I have all the bestiaries and have given a good look to a lot of the monsters. I don't think I saw any of them with piercing damage reduction. I find this weird for a weapon balance reason.
If there aren't any piercing dr monsters, then what point is the Piercing damage option on a gladius? Since it has slash and pierce, but a 19-20 crit rate, why would anyone use this over a scimitar? Aside from style I mean. Same thing with the scythe, it has piercing and slashing also. Granted the scythe does have the X4 crit thing going for it so I can see it being used. But the piercing doesn't do anything for the weapon because it can do slashing damage anyways right?
Ok maybe I missed something in the weapons description for the gladius that may give it a bonus to something that the scimitar lacks. But still I find it weird that there doesn't seem to be dr piercing monsters. The only reason I could think of is that it's to nerf ranged attacks a bit. Cause you know, they're ranged.
Can you guys help me out on this one? It's weird.
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Rakshasha have it. That is definitely a big set with DR piercing...and maybe a variant zombie?
Overall, outside of a few instances, most creatures with DR piercing also fall to slashing. And the only other time it counts is in underwater combat (....and really? That is major concern?)
Honestly, I am under the impression that, originally in older D&D versions, that piercing was meant as a nerf. It is applied to certain 'good' weapons: bows, longspears (best simple weapon), rapiers (best 'light' weapons rogues get), short swords (a martial weapon pretty much everyone that hit people get), and various others.
If you look closely, there are no slashing simple weapons that can be 2 handed. That is because they wanted them to be worse than martial weapons, but they can't remove bludgeoning (common things like skeletons make it far, far too important to remove at least some options for those), so they just removed slashing and stuck in the 'weaker' damage type. And it is. Because, outside of rapiers, I do not know of any 18-20/x2 piercing weapons.
Anyway, after a while it just came down to grandfathering and because 'it made sense' to the point that you only got the occasional idle question about it. And since they never really make it too much of a problem, well...why bother changing it?
Several spells grant DR/piercing.
The Aquatic sorcerer bloodline grants DR/piercing. Some other sorcerer bloodlines do as well.
Rakshasa have DR/good and piercing.
Deaths Head jellyfish and sapphire jellyfish have DR/piercing or slashing.
Aurumvorax have DR/piercing or slashing.
Ascomoids have DR piercing.
Moon-beasts, zuvembie and giant slugs have some form of DR that piercing can overcome.
Piercing exists because it is a type of damage. Piercing leaves holes, slashing leaves cuts, bludgeoning crushes. There doesn't have to be a DR for it to overcome. If nothing else, it tells you what DR it can not overcome.
I believe there's oozes that split for slashing but not piercing.
There's some materials where slashing would probably be considered ineffective, or that piercing would be considered especially effective.
