Revised DR

[Andion Isurand]

how do natural attacks get affected by this new DR?

 

[Grog]

Personally I would rule that any such golfbag thinking by the fighter is metagaming, and metagaming has a habit of getting the whole party in trouble.

It's not metagaming. It's common sense.

In a fantasy world, people are going to know that things like werewolves exist and they are going to know that you need silver weapons to hurt them. So even adventurers who don't expect to run into werewolves will probably get themselves some silver weapons just in case.

It is common sense to plan ahead and be prepared.

If your players were going on a journey in the wilderness that they expected to take two weeks, and they decided to take four weeks worth of food with them in case they got lost, would you accuse them of metagaming?

The golf bag is exactly the same concept. It is being prepared for potential complications.

Everyone that supports the golfbag theory seems to think that every fighter is some conscientious really reliable person who has a checklist of things to bring before going to the dungeon. What about the "slow" barbarian? Or the over-zealous (and overlooking) paladin? These *characters* wouldnt think to buy every weapon under the sun, even if their more paranoid players might.

You're right. And you know what? The new DR rules punish those types of characters. They punish players who roleplay in-character reasons for not acquiring a golf bag of weapons. In short, the new DR rules punish good roleplaying, rather than encouraging it.

And anyway, all we're talking about here is delaying the aquisition of a golf bag. Because, after enough run-ins with creatures his weapon can't hurt, even the slowest barbarian is going to get it eventually. Assuming he survives long enough, that is.

Just as people found ways around old DR, so will people find ways around new DR, have no fear. I like to think these golfbag theories will never come to pass and one day I will make a post titled "Remember when we thought there would be golfbags on every fighter?".

You may be right, but I really doubt this will come to pass.

 

[Grog]

If you notice my statement relies on the DM understanding how the encounter should work... if the DM does not understand how to use DR (meaning he/she throws them in with out thinking of the consequences) then yes your are right the party will be screwed or the fighter will be made 'useless'. The point of DR is to make the players think twice before attacking that loan wolf… not kill them. If your DM uses them to try to kill you then I guess you need to find a new DM... ether way I think if it is used the way it is intended the new DR will make a great addition to the game.

The actions some DMs may or may not take really have no bearing on whether or not this is a good rule change. Sure, if you have a good DM you'll probably be fine - but that will be in spite of the new rule, not because of it.

 

[Technik4]

Preparation vs Paranoia 101

Its common sense to take 4 weeks of food if you know you are going to be traveling for 4 weeks. Preparation

It is paranoid to travel with 4 weeks of food at all times IN CASE it turns out you need it. Paranoia

Its common sense when you know you will be fighting lyncanthropes to buy a silver weapon, and perhaps keep it at the ready (ie- not in a HHH or some dimensional space). Preparation

Its paranoid to always carry every kind of weapon, just IN CASE you fight something that requires a special condition to beat it. Paranoia

These are generally PLAYER attributes, not CHARACTER attributes. A good dm does not punish a good player (ie- a player who plays a character well), but I may punish a metagaming caddy. As hyp pointed out a few pages ago, you CAN have a non-metagamed golfbagger, I personally think it will be rare, simply because special DR should not be common, and therefore it wont come up enough to warrant it. YMMV.

Technik

 

[Brown Jenkin]

At the end of a long career (level 20) you could easily have not fought more than 1 or 2 special material DR creatures, which means unless youre a paranoid min/maxer you only have about 3 weapons, at least one of which you probably havent used for a long time as you fought the special material monster when you were a lower level.

Going through the MM and MMII I checked on the number of creatures with DR. The Monster Manual has 30% of its creatures with DR while the Monster Manual II has 40% of its creatures with DR. If a character meets only 1-2 monsters with special material DR then the DM is choosing to pull from only a limited selection. If a character meets a diversity of encounters 1 in 3 encounters will be with a creature with DR. If one third of my encounters require a special material weapon, you can be darn sure I will have the weapons I need on hand in my golf bag. If you choose not to use 1/3 of the monsters availible because it causes people to use a golf bag maybe something is wrong.

Personally I would rule that any such golfbag thinking by the fighter is metagaming, and metagaming has a habit of getting the whole party in trouble.

In my opinion any rule that requires the DM to Rule 0 the most obvious and logical solution to a problem is a broken rule.

 

[Petrosian]

The new DR WILL add flavor to certain monsters, flavor they once had and presently dont. Its not some willy-nilly decision to just scatter DR around, there are some monsters that traditionally have different ways of hurting them. Lyncanthropes and Skeletons spring to mind.
Technik

Ok so the flavor for the werewolf and skeleton is now going to be "he is only killable with silver weapons... or magic missile, or ray of frost, or melfs acid arrow, or fireball, or...."

the werewolf flavor is not lost because a MAGICAL BLADE can hurt him even if it is not silvered.

