Material Damage Reduction and Natural Attacks

[The Souljourner]

I started playing a werebear tonight, and figured I could bypass silver damage reduction. We went up against some vampire spawn who had just that, and the DM says "nope, doesn't say that". So I look it up.... for magic, epic, and alignment DRs, it says your natural weapons count as that type for bypassing damage reduction, but it doesn't say that for the material DRs.

Is this an oversight or intentional? There's no 3.5 MM errata, so I have to guess. Is there anything I'm missing?

-The Souljourner

P.S. Werebears rock!

 

[Diirk]

Intentional

 

[reiella]

Intentional as far as I can tell, and for mostly your example given I believe.

With the logic being that creatures with magic and epic DRs have them due to an inherit magical nature. While alignment DRs are due to an "inherit" alignment trait (such as Outsider from the Outer Planes).

[ Add ]
And the alchemical types of resistance are a weakness to those alchemical materials, and the claws of the werewolf are alot less likly to Empowered with the very thing that makes them hurt .

 

[Staffan]

Actually, alignment-based DR doesn't let you penetrate alignment-based DR. Your subtype does that (which usually creates the opposite - an astral deva has DR 10/evil, but penetrates Good DR). Also, alignment DR penetration extends to any weapons you wield, while Magic/Epic penetration only covers natural weapons.

 

[The Souljourner]

I guess I'm still stuck in 3.0 where having x DR meant you could overcome x DR. I suppose that just means that most lycanthrope vs. lycanthrope battles are just really long ...unless one of them is a werebear with 38 strength, in which case, DR 10 is only of minor help

-The Souljourner

 

[Lamoni]

Snip... Also, alignment DR penetration extends to any weapons you wield, ... Snip

Where does it say this exactly? Maybe I am just misunderstanding. Are you saying that a good Paladin with a generic sword will overcome both DR X/good and DR X/Lawful? That would mean that the weapon enhancements of Holy, Unholy, Axiomatic, and Anarchic are only useful to neutral characters for overcoming DR.
Would you say that a Chaotic Evil Cleric with an Axiomatic Holy sword would overcome all alignment DR's? (although it would suffer a two level loss from doing so).

I always understood it that alignment DR penetration DID NOT extend to any weapons you wield. It only extended to natural weapons. Am I wrong?

 

[Dwarmaj]

If the paladin had the "Lawful" subtype, then any weapon he wields is treated as a Lawful weapon.

Lawful: A subtype usually applied only to outsiders native to the lawful-aligned Outer Planes. Most creatures that have this subtype also have lawful alignments; however, if their alignments change, they still retain the subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects a creature with this subtype as if the creature has a lawful alignment, no matter what its alignment actually is. The creature also suffers effects according to its actual alignment. A creature with the lawful subtype overcomes damage reduction as if its natural weapons and any weapons it wields were lawful-aligned (see Damage Reduction, above).

A human palidin would need a Lawful weapon, while someone with the "Lawful" subtype can use anyweapon.

 

[Staffan]

Where does it say this exactly? Maybe I am just misunderstanding. Are you saying that a good Paladin with a generic sword will overcome both DR X/good and DR X/Lawful?

While the paladin is Lawful and Good, he doesn't have the Lawful or Good subtypes (which generally only apply to outsiders). However, an archon wielding a weapon *does* overcome Good and Lawful DR, and a demon overcomes Chaotic and Evil DR.