Why I Don't Like 3.5 Damage Resistance

[Sammael]

I'm saying having your weapon instilled with the mystical forces of the arcane makes it a little more effective in dealing damage to anything supernatural.

Ah, but it does. Every +1 of a weapon's enhancement adds +1 to that weapon's damage. More damage = more likely to overcome DR and deal at least some damage, instead of none. If you have a +5 sword, its +5 enhancement bonus pretty much negates DR 5/xyz.

 

[dema]

DR Type Enhancement Bonus Exception
/silver +2
/bludgeoning, /piercing or /slashing +2
/adamantine or /cold iron +3
/[alignment-based] +4
/magic -5 DR per Enhancement Bonus


Hey how about this. I think monte wrote this, I use his table with one mod. I did not like DR X/Magic so I use this rule. If the DR is say DR 15 / Magic, every plus you have on your weapon will subtract 5 from the DR. so a +3 or greater weapon is needed to over come all the DR, a +1 weapon will give you 10 / MAGIC to deal with, and a +2 only 5 /DR.

So I guess a creature with DR 15/ MAGIC and 10/ Silver would need both condtions met, but only a Silver +3 weapon would defeat all the DR.


My first RPG related post in about 2 years, a toast to lurking.



-de

 

[Ranger REG]

DR Type Enhancement Bonus Exception
/silver +2
/bludgeoning, /piercing or /slashing +2
/adamantine or /cold iron +3
/[alignment-based] +4
/magic -5 DR per Enhancement Bonus


Hey how about this. I think monte wrote this, I use his table with one mod. I did not like DR X/Magic so I use this rule. If the DR is say DR 15 / Magic, every plus you have on your weapon will subtract 5 from the DR. so a +3 or greater weapon is needed to over come all the DR, a +1 weapon will give you 10 / MAGIC to deal with, and a +2 only 5 /DR.

So I guess a creature with DR 15/ MAGIC and 10/ Silver would need both condtions met, but only a Silver +3 weapon would defeat all the DR.


My first RPG related post in about 2 years, a toast to lurking.

Sounds like you're doubling the benefit of magic weapon. If you consider magic to be a prevailing force over all other DR types, then the simplest way is add "or magic" to the stat. It's better than translating whether adamantine is "magic +1" and whatnot. You want to make it more detailed go with "or magic +1."

If you like add DR as part of the stat block.

 

[Mercule]

Yeah, sure...throw real-world legends into the game. That's really helpful. Not.

I don't care whether they are real-world or not. I want legends. Real world legends just happen to be handily available. I don't care if you say gold is needed to hurt beholders -- the werewolf myth is just a great example to pull things out of the abstract.

If real world ideas are not beneficial to you, then we truly are playing different games.

"Magic", as it exists in D&D, doesn't exist in real world legends about werewolves, vampires or demons. You always have weapons blessed by a saint, cursed by a devil, inhabited by some spirit, etc. Magic, as an unambiguous supernatural force, doesn't exist in any of those.

I suppose it depends on which legends you're reading. I've read plenty that do have that level of magic.

In contrast to what you seem to understand from my post, what I'm saying is that I prefer magic to have at least some effect on anything supernatural, be it a werewolf, a demon, an angel or a weird, tentacle-faced being from a fringe plane. Why? Because I like it that way...and apparently I'm not the only one. I'm not saying magic trumps anything...I'm saying having your weapon instilled with the mystical forces of the arcane makes it a little more effective in dealing damage to anything supernatural. I'm not throwing mystical symbolism out the window...I'm actually adding something to it.

Magic does increase damage on everything in D&D. All DR can be bypassed by doing more damage. The difference with using 3.5 DR is that weapons built to hunt certain critters (eg. lycanthropes) are better served by being built of the appropriate material -- they fit the legend and build upon it.

What you're doing isn't so much of an addition, as a magnification of what's already there. By default, magic is a 1:1 lowering of DR. You've just upped that by a factor of five. In truth, if that's the only house rule, I don't think it's bad. Not one that I'd use, but not horrible.

Oh, and by the way...I don't know what Monty Haul campaign burned you, or which players finally broke your nerves with their Diablo II playing style...but try to be so kind and not take it out of the hide of some fellow gamer whom you don't know, have never played with, and only judge by one post. It really helps keeping this neighbourhood friendly, you know? Thanks.

Eh, my ire wasn't really directed at you, specifically. The core of many of the arguments I've heard (here and elsewhere) against 3.5 DR seem to amount to, "But magic is kewl. I want to be able to just get a bigger gun and blow stuff up."

Oddly enough, it's never been an issue in any game I've run. I've used a system fairly similar to 3.5 DR since about 1988 or so. It's been something about which players in my game have always been pretty sanguine and everytime it comes into play, it reinforces to me that it was a good houserule. It's just a bunch of griping about the 3.5 DR on these boards and elsewhere on-line that have soured me on the whole discussion.

I just don't have much sympathy for people who wonder why their house rules may not be isolated from the rest of the system.

 

[LoneWolf23]

Yeah, sure...throw real-world legends into the game. That's really helpful. Not.

Complaining about bringing more mythological flavor in a game of elves, dragons and spell-slinging wizards is like complaining about putting techno-babble in a science-fiction setting. In other words, complaining about the main part of the setting.

"Magic", as it exists in D&D, doesn't exist in real world legends about werewolves, vampires or demons. You always have weapons blessed by a saint, cursed by a devil, inhabited by some spirit, etc. Magic, as an unambiguous supernatural force, doesn't exist in any of those.

