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What's the preferred progression for a melee characters set of weapons? I have a character with a MW Cold Iron Longsword and MW Silvered Longsword and a Morningstar (for blunt damage). I know I need a short weapon (like a shortsword to possibly cut myself out of the belly of something that might swallow me).
But, do you own a separate Adamantine item and then try to get it to +3 to take care of cold iron/silver DR?
I'm tempted to pay the extra 2000 gold and begin enhancing the Cold Iron Longsword, but that doesn't solve a hardness DR issue.
What say you? What's the most cost effective solution(s)?
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You aren't going to run into DR/adamantine often enough to where you should really worry about it in my opinion. I generally use regular materials for my main weapon(s) (with lots of enchants because yay power) in Pathfinder/PFS, and have had zero difficulties even against DR I can't break due to the game's high power creep. Only character I have an adamantine weapon on is a sunder monkey, and I'm pretty sure I could break stuff in one shot without it. It wound up being a needless expense, though I do like being able to just Koolaid Man through walls instead of taking intended paths.
You are likely to find that hardness is a non-issue as well with how infrequently you can expect to run into animated objects or even have need to outright break things.
I prefer Adamantite and +3. Not so much for the DR adamantite, but when you don't have someone to pick locks it comes in handy.
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Benefits of a +3 Adamantine weapon:
1) higher hardness/HP (for encountering Caryatid Columns, Remorhaz, etc)
2) overcoming all but alignment-based DR
3) overcoming hardness
None of my characters have one, though.
My Fighter has an Adamantine Greatsword, but it has Vicious and Impact on it. Vital Striking for 11d6 is his answer to overcoming DR.
My Inquisitor has an Adamantine Greataxe, a Cold Iron Trident, and a Silver Heavy Mace for overcoming DR.
My Druid still has the same non-magical Darkwood Club he got at level 1.
My Tengu Rogue has a +3 Amulet of Mighty Fists that I'll likely upgrade to +4 after Eyes of the Ten.
My Oracle and Witch don't do melee.
And my Gunslinger had like 12 different types of ammunition for overcoming DR.
Go with whatever you can afford without subtracting too much from your other necessities. Just be sure to pick up a couple oils of Bless Weapon ;-)
EDIT: whoops, totally forgot, my Magus uses a +3 Adamantine Dwarven Waraxe, which he often turns into +5 Keen (how did I forget that?).
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Maybe I'm missing something, but how does Power Attack become so monstrously powerful? It does +2/+3 damage until you reach level 8 and then you can do +4/+6 damage. With crits it starts to add up, but are there other bonuses or feat combos that really make Power Attack so compelling (esp. against DR)?
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Oops...yes, of course.
Maybe I'm missing something, but how does Power Attack become so monstrously powerful? It does +2/+3 damage until you reach level 8 and then you can do +4/+6 damage. With crits it starts to add up, but are there other bonuses or feat combos that really make Power Attack so compelling (esp. against DR)?It first upgrades at BaB +4, actually. At +8 it's +6/9.
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I like it when Viscous damage actually kills the character wielding the weapon (yes it has happened locally)
in regards to power attack, I rarely see it on characters who are not two handed weapon types. Then the damage starts to spike up a fair bit. That -2/+4 becomes -2/+6 and so on. A Built 2 Handed weapon type will just 'blow through' a 5-10 DR creature. Sure it will take less damage but on a Crit its a huge amount of damage.
Factor in Furious Focus and the first attack on the power attack full round fest can cover some of the issues with missing.
Prethen: I generally aim for a Adamantine weapon if I aiming to build a Sunder (ie weapons/items and armor) type character which my Barbarian is to an extent. Again he is a 2 handed weapon user (Earthbreaker).
Another thing to keep in mind is that Adamantine weapons are also useful in generating alternate paths to end results. What I mean is that you might be stuck in front of a door which requires an archaic riddle or puzzle to open. None of you are able to skill roll it open, so you decide to use that big assed adamantine hammer to open the door. Sure it might take many many many rounds but its a door.. and you have the 'key'. This often causes a gm to quickly have to work out hardness and hps of the door but can get around the 'needs to speak the password or use disable device' style of game lockdown
Also keep in mind that the first +1 enchantment you place on a Cold Iron weapon costs 2k extra. Thats a big hunk of money at low levels, so will tend to find a lot of people rarely enchant them... the view being if they get a standard steel weapon to +3 it acts like a Silver/Cold iron weapon for bypassing DR. Of course the fame requirements and the cost of such a weapon make this a mid character level concept.
isn't vicious a magical effect, and thus not subject to damage reduction?
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isn't vicious a magical effect, and thus not subject to damage reduction?
But, my Fighter (who's an Armor Master with Adamantine Full Plate, hence the DR 6/-) rarely gets hit, so the Vicious damage, if I take any, is usually the only damage I take during an encounter.
hmm, interesting.
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Talon: I think in part because of the incident Nefreet mentioned and I wont name the scenario because you want to be surprised.
Its also untyped damage energy which makes the topic so murky.
This special ability can only be placed on melee weapons.
When a vicious weapon strikes an opponent, it creates a flash of disruptive energy that resonates between the opponent and the wielder. This energy deals an extra 2d6 points of damage to the opponent and 1d6 points of damage to the wielder.
the section on DR states:
Spells, spell-like abilities, and energy attacks (even non-magical fire) ignore damage reduction.
Id rule Disruptive energy as energy (even If I personally think it should say be typed as Negative energy), thus DR wouldnt prevent the Vicious damage (and I want the wielder of such a weapon to be hurt by it)
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This is probably a bit controversial but Ive never been a fan of 'equivalents'. Ie a +3 weapon is equal to a cold iron or silver weapon. I can see why it was done, so people didnt have to carry around a Plethora of weapons but its treating it a little different to say DR 10/Bludgeoning where you need a bludgeoning weapon to get through and obviously penalising Slashing and Piercing.
Its not a huge thing for me, but I really wish there had never been that bonus equivalent table for magic weapons.
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As far as I'm aware it was more done so that the absolute best weapon wasn't a +1 weapon with lots of other enchantments that you'd slap a Greater Magic Weapon on.
Level 12 retirement is a pretty big deal for that. The most you're going to get out of GMW (without caster level boosts which can be challenging to come by) at level 11 is a +2 enhancement and since you're +1 anyway before you can add enchantments, GMW really isn't good enough to be generally worth it--especially since 3rd level slots are still workhouse spell slots until the very top end of PFS play so there is significant opportunity cost to using them for a GMW that isn't really a very big bonus.
True. However, this thread started in the PFS general discussion forums before being moved here so it's relevant to the OP. There's no PFS tag on the thread title though, so I get why you were confused.
Also note that mithral counts as silver for weaponry, although it provides no other bonuses then higher Hardness and HP.
But, yes, for a melee type, unless you know you are going to be fighting a lot of a specific type of foe, you generally go for +3 and Adamantine in your favorite weapon. Usually the DR from Blud or Slashing is low enough or rare enough that it doesn't matter.
As a counterpoint, In Carrion Crown you fight so many undead, you may want to go ghost touch or undead bane earlier. Runelords, same with Giant Bane.
Most DM's will also probably be reasonable if you describe your waraxe as being backed by a hammer head, or using a sword to thrust with for Piercing damage. So, instead of b/p like a Morningstar, you're doing B or S, or S or P, instead of both at once.
==Aelryinth