@Wrathstrike
I never really checked his math because he is usually correct in it. Off the top of my head, he is using currently (buffed up with his own spells) adamantine warhammer +3 (greater magic weapon), Greater Bane, Judgement, 18 Strength which equals around 30+ average damage before other party buffs and temporary buffs like divine favor and divine power come into play. Party is currently level 14 and pretty much running around with perma buffs.
I like some of those ideas about metal changing for a flat cost, but for a standard action I doubt my party would even bother. They still prefer to use blunt-force trauma as soon as possible, meaning they will full-attack when they see chance. There is also no guarantee to know what kind of DR it is.
I only added in the standard action to try to satisfy both sides. As a GM you want DR to be completely negated, and as a player you don't want to have to bother with a lot of different weapons. Making it a swift action still means you don't overcome it until round 2, and that is assuming you have the right weapon and you even know what type of DR it has.
@Wrathstrike
I never really checked his math because he is usually correct in it. Off the top of my head, he is using currently (buffed up with his own spells) adamantine warhammer +3 (greater magic weapon), Greater Bane, Judgement, 18 Strength which equals around 30+ average damage before other party buffs and temporary buffs like divine favor and divine power come into play. Party is currently level 14 and pretty much running around with perma buffs.
I like some of those ideas about metal changing for a flat cost, but for a standard action I doubt my party would even bother. They still prefer to use blunt-force trauma as soon as possible, meaning they will full-attack when they see chance. There is also no guarantee to know what kind of DR it is.
I know this is a 2nd reply, but divine favor is a short term buff, and so is divine power IIRC. That means 2 rounds of casting before he even fights, and I dont know if they stack like they did in 3.5.
@Scavion
You aren't alone in your party and there is other people to help you out. Your calculations are wrong also, it's technically not possible to do 40 with regular 140 DPR. Even with 7x attacks each doing 20 damage, you are doing 70.
DR is meant to slow you down as it is. The mechanic isn't best in the world, but it works in favor of monsters. It's a challenge meant to be overcome.
It's a problem when these kind of rulings unfairly challenge specific playstyles and not others.
Like I said, 2Handers and Archers feel significantly less sting when confronted with DR as opposed to onehanders and twfers.
Also I don't believe you understood the calculation. I hit for approximately 22ish damage a hit and make 4 attacks. With crits mixed in I deal about 140 DPR against an AC of 26. That DR drops me to about 12 damage a hit. Which puts my DPR at about 40-60ish which is less than 50% or worse.
This is especially egregious since martials don't have a whole slew of other options to take in combat. Then you remember intelligent combat has you not acquiring full attacks due to enemy positioning, status ailments and etc.
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@wrathstrike
I'll present the idea to my players and see what they think about it. If anything, it should improve their fun.
You are right, they don't. I mixed something probably. In either case, that dwarf is wrecking havock. He basically soloed lich last session, but I was too tiered at end.
@Scavion
With 4x attacks for 22 damage each and one of those attacks striking a critical hit for let's say double damage, that's: 22+22+44+22=110 in total. With DR/10, your damage is dropped to 70. That's exactly 36.36% reduced damage output, not 72% which you described before.
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A buffed inquisitor with unimpressive strength and a one-handed weapon and no Power Attack might have 4.5 (weapon) +14 (greater bane) +4 (judgement) + 3 (bardic performance) + 2 (good hope) + 4 (divine favor) + 4 (strength) + 5 (bane enhancement) = 40.5 per hit. Enough to still be fairly effective against DR 15. (And using standard DR rules his bane weapon is effectively +5 and therefore overcomes DR/alignment etc.)
A couple of notes:
SR is not the equivalent of DR. SR is the equivalent of AC. Energy Resistance is the equivalent of DR. (Although DR can be harsher, because DR/Silver is the equivalent of Energy Resistance: everything but Acid, and casters always have options that don't involve energy damage.)
Some people have implied that rogues need to overcome DR to deliver sneak damage. This is not true. Sneak damage is just damage and can be used to overcome DR.
SR is not the equivalent of DR. SR is the equivalent of AC.
THIS.. :)
MY GM does not allow weapon enhancement to by pass specific material DR. It has started to hurt my character's effectiveness and quote "I think the weapon enhancement rule is bullsh$t and is a lazy persons way out of being perpared
I used to do this. Not because it was lazy or anything like that but because it made no sense to me. If a monster has damage reduction with a specific material then it should require that specific material. I changed my mind simply because I didn't want to mess around with the rules too much.
