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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hawken" data-source="post: 1757457" data-attributes="member: 23619">Cheiromancer said: The reason I was thinking of 3 points per + is that the +5 weapon has always been the ultimate weapon throughout 1st and 2nd edition D&D but its importance and worth having was not as great in 3rd edition and in 3.5 is almost entirely unnecessary. I kind of hold to the attitude about them in 1st and 2nd edition. If someone is lucky enough to get their hands on a +5 weapon, they shouldn't need much anything else in battle. However, I can see where making the + of a weapon reducing only 2 points is fair too. This method allows DR/? to still be a great ability even in the face of some of the most powerful weapons. Either way would be fine in my opinion, whether the + is worth 2 or 3 points of DR. I just went with 3 because that is the number I thought of when I introduced the idea into my game on the spur of the moment. Khaalis said:  The weapon's enhancement is not a bypass to DR/?. It gets absorbed by some or all of the DR. In the case of a fighter using a +1 longsword against a creature with DR 5/silver, the longsword bypasses (or reduces, the result being the same) the DR of the creature from 5 to 2. The remaining 2 points of damage reduction suck up the 1 point of damage from the enhancement bonus and the first point of damage from the weapon. Thus if the fighter doesn't have a bonus to Strength or something else adding damage, it is entirely possible that the DR could still block all the damage of the weapon (if the player rolled a 1 for damage. Weapon enhancements do not bypass DR already, they just get soaked up into it, which means that the target suffers less damage from the hit. So, the DR is doing its job and is not bypassed or ignored to the extent you think. Izerath said:   Monte's got a lot of ideas I agree with, but this doesn't happen to be one of them. According to his method, a weapon with enough +s totally disregards DR/?. I've never liked that either. Magic weapons should be able to function as a substitute for certain forms of vulnerabilities, but should not replace them. Using his example, why would anyone ever bother with silver weapons (inferior in Hardness and HP to steel, mithril or other metals) when they could have a weapon with a +2 or better bonus and never worry about needing silver again? Using my 3 point/+ method, against a werecreature with DR 15/silver, a +3 weapon gets you past 9 points of that DR, allowing a character with that +3 weapon a greater chance to injure the creature while still allowing another character with a normal, silver weapon to really dish out the damage! By Monte's example, anyone with a +2 isn't even going to be worried about the creature's defenses. I also do not agree with his adding 2 points of damage if you have the right tool with the right bonuses. Just having the right tool means you should be able to inflict normal damage (not less damage from DR), not extra damage. The /? in DR means that's what it takes to hurt the thing, it doesn't mean if you have ? + X then you hurt it more. If something is vulnerable to holy, as in DR 10/Holy, and you're using a +1 Holy whatever, you're already ignoring the DR. If you're using a +5 Holy, you're ignoring the DR and inflicting 4 more points than the +1 weapon, which is enough. If it were Monte's game, that person with the +5 Holy would be inflicting +7 damage (+5 for the enhancement, +2 for the Monte bonus). Giving players a 'free' +2 to damage is never a good idea. If they have the right tools for the job, they get to hurt the thing. They did their research and it paid off, or they were just lucky to come across what they needed.</blockquote>

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