Heartseeker

[Mark_Aurel]

Originally posted by Osprey@Feb 26 2005, 06:11 PM

I don't think I'd allow Power Critical to count towards the confirmation roll in this case, either.

Why not? The feat has so few opportunities to be used, and it only affects rolls to confirm a crit, doesn't help you roll a natural 20 any more often. If the character is a specialist in landing decisive critical blows, wouldn't they also be better at driving home a killing thrust through the heart?

I'm not a big fan of the feat myself: a strong attack rating will crit more often than not, improved crit with a strong attack rating even better - the feat is SO specialized as to be mostly worthless IMO. Only once in a blue moon will the feat actually pay off (as in "without this feat the crit is not confirmed").

So using the feat with a Heartseeker blade might actually make it worthwhile.

Power Critical is overall equal to Improved Critical if you need to roll a 17 to hit. It is better if you need to roll 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, or 23 to hit. Thus, it generally gets better if you use your iterative attacks, as they tend to have worse odds of hitting. If you can only hit on a natural 20 anyway, the feats are equal in any case. Of course, if you can only hit on a natural 20, you'll probably want to use your power attack for all it's worth, if you have that.

By itself, Power Critical is overall a weaker feat than Improved Critical. However, the two feats together have an interesting synergy effect; think of it like this -- if you on average have a 50% chance of hitting, and you score 5% extra damage due critical hits, power critical will up your damage due to critical hits to 7%. That's about 57% of damage potential scored per attack. Now, if you take Improved Critical, the 5% will generally double to 10%; 60%. If you take both feats, it becomes 64%. Which means the benefit from Power Critical in absolute terms is still less than that from Improved Critical (4% versus 5%), and even less in relative terms -- but the benefit from Power Critical is essentially doubled if taken alongside Improved Critical. So, it's not a very good feat on its own, but it has very nice synergy with Improved Critical, because they affect the outcome on two different stages, and thus are effects that are essentially multiplied by each other.

Now, Weapon Specialization is a better feat than either by far -- until you get to have extremely high damage bonuses from Strength, magic, or other sources.

You're right that using the feat with Heartseeker would make it more worthwhile, though. But that could also represent a very large boost in power for a character with that particular combination, which I'm somewhat wary of. We are, after all, talking about a mechanism that allows an automatic kill here, and a substantial boost against the foes it really matters against (the ones with enough AC [and thus presumably other stats] to matter against the weapon wielder's attack). But my main concern isn't really so much that, as it being a magical effect, and I'm not entirely sure whether that should be allowed to affect it. Improved Critical doesn't, and Improved Critical does pretty much the same thing -- allow for scoring more critical hits through skill/accuracy. If you allow for one, I can't really see a good, compelling argument why the other one shouldn't also be allowed, from a verisimilitude point of view, anyway. That may be more of a point on the redundancy of the Power Critical feat itself, though.

[RaspK_FOG]

First of all, what I meant is that the Greater version might be better off if any confirmed critical that was also a killing blow might count as a bloodtheft as well.

In any case, I don't think there is any backing in us foregoing bonuses such as the one granted from Power Critical: it would be a real waste!

Furthermore, I believe that increasing the ability's market price equivalency would not be a bad idea: since D&D threw off the shackles of weapon enhancement ratings actually affecting whether you can hit an enemy effectively or not with 3.5e, I suppose that upping the ability to +6 makes such weapons even more exotic and also justifies the 18th caster level (I know, 3 times the *enhancement* bonus is the minimum caster level, but I think it suits the theme fine)!

[irdeggman]

Originally posted by Mark_Aurel@Feb 26 2005, 11:56 AM
Not sure why you're bringing up threat range; like vorpal, this effect is only supposed to happen on a nat 20. I don't think I'd allow Power Critical to count towards the confirmation roll in this case, either.

As for multiple attacks, that's contingent on being able to make a full attack in the first place, and making a full attack may actually be counterproductive if your purpose is to score this effect, as the odds of confirming a critical hit would be less on an iterative attack.

Specifically from this one. . .

Heartseeker: This special ability may be used on any weapon with a thrusting tip (most piercing and slashing weapons). If the wielder scores a critical hit with this weapon, and that hit is a killing blow, then it is always a thrust through the victim's heart. If the victim is a scion, this results in full bloodtheft.

Moderate divination and transmutation; CL 9th; Craft Magic Arms and Armor, keen edge, true strike; Price +3 bonus.


Which becomes the "logical" extrapolation of the "primary" version. As Rasp pointed out people are already "thinking" of ways to to wok this type of thing in as soon as the magic property is suggested at all. This is the way of the min-maxer and power gamer. It is also the way of those whose creative juices flow and they start to salivate at the idea of creating magic weapons.

This is one of the primary reason I think the concept is bad by design. It will "lead" to a more common tieghmavril equivalent weapon, which is something that is very contrary to the BR theme, IMO. Magic, with the exception of the powerful Realm magics wasn't supposed to bypass the the power of the blood, and the few times it did it was temporary or via exceptionally powerful spells (like 9th level in 2nd ed).

[Osprey]

This is one of the primary reason I think the concept is bad by design. It will "lead" to a more common tieghmavril equivalent weapon, which is something that is very contrary to the BR theme, IMO. Magic, with the exception of the powerful Realm magics wasn't supposed to bypass the the power of the blood, and the few times it did it was temporary or via exceptionally powerful spells (like 9th level in 2nd ed).