I don't have any house rules to stop a weapon's + from overcoming DR. I can understand why a GM might want to though. There's something kind of dull about higher level play where everybody beats pretty much all the DR there is with a +5 weapon. I guess there's always slashing/piercing/bludgeoning DR though I can't think of a lot of templates to get it onto common monsters like you can with alignment based DR.
I guess DR can still come into play against summoned monsters or PCs who happen to get disarmed or have their weapons sundered (though I suspect people might think a GM who steals or sunders the martial PC's big weapon is not playing nice). It would be sort of funny if all the bad guys started going after the party's weapons like, "These guys don't have golf bags full of weapons like the PCs from 3.5! Quick, take away their +5 thingamajiggers and they'll be at our mercy!"
Here's the thing. Martials are only good at ONE thing, and that's hitting things with a stick until they die from it. They're not even really mediocre in anything else, they have a single, solitary purpose, and that's El Kabong.
Martials who focus on swinging in on a rope and clubbing stuff to death with a guitar have missed a few things besides the fact that a Bard would be able to make better use of the guitar. For instance, if you’re a raging Barbarian or heavily armored Fighter rather than a masked horse you can probably stand up to the enemy’s melee attacks better than the so called “glass cannons” behind you. Clogging up the front so that casters and archers can rain down death from behind can be an effective strategy, sort of melee as a support role. Like playing Bards, I guess it isn't for everybody.
I'm a little torn on this one. On the one hand, I'm not a fan of the golf bag effect. On the other, I don't like how it makes anything short of DR/Epic as useless as having DR/magic.
And there's your answer. The GM should have just quietly made ALL DR into DR/Epic, or even better, DR/-. When players question why the monsters aren't taking all of their damage, the GM can blithely say, "There may be things going on here that you aren't aware of."
What are the players going to do? Disagree?
Being less effective at fighting the monsters is the point. For many players it makes the game more fun, not less.
Fleeing the battle scene in order to find the right tool for the job is a story trope worth exploring.
One aspect of the DM's job is to make challenges for the players. This sometimes includes making it difficult to kill a monster by beating it with a steel sword.
Except that if YOUR ONLY JOB IS TO KILL THINGS and you suck at that... Why bother playing? I mean its not like the fighter is doing much during the social scenes, the skill scenes, or anything else not involving big sticks...
Except that if YOUR ONLY JOB IS TO KILL THINGS and you suck at that... Why bother playing? I mean its not like the fighter is doing much during the social scenes, the skill scenes, or anything else not involving big sticks...
For the players at my table, everyone's job is to enjoy the story and have a good time. When the fighters run up against something they can't "weapon to death" they organize a retreat and get the heck out.
Then they roleplay alternative ways to find victory. Sometimes it means finding a special weapon. Other times it may mean alternate fighting approaches like grapple + manacles or bull rush over a cliff. Sometimes they even have to find a non-combat solution.
Throughout the entire process they are playing the game - which is already winning.
Except that if YOUR ONLY JOB IS TO KILL THINGS and you suck at that... Why bother playing? I mean its not like the fighter is doing much during the social scenes, the skill scenes, or anything else not involving big sticks...For the players at my table, everyone's job is to enjoy the story and have a good time. When the fighters run up against something they can't "weapon to death" they organize a retreat and get the heck out.
Then they roleplay alternative ways to find victory. Sometimes it means finding a special weapon. Other times it may mean alternate fighting approaches like grapple + manacles or bull rush over a cliff. Sometimes they even have to find a non-combat solution.
Throughout the entire process they are playing the game - which is already winning.
Or the wizard can come in and just kill it... Since it is not like wizards are not already known for it. So the only thing that was accomplished is making the fighter feel inadequite as the wizard took his one job...
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Or the wizard can come in and just kill it... Since it is not like wizards are not already known for it. So the only thing that was accomplished is making the fighter feel inadequite as the wizard took his one job...Except that if YOUR ONLY JOB IS TO KILL THINGS and you suck at that... Why bother playing? I mean its not like the fighter is doing much during the social scenes, the skill scenes, or anything else not involving big sticks...For the players at my table, everyone's job is to enjoy the story and have a good time. When the fighters run up against something they can't "weapon to death" they organize a retreat and get the heck out.
Then they roleplay alternative ways to find victory. Sometimes it means finding a special weapon. Other times it may mean alternate fighting approaches like grapple + manacles or bull rush over a cliff. Sometimes they even have to find a non-combat solution.
Throughout the entire process they are playing the game - which is already winning.
I'm sure a bad GM could accomplish just that. But a bad GM can ruin anything. Making various DR types effective is not alone enough to make a GM "a jerk" or even bad at his job.
Making challenges and stories that don't engage all of the players would make the GM bad. And I don't see this one ruling on DR sufficient to condemn a GM.
