Damage Reduction and Spells

[Yokiboy]

Are spells affected by Damage Reduction or are they covered only by Spell Resistance?

I recently put my party up against a group of creatures with DR, SR and Fire, Acid, and Cold Resistance. How would you handle, for instance, a fireball against said creatures? Would you first roll to beat the SR, then deduct the Fire Resistance and finally the DR?

TTFN,

Yokiboy

 

[Crothian]

Dr is only against physical attacks. So a fireball only has to first get through SR and then apply resistance to the damage.

 

[Diirk]

Are spells affected by Damage Reduction or are they covered only by Spell Resistance?

I recently put my party up against a group of creatures with DR, SR and Fire, Acid, and Cold Resistance. How would you handle, for instance, a fireball against said creatures? Would you first roll to beat the SR, then deduct the Fire Resistance and finally the DR?

TTFN,

Yokiboy

DR is just for melee, you'd roll to beat the SR, then deduct the fire resistance... energy resistance is the DR for spells

 

[Flyspeck23]

DR will only help against (natural or manufactured) weapons, not against spells.

 

[jgsugden]

DR is only for physical damage. You apply it to weapon damage (missile, melee, natural, etc ...), falling damage and other damages created by physical impacts.

As a house rule, you might want to consider applying it to the physical damage of spell effects that work like nonmagical weapon attacks. For instance, some of the damage from an ice storm is bludgeoning damage. Under normal rules, that damage is not subject to DR, but it makes sense in the eyes of many DMs to apply DR to that damage. Or, some DMs might apply it to the damage from blade barrier ...