To pretend that the werewolf is having a booster shot of flavor because the character who needs to rely on weaponry has to find a special rarest of rare silvered blade because his MAGICAL AXE wont work when all the other MAGICAL methods for killing a werewolf remain just fine is rather silly.

If you want the werewolf to have flavor, don't give him the "tree-like" DR/hardness except vs silver. Give him regeneration or fast healing with "not vs damage caused by silver weapons."

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the designer-dr encourages the golf-baggie PLAY THE RULES character types, makes their design even more sensible (common sense in an uncommon world) and punishes those who do not want to buiuld their characters in a PLAY THE RULES mindset but rather like more traditional fantasy characters.

Evenm if somehow a GM sees this as flavoring up the monsters, doing so at the expense of unflavoring the PCs is a bad notion, IMO.

 

[Andion Isurand]

I think that the changes to DR are a good thing because it is more honest to the classic creatures of old and their respective mythologies.

Within the context of the d20 3rd Ed D&D system, this change helps the mythical and bizarre creatures that color the fantasy genre to regain some of the flavor they once had.

Now, the classic creatures of old that decide to make appearances in the new novels written about the campaign settings of today, will remain closer to same old staples we have come to know and love them as.

The new DR does not feel so......... Generic

 

[Coredump]

people talk about 'research' like it is a forgone conclusion of a scientific community.

How well will the fighter be able to gather info? He isn't very trained at research to begin with. And which info will he believe? He 'learns' that to hurt werewolves, you can only use two handed weapons. (afterall, the guy using a dagger did no damage at all, yet the halberd seemed to hurt it.) Maybe he hears that silver will do it, or maybe he hears that silver is an old wives tale, and only steel quenched in belladona, or wolf's blood, will work. Maybe he hears that all this 'special weapon' stuff is malarky, and started by old ladies and wimply fighters. Or maybe the area he is in doesn't really have many were creatures, so little is known...until he travels to the far off land...
The point is, yoiu can't just assume you can have an encyclopedia of all monsters, and assume that all info is there, and assume that the info is complete, accurate, and not misleading.
Or could you also 'research' all the strengths and weaknesses of all monsters, maybe even how many hit points, what their tactics were, all their special abilities, etc. etc.

Second, is it worth it to carry all those weapons? How often will they be needed? how does that compare to the hassle of carrying them?

Lets think of current... did all fighters carrya slashing *and* bludgening weapon. Plus a melee *and* a range weapon? Did they always carry a fly potion? and water breathing? And a silver weapon? etc. etc.
These are all things that will make the fighter more effective in certain situations; so does every fighter carry them all now?

.

 

[RigaMortus]

It's not metagaming. It's common sense.

In a fantasy world, people are going to know that things like werewolves exist and they are going to know that you need silver weapons to hurt them. So even adventurers who don't expect to run into werewolves will probably get themselves some silver weapons just in case.

To a certain extent. Unless their characters have a Monster Manual in their possession, they aren't going to know EVERY kind of monster in the world, or their weaknesses. Heck, I'd be surprised if they were even aware of all the different types of weapon materials that are available. You know what? I've never even heard of Cold Iron until this thread came up, so it would be very presumtuatous that my character would know what it is. Maybe he would, but I am sure he wouldn't know what all the other types of "rare" materials are as well. Common sense is about in-game knowledge, not metagame knowledge. I've played characters that had no idea what Mithral or Admantine was, and I've played characters that knew what Nephelium was. Have you never played a character that DIDN'T know what something was?

It is common sense to plan ahead and be prepared.

If your players were going on a journey in the wilderness that they expected to take two weeks, and they decided to take four weeks worth of food with them in case they got lost, would you accuse them of metagaming?

Knowing travel time in-game and knowing what monsters are out in the dark world along with all their powers and weaknesses are two ENTIRELY different things.

The golf bag is exactly the same concept. It is being prepared for potential complications.

If that is truly the way you play your character, you must carry at least one of EVERY item in the PHB. A 10 foot pole (you never know when you are gonna need to pole vault over a small pit), a 10 foot ladder (you never know when you're gonna need to climb out of the pit you fell into while pole vaulting), vial of holy water (never know when you are gonna run into a vampire inside a pit you tried to pole vault over), a monk's outfit (never know when you may find yourself in a monastery and need to dress like the locals), and so on... No harm in being prepared, right?