Perhaps it's because X times a day spells has basically been translated now into we'll assume that day means the 1 hour we're in combat, and we'll not count down time. My belief is that the disregard of the other 23 hours a day is why magic users are now seemingly overpowered.
In my games a day includes all 24 hours. The party has been playing a year and are currently on day 4 or 5. In that time they've done tons of stuff and been in all kinds of scuffles, and you'd better believe the wizard uses his spells wisely. No way will he one-shot the opposition if the fighter believes he's got it covered, because it's only 11am. The fighter on the other hand can swing away all day, several times per round. And the DR is there to challenge the fighters' abilities, and the magic users' too.
Well said. And this is where the quality of a GM comes in.
If you are only running your party through a "15-minute workday" then you have already made a critical mistake.
I also think a lot of theorycraft here assumes games played at a much higher average level than is the norm. The huge majority of games I've run and participated in have been levels 1-10, where the option of creating a demi-plane to hide in while recovering spells isn't really an option.
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Perhaps it's because X times a day spells has basically been translated now into we'll assume that day means the 1 hour we're in combat, and we'll not count down time. My belief is that the disregard of the other 23 hours a day is why magic users are now seemingly overpowered.
Nah, not really. My casters regularly end the day with spell slots left over.
Perhaps it's because X times a day spells has basically been translated now into we'll assume that day means the 1 hour we're in combat, and we'll not count down time. My belief is that the disregard of the other 23 hours a day is why magic users are now seemingly overpowered.
In my games a day includes all 24 hours. The party has been playing a year and are currently on day 4 or 5. In that time they've done tons of stuff and been in all kinds of scuffles, and you'd better believe the wizard uses his spells wisely. No way will he one-shot the opposition if the fighter believes he's got it covered, because it's only 11am. The fighter on the other hand can swing away all day, several times per round. And the DR is there to challenge the fighters' abilities, and the magic users' too.
Well, the odds of you getting into to combat the other 23 hours of the day after you've teleported back to home base or plane shifted back to your private demiplane are pretty low I find. Both of those are high level (if by high you mean 9th), but even level 5 brings Extended (with a rod of course) Rope Trick into play. And let's not forget Clerics having Nap Stack at Level 7...
If you don't do enough damage to obliterate damage reduction in F at levels when it comes up you have bigger issues, martials using their favorite golfclub will hardly be slowed by 15 points of DR.
Which goes to show just how little of the system you know...
A Greatsword/Falcion wielding fighter might not care but what about the sword and board? Or the Dual-wielder? I mean both of those already get shafted enough with rediculous walls of feat requirements as it stands. Unless what you are suggesting is "tough, deal with being utterly useless for not pure out optimizing" and that people shoudl either be forced to pure optimize or to just be incapable.
You don't agree, so I suck at system mastery ?
Seriously damage reduction will usually just keep a monster alive a round longer, power attack does deal with DR for a fair bit.
Sounds like the party should dump that jerk fighter.
MY GM does not allow weapon enhancement to by pass specific material DR. It has started to hurt my character's effectiveness and quote "I think the weapon enhancement rule is bullsh$t and is a lazy persons way out of being perpared
My GM does the same thing and while it can be somewhat inconveniencing at times it has never been critical. Most of our melee's have a couple key material weapons like silver or Cold Iron and most of our casters are able to use spells to align weapons when those are needed.
That said though, my GM does seem to like demons and devils as adversaries a lot so we seldom need Anarchic or Axiomatic effects in her game. Usually a good aligned silver or Cold Iron weapon are all we need to bypass DR's we run into.
Or we just suck up the DR and kill them anyways. Our melee's at higher levels do tons of damage.
Not to mention that there are feats that allow you to ignore specific amounts of DR on anyone that would certainly help.
In out parties the signal is when the Rogue makes the sound of a dying giraffe. . .I really hope they practice that beforehand, otherwise the characters without knowledge skills are gonna be like 'huh? what was that noise?'
Ironically this is exactly what happened. .. scout snuck in, gave signal (sound of dying giraffe), rest of party was like "What's that sound?", had to send second character ahead to find out what was going on. . .
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God forbid your character isn't 100% effective against every opponent. That's just wrong.
MY GM does not allow weapon enhancement to by pass specific material DR. It has started to hurt my character's effectiveness and quote "I think the weapon enhancement rule is bullsh$t and is a lazy persons way out of being perpared
Been my house rule since Pathfinder Beta first proposed the change, and I will never change it. Just like 50% miss chance vs. 1/2 damage vs incorporeals.
God forbid your character isn't 100% effective against every opponent. That's just wrong.
