Weapon Material Types

[jarlaxlecq]

Since 3.5 changed damage resistance from +2/30 to something more like silver/10 is there a list of the differant material types. And are they tiered in terms of which is better, ie meets more requirements. For example a monks fist eventually take on Adamantium in terms of beating DR, when your weapon is considered adamantium does it automatically bypass DR for magic or cold iron?

 

[gtJormungand]

There DR system does not have tiers anymore at all. If it's DR 10/silver, then only silver weapons will bypass it.

 

[Grazzt]

Special materials are mentioned in the DMG.

And like gtJormungand said above, they aren't tiered. If a monster has DR xx/silver, then silver is what it takes to get past it. No magic weapons, no cold iron weapons, no adamantine weapons.

 

[jarlaxlecq]

Special materials are mentioned in the DMG.

And like gtJormungand said above, they aren't tiered. If a monster has DR xx/silver, then silver is what it takes to get past it. No magic weapons, no cold iron weapons, no adamantine weapons.

Hmm, guess that means having a bag of holding with several weapon, no more uber-weapons.

 

[Kershek]

Hmm, guess that means having a bag of holding with several weapon, no more uber-weapons.

Not necessarily. There is a spell that can change the material of your weapon for a time.

 

[AFGNCAAP]

Hmm... somewhat-related hijack:

I wonder what the use of the Sure Striking magic weapon ability is now, or how it could be modified to be viable in 3.5 D&D. Originally, the Sure Striking ability allowed a magic weapon, regardless of its actual bonus, to strike any creature with a DR bypass requirement of +5 or less. This special ability was worth a +1 enchancement bonus.

Now, with DRs being material- & damage-type-based, Sure Striking isn't as viable as an ability/properity.

I guess you could recreate a 3.5-relevant Sure Striking ability, saying that the weapon ignores DR completely, or at least ignores can ignore all DR requirments except for "epic." However, would that still just be a +1 weapon modifier ability?

 

[Kershek]

Andy Collins had this to say about sure-striking back when 3.5e was introduced:

IMO, sure striking should have a bullet put into it.

It shouldn't be allowed to bypass alignment DRs, special material DRs, or epic enhancement bonus DRs.

It's possible that something called "sure striking" may appear in a future 3.5 product, but its effect isn't likely to bear much resemblance to the property found in MaF. (In this case, we'd be "revising" simply to indicate that the old effect no longer exists.) For instance, maybe a new "sure striking" property could work something like Blind-Fight (roll miss chance twice vs. concealment). That wouldn't be ideal, because I'd rather not have a cheap weapon property that duplicates a feat, but I might start with that concept were I to design a new "sure striking" property.

Of course, strictly speaking, sure striking can still exist exactly like it is. It'll have no game effect against a creature with 3.5-style DR, but that doesn't mean that it "doesn't work".

Andy Collins
Senior Designer
Wizards of the Coast Roleplaying R&D

 

[Lamoni]

I guess you could recreate a 3.5-relevant Sure Striking ability, saying that the weapon ignores DR completely, or at least ignores can ignore all DR requirments except for "epic." However, would that still just be a +1 weapon modifier ability?

The DR in 3.5 was built so that there will be several that you can't get around, but since the DR was decreased, you can still damage them with almost any weapon. Anyway, to answer your question, I would allow a 3.5 sure striking ability that did what you suggested, but at a cost of a +2 weapon ability modifier. Or I would allow it to only bypass DR x/5 at a cost of a +1 weapon ability.

You would be trading an extra 3.5 damage against most opponents (flaming, frost, etc.) for 5 extra damage against a few opponents. Or you would be trading 7 damage against most opponents for a variable extra damage ranging usually between 0 and 15.

 

[UltimaGabe]

There's a weapon special ability in the Underdark book that allows you to change the material composition of your weapon at will, once per round. This allowed you to change a normal Longsword into a Cold Iron longsword, Adamantine Longsword, or Silver longsword, or whatever you want. It's a +2 bonus, I believe.

Then there was an ability that allowed you to change the size of your weapon at will also... so a normal dagger could become a large dagger, or a small dagger, or whatever. +1, I think.

Then there's an ability that actually lets you change the weapon itself into any other weapon of the same material (so a longsword could become a Scimitar, or a Quarterstaff could become a Club, or whatever). +2 at least.

So if a weapon had all of these abilities (as it specifically states in the book), that weapon could change from any one weapon to any other weapon, regardless of size and composition, at will, once per round.

 

[Kershek]

Ah yes, that's the one I was thinking about.