What's the point of a magical cold iron / silver weapon?

[Darwyn]

I just want to make sure I'm not missing a rule somewhere. In the Core it says that a +3 magic weapon can bypass DR on a monster that you'd normally need a non-magical cold iron or alchemical silver weapon for, like devils, demons and fey.

So what's the point of having a magic cold iron or silver weapon? Isn't that just redundant?

I mean, let's look at some examples. The Holy Avenger. At full power it's a +5 holy cold iron sword. Okay, I get it's cold iron to affect demons, but it's already +5. Even if it were made out of steel it would still bypass DR, right?

Another example: Briar, from Kingmaker. It starts as a +4 bastard sword, and it gains the cold iron trait as a first 'power' when you build it up. Again, I get the whole 'fey are affected by cold iron' thing, but it's already a +4 weapon. What difference does it make at that point if it's steel or cold iron? Doesn't the cold iron trait make it redundant?

So let me ask you guys- am I reading the rules right, which makes exotic materials redundant, or am I missing a rule somewhere about doing extra damage despite the magical bonuses?

[StabbittyDoom]

Well there might be other cold-iron related effects (in some mythos fey cannot even touch cold iron, meaning they couldn't use your weapon against you), but the only mechanical thing I can think of is using it while its powers have been suppressed. If you're in an anti-magic zone or if someone uses dispel magic on it then the item will still be cold iron.

[Tiny Coffee Golem]

What Stabbity said, then add the rule of cool to that.

[Captain Sir Hexen Ineptus]

The real question is if the extreme cost of mithral is worth the +1 damage over silver.

[Dragonsong]

RULE OF COOL!

In PFS or non homebrew games they are a bit redundant. I play homebrew pretty much exclusively and we do not use the plusses count as X for overcoming DR. It makes some encounters more challenging which we personally enjoy. It also makes for a situation where my Front line Paladin makes sure he has cold iron & silver/mithril options as smites are a limited resource(we are just at 5th level) and many of our opponents are not evil. Some folks will dislike this approach to be sure.

To speak more directly to the question it seems to me that the materials listed may be a vestigial carryover from 3.5.

[Chef's Slaad]

In your example, it may also be that the author had the 3.5 rules in mind when writing that piece. As you know, 3.5 had more elaborate rules for damage reduction than pathfinder.

[HalifaxDM]

A lot may also depend on the style of game being played. One of the campaigns I run has a lot less magic readily available to characters ... obtaining something on the level of a +3 weapon is, while not impossible, extremely rare.

[Slaunyeh]

I've yet to start a campaign decked out in +3 weapons. I'm not sure what the problem is?

[Seraphimpunk]

since most players will level up gradually, they'll need +1 silver or +1 cold iron weapons or ways to bypass dr/silver dr/cold iron as they grow. as many will rely on the Greater Magic Weapon cast by a cleric/wizard in the group to get a +2 or +3 bonus for the day, which will not bypass the DR of creatures the way a permanently magical weapon will.

so its basically there for growth. its an incremental thing. yeah sure at high levels the +5 holy avenger doesn't need to be cold iron. but maybe he's going to fight a creature with DR /epic + cold iron eventually? who knows. lol

[Jiggy]

The advantage of cold iron over +X has to do with getting wrinkles out of the bard's more delicate garments.

[Gruuuu]

Slaunyeh and Seraphimpunk have the idea.
The odds of having a +3 weapon in the first half of any campaign (that does not go to level 20, since most don't) are quite slim.
A cold iron dagger is cheaper than a +3 dagger. Simple as that.

[Roaming Shadow]

Once you hit a certain level, it becomes awfully expensive to have weapons of all the potential materials you'd need. Also, it's not unlikely to face creature such as lycanthropes before you come into possession of a +3 bonus equivilent weapon. A werewolf is only CR 2 after all, and four of them is only a CR 6 encounter. Do your level 6 characters have +3 equivilent weapons? That's around 2,000 gold more than what the total value of their gear should be for a 6th level character.

At a certain point, certain DRs just aren't enough to stand up to magical weapons, to keep characters from becoming walking armories. "What, Fae? Hold on, I'm sure there's a cold iron weapon in this bag of holding." Once you reach a certain level of power, you should be able to overcome things you had difficulty with at lower levels, certain types of DR being one of them.

[Happler]

For the Holy Avenger, in an anti-magic field it is still cold iron.

[Darwyn]

Slaunyeh wrote:

I've yet to start a campaign decked out in +3 weapons. I'm not sure what the problem is?

