Revised DR Lovefest

[orangefruitbat]

I'm very excited about the changes to DR. I'm hearing a lot of complaining, but consider the following scenario.

The party has discovered that the local killings in the village were likely caused by a lycanthrope. The bard then recites an ancient poem about how werewolves are vunerable to silver. The halfling rogue pipes in that we could "borrow" the silver candlesticks we saw at the mayor's house, and have our dwarven weapon smith forge weapons for us. Then the player of the dwarf goes, "na, I've already got a +1 weapon". Cool adventure development killed by bland rules.

Lots of stories have the heros requiring special weapons or materials to kill a particular foe. And tracking those down makes the encounter more memorable than just wacking it with a magical blade.

 

[Kai Lord]

Yep. I'm all for the DR revisions. Awesome, awesome potential for much more dramatic encounters with those creatures, and, like you said, some really cool build-up in advance.

 

[Terraism]

I'm with you too. And, what's important, is that you can still damage the suckers with enchanted weapons - they just have the damage reduced. That's the point, after all - so if the player's are annoyed, they've still got the dwarves +1 weapon...

 

[shilsen]

Same here. I'm reserving judgement until the books come out, but this looks like a change I'm going to like. This change allows for both the added roleplaying/drama of seeking the appropriate weapons for the opponent, as well as the drama of being able to survive, if hampered somewhat, when surprised by a creature with DR that you cannot penetrate (since you will still cause some damage). In the current rules, it's all or nothing. Against something like 20/+3 DR, a +2 weapon is completely useless, whereas a +3 weapon totally negates it.

 

[Terraism]

In the current rules, it's all or nothing. Against something like 20/+3 DR, a +2 weapon is completely useless, whereas a +3 weapon totally negates it.

I agree with you on this to a point - however, assuming you've got a +2 weapon, and about average level for having such a weapon - I'd say 5-7 - then you can easilly deal 20 points of damage from one attack. So, no, not completely useless.

 

[Oni]

Is anyone worried this might widen an existing gap between wizards and fighters in terms of their ability to deal with DR?


[edit: house-rulesy type thought. What if you just gave creatures DR 25/- for instance. Then every +1 on a weapon actually lowered the DR by 5.]

 

[Wormwood]

Is anyone worried this might widen an existing gap between wizards and fighters in terms of their ability to deal with DR?

Not really, it just may make combats last a round or two longer.

 

[Fenes 2]

I am about as worried about the possibility of a wider gap between wizard and fighters concerning DR-penettration as I am about the possibility of a wizard nerf due to changes to haste... not at all. In the end, it is the DM who decides how effective a PC is, not the rules. If the DM constantly brings in SR-creatures with paper-AC the new DR will have no effect, and if the party is always facing dr 15/- creatures with no resistances the wizard will dominate, haste or no haste.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I agree with you on this to a point - however, assuming you've got a +2 weapon, and about average level for having such a weapon - I'd say 5-7 - then you can easilly deal 20 points of damage from one attack. So, no, not completely useless.

Furthermore, once you have a +2 weapon, it is a very minor advantage to grab a Masterwork silver sword to go after the werewolf.

 

[shilsen]

I agree with you on this to a point - however, assuming you've got a +2 weapon, and about average level for having such a weapon - I'd say 5-7 - then you can easilly deal 20 points of damage from one attack. So, no, not completely useless.

True. So let's make that "almost" completely useless.