Does anyone else find DR X/magic useless?

[Vrecknidj]

I understand the change in DR X/magic from 3.0 to 3.5, but, I'm curious what others have found.

Dragons, for instance, tend to get DR to magic at some point. And, at that point, it's almost impossible that the party lacks magic weapons. I'm not really sure what the point is in having DR 5/magic on a creature that's designed to fight characters with magic weapons.

So the guy in back who happens to not have a magic bow can't use it for ranged support because the arrows don't do anything. So what?

Consider a Young Adult Black Dragon (CR 9). A party facing a CR 9 critter might be 7th level or so, if this is a boss monster. I'd think the fighter or barbarian or other melee guy in the party will have at least a +1 weapon by this point. Having a +1 flaming long sword would be great against such a dragon. If the dragon had DR 5/+2 instead of DR 5/magic, it might be a tougher encounter. Maybe too tough.

Now consider a Very Old Black Dragon (CR 18). We now expect that the party is maybe 15th level on average if this is a boss monster. Maybe the party is even tougher. And, this dragon has DR 15/magic.

There is no difference whatsoever between 5/magic and 15/magic if your party has magic weapons. This dragon hasn't gotten any tougher in this respect. At all. Sure, he's less likely to be taken down by a well-defended city with non-magic siege weapons. But, that doesn't really seem to get at much in the way the game is usually played.

There is a relic from the 3.0 days. DR X/epic is the same as DR x/+6. So, I don't see why we can't find a remedy for everything in between. Currently, there's DR 5/+1, DR 20/+1, DR 5/+6 and DR 20/+6 and quite a few in between. But, there's no DR 5/+3, for instance.

Just curious what others have done.

Dave

 

[Quartz]

ISTM that the point of DR X/Magic is to remove or lessen the issue of mooks. You take your CR 9 Black Dragon and remove his DR, then a company of first level archers could take him down, whereas with DR 5/magic, he's only going to be hurt by the very rare critical hit.

BTW DR X/Epic is not the same as DR X/+6 - you can create weapons of a lower plus whjich are Epic, like a +5 Holy Avenger of Defending.

 

[Voadam]

Summoned creatures outside of celestial/fiendish often can't bypass dr/magic.

Wildshaped druids often can't without casting magic fang.

Polymorphed characters often can't bypass it.

So not useless, but far less useful than most DR types when facing PCs.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

DR X/magic isn't totally useless, but I still prefer the old DR X/+X. A big reason is that it gives players a reason to add magic bonuses to their weapons rather than yet another flaming or whatever enchantment.

 

[Nifft]

Some of the better summoned critters don't have magic attacks -- Elementals in particular.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Flynn]

Monte Cook talks about it briefly here:
http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?otherd20_damage_reduction

His only comments specifically towards your particular issue occur in the next to last paragraph, IIRC.

Hope this helps,
Flynn

 

[robberbaron]

Not totally useless (had one of the main fighters doing half his normal damage to a dragon as he had broken his magical weapon) but nearly so.

Not as useless as Ki Strike: Lawful, though.

 

[Kerrick]

There was a rule floating around some time back that went something like this:

The person used the old DR rules (10/+2, e.g.). If you have a magic weapon of a lesser enchantment (+1), then each plus negates 5 points of DR - so a fighter using a +1 sword against a creature with DR 10/+2 would bypass 5 points of it. He coulid still hurt it, but it would still provide a challenge for him to kill.

I personally really like this rule, and it'd be fairly simple to apply DR - simply mutiply the enhancement bonus by 5 - DR 5/+1, 10/+2, 15/+3, etc., and then special cases would be 10/+1 or whatever - boss monsters, some spells, or rare armor.

ISTM that the point of DR X/Magic is to remove or lessen the issue of mooks. You take your CR 9 Black Dragon and remove his DR, then a company of first level archers could take him down, whereas with DR 5/magic, he's only going to be hurt by the very rare critical hit.

Disregarding the fact they'd only HIT him on a rare crit (AC 24), longbows deal 1d8/x3 - there's a good chance they'd do some amount of damage, even on a normal hit.

BTW DR X/Epic is not the same as DR X/+6 - you can create weapons of a lower plus whjich are Epic, like a +5 Holy Avenger of Defending.

Actually it is - check the ELH. The +5 holy avenger of defending is an epic weapon, yes, and receives the epic pricing, but it can't bypass epic DR.

 

[Quartz]

Actually it is - check the ELH. The +5 holy avenger of defending is an epic weapon, yes, and receives the epic pricing, but it can't bypass epic DR.

I see no mention of that in the SRD. Can you provide a cite?

 

[Flynn]

I see no mention of that in the SRD. Can you provide a cite?

Under Damage Reduction:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#damageReduction

A few very powerful monsters are vulnerable only to epic weapons; that is, magic weapons with at least a +6 enhancement bonus. Such creatures’ natural weapons are also treated as epic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Hope this helps,
Flynn