How does Damage reduction stack?

[jabberwocky]

Say you have a character with armor of invulnerability (DR5/magic), a Mantle of Faith (DR5/evil) and a Stoneskin spell active (DR10/adamantine). Does this end up being DR 20 against normal weapons, 10 against adamantine, and 15 against magic or evil? Or doe the DRs overlap, so only DR10. If so, does the DR10 require adamantine, evil, and magic to break through? Or would it be DR10 adamantine, evil or magic? Opinions?

 

[der_kluge]

Good lord. I have no idea!

I hope that never comes up in my game!


Well, I would think they should all technically stack. So, someone would need a magic/evil/adamantine weapon to penetrate all of them.

So, if someone attacked with a +3 sword, they'd have to do more than 15 points of damage - 10 from adamantine, and 5 from evil in order to hurt the PC.

That's my best guess.

 

[Tiberius]

DR doesn't stack. You take the most favorable one for the circumstance. In your example, it would be DR 10/adamantine, unless the subject were being hit by a adamantine weapon. Then one of the other 5/whatevers would kick in. If the attacker satisfied all conditions with an unholy adamantine greataxe +3 or some such, then no DR for you.

-Tiberius

EDIT: Ah, here's the citation. Take a look at DMG 3.5 pg. 292, top of the first column.

 

[jabberwocky]

Ahha! Thanks for pointing that out. One last question - This would presumably also apply to damage reduction like the Barbarians or Dwarven Defender's? So there would be very little point in a Dwarven Defender getting Armor of Invulnerability then. Kind of sad, I wanted to have the most unkillable dwarven tank ever.

 

[Tiberius]

Ahha! Thanks for pointing that out. One last question - This would presumably also apply to damage reduction like the Barbarians or Dwarven Defender's? So there would be very little point in a Dwarven Defender getting Armor of Invulnerability then. Kind of sad, I wanted to have the most unkillable dwarven tank ever.

Yes, it also applies to the DR granted by the barbarian or dwarven defender class features (or the abomination that is the Roll With It feat, for that matter). There would still be point in giving them DR from some other source, though. If a barbarian has DR 3/- and then gets turned into a vampire (DR 10/silver and magic), he will be taking 10 points of the top of any attack that is not made with a magical silver weapon, and 3 points off of those.

-Tiberius

 

[Hackenslash]

Hmmm...I thought that...

I agree with the stacking rules on DR and they are quite clear in the DMG but I might be wrong thinking this, as I was always under the impression that the Barbarian, Dwarven Defender and other DR's that are of the type 3/- or X/- whatever, were actually the best DR's as they can not be bi-passed as they come from the inate toughness of the character or item, eg. Dwarven Adamantine Plate gives you DR 3/-. Then again, I suppose that could only be by-passed by an adamantine weapon, but then surely the DR should have been 3/Adamantine and not 3/- as it states in the DMG. I hope I have not confused the issue here but maybe some one else could clarify. Cheers !!

 

[Malachi of Kossuth]

You are correct in that DR of x/- is the best as nothing bypasses it. However, those are usually so low that it does not give a whole lot of protection.

 

[Darklone]

You are correct in that DR of x/- is the best as nothing bypasses it. However, those are usually so low that it does not give a whole lot of protection.

Well, the 3.0 Dwarven Defender hat DR 9/-..... Too much IMHO.

 

[kreynolds]

You are correct in that DR of x/- is the best as nothing bypasses it.

Not in 3.5. Check the barbarian's Damage Reduction description. Also, check Damage Reduction in the DMG.

"If a dash follows the slash then the damage reduction is effective against any attack that does not ignore damage reduction."

 

[jabberwocky]

"If a dash follows the slash then the damage reduction is effective against any attack that does not ignore damage reduction."

So by this, I assume it means things like energy attacks, touch attacks, etc, and not that any of the special materials that sometimes ignore DR also ignore DR/-. I can just see one of my players trying to say that any special material is effective, especially as they're dealing with a lot of the new, improved elementals.