3.5). Becuase i don't want to overthink myself so my brain explodes (as below) I am only putting what I believe to be the correct conversion from v3.5 to 4e for crit ranges and the like, not taking into acount the changes of HD etc. You will understand why I'm not doing this if you read below. My brain literally exploded. Well more like got Psion Mind thrusted....heh heh... don't mind the the mind flayer in the living room....


 * Scimitar has a damage of 1d6 in v3.5 as well as rapier. Moving it up to 1d8 and giving it a high crit ability makes already pushes the boundary as to the 18-20 weapons usually get high crit, and sometimes 19-20, or at least that is the way I have noted it being converted. Because scimitar and rapier were essentialy the same except for the Type (of damage),slashing vs piercing. This makes it confusing on how to balance because adding the 18-20 crit range to the rapier is almost essentialy the same as adding the high crit trait to it if we converted it do v4 without this variable rule. The same thing happens with the scimitar, so it would be like having two high crit traits, except it is actualy getting replaced. This brings up some curious options of balanced gameplay... does this effectively make....?(heh heh spooky ending so i don't make my brain explode by thinking to much)

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