Who is mantle of faith for?

[AuraSeer]

Rrrright.....

And when all the good guys fight each other, it's not so painful.

When the good guys fight nearly anyone, it's not so painful. Only evil outsiders, and specific champions dedicated to evil, can natively penetrate the DR.

An adventurer with a Mantle of Faith can go to war against the most evil, despicable, heinous, opressive tyrant and get benefit of his DR. Ditto if he fights marauding githyanki raiders, or yuan-ti slavers, or werewolves or yuan-ti or just about anything else in the universe. Only when nearly all his enemies are fiends does the DR become meaningless, and that's a campaign issue rather than a problem with the item itself. (A Vorpal Sword is little use if you fight nothing but undead, yet that doesn't mean it's a weak item in general.)

Consider the view from the opposing side. Your good adventuring party is battling a monster that has alignment DR with a high value, and you're having trouble doing damage. Should your paladin cry in frustration, and wish he could invoke unholy powers to hurt the monster? Or should he cast holy sword and smite the beast with divine might? I know which sounds like more fun to me.

 

[Scion]

Think of it this way:

The mantle of faith provides protection from damage from any source except the most vile and evil sources which it is powerless against.

It is designed to resist damage, but the touch of evil can negate that protection.

Does that make sense?

Sure, makes as much sense as:

You holy creature of heaven, you have strived your entire life to fight off evil, you have trained on the most bloody fields of battle, subjected yourself to the torments of the damned, seen their evil all around you and have let it wash past you unharmed.

Oh, except that even with all of that the guys you fight can still hurt you without trouble.

Really, the alignment DR is a great and cool idea. Just horribly implemented. It can go either direction for being bad on the good or evil for evil or good. For the very reason that both sides have a valid arguement as to why it should either be the way it is or the opposite it needs some sort of help.

You can say, 'that is just the way it works deal' or you can say, 'I'll change it to be the opposite'. Neither option is the answer though as both have some serious flaws.

As for those really vile guys or those insanely good guys they could have a special ability like, 'This creature ignores all alignment based DR' or even, 'when fighting a creature with DR opposite to its aligntment that reduction is added to the hits damage instead'

those would both have the desired result. But fixing the alignment part of DR is difficult at best ;/

 

[AuraSeer]

Maybe not, but it could explain why the Blood Wars have gone on so long. Since devils and demons can't breach each others' DR, it takes a while to pound each other down.

Yeah, this came up in a recent thread...

 

[Benben]

Think of it this way:

The mantle of faith provides protection from damage from any source except the most vile and evil sources which it is powerless against.

It is designed to resist damage, but the touch of evil can negate that protection.

Does that make sense?

Yes, but the Stoneskin prerequisite for it sure doesn't. That spell is available to Wizards long before most divine casters. In fact it's only on two domains Strength and Earth.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Sure, makes as much sense as:

You holy creature of heaven, you have strived your entire life to fight off evil, you have trained on the most bloody fields of battle, subjected yourself to the torments of the damned, seen their evil all around you and have let it wash past you unharmed.

Oh, except that even with all of that the guys you fight can still hurt you without trouble.

That would be because you've worked to improve your ability to hurt them (ie - you bypass their damage resistance)

And they worked on their ability to hurt you (ie - they bypass your damage resistance).

 

[Ackem]

I want to know why things that are of "Of Faith", "Holy", "Blessed", or "Sanctified" are always classified as good. Afterall, there are as many Evil Gods as Good ones in the D&D universe.

Maybe Clerics of Gnasmash The Unpleasant call Blasphemy "Holy Word" and call Holy Word "Blasphemy".

 

[Scion]

That would be because you've worked to improve your ability to hurt them (ie - you bypass their damage resistance)

And they worked on their ability to hurt you (ie - they bypass your damage resistance).

No, reread the comment, 'subjected yourself to the torments of the damned'. That is useing your powers to make yourself resistant/immune to their attacks. Much like the survivor prestige class.

 

[Nightfall]

I liked the old 3.0 DR rules. Mainly cause there wasn't these kind of problems.

 

[dcollins]

I want to know why things that are of "Of Faith", "Holy", "Blessed", or "Sanctified" are always classified as good. Afterall, there are as many Evil Gods as Good ones in the D&D universe.

So no one get confused. In D&D, alignment is not relative, "they are forces that define the cosmos". Evil gods know that they're evil. Which is easier on players, just like I don't want to go from Boston to New York and find out they locally call their team the Red Sox.

Maybe Clerics of Gnasmash The Unpleasant call Blasphemy "Holy Word" and call Holy Word "Blasphemy".

Nope. D&D has always had different terms to distinguish good and evil powers. In 1st Ed. good stuff was "holy" and evil stuff was "unholy". The terms have been modified a bit, but the principle remains.

 

[Ackem]

So no one get confused. In D&D, alignment is not relative, "they are forces that define the cosmos". Evil gods know that they're evil. Which is easier on players, just like I don't want to go from Boston to New York and find out they locally call their team the Red Sox.

You're missing the point. It's precisely that D&D morality isn't relative and that there is an entire team of knowingly evil gods out there that's creating the problem.

"Of Faith", "Holy", "Blessed", and "Sanctified" are all just terms meaning something is dedicated to a god. Gods' in D&D aren't necessarily good or even good in the majority, there's probably a Gods of Rapine and Slaughter in D&D Land. So why are we using terms meaning that something is dedicated to a god to stand in for meaning that something is dedicated to good? Smashnak, the Arch-Pillager of the church of the aforementioned god of rapine and slaughter, doesn't think that his Unholy Bastard Sword of Infant Bane is Unholy and, since it was gifted to him by his deity, it is infact a Holy weapon if we go by the actual english definition.

This kindof D&D-ism, where a real definition is subverted to mean something completely different, doesn't prevent confusion, it causes it. When I first started playing I found it hilarious that clerics of evil gods would be slinging around Unholy weapons, casting Blasphemy, and have their temples be Profaned.