It's not a problem. I just didn't understand why certain powerful magical weapons were specifically cold iron or silver, since a regular sword at that level of power would bypass DR just as well.

But it never dawned on me that the weapon's cold iron can still get past DR even if the magic was nullified by Dispel Magic or a dead magic zone. That makes sense.

[King of Vrock]

Darwyn wrote:

Slaunyeh wrote:

I've yet to start a campaign decked out in +3 weapons. I'm not sure what the problem is?

It's not a problem. I just didn't understand why certain powerful magical weapons were specifically cold iron or silver, since a regular sword at that level of power would bypass DR just as well.

But it never dawned on me that the weapon's cold iron can still get past DR even if the magic was nullified by Dispel Magic or a dead magic zone. That makes sense.

Unfortunately any of the DR's that require magic or special materials to bypass go away in Anti-magic fields anyway as they're (Su). Only DR x/- and DR x/bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing is (Ex) and stays in an AMF.

I play where pluses do not overcome material DR. And to nip the golfbag of weapons analogy in the bud, by the time you're facing a creature with a DR of 15 your primary fighters should easily be able to do enough damage to get past that.

It's also really not that hard to have a backup weapon or two ready for extreme corner cases. At low levels if I'm playing a 3/4 or fuil BAB class I'll have one of each B, P, or S weapons even if they're just a few light weapons. I tend to grab a reach weapon, a trip/disarm weapon, and a ranged weapon as well generally longspear, flail, dagger, & sling.

[Lockgo]

Flavor. That is all I can really say.

Hunting werewolves? Does anyone have silver? "Party takes time to find some silver weapons."

I can't remember the last time that silver of cold iron dr actually played a role in any sessions I ran, or was running in.

[DreamAtelier]

One of the instances where I've seen this come up a bit more frequently of late is the Magus.

Since a magus has the ability to grant his weapons temporary bonuses, many players tend to focus their magus' gold expenditure on something other than permanently enchanting their weapons (particularly if they're playing a blade bound).

Carrying around a cold iron and or silver weapon of some type, even if it's a piece of throwaway trash that you found somewhere, can thus be well worth it for them. since the temporary enhancement bonus won't overcome DR, but the innate material will.

And of course, Cold Iron and Silver weapons work excellently when combined with the Bane enhancements. A cold iron +1 sword that's bane against specific enemies will still function against any being vulnerable to cold iron, even if it isn't a bane to them.

[Lathiira]

Cold iron and silver weapons also open the door for "allergies", aka an excuse to use those materials to bypass regeneration. A magic weapon of +3 quality bypasses DR as if it were those materials; it says nothing about regeneration.

[Happler]

King of Vrock wrote:

Darwyn wrote:

Slaunyeh wrote:

I've yet to start a campaign decked out in +3 weapons. I'm not sure what the problem is?

It's not a problem. I just didn't understand why certain powerful magical weapons were specifically cold iron or silver, since a regular sword at that level of power would bypass DR just as well.

But it never dawned on me that the weapon's cold iron can still get past DR even if the magic was nullified by Dispel Magic or a dead magic zone. That makes sense.

Unfortunately any of the DR's that require magic or special materials to bypass go away in Anti-magic fields anyway as they're (Su). Only DR x/- and DR x/bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing is (Ex) and stays in an AMF.

Can you please point me to that, I can find nothing that states which DR is SU and which DR is EX. All I can find is this:

]Sometimes damage reduction represents instant healing. Sometimes it represents the creature's tough hide or body. In either case, other characters can see that conventional attacks won't work.

If you dive into the monster stats, it even does not say there. for example, the [url=http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/nymph.html#_nymph]nymph just states: DR 10/cold iron.

Also, in Overcoming DR, it says nothing about overcoming it or turning it off with anti-magic.

[Cult of Vorg]

Having a material on a +3 or higher weapon could be considered a nod to its origins. It wasn't always so badass, much like many PC weapons it started as a humble mw of special material, and while being used on adventures was enchanted up until its enhancement bonus obsoleted the material.

A specific magic item like the holy avenger might just require the cold iron as part of the magic to get all the sacred goodies to stick to it, that is to say it just sounds cooler with a bit of justifying fluff.

And many groups don't play with the enhancement bypassing dr rule, some authors might have missed it, oodles of items are grandfathered in from prior editions as well as source games or other inspirations.

[Matthew Trent]

There is at least one creature I've seen/run recently with regeneration that was defeated by cold iron. Straight plusses would not have turned his regen off.

