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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Petrosian" data-source="post: 664216" data-attributes="member: 1149">[/B]</blockquote>New DR rules are not needed to make fights challenging or interesting or even difficult. if you believe it is, then that explains a lot.I find personally "uncounterable" gimmicks such as "DR of type you cannot avoid" to be a rather vulgar tool, one easily overused and rarely worth its troubles.i don't find situations where the fighter is "forced" into strange tactical choices to be clever or interesting. However, setting up situations where his normal routine works but where other tactics are better so that he and i can see if he gets it (and benefits) or if he misses it and stays "par normal" to be much more interesting.Crossroads are more interesting to me than single sets of tracks.I never said that.Why is it one side has to keep trying to put words in the others mouths?i cannot bear to be expected to deliberately be unprepared so my less than ambitous gm can make challenges simpler.What an utterly absurd statement!?If that is what a Gm needs to make challenges, then i guess thats what he will have to settle for.Why? What did i say that lead you inexorably to that conclusion?Pay attention.I haven't argued word one about how bad this is for balance. i haven't been on the 'it cripples fighters" bandwagon which seems to be the only thing you can wrap your noggin around.Pay attention...The new rule won't make DR more effective. it will simply expand the number of mundane items needed to be added to equipment lists for the possible occurances. Not unless the GM also drops in his own house rules to prevent purchase of these mundane items to counter the DRs. Not unless the Gm drops in his own house rules about carrying capacity magic item rarity.Its not an inappropriate challenge its just a vulgar and unimaginative one. its no more clever than just throwing a bigger monster with more HP but less gimmick.You dont need DR to make a challenge interesting and you certainly dont need Dr to make challenges unique. You want the fighter to CHOOSE to do something other than "bash 'em"? give them a scenario where "bash 'em" is not the goal. give them a scenario where both bash 'em and "something clever" are there but where he has to choose. Do your players all need such blatent clues as "my axe did little damage" before you can get them to look at other possibilities? if so, you might NEED designer DR. Mine aren't, so i don't.Ok, so lets pretend for a moment that i buy into this whole notion of the GM not allowing the opportunity to have the needed weapons and such. So, why wasn't this same option available before now?Why couldn't the Gm say "sorry no +x swords available" when he wanted to make monsters with +x "special."Why is it that making silver weapons unfindable is OKEY DOKEY but the same could not be assumed or done with MAGICAL weapons?Answer... no reason. I could care less what he looks like. if he prepares for potential life threatening issues ahead of time, he sounds like a sentient character.Understanding? hardly. all i know is that when you say you could have whined that way IN GAME... I have no reason to believe you were lieing.What is not great is not preparing so that a rather simple scenario can be made challening with no reall effort or graymatter spent on it.lack of preparation could add lots of drama to a scenario. but when is that last time your fighter deliberately left his armor and weapons at home so that he could add more drama to his next fight?yes... a notion of being prepared as any successful character would.Would a cop today be considered more heroic without his vest or just foolhardy?OK, i think i see your point. If, for games run by you, it is really NOT possible to construct such encounters without your designer DR that would be imbalancing, then yes by all means i understand YOUR need for designer DR.But, just as a nudge towards what can be even possible, you might want to consider the possibility that the "special weapon" needed to kill the beast is indeed a potent magical item that will slay the beast but at the same time be consumed. A pc with a short term access to this weapon may indeed be imbalanced for a short period and then be faced with the.... watch for it my favorite word... CHOICE of slaying the beast and losing his new found power OR keeping the weapon for his own use and letting the beast continue.(this is ESPECIALLY potent if the PC has some unfinished business that the "special" weapon would help with but not enough time to do both ) heck, the beast might even try and make this argument to the PC, tempting him. See, the above scenario sets the same stages, gives the same search for puzzle scenario and resolutions issues but it did not require designer DR at all. As a matter of fact, the very "potent magic item" nature of the gimmick adds to the drama and tension, not subtracting from it. the "sacrifice" of the power adds to the heroic nature of the PCs choice.for most of us, designer DR is not needed and it is INDEED very much POSSIBLE to run those things without it.heck, instead of the vulgat designer DR, why not just roll a die each night and decide which player's character's kung-fu is nerfed each night so as to make him have a more interesting game?But, all said and done, you tell me this is the type of thing you NEED, that its not possible for you to do those things without it in 3e, well... i see no reason to believe you are lieing, so i believe indeed that you do need it.Now, can you stretch so far as to believe other GMs wont?[/QUOTE]

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