So so true, one of the few disturbing trends I notice in PF is that every class must be 100% effective vs every creature type; or in every encounter type every class must have something to do.
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God forbid your character isn't 100% effective against every opponent. That's just wrong.So so true, one of the few disturbing trends I notice in PF is that every class must be 100% effective vs every creature type; or in every encounter type every class must have something to do.
Fighting fights against creatures who are basically immune to your character is not fun. At all.
Therefore it only makes sense for a player, and a character, to pursue feats and abilities that allow them to contribute to as many scenarios as possible.You wanting your players to sit on the sidelines? Jerk move.
MY GM does not allow weapon enhancement to by pass specific material DR. It has started to hurt my character's effectiveness and quote "I think the weapon enhancement rule is bullsh$t and is a lazy persons way out of being perparedBeen my house rule since Pathfinder Beta first proposed the change, and I will never change it. Just like 50% miss chance vs. 1/2 damage vs incorporeals.
I use the same rule, (though I like the 1/2 damage vs incorporeal)
I also say blunt and broad head arrows have damage or accuracy penalties so archers rarely concern themselves with these things. ... and I ban Clustered shots because DR is supposed to suck more for archers than melee.
DR is generally week anyway it adds about a round to most combat. hardly debilitating.
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God forbid your character isn't 100% effective against every opponent. That's just wrong.So so true, one of the few disturbing trends I notice in PF is that every class must be 100% effective vs every creature type; or in every encounter type every class must have something to do.Fighting fights against creatures who are basically immune to your character is not fun. At all.
Therefore it only makes sense for a player, and a character, to pursue feats and abilities that allow them to contribute to as many scenarios as possible.You wanting your players to sit on the sidelines? Jerk move.
First off, Neither of us said anything about creatures being "basically immune to your character". We're talking about a bit of DR that would be completely bypassed by drawing a different sword, or putting away your bow for a combat.
Second, I stil disagree.
Fighting monsters that are immune to your favored strategy *all the time* is no fun. I think beating every challenge flawlessly by using the same tactic is less fun. I think being forced to shake things up now and again and keep thinking outside the box is the most fun. Only an unimaginitive player ever has to "sit on the sidelines."
You can always run interferance/distract the enemy a la Aid Other action no matter what you're facing or how unprepared you are for it.
God forbid your character isn't 100% effective against every opponent. That's just wrong.So so true, one of the few disturbing trends I notice in PF is that every class must be 100% effective vs every creature type; or in every encounter type every class must have something to do.Fighting fights against creatures who are basically immune to your character is not fun. At all.
Therefore it only makes sense for a player, and a character, to pursue feats and abilities that allow them to contribute to as many scenarios as possible.You wanting your players to sit on the sidelines? Jerk move.
First off, Neither of us said anything about creatures being "basically immune to your character". We're talking about a bit of DR that would be completely bypassed by drawing a different sword, or putting away your bow for a combat.
Second, I stil disagree.
Fighting monsters that are immune to your favored strategy *all the time* is no fun. I think beating every challenge flawlessly by using the same tactic is less fun. I think being forced to shake things up now and again and keep thinking outside the box is the most fun. Only an unimaginitive player ever has to "sit on the sidelines."
You can always run interferance/distract the enemy a la Aid Other action no matter what you're facing or how unprepared you are for it.
Agreed. When our GM throws something at us that I can't solve with a few bullets to the face, it's pretty refreshing. It encourages me to invest a few feats and GP--and my imagination--into alternative solutions instead of dumping everything into gun-fu.
MY GM does not allow weapon enhancement to by pass specific material DR. It has started to hurt my character's effectiveness and quote "I think the weapon enhancement rule is bullsh$t and is a lazy persons way out of being perpared
I find it funny that the GM is a jerk for houseruling back to the way it was ran in 3.5.
Except if you are allowing the fighter to do much influencing with words out of combat, you are now stealing from the Rogue (who already had all his other toys taken away), the bard, and the Inquisitor. Unless the fighter has the stats and skills to make that check, he shouldn't be able to talk his way into places or talk his way out of things, regardless of his "roleplay." In fact, that would make him a WORSE roleplayer because he is NOT roleplaying his stats.
The rogue is never a good counter argument. They are basically unplayable. The other examples have spells.
Not all roleplaying is rolling skill checks. Hence roleplaying not roll-playing
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You can always run interferance/distract the enemy a la Aid Other action no matter what you're facing or how unprepared you are for it.
Distracting the enemy is NOT the best course of action for survival when you are playing a pure courtier with zero ability to damage the BBEG and low HP. Also you need to threaten to use Aid Another in combat IIRC.