Power Critical?

[Darkfangs]

I understand that Improved Critical doubles your chance to crit with a weapon, but what is this Power Critical thing, what does it do, and is it worth the feat?

[Echelon13]

Power Critical adds +4 to your Critical Threat roll, which basically means you'll roll higher when checking to see if you score a critical hit; Which, in turn, means you'll probably score critical hits more often than normal.

[lord_kelthuzad]

To understand how power critical works, you must first learn how a simple attack roll is made.
let's take an example:
You have a long sword (1d8 19-20x2). When you roll 19 or 20, you reach the threat range. That means that your attack is POTENTIALLY critical.
To confirme the critical hit, you have to make a second roll that must bypass the target 's AC. If you don't confirm the critical, you score a normal hit.

Now the difference between improved critical and power critical:
- improved critical double the threat range. that means that your strike may become critical if you score a 17 or more. but you still have to confirm the crit.
- power critical gives you a bonus at your attack roll to confirm the critical hit (+4 if I remember well).

Was that clear ?

[Darkfangs]

Oh. So it only affects the confirmation roll, not the check to see whether you start the crit procedure?

[Kroax]

You got the picture Darkfangs.

[Darkfangs]

That's about what I thought. I just wanted to confirm at a +4 for checking with you guys. :P

Thanks for the help!

[Zoberraz]

+4 on the confirmation check might not all like all that much since dealing a critical hit threat generally means that you already hit the target and thus score damage anyways, but consider this.

Critical hits are essentially damage multipliers, which means that when you critical with a greataxe, it counts like the damage from 3 axe swings and thus you end the fight 2 'hits' earlier than you originally would've have had.

Critical hits have the added bonus of dealing that damage all in one package, allowing for more damage to penetrate past damage reduction (such as that given by a stoneskin spell).

You might think that your fighter's base attack is high enough for allowing to succeed on the threat roll, but your first iterative attack is not the only one to possibly deal a critical hit. A level 15 fighter can do a critical hit on all 3 of his attack provided the dice roll meets the threat range (19-20 for a longsword) and actually hits the enemy - however, the two other attacks at +10 and +5 have understandably much lower chances of confirming a critical than the first attack in the 'round'.

This is where power critical starts paying off. The more attacks you have, the more critical threat opportunities you may have, but never become aware of because the confirmation roll just doesn't make the cut.

(those dual wielding characters with two kukris with improved critical and power critical invested in them know what they are doing for they could end up performing 7 attacks which could critical to effectively become the equivalent of 14 attacks - this can hurt a lot, though it's only marginally successful against damage reduction due to the low damage output from kukris and the way strength bonuses behave with single weapons versus two-handed weapons)

This is also quite valuable in confirming criticals against a high AC targets with your main attack. One such good example are the dragons; they have extremely high AC, so, your first attack might not have really good chances to hit while the rest of your attacks have only remote chances of even coming close. The high roll you'd need to hit the dragon could qualify as a critical hit anyways, so, you'd get your opportunity for a confirmation roll - getting your confirmation roll in can make the difference you need to prevail.

[Giant Moth]

Well personaly I'm not too much a fan of Power Criticals. I'd rather put my feats in weapon spec, and mproved weapon spec, that's 2 feats with a +2 bonus that goes for every attack, while power critical is one feat that goes only on crits.

D&D is built in the way(it's sort of broken) that after a while, AC becomes redundant. There's a few tricks in NWN that makes you get higher, like ac bonus to tumble, the stacking of certain things that dosn't stack in the normal rules(I think these are still there in NWN2). So it's not too much a bother.

[Anauroch]

D&D is built in the way(it's sort of broken) that after a while, AC becomes redundant.

Like you said, it's quite different in NWN2...

ACs in the mid to high 30ies can be quite common. Weapon spec will only kick in when you actually hit. Granted, WF and GWF will help to hit, but with WS and GWS you have just spent four feats!

If only high rolls hit with your weapon (especially on your weaker attacks), then the Power Critical feat can make sure they really strike true.

Sure, it's more a 'nice-to-have' than a 'must'... it depends on what you like to play - and what kind of weapon you use, too.

[Fobic]

Power critical is really at it's best when you are fighting someone or something with stoneskin/premonition or mirror image, since a critical hit bypasses them all.

[Cheatcake]

A critical bypasses stoneskin and premonition? Since when?

[Ithildur]

Doesn't actually bypass it, but a crit that would do say 30 dmg normally will do 20 vs normal stoneskin, as opposed to if the same dmg roll would have been non critted, it'd be 15, 10 blocked by stoneskin, so 20 dmg vs 5 dmg, yeah, it'll seem like it's effectively 'bypassing' stoneskin.

[Cheatcake]

Yeah, summing up to meaning it's affected by the spell like any other hit

[Ithildur]

Yeah, summing up to meaning it's affected by the spell like any other hit

In a word, yes. <<<<<<-------!!!!

[Anauroch]

This is the third most used smiley just because of you Cheatcake!