I know many who would argue that point with you. I would be one of them. In some of my favorite fantasy litterature, there's a marked difference between a weapon blessed by a good deity and a weapon granted by a dark power. Demons fear Holy Swords more then plain enchanted weapons for a reason.

If you browse "standard" fantasy fare, though, you'll find magic as that kind of force...and you'll also find that magic is able to interact with, and injure, most other kinds of supernatural beings.

And I've seen fantasy stories that say otherwise. Hell, Werewolves alone are pretty much the standard for "specific metal vulnerability" type DR in all of litterature. As for other classic exemples of Magic Weapons used to slay supernatural beings, it usually depends on the story and the supernatural threat.

In contrast to what you seem to understand from my post, what I'm saying is that I prefer magic to have at least some effect on anything supernatural, be it a werewolf, a demon, an angel or a weird, tentacle-faced being from a fringe plane. Why? Because I like it that way...and apparently I'm not the only one. I'm not saying magic trumps anything...I'm saying having your weapon instilled with the mystical forces of the arcane makes it a little more effective in dealing damage to anything supernatural. I'm not throwing mystical symbolism out the window...I'm actually adding something to it.

And I think that keeping mystical symbolism as the core concept of DR adds even more. Since now, you can kill anything with DR just by hitting it a lot, a Magic +5 Sword remains a potent weapon against a Werewolf because it deals more damage then a normal sword. But a Silver Magic +5 Sword is even better because it deals more damage and it goes through it's Damage Reduction.

 

[AuraSeer]

If you browse "standard" fantasy fare, though, you'll find magic as that kind of force...and you'll also find that magic is able to interact with, and injure, most other kinds of supernatural beings.

Hey, magic in 3.5 does injure supernatural beings. A +1 steel dagger may do little damage, but fireball works just fine.

I'm not saying magic trumps anything...I'm saying having your weapon instilled with the mystical forces of the arcane makes it a little more effective in dealing damage to anything supernatural.

That is also true in 3.5; a +3 weapon is "a little more effective" than a +1 weapon.Specifically, it's 2 hit points more effective on each attack.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Eh, my ire wasn't really directed at you, specifically. The core of many of the arguments I've heard (here and elsewhere) against 3.5 DR seem to amount to, "But magic is kewl. I want to be able to just get a bigger gun and blow stuff up."

Oddly enough, it's never been an issue in any game I've run. I've used a system fairly similar to 3.5 DR since about 1988 or so. It's been something about which players in my game have always been pretty sanguine and everytime it comes into play, it reinforces to me that it was a good houserule. It's just a bunch of griping about the 3.5 DR on these boards and elsewhere on-line that have soured me on the whole discussion.

Oh, actually I love the basics of 3.5 DR. it adds much more flavour to the whole concept, and brings it a step closer towards the legends they did try to emulate with the whole concept in the first place.

The core of my house rule is basically that I'm handing out magical weapons on a much rarer base than D&D assumes. My current group, average level 4, claims one Dagger +1 as their (so far) only magical weapon...and they don't know about it yet, because they didn't have the time to analyze it somehow. I like to keep magic rare, so when it surfaces, I like it to do a bit more than add 1 point of damage against some DR monster. And yeah, before 3 more people repeat it, I realize that +x points of damage more already work towards overcoming DR...it's just not what I want from a magic weapon, okay? That's why I clearly stated it my house rule.

By the way...which legends did you read that treat magic as an unambiguous, unaffiliated supernatural force? I'd be really interested.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I don't care if you say gold is needed to hurt beholders

Nah. That's cybermen.

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

Nah. That's cybermen.

Only if you throw them really, really hard.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

You know, I kept hearing how PCs would be carrying around 'golf bags' of weapons.

It hasn't happened. Generally there is some 'stacking' of types goin' on. The Paladin has a +2 holy silver longsword and a +2 holy cold iron warhammer. And because we use gunpowder he has a pouch of silver bullets for the one shot he might get against a werewolf at range as well as his ordinary bullets. Most of the PCs don't bother with more than one holy weapon.

Whereas before he carted around a +2 longsword, a +2 warhammer, a gun and both silver and ordinary bullets.

Big difference...

The concensus in the game is that the new rules are 'way cooler' (player quote) than just generic magic weapons. And since the fighting types generally want both a slashing weapon and a bludgeoning weapon it works out the same 'golf bag' wise. The single exception is a fighter who collects weapons, he does in fact have better than 50 weapons, lining the walls of the manor that the PCs call home... And he will start saying things like 'aha! I have the perfect tool for the job! Wizard, can you pop us home and back?' But he did that before 3.5 too, it is just an amusing character quirk. (He never, ever, sells magic weapons found as treasue, and will hire a bard to tell him the history of even a +1 dagger. I have used this to pull them into more than one adventure.)

No one seems to bother with the law/chaos end of things, it tends to be 'the forces of goodness and happy puppies' that the weapons are infused with. But they are pretty consistent with one bludgeoning weapon of iron, and one slashing weapon of silver. The rule seems to have always been one slashing weapon and one thumpy. The popular choice for bludgeoning is morningstar. And I allow both hammers and axes to have spiked, so either can also deal piercing damage (a common choice in reality as well as game, if the foe is wearing plate you need a piercing weapon to get through it).

But I do like the idea of Minor, Medium, and Major magic for the purposes of DR, I think that I will bounce it off the players to see what they think.

The Auld Grump, actually lately I have been running Steampunk, so the above needs the caveat 'While playing D&D'...