[3.5] Damage Reduction & Andy Collins

[MerricB]

From Andy's messageboards:

There are only 3 special materials supported by the core rules as far as DR goes. This is to prevent the system from simply being a "screw" to the players--this way, they can do a little research and know what to bring along, or even just make sure that the party has a range of options.

Silver: the classic. Hurts werewolves and weaker devils.

Cold iron: long overlooked in D&D, this has plenty of legendary backing. Hurts fey (and some feylike creatures, such as eladrin) and weaker demons.

Adamantine: hurts golems and stoneskinned PCs.

I don't think you'll see much, if anything, added to this list in core D&D products. If I were adding a new special weapon material to the game, I'd probably figure out a way to "link" it to one of those above (for instance, you could say that "baatorian green steel" is the equivalent of cold iron for DR purposes), rather than leaving it out of the system entirely or making up a whole new category.

Andy Collins
Senior Designer
Wizards of the Coast Roleplaying R&D

So, do we still need a golfbag of weapons? Certainly this doesn't include the aligned-properties of DR, but it might allay some fears about needing 30 weapons with you...

Cheers!

 

[Kai Lord]

Sounds cool to me. My guess is the alignment based weapons that penetrate DR simply overlap with the materials above.

 

[Kraedin]

When they say "silver" weapon, do they mean a weapon actually made out of silver, or a normal weapon that's silver-plated?

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I think the assumption is that the weapon is plated with silver, not made of pure silver. Pure silver'd probably work, too, but I'd imagine that it wouldn't be all that durable. Of course, I could be (and likely am) wrong about the durability of pure silver weapons and the rest of this, for that matter....

Best,
tKL

 

[Sejs]

in most games, the weapon's striking surface needs to be mostly silver, rather than just silver-plated.

or silver foiled.

Which is a shame, because it's taking out all the "I waste the demon with my holy silver-foiled baseball card!" jokes before we can even make 'em.

edit: forgot a word

 

[Brekki]

In "magic of faerun" the rules for silver and gold weapons are stated ... for silver it's simple ... it has to be magical, otherwise it's to weak, and you add 2000 gp to the cost.

 

[Celtavian]

re

Its good to hear they are only going to have three materials. Probably going to do away with adamantine myself and just make certain creatures with impenetrable DR.

I am concerned about the alignment DR. My friend brought up an interesting question concering the alignment DR: What if your entire party is chaotic say like a group of Chaotic Good elves?

A Chaotic party generally won't have access to lawful spells because Chaotic priests are prohibited from casting spells that oppose their alignment. A Chaotic party will not be able to use weapons with the Lawful property. Does this mean that a Chaotic party will have little chance of defeating a titan? or Lawful party have no chance of defeating a powerful creature with #/Chaotic damage reduction?

I hope they address this issue or it could cause trouble and make true neutral the alignment of choice for priests and parties.

 

[Fenes 2]

Re: re

A Chaotic party generally won't have access to lawful spells because Chaotic priests are prohibited from casting spells that oppose their alignment. A Chaotic party will not be able to use weapons with the Lawful property. Does this mean that a Chaotic party will have little chance of defeating a titan? or Lawful party have no chance of defeating a powerful creature with #/Chaotic damage reduction?

Again, just because you cannot ignore the DR does not mean you cannot hurt the creature in question - it will just be more difficult and take longer. DR tops out around 15, not at all invulnerable, especially not to high-level melee fighters.

I don't see any problem at all.

 

[gfunk]

With the revised Pit Fiend Holysilver was mentioned. Is this just a silver weapon that has been blessed?

 

[Brekki]

I think blessed is not enough. A holy (+2 weapon ability), or "holy weapon", the paladin spell seems necessary.