Why does alignment based damage reduction seem to be the wrong way around?

[Alarith]

Hi all,

this question has been bothering me for some time now:

Damage Reduction and alignment.

If I am a champion of the good side (Paladin, Angel, etc.) why do I get a
damage resistance that can be overcome by the opponents I fight most often? In my opinion it makes no sense to have DR X/evil for a character with good alignment since 99% of my enemies are evil and DR is supposed to help me, isn't it? If I had DR X /good I would say, OK, if I fight a good creature, I am doing something wrong, so no DR.

Does anyone know or can explain the reason behind DR vs alignment being handled this way? I tried to search and google for it, but found not offical statement to this, just similar questions to mine.

Kind regards

Ala

P.S. Please excuse any spelling errors.

[Chobemaster]

An angel is nigh-invulnerable, except a weakness to that most contradictory to its nature...evil. Positive is cancelled by negative, light by dark, matter by antimatter.

How would an extra layer of good around me help against something that cancels good?

[Ice Titan]

Your shield is strongest except against those who carry the perfect spear.

DR 10/evil means you are so tough and powerful that only a weapon specifically anathema to you can pierce your armor. Arguing that only angels can damage other angels presents a conflict-- mostly where low CR creatures versus other low CR creatures are considered. It takes high level angels to gank mid level devils and high level devils to gank mid level angels-- which isn't the dynamic they want to present, with low-level devils being easily preyed on by... low level devils, but being a significant challenge for low-level angels. Also, if the two low-level creatures did fight... imagine an imp and a cassissian angel going at it. Forever unable to kill eachother (DR 5 versus 1d4 or 1d4 dmg) and elementally unable to resist destroying each other. That just seems silly.

It's like arguing that a fire creature should take double damage from fire, not cold-- the fire protects him from the cold, right?

[Poldaran]

Since the forum seems to have eaten my post, let's try again and hope it doesn't go double.

Chobemaster wrote:

An angel is nigh-invulnerable, except a weakness to that most contradictory to its nature...evil. Positive is cancelled by negative, light by dark, matter by antimatter.

It's similar to an elemental. Alarith, you've likely been thinking of the DR as a boon granted for doing what you should be or a preparation you get against a foe. It's neither.

It's a side effect of so much Good concentrated within the character. Just as say, a fire elemental, has protection from its element because it contains so much of it within its very essence, so too does a Paladin or Angel reap the benefits of so much Good strengthening their bodies against physical. But at the same time, just as a fire elemental finds itself gravely wounded by its antithesis, cold, a being of Good finds that its antithesis, Evil, bypasses the protections it normally has.

Edit: Beaten to the punch during the rewrite.

[cibet44]

Think of it this way: DR makes you stronger in general, it makes you resistant to damage from everything. However, in some cases, even the very powerful are still susceptible to something. In the case of a high level paladin they are resistant to damage from everything but evil seems to penetrate their defenses and they take normal damage from it, not more damage. You don’t take more damage from something that bypasses your DR you take normal damage from that source and less damage from everything else. Good and Evil were meant to battle each other, they don’t have an advantage over one another, they are each other’s opposite. Think of it as a spiritual “fair fight”, if you will. If a high level paladin or arch demon were extremely resistant to each other why would they seek to destroy (or fear) each other? If demons were resistant or immune to good damage they would just ignore paladins and angels and concentrate on destroying the things that could really hurt them instead.

[Chobemaster]

one other point of clarification, with respect to 99% of a Paladin's foes being evil point. That's true at least in the spirit it's offered...but not every evil foe does evil damage.

from Bestiary:

Some monsters are vulnerable to good-, evil-, chaotically, or lawfully aligned weapons. When a cleric casts align weapon, affected weapons might gain one or more of these properties, and certain magic weapons have these properties as well. A creature with an alignment subtype (chaotic, evil, good, or lawful) can overcome this type of damage reduction with its natural weapons and weapons it wields as if the weapons or natural weapons had an alignment (or alignments) that matched the subtype(s) of the creature.

[TOZ]

DR/Evil doesn't mean you are weak to Evil, it means you are strong against everything else.

If you were weak against Evil, you'd be taking extra damage from it, which is called out as 'Vulnerability' in the rules.

[gustavo iglesias]

Green Lantern is vulnerable to the yellow guy Parallax too. It's kind of a trope.

[cibet44]

gustavo iglesias wrote:

Green Lantern is vulnerable to the yellow guy Parallax too. It's kind of a trope.

And Superman has: DR x/-, Vulnerability: Kryptonite (not DR x/Kyptonite).

[Chobemaster]

TOZ wrote:

DR/Evil doesn't mean you are weak to Evil, it means you are strong against everything else.

If you were weak against Evil, you'd be taking extra damage from it, which is called out as 'Vulnerability' in the rules.

Mechanically, agree. From the character's in-game perspective, that's a distinction w/o much of a difference. Evil sword hurts more than non-evil sword.

[TriOmegaZero]

And Unholy swords hurt more than Evil swords.

[Alarith]

Ok,

thank you all for the input. I see the point now.

Thank you very much for bearing with me :).

Kind regards

Ala

P.S. I hope we get this Worg an can return to Falcon's Hollow :)

[Lavode de'Morcaine]

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