[King of Vrock]

Happler wrote:

King of Vrock wrote:

Darwyn wrote:

Slaunyeh wrote:

I've yet to start a campaign decked out in +3 weapons. I'm not sure what the problem is?

It's not a problem. I just didn't understand why certain powerful magical weapons were specifically cold iron or silver, since a regular sword at that level of power would bypass DR just as well.

But it never dawned on me that the weapon's cold iron can still get past DR even if the magic was nullified by Dispel Magic or a dead magic zone. That makes sense.

Unfortunately any of the DR's that require magic or special materials to bypass go away in Anti-magic fields anyway as they're (Su). Only DR x/- and DR x/bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing is (Ex) and stays in an AMF.

Can you please point me to that, I can find nothing that states which DR is SU and which DR is EX. All I can find is this:

]Sometimes damage reduction represents instant healing. Sometimes it represents the creature's tough hide or body. In either case, other characters can see that conventional attacks won't work.

If you dive into the monster stats, it even does not say there. for example, the [url=http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/nymph.html#_nymph]nymph just states: DR 10/cold iron.

Also, in Overcoming DR, it says nothing about overcoming it or turning it off with anti-magic.

You're not going to find it in the books. It is a hold over from 3.5 but it makes sense. (Su) DR's include magic obviously and supernatural beings need special mystical materials to harm them cold iron for fey, silver for lycanthropes, adamantine for constructs (though you could argue adamantine could be (Ex)).

DR x/- and the weapon types are due to being really tough like barbarians or having anatomies that re resistant to differing weapons. Skeletons are more vulnerable to being bashed whereas zombies need to be cut apart.

--Chopping Vrock

[RuyanVe]

The (magic) bonus also helps in hitting things and doing more damage to them ...

[Jeraa]

According to the 3.5 FAQ, the only damage reductions that were supernatural abilities (an so affected by antimagic zones and such) were DR/Magic (and by extension DR/Epic) and any alignment based DR. Material-based DR is considered an extraordinary ability, and so not affected by antimagic zones.

Basically, anything that requires a weapon to be magical to overcome the DR is a Supernatural ability. If a weapon can overcome the DR without being magical, then it is Extraordinary. If the DR contains both (such as DR/Adamantine and Magic), it is both Ex and Su. In an antimagic zone, any Su parts shut off. So the hypothetical Dr/Adamantine and Magic creatures would only have DR/Adamantine in an antimagic zone.

[StabbittyDoom]

@King of Vrock: It's sort-of stated in the book. The damage reduction entry in the bestiary says "Ex or Su". It doesn't specify which is which, however.

[King of Vrock]

Jeraa wrote:

According to the 3.5 FAQ, the only damage reductions that were supernatural abilities (an so affected by antimagic zones and such) were DR/Magic (and by extension DR/Epic) and any alignment based DR. Material-based DR is considered an extraordinary ability, and so not affected by antimagic zones.

Basically, anything that requires a weapon to be magical to overcome the DR is a Supernatural ability. If a weapon can overcome the DR without being magical, then it is Extraordinary. If the DR contains both (such as DR/Adamantine and Magic), it is both Ex and Su. In an antimagic zone, any Su parts shut off. So the hypothetical Dr/Adamantine and Magic creatures would only have DR/Adamantine in an antimagic zone.

Doh! You're right I completely forgot about alignment DR! Magic and alignment are (Su), -, material, and weapon type are (Ex). Guess that clears up the adamantine exception I got stuck on.

[Bobson]

King of Vrock wrote:

Jeraa wrote:

According to the 3.5 FAQ, the only damage reductions that were supernatural abilities (an so affected by antimagic zones and such) were DR/Magic (and by extension DR/Epic) and any alignment based DR. Material-based DR is considered an extraordinary ability, and so not affected by antimagic zones.

Basically, anything that requires a weapon to be magical to overcome the DR is a Supernatural ability. If a weapon can overcome the DR without being magical, then it is Extraordinary. If the DR contains both (such as DR/Adamantine and Magic), it is both Ex and Su. In an antimagic zone, any Su parts shut off. So the hypothetical Dr/Adamantine and Magic creatures would only have DR/Adamantine in an antimagic zone.

Doh! You're right I completely forgot about alignment DR! Magic and alignment are (Su), -, material, and weapon type are (Ex). Guess that clears up the adamantine exception I got stuck on.

The best way to remember is: If an Antimagic field turns off the means to bypass the DR, it turns the DR off too.

Notably, DR/magic and bludgeoning becomes just DR/bludgeoning in an AMF, rather than totally vanishing.