Stabbing someone through the heart is a completely mundane action - there is no magic about it. When that person is a scion, bloodthet occurs - a highly dramatic and magical process.
Enchanting a weapon to stab someone through the heart seems like a fairly reasonable enchantment that has nothing to do directly with blood power. It is a "guiding the blade sort of magic."

The reason I thought of this in the first place is because I imagined what an articifer from Cerilia might devise, seeing as how nobody but nobody can make tighmaevriel. Human articifers in particular might be looking for ways to somehow enhance the chances of bloodtheft.

It is because bloodtheft and tighmaevriel DO exist that a Heartseeker sort of weapon would come into being. You may be annoyed by the decreased uniqueness of tighmaevriel, but this is what real humans do: if they see something that gives them power, they try to make it, control it, use it; then others figure it out, do the same, etc. It's not pretty, no...but it's one of the reasons power-gamers tend to have somewhat persuasive arguments at times. Because they're acting like real people to a very large extent.

Anyways, it should be some comfort to realize that tighmaevriel will always remain the ultimate weapon of choice for bloodtheft. What humans can do is approximate its effects through indirect means, they can never reproduce the exact properties of bloodsilver.

Osprey

[irdeggman]

In 2nd ed canon there were approx 12 weapons total that could do the total bloodtheft thing and they were all made by the same person.

Allowing it to be common place via magic is just sad IMO. Yes it is what real humans do, try to copy something. It is also why no matter how much humans want to copy it they can't control greater magic unless they have the blood (elven or of the gods).

Having them try to copy it or want to copy it and not be able to is the true epitome of humankind. They want something that is just out of reach. It is the quest that makes it an epic and not just a fable.

I have no problem with there being an artifact level item that does this, but not a mundane - any spellcaster with the feat can make it - type of item is just not right. This isn't the Realms, it is Birthright.

Performing bloodtheft is not the same as the bloodtheft performed by using a weapon made of bloodsilver. That is what the difference is supposed to be.

If it only took a magic item to accomplish this then why didn't someone steal the Roele bloodline a long time ago? Because it wouldn't be an epic it would just be a story.

[Osprey]

I have no problem with there being an artifact level item that does this, but not a mundane - any spellcaster with the feat can make it - type of item is just not right. This isn't the Realms, it is Birthright.

Sticking with my original idea (the +5 vorpal-alternative only) does make this an essentially artifact-level item. The difference is it is not impossible for a PC to forge - a very, very advanced (near-epic) PC.

Consider the cost: +5 to the weapon's effective enhancement bonus, making it a +6 or higher weapon bonus. That's a lot of gold and xp, even worse if using the low-magic/high market price variant.

Consider the requirements: an 18th level caster with Craft Magic Arms and Armor and 3 arcane spells: True Strike, Keen Edge, and Circle of Death.

This means only 18th level or higher true mages could craft such an item.

Just how common could such a weapon be in Birthright? Even in Forgotten Realms, vorpal weapons aren't exactly standard high-level armament. They're rare to mythical as I understand it. All the rarer a Bloodseeker weapon would be in Birthright, more so than even tighmaevriel.

There might be more than one Bloodseeker (+5) made, but likely not more than a few examples in all of Cerilia.

Drop the lower variant version and things are quite balanced IMO - and tighmaevriel retains the spotlight.

Performing bloodtheft is not the same as the bloodtheft performed by using a weapon made of bloodsilver. That is what the difference is supposed to be.

Fine - the weapon makes death by piercing through the heart more common. If this form of bloodtheft is different than death by tighmaevriel, that needs to be defined in Chapter 2. I'm not certain what you're talking about here.

If it only took a magic item to accomplish this then why didn't someone steal the Roele bloodline a long time ago?

For the same reasons no one did it with a tighmaevriel weapon until Micheal challenged the Gorgon. Very rare items, those few with such an item would be unlikely to successfuly bloodtheft an Anuirean emperor.

[irdeggman]

Also almost all tighmaevral weapons are supposed in the hands of the big G.

[Osprey]

Also almost all tighmaevral weapons are supposed in the hands of the big G.

You know, I keep hearing that, but then every now and again I stumble on a mention of someone else having a tighmaevriel weapon. I've started to think that this saying, "Most tighmavriel weapons are in the Gorgon's possession," is something of a popular myth, exaggerated by time and partial truths. I'm quite certain the Gorgon possesses a nice collection of bloodsilver weapons. I'm not certain he has the majority of all of the ones in existence, and I'm skeptical that he does in fact own "most" (as in 'all but a few&#39 of the tighmaevriel weapons ever made.

[The Jew]

Partly it would come down to the fact that one would have to be suicidal to announce the possession of a tigmavriel weapon. You would have a host of assassions, adventuring parties and the Gorgon himself coming at you. Given how rare they are, their are very few who would recognize a weapon made from it. I assume no one actually knows for sure how many weapons the Gorgon has, so really this is one of those issues that is up to each DM to decide. This is just my logic, not based upon any texts.

[irdeggman]

The Gorgon owning or seeking to possess all bloodsilver weapons was a key aspect of the adventure "Seeking Bloodsilver" from Dragon magazine. Other than the actual weapon of the story (a real artifact in power) the adventure was done exceptionally well and better, IMO, than most of the other published ones.

There are indeed rumors of some bloodsilver weapons in possession of people other than the the Gorgon, but they are very few - I think there is perhaps 3 or 4 listed in other people's hands, including blood hungry - there was a list posted not that long ago about what types of weapons they were, etc. But that still can constitute that most are in the big G's hands.

Also there are only supposed to be around 12 in existance.