DR stacking and Magic Weapons vs DR

[ckdragons]

My apologies if this was previously asked, but I searched both the forums and the rulebooks for my answers.

A creature my party is encountering is a spell-casting vampire. As such, it starts with DR 10/magic and silver. It also has the ability to cast stoneskin, giving it DR 10/adamantine. What happens when it is attacked by an adamantine weapon (non-magical) after the vampire casts this spell? Would the vampire's original DR still stop the 10 points of damage?

I read on some forums that magic enchantments on weapons can bypass certain DRs if the enchantment is high enough. Where is this rule found in Pathfinder? Or is this a "carry over" from d20 3.5? Would someone provide me with a link to a page on http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd?

If this is a valid rule in Pathfinder, which enchantments count to overcome different types of DR? If For example, according to what I read, a +5 enchanted weapon will overcome an aligned based DR (i.e. 10/good). Does this mean the weapon must be +5 or the magic equivalent to +5 (i.e. +5 greatsword vs +3 wounding greatsword)?

Thanks for your thoughts and answers.

[King of Vrock]

DR doesn't stack. You use the one that is most effective against a given attack. So an adamantine weapon would by pass the DR/adamantine, but even if it were magic it would not bypass DR/magic and silver unless it had an enhancement bonus of at least +3. You'll find this in the Glossary of the CRB under Damage Reduction.

+1 overcomes DR/magic
+3 overcomes DR/silver and cold iron
+4 overcomes DR/adamantine (does not bypass hardness though)
+5 overcomes DR/alignment (chaotic, evil, good, lawful)
+6 overcomes DR/epic

No enhancement bonus overcomes DR/slashing, bludgeoning, piercing or DR/–

I found encounters like yours quite frequently in the Carrion Crown AP

Spoiler:

with Liches casting stoneskin as their DR 15/magic and bludgeoning was higher than 10/adamantine. I'd get through encounters where not a single point was removed from the stoneskin. I substituted the spell in most cases for a better alternative.

[Jester David]

To clarify, the vampire does not get DR 20.
It gets DR 10/adamantine when someone attacks it with a silver magic sword.
It gets DR 10/magic and silver when someone attacks it with an adamantine sword.
It gets no DR when someone attacks it with a +3 adamantine sword.

That should be the full +3 and not a +2 with another bonus (as seen by DR/epic being a +6, which isn't epic if any properties could be used).

[Glutton]

DR table

[ckdragons]

Thank you for the clarifications and pointing where to find the table.

The DR/epic needing a +6 enchantment to overcome poses an interesting question, though. If the amount of the enchantment bonus needed to overcome certain types of DR cannot include any other enchantments (i.e. Wounding), how would it be possible to overcome DR/epic with a +6 enchantment if the largest enchantment possible on a weapon is +5?

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/magicItems/weapons.html#_weapons
(Note #2 indicates a weapon can't have an enhancement bonus higher than +5.)

And yes, I'm currently running the Carrion Crown campaign.

*MUHAHAHA* :)

[Ansel Krulwich]

A paladin's Smite Evil bypasses all DR. That might help.

[Glutton]

Yeah epic DR is not normally possible to by-pass by non epic weapons. Bane weapons and artifacts like axe of the dwarven lords might help though. I assume one of the undead there has dr/epic? a +4 undead bane weapon should go through it I believe, but I may be wrong. THere was some FAQ stuff around here about such things a while ago.

[DM_Blake]

It's been forever since I've looked at anything "Epic" but I think in the old 3.0 Epic Level Handbook, "Epic" weapons could be up to +10 attack/damage and still get up to another +10 worth of abilities, bringing the total to a max of +20 - those go right through DR x/epic.

Does Pathfinder have anything similar that I might have missed?

[MrSin]

DM_Blake wrote:

Does Pathfinder have anything similar that I might have missed?

DR/Mythic inbound I think. Only someone who's mythic can hurt someone who is mythic. That way commoners life only gets more sucky. There were a few other ways to bypass DR/Epic I thought. Ideally neither one will come up anyway, unless your campaign actually involves either variant.

And yes, if you have 10 types of DR/10 you take the highest that applies. Probably 10, unless you have a paladin. Bypassing DR is glorious.

[Jester David]

ckdragons wrote:

The DR/epic needing a +6 enchantment to overcome poses an interesting question, though. If the amount of the enchantment bonus needed to overcome certain types of DR cannot include any other enchantments (i.e. Wounding), how would it be possible to overcome DR/epic with a +6 enchantment if the largest enchantment possible on a weapon is +5?

That is indeed the catch, which makes epic weapons epic because they cannot normally be made and GMs have to bend the rules to give them away.

It was likely left in as hole to be filled by potential epic books.

[King of Vrock]

The only core way to make a weapon +6 is to have at least a +4 weapon with the bane property which raises the enhancement bonus by +2. However I believe I remember seeing a designer nixing this, though I never understood the reasoning behind it.