Revised DR

[Shalewind]

And how long until will will have to re-purchase the MMII, Fiend Folio, MotP, PsyHB, Splatbooks, Savage Species, FR materials, and etc. because they now will have so much errata that a revised version of all of them now be "neccesay" as well.

I don't think that will be needed. Most of the needed Splatbook material is being put into the revised editions. SS and FF are both suppose to be forward compatible (as is the Equipment guide). I don't see anything in MotP that could possibly need to be redone.

MMII, maybe...

And as they have just said: "Psionics handbook - "cannot say whether it will be revised" (It might not have been with this book, but they did comment a couple of times that they could only discuss items which were already "announced" in their catalog.)"

and...

"No plans to republish older products, and in fact, should not need to. Some tweaks will be necessary to use the Builder Books and other older products, but nothing fundamental."

I think the idea behind the revision was that no books would need to be bought besides the core 3. I don't buy into the whole (this is just to make money) theory. This doesn't mean I agree or disagree with DR though.

 

[drnuncheon]

If you use either of the first two options, it really doesn't matter what kind of DR the monster had in the first place. You are ensuring that the PCs will always be able to penetrate any DR they encounter, so why should they care about special materials at all?

You compress a lot into "hint that they should get some" and ignore the possibilities when you do so. How do you hint? Well, you could say "As your DM, I advise you to buy silver weapons", but that would be lame. Perhaps more subtlety is in order.

I'm assuming that this gigantic demon isn't going to be a wandering encounter. So you put in little clues. You hint to the players that they'll be fighting the terrible Nastyus demon. Somewhere else you've placed a legend that talks about a mighty hero whose blade was turned aside by the Nastyus demon's hide, even though it was powerfully ensorcelled. You know where there's a sage who's an expert on demonology who could help them.

If your players blithely ignore all of this and march in with their +3 weapons at the ready, you trounce them and hope they know when to flee, just as if they walked into an ambush.

If, however, they're smart, and they do their research, and they figure out that the Nastyus demon can be hurt by the wood of the holly bush, then it's a heck of a lot more interesting - your players feel good because they solved a puzzle and it helped them out, you feel good because you got to use the Nastyus demon, and everybody has a lot more fun than just saying "a demon? Well, break out the greater magic weapon spells..."

J

 

[AuraSeer]

...all of which is just another "Hunt the McGuffin" adventure, which any half-decent DM could invent in his sleep, whether or not the new DR rules were ever conceived.

...and which would be entirely unnecessary if the players happened to buy silver weapons at the local blacksmith before setting out. (I know if I I had to play through a long multi-stage quest to learn a monster's weakness, only to find out that I was carrying an appropriate weapon the whole time, I'd consider that a huge waste of my time.)

 

[Brown Jenkin]

I don't think that will be needed. Most of the needed Splatbook material is being put into the revised editions. SS and FF are both suppose to be forward compatible (as is the Equipment guide). I don't see anything in MotP that could possibly need to be redone.

MMII, maybe...

And as they have just said: "Psionics handbook - "cannot say whether it will be revised" (It might not have been with this book, but they did comment a couple of times that they could only discuss items which were already "announced" in their catalog.)"

and...

"No plans to republish older products, and in fact, should not need to. Some tweaks will be necessary to use the Builder Books and other older products, but nothing fundamental."

I think the idea behind the revision was that no books would need to be bought besides the core 3. I don't buy into the whole (this is just to make money) theory. This doesn't mean I agree or disagree with DR though.

And they said 3.5 would be 100% backwards compatable, and they said Mastertools would be released 1 year after the PHB was released, and they said there would be a patch shortly for e-tools. I no longer believe what they say, I now wait for thier actions.

Originally posted by WotC's Rich Baker on "forwards-compatibility"
-- "Races of Faerun and Unapproachable East will be somewhat "forward-compatible" to 3.5, in that we've taken steps to incorporate some of the most "topic-sensitive" 3.5 changes in those books. For example, the lycanthrope is changing significantly in the upcoming Revised Monster Manual, so Races of Faerun anticipates those changes in its Lycanthrope section. (In that specific instance, we summarize the new rules for the lycanthrope template, so you can see what's going on with the race. Other changes are a lot more "transparent," and don't require explanation.) The first designed-from-the-ground-up 3.5 Realms product will be coming out toward the end of this year. We're working on it right now. 'Fraid I can't say more than that right at the moment."

