Improving a Dragon's DR

[Grogg of the North]

One of the things that has bugged me for a while is that while dragons get DR/X Magic, by the time you are facing a dragon with DR you almost always have a magical weapon. It kinda makes it a "why bother".

Does anyone have any suggestions on improving the damage reduction of a dragon?

Cover the entire area/adventurers in an antimagic field? Sunder their gear? Or just ignore any attempts at DR and just stomp the adventurers into a gooey paste?

 

[green slime]

I do dislike the granularity of 3.5's DR.

But you could alter / improve through various means. IIRC, Draconomicon and Dragon Magic could have spells that altered or improved the DR of the dragon, and possibly even feats (although I'm a bit foggy on that one).

You could just use DM-fiat to alter it anyway: DR20/Magic for a Wyrm or more seems really trivial for most players, unless you are some poor Bard trying to invade a dragon's quarters with your charmed low level army and assorted followers.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Dragons are indeed likely to be very good at sundering or disarming (or just flying). It is not entirely clear to me whether antimagic would suppress a dragon's DR as well.

The only by-the-book options I'm aware of for making a dragon's DR something other than /magic are in Draconomicon.
Prestige classes:
Bloodscaled Fury gains increases to DR and makes the DR /cold iron during rage.
Dragon Ascendant makes the DR epic and increases the amount of DR as well.
Hidecarved Dragon adds chaotic and later epic and increases the amount of DR.

The dragon advancement rules (also presented in the ELH and epic SRD, I believe) make the DR /epic if you advance a dragon far enough.

***

I am not immediately aware of any feats or spells that do this in Draconomicon, RotD, Dragon Magic, or anywhere else. It does strike me as something that might exist. It would also be reasonable to houserule in such options (though I wouldn't make it too easy for the dragon).

It's also worth noting that as spellcasters, dragons can cast spells that give them DR. A dragon with a Stoneskin spell requires a magic and adamantine weapon to really hurt it. If the dragon can cast cleric spells, the investiture spells (PHBII) are also interesting options, as are a variety of fiendish spells. Fey heritage feats (CM) aren't bad either. Overlapping DR can create some favorable situations, as characters commonly have a nonmagical special material backup weapon or two for DR penetration (very campaign dependent).

 

[Greenfield]

When dragons can cast spells, they cast as Sorcerers. The notes in the MM however say that they can select Divine spells for their list.

Would that include Barkskin? I can't see why not.

As an alternative, add Barbarian levels?

 

[Empirate]

[MENTION=6669384]Greenfield[/MENTION]: I assume you don't mean Barkskin (which improves NA, not DR), but Stoneskin, which is already on the Sor/Wiz list...

I always understood the DR x/magic of many powerful monsters to be more of a fluff thing. It basically says: "you need to be a PC to attack this monster". Non-heroic attacks on a dragon just won't cut it (literally). No armies of smalltimers is gonna make that work, ever, so there's a reason for desperate kings to hire adventurers, who at least have a chance of hurting the beastie at all.

Another thing DR x/magic gives the dragon is the ability to hurt other monsters with DR x/magic - kinda important, given the last paragraph!

Taken together, I'm of the opinion that a dragon's DR isn't there as an actual defense (which comes into play whenever PCs fight it), but to give i the "[*special*]" tag: dragons are monsters to be fought exclusively by heroes, not mooks. AND they're monsters that can go toe to toe with other things that have the "[*special*]" tag.

 

[frankthedm]

Yeah, even if PCs get modestly powerful allies that would normally be subjet to the DR, like say giants, all the PCs gotta do is cast a first level spell on the ally's weapons and the DR is out the window.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I've got a PC with DR/magic, which has been remarkably useful. Mob/swarm attacks are really annoying, but are rarely magic. Falling damage isn't magic. A remarkable number of monsters can't beat it. It's not useless (but against typical fighter PCs, it is).

 

[Greenfield]

@Greenfield : I assume you don't mean Barkskin (which improves NA, not DR), but Stoneskin, which is already on the Sor/Wiz list...

Yer Honor, I'd like to change my plea to "Guilty" of brain-fade. Please?

 

[Razjah]

Could you just go back to 3e's version of DR*? Something like DR 20/+3. This doesn't mess around with the DR, but it does make the PCs choose how they want their magic attacks. In 3.5 I've always seen players keep a +1 weapon and add as much magic as possible to the thing. It becomes a +1 flaming, shocking, icyburst, holy, sundering mace. If you change DR to require a more powerful enchantment (+3/+4+/5) then you can seriously bump up some of the DR capabilities.


* NOTE: I never played 3.0 so I don't know if I have it right, if this isn't the 3e method of handling DR I think it still works.

 

[the Jester]

Could you just go back to 3e's version of DR*? Something like DR 20/+3.

Towards the end of 3.5, I was experimenting with changing some DR x/magic to DR x/+2 or x/+3, etc.

This had the effect of making higher enhancement bonuses more worthwhile- otherwise, the value balance between a +1 flaming frost shock weapon and a +4 weapon was pretty off (IMHO).

I wouldn't use the 3.0 DR values (the x part), they were too high; but use the 5/10/15 or maybe 20 at epic values from 3.5 with higher enhancement bonus requirements and you're suddenly making things interesting.