I just have a DR question: Does DR apply to extra damage from items that poccess should qualities such as vicious and holy or does DR include only direct physical damage from the weapon?
Any advice would be greatly appricated.
Damage retuction reduces the amount of total damage taken by a certain amount. However, it is often the case that DR can be overcome in some way so your question is somewhat hard to answer.
If the creature you are trying to hit has DR 5/good, you'd take off the first 5 points of damage unless the weapon is good aligned (as a holy weapon is). If it's a skeleton with its DR 5/bludgeoning, you'd need a mace or something to do full damage - anything else is going to do 5 less points. If you're fighting a lich (DR 15/silver and bludgeoning, I think) you'd need a silver mace (or equiv.) to do the full damage. Actually, I think the lich has DR 15/magic and bludgeoning, but you get my point.
Hope that helps!
DR isn't effective against extra non-physical damage delivered by weapons with special abilities. For instance, the extra 1d6 fire damage from a flaming weapon or the 2d6 holy damage from a holy weapon would still be applied on a successful hit, even if the weapon's physical damage was completely negated by the DR. The extra damage from the Vicious power is tricky, but since I've never read anything to suggest that it has any sort of supernatural or magical type to it, I always ruled that it just makes the weapon do more physical damage, and DR would apply to it seperately. I imagine that point could be argued, but by the RAW it's somewhat ambiguous.
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Thank you Celric and VedicCold.
In my specific case, my party is going up against a creature with DR 20 / Good and cold iron. 2 of the party memembers can over come the DR no problem. A third one doesn't have a hope of over coming the DR. The last one one is armed with a vicious falchion that will do an addition 2D6 of damage. I know that the damage from the falchion will be effected by the DR. I wasn't exactly clear on whether or not the addtional vicious damage would be effeted the the DR.
I have been playing that damage from vicious and holy by-passed the DR but I was wondering if anyone had come across anything "official."
Thanks again for you feedback.
From what I understand, the following is true of DR:
* Damage with an energy descriptor (fire, cold, acid, electric, sonic) ignore DR, but have to worry about Energy resistance/immunity.
* Damage from weapon abilities such as Holy (or vicious) are the same type of damage as the weapon itself, and count toward the total damage that must overcome the DR. However, Holy makes a weapon good aligned, which allows it to bypass the appropriate DR.
* Damage from spells, even slashing or bludgeoning damage, ignore DR unless it's specifically stated that it doesn't in the spell description.
The House Rule you're using doesn't seem to be all that unreasonable, however, so if it's not causing you any problems I don't see any reason to change how you've been playing it. :)
For instance, the extra 1d6 fire damage from a flaming weapon or the 2d6 holy damage from a holy weapon would still be applied on a successful hit, even if the weapon's physical damage was completely negated by the DR.
As Xellan has correctly pointed out, the extra damage from a holy weapon is not "holy damage" and thus does not bypass DR (except insofar as it helps one exceed the amount of damage DR prevents).
I'm not aware of any rulings on vicious weapons, but I'd rule that since it is the "disruptive energy" that deals the damage, it bypasses DR in the same way that fire, cold, etc. do.