You're right. And you know what? The new DR rules punish those types of characters. They punish players who roleplay in-character reasons for not acquiring a golf bag of weapons. In short, the new DR rules punish good roleplaying, rather than encouraging it.

Interesting thought process here... So if I decide to NOT take any ranks in Escape Artist, because role-play-wise that isn't something my character would take, wouldn't the rules be punishing me when a Dire Lion Improve Grabs me? After all, if I took that skill I would have a better chance to escape the grab than my current BAB allows. Just as, if I took golf bag full of weapons would have improved my chances against creatures with DR. I guess in both cases I would be getting punished because of my roleplay choice, right?

I mean come on. I can come up with a a dozen (ok, maybe half a dozen, I am tired right now) reasons why my character would and would not choose certain things in game (feats, weapons, spells, skills). And when I choose not to pick something that would otherwise become handy later on down the road, have I been punished? Did I punish myself for the choices I made roleplay-wise?

And anyway, all we're talking about here is delaying the aquisition of a golf bag. Because, after enough run-ins with creatures his weapon can't hurt, even the slowest barbarian is going to get it eventually. Assuming he survives long enough, that is.

I can agree with this. If you continually run into the same type of creature or even different creatures that have the same DR vulnerabilities, maybe you'd be wise to pick up a weapon made of the special material. There is nothing wrong with that. Heck, even the first time you meet the creature you may want to go ahead and get said weapon. But to do so in advance doesn't make much sense IMO. It is all on how you approach it.

Now when creating higher level characters, it would be acceptable that you have some more knowledge about DR of certain monsters, but you still don't know it all. Heck, even at level 20 there are still some things your character might not know about monsters and materials.

 

[Petrosian]

. [/B][/QUOTE]

people talk about 'research' like it is a forgone conclusion of a scientific community.
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No they are not.

How well will the fighter be able to gather info? He isn't very trained at research to begin with. And which info will he believe? He 'learns' that to hurt werewolves, you can only use two handed weapons. (afterall, the guy using a dagger did no damage at all, yet the halberd seemed to hurt it.) Maybe he hears that silver will do it, or maybe he hears that silver is an old wives tale, and only steel quenched in belladona, or wolf's blood, will work.
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If you look back 3-4 pages you will see this very thought gone over once or twice. Given the presence of even nominally greedy merchants, the golf-baggie of weapons will indeed be a full sack, filled with various weapons that end up not being very special at all.

This is old news.

No one describing the golf-baggie of weapons is claiming it will be a representation of flawless creature knowledge at all. that nonsense is being created and tossed in by those who hope to convince people the golf baggie is wrong even if it is encouraged by the rules.

Maybe he hears that all this 'special weapon' stuff is malarky, and started by old ladies and wimply fighters. Or maybe the area he is in doesn't really have many were creatures, so little is known...until he travels to the far off land...
.

Maybe its a secret conspiracy caused by bunnies.

The point is, yoiu can't just assume you can have an encyclopedia of all monsters, and assume that all info is there, and assume that the info is complete, accurate, and not misleading.
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Ok, so are you just arguing with yourself or did someone actually claim this was what was expected in the golf-baggie scenario?

When someone says "a smart adventurer will carry extra food" do you jump up and down frothing about how they cannot assume they know exactly how long they will be out?

Or could you also 'research' all the strengths and weaknesses of all monsters, maybe even how many hit points, what their tactics were, all their special abilities, etc. etc.
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you seem to be railing against a mythic beast "perfect flawless knowledge of monsters" that no one has claimed to be. You are arguing against a phantom of your own devising.

That of course is a valid lifestyle choice, and maybe once you are done you could join the rest of us here for the discussion perhaps?

Second, is it worth it to carry all those weapons? How often will they be needed? how does that compare to the hassle of carrying them?
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Same as every other piece of gear. it has an encumbrance value and is most likely stored in the cheap haversack or bag of holding.

Lets think of current... did all fighters carrya slashing *and* bludgening weapon. Plus a melee *and* a range weapon? Did they always carry a fly potion? and water breathing? And a silver weapon? etc. etc.
.

Except for the silver weapon, most prepared fighters carry what they think they will need. The exceptions are those for whom the character concept is not amenable to such. Fortunately most character concepts are not wholly impractical. The key becomes when the rules change to increase the punishment factor for a very common character concept... the warrior with one or at most two weapons, often just one special weapon.

These are all things that will make the fighter more effective in certain situations; so does every fighter carry them all now?
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Most do. (Though of course the magic side is wholly dependent on what magical support is within the party itself.)