Tequila Sunrise
Adventurer
I have a love-hate relationship with special materials. On the one hand, it sounds cool that silver works well against evil creatures and that mithril allows superior flexibility because of its light weight.
But in actual play, I've never been really satisfied with how it plays out. In 3e, special armor materials become the steel of the world while mundane steel armors becomes the iron -- why wouldn't anyone buy mithril, adamantine or whatever if they can? From a DM/design standpoint, this creates an awkward dynamic because it shifts stat baselines.
As a player, special weapons just feel like a way of making combat all about the weapon rather than about my character. It either feels like a nerf or just another golf club I have to lug around. As a DM, I was never sure how to equip PCs against foes with DR/silver or cold iron. I remember a passage in the 2e DMG that says that every non-caster PC should have access to an appropriate weapon, but then what's the point of the DR in the first place? Just fluff? A pet/cohort nerf? But if I don't give everyone a weapon to bypass the foe's DR, I feel like I'm intentionally screwing them. Either way, this kind of DR is yet another minor non-caster nerf, which I don't much like.
So how do you handle this stuff?
But in actual play, I've never been really satisfied with how it plays out. In 3e, special armor materials become the steel of the world while mundane steel armors becomes the iron -- why wouldn't anyone buy mithril, adamantine or whatever if they can? From a DM/design standpoint, this creates an awkward dynamic because it shifts stat baselines.
As a player, special weapons just feel like a way of making combat all about the weapon rather than about my character. It either feels like a nerf or just another golf club I have to lug around. As a DM, I was never sure how to equip PCs against foes with DR/silver or cold iron. I remember a passage in the 2e DMG that says that every non-caster PC should have access to an appropriate weapon, but then what's the point of the DR in the first place? Just fluff? A pet/cohort nerf? But if I don't give everyone a weapon to bypass the foe's DR, I feel like I'm intentionally screwing them. Either way, this kind of DR is yet another minor non-caster nerf, which I don't much like.
So how do you handle this stuff?