Does the damage reduction in PHB II in some places seem backwards or of limited use to anybody else?
I understand the basic concept that the item after the slash represents an inherent (pseudo-historical) weakness, so that silver for lycanthropes, cold iron for fey, (relatively) overpowering differing elements for elementals, opposite alignments for devils, demons, celestials, etc.
But why would spells have a DR that fails to exactly the thing you're probably facing and need it against? The Invest [] Protection spells for instance have a DR #/evil, but it is exactly against evil that you probably need the DR most. The more sensible thing for good casters would seem to be to have a DR that failed against anything non-evil instead; maybe I'm supposed to read it as DR # vs evil?
Only thing I can reason is that it was meant to be a tradeoff to bring the spell level down, but the non DR portions of the spells don't seem so out of whack to the spell level, at least to me, and the "in addition" portion of the description certainly makes it seem to be intended as a bonus.
It hit me strongest with these particular spells, although I remember getting the same uneasy/backward feeling earlier in the book so other spells or maybe class special abilities. Wondering what other people thought.
I understand the basic concept that the item after the slash represents an inherent (pseudo-historical) weakness, so that silver for lycanthropes, cold iron for fey, (relatively) overpowering differing elements for elementals, opposite alignments for devils, demons, celestials, etc.
But why would spells have a DR that fails to exactly the thing you're probably facing and need it against? The Invest [] Protection spells for instance have a DR #/evil, but it is exactly against evil that you probably need the DR most. The more sensible thing for good casters would seem to be to have a DR that failed against anything non-evil instead; maybe I'm supposed to read it as DR # vs evil?
Only thing I can reason is that it was meant to be a tradeoff to bring the spell level down, but the non DR portions of the spells don't seem so out of whack to the spell level, at least to me, and the "in addition" portion of the description certainly makes it seem to be intended as a bonus.
It hit me strongest with these particular spells, although I remember getting the same uneasy/backward feeling earlier in the book so other spells or maybe class special abilities. Wondering what other people thought.