ok So i'm a first time DM and i play with a group of people who have been playing for sometime now. They know the rules better than i do but they get 2.0 and 3.0 mixed up with 3.5 all the time. How i understand damage redution is that if a creature has dr 10/Silver they need a silver weapon to have all the damage afect the creature. However they said that if they have a magical weapon that they still do full damage. Could someone clear this up for me
ok So i'm a first time DM and i play with a group of people who have been playing for sometime now. They know the rules better than i do but they get 2.0 and 3.0 mixed up with 3.5 all the time. How i understand damage redution is that if a creature has dr 10/Silver they need a silver weapon to have all the damage afect the creature. However they said that if they have a magical weapon that they still do full damage. Could someone clear this up for me
The format is like this: DR #/X. # is the number subtracted from the amount of damage dealt. X is what is required to bypass the DR. Thus, DR 10/silver means 10 points of damage is removed from every physical attack on the creature, unless the attacker used a weapon is made of silver or had alchemical silver applied to it. Nothing else bypasses it, unless you have a weapon that SPECIFICALLY states that bypasses that particular DR. Even if you had a magical weapon, if it is not silver, that is not going to make the cut, so to speak. However, damage dealt from energy types ignores DR.
What you are describing, lordmolay, is how DR works in 3.0. It was changed in 3.5 to make the weapon material more special.
Sorry if i was a little unclear but in 3.5 i want to clerify DR. Thank you bakka that is how i interprated the DR... In sort i need to check my assumptions before i let my players tell me the rules
What you are describing, lordmolay, is how DR works in 3.0. It was changed in 3.5 to make the weapon material more special.
Exactly. This way, the character with the +5 broadsword isn't the only one who can bypass all the damage reduction. The effect is that weapons are more unique. A silver weapon can hurt lycanthropes, a holy weapon hurts demons, an adamantine weapon hurts constructs etc. Heroes can have special weapons forged to hurt certain foes.
The downside is that a hero that stands before many different types of foes will need a lot of different weapons.
The downside is that a hero that stands before many different types of foes will need a lot of different weapons.
the fact the DR pretty much tops out at 15/x in 3.5 means that in general a "Hero" will probably still beable to damage a creature with DR even if he doesn't have an appropriate weapon... having the right weapon just makes it alot easier.
The only thing I really did not like about DR was the fact that most dragons had the crappiest DR in the entire D&D game. I remember back when hurting a dragon was hard! Dracoliches were abominations in 2nd Edition. Not because they could deal a disgusting amount of damage or because they had so many hit points. No, back in 2nd Edition, dracoliches were a pain for players because the pcs could only use base weapon damage and base THACo derived from class against dracoliches.
A few DMs I know allowed a pc to use skills and attacks specifically designed to work against dragons (like the dragonslayer and slayer-mage kits) to function normally against dracoliches but other than that, it took a high level fighter to be able to hit and hurt the dracolich with a weapon...not that it ever did much.
So, in the end, I altered the existing DR of dragons in D&D to suit my taste as a DM and to make dragons worth fighting against for my players. After all, it's not much of a challenge if all the pc needs is a piddling +1 dagger to hurt the Colossal Red dragon. I merely changed the "magic" aspect of the DR to "--". In other words, no materials or magical weapons bypassed their DR. I kept the numerical values capped at a max of 15. I also changed the 10th level ability of the dragonslayer prestige class from True Strike 1/day to being able to bypass dragons' DR with any magical weapon with a minimum enhancement bonus of +1. That way, it makes it worth being an actual dragonslayer. Of course, if the dragon's DR includes requiring a material component, the dragonslayer pc still needs that component.
I know this was a different topic altogether but I needed to get those two cents out.