Revised DR
- Thread starter IceBear
- Start date
Andy_Collins
First Post
The original poster shared only half the significance of the change.
The change from a strict hierarchy to a single specific quality, damage type, or material of the weapon (or in very rare cases, a combination of two) is indeed an attempt to recapture the "flavor" of damage reduction: werewolves are resistant to non-silver weapons, fey are most vulnerable to cold iron, skeletons are resistant to piercing & slashing weapons, demons are vulnerable to good-aligned weapons, and so on. As a number of people have pointed out, it's lame that all the flavor of the "special material" DR is completely lost once the party has +1 weapons at hand (or even ready access to the magic weapon spell). And the hierarchy of pluses introduces the ugly metagame element of characters rating weapons (and monsters) by plus rather than by the actual qualities of the weapon (magic, silver, piercing, holy, whatever).
But the second half is what keeps this from being a hose-job to the fighters. That's the fact that DR *values* are going down, almost across the board. As I shared at Winter Fantasy, the vast majority of monsters will have DR 5 or 10 (a few, such as the mighty pit fiend, creep up to 15). That means that the fighter who doesn't have the right weapon can still dish out damage to a DR monster, just not as much. (Can you say Power Attack?)
This second part comes about because, despite R&D's best efforts to create a wholly new DR system for 3.0, the fact that there were monsters with DR 20, 30, or even 50 made the system work just like it did in previous editions, which is to say, "If you don't have a weapon this good, don't bother fighting." I mean, come on, does anyone even *try* to fight an iron golem (DR 50/+3) without a +3 weapon? It might as well just say "immune to damage from weapons less than +3" and in 99% of the cases, it'd be exactly the same.
I've been using this system in my home game for a few months now, and after some initial adjustments by the characters (such as buying extra arrows, or swapping a normal weapon for a special-material weapon, or just buying a secondary melee weapon), the players have taken to it really well. The "bypass mechanics" have generally proven very intuitive to players, meaning that they quickly figure out from context clues what they need to fight particular monsters (though I'm looking forward to their first fight with a lich...)
The change from a strict hierarchy to a single specific quality, damage type, or material of the weapon (or in very rare cases, a combination of two) is indeed an attempt to recapture the "flavor" of damage reduction: werewolves are resistant to non-silver weapons, fey are most vulnerable to cold iron, skeletons are resistant to piercing & slashing weapons, demons are vulnerable to good-aligned weapons, and so on. As a number of people have pointed out, it's lame that all the flavor of the "special material" DR is completely lost once the party has +1 weapons at hand (or even ready access to the magic weapon spell). And the hierarchy of pluses introduces the ugly metagame element of characters rating weapons (and monsters) by plus rather than by the actual qualities of the weapon (magic, silver, piercing, holy, whatever).
But the second half is what keeps this from being a hose-job to the fighters. That's the fact that DR *values* are going down, almost across the board. As I shared at Winter Fantasy, the vast majority of monsters will have DR 5 or 10 (a few, such as the mighty pit fiend, creep up to 15). That means that the fighter who doesn't have the right weapon can still dish out damage to a DR monster, just not as much. (Can you say Power Attack?)
This second part comes about because, despite R&D's best efforts to create a wholly new DR system for 3.0, the fact that there were monsters with DR 20, 30, or even 50 made the system work just like it did in previous editions, which is to say, "If you don't have a weapon this good, don't bother fighting." I mean, come on, does anyone even *try* to fight an iron golem (DR 50/+3) without a +3 weapon? It might as well just say "immune to damage from weapons less than +3" and in 99% of the cases, it'd be exactly the same.
I've been using this system in my home game for a few months now, and after some initial adjustments by the characters (such as buying extra arrows, or swapping a normal weapon for a special-material weapon, or just buying a secondary melee weapon), the players have taken to it really well. The "bypass mechanics" have generally proven very intuitive to players, meaning that they quickly figure out from context clues what they need to fight particular monsters (though I'm looking forward to their first fight with a lich...)
Andy, can you tell us anything on how many different types of special materials there are going to be? I can see the change being a good thing, eg reducing the utility of GMW, and making life more difficult for machinegun archers. If there's too many types, though, then that just introduces metagaming of a different sort (see the "golf-bag o' weapons" comment previously).
Brown Jenkin
First Post
Sorry Andy,
While most changes pre-released so far seem like good ideas the changes to material DRs seems like an ill-considered change. This goes against the 3E motto of simpler and instead harkens back to why I quit at 2nd edition, unneeded added complexity. Of all the other changes I have seen and heard people pointing out the flaws that are now being addressed, but not this one. It seams to me to that this was added because one or two individuals in the revision proccess wanted it for thier own campaign. Are the benefits from this reworking worth the consequences of incompatability and complexity, I personally feel not and am irritated at the fundemental nature of it making it hard to Rule 0.
While most changes pre-released so far seem like good ideas the changes to material DRs seems like an ill-considered change. This goes against the 3E motto of simpler and instead harkens back to why I quit at 2nd edition, unneeded added complexity. Of all the other changes I have seen and heard people pointing out the flaws that are now being addressed, but not this one. It seams to me to that this was added because one or two individuals in the revision proccess wanted it for thier own campaign. Are the benefits from this reworking worth the consequences of incompatability and complexity, I personally feel not and am irritated at the fundemental nature of it making it hard to Rule 0.
Thoughts on DR from a rules prespective:
DR:50/+3 is easy to understand. Easy is good. Simple is good.
Thoughts from a 2e gamer playing 3rd:
Wow the werewolf sucked, whats with that? Aren't they unkillable except by silver weapons, I just wacked it with this newb magic sword we found and it died. What's with that.
Throughts from a DM prespective:
Ooo, it's, umm, some sort of, uhh, round eye thing with lots of little arms, yeah, and it smells like cheese. Will my poor foolish PC's guess that it has 1000/cheese DR? Either way, I have them now!!
DR:50/+3 is easy to understand. Easy is good. Simple is good.
Thoughts from a 2e gamer playing 3rd:
Wow the werewolf sucked, whats with that? Aren't they unkillable except by silver weapons, I just wacked it with this newb magic sword we found and it died. What's with that.
Throughts from a DM prespective:
Ooo, it's, umm, some sort of, uhh, round eye thing with lots of little arms, yeah, and it smells like cheese. Will my poor foolish PC's guess that it has 1000/cheese DR? Either way, I have them now!!