So according to this Savage Species and Fiend Folio are not forward compatable. MII and BoVD certainly are not, and PsHB is being hintted already that it might be revised. MotP has many races, spells and PrCs. Only parts of the Splatbooks are being reprinted (the most popular PrCs and feats). Enimies and Allies will be all wrong. Creatures of Faerun will be hit hard as well as Magic of Faerun. The FRCS will have many problems. At least the Hero Builders Guidebook and the Stronghold Builders Guidebook will be OK. If they do start reissueing revised versions of all of these I don't want to hear any complaints from those who are praising 3.5 now.

 

[IceBear]

Following this argument to its conclusion removes the entire point of having special materials in the first place.

Say you, as DM, read about a new gigantic demon. It would fit perfectly into your campaign plans, and you want to use it, but it has DR x/silver. The party has no silver weapons, and you judge that if they can't penetrate its DR, they won't be able to defeat it.

You have four possible choices:
1) Let the party "randomly" find silver weapons (or hint that they need to buy some).
2) Change the monster's DR to something the PCs can penetrate.
3) Don't use the monster, even though it would be the perfect fit for a certain situation.
4) Use the monster as is, even though it will cause a TPK.

If you use either of the first two options, it really doesn't matter what kind of DR the monster had in the first place. You are ensuring that the PCs will always be able to penetrate any DR they encounter, so why should they care about special materials at all?

Using either of the last two options is even worse, since you're allowing a minor rule to actually harm your campaign. A decent DM never allows that.

Question - what do you do now if the monster is DR30/+3 and the players only have +2 weapons and no access to GMW? Isn't it the point of the new DR system that even if they don't have the right weapons they could still, eventually, defeat the creature - it just would take a lot longer?

I'm not saying I'm a big fan of the new system, it's just you seem to be saying you have 4 options - none of which are any good, but those 4 options would exisit today too.

IceBear

 

[Trine]

What you quoted from Richard Baker was from the Realms mailing list. Why would he mention non-Realms products on the Realms mailing list? There are better places than that. Not mentioning them in saying they are somewhat forward compatible does not mean that they won't be.

 

[Kraedin]

I think I'll buy a +5 holy, silvered, cold iron, heavy mace.

 

[Petrosian]

FWIW...

my disagreement, strongly voiced disagreement, with some of the decisions released for 3.5e (specifically the new haste and new designer-dr) should not be misunderstood as being against 3.5e in general.

I think its a very good idea to do 3.5e and believe the notions of how it should contain and be limited to "revision" and not "new edition" and done so as not to require the new repritns of everything else.

I personally find the new designer-dr, if taken as an example, to be exemplary of a change not fitting firmly within this goal as well as i would have hoped.

I wont be implementing 3.5e for my current campaign, so it wont be an impact of any real significance to me... i will just have to adjust any published materials back to my own 3.1e campaign. Since i always tweak things anyway, thats not a problem.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Question - what do you do now if the monster is DR30/+3 and the players only have +2 weapons and no access to GMW? Isn't it the point of the new DR system that even if they don't have the right weapons they could still, eventually, defeat the creature - it just would take a lot longer?

I'm not saying I'm a big fan of the new system, it's just you seem to be saying you have 4 options - none of which are any good, but those 4 options would exisit today too.

IceBear

I think the idea is with only 1 DR penetrating thing to worry about, it's a lot easier for the party to have it. And as a general rule if you are powerful enough to face the CR, you will usually have access to the level of + necessary to penetrate the DR. Where as with the need swords made of calcified butter DR system parties who normally are of the right powerlevel to tackle the CR, aren't much more likley to have the right equipment than too weak parties, or parties that outclass the CR. IOW with multiple DR types the party is less likely to have the needed item unless they play smart and buy the golf bag.

 

[IceBear]

I think the idea is with only 1 DR penetrating thing to worry about, it's a lot easier for the party to have it. And as a general rule if you are powerful enough to face the CR, you will usually have access to the level of + necessary to penetrate the DR. Where as with the need swords made of calcified butter DR system parties who normally are of the right powerlevel to tackle the CR, aren't much more likley to have the right equipment than too weak parties, or parties that outclass the CR. IOW with multiple DR types the party is less likely to have the needed item unless they play smart and buy the golf bag.

Understood about the golfbag - which is why I'm not thrilled about it. The thing was AuraSeer mentioned a scenario in which a DM wanted to use Monster X, but Monster X had a DR that the party could not, currently, overcome. He then listed 4 ways to deal with this and, more or less, said that to do any of them was bad. My question was, what is his fifth option (assuming one exisits) as that same scenario could occur with 3.0E. I understand that this scenario would be more likely to occur with the DR in 3.5, but I still think it could happen now and since all 4 options are bad, what's the good one?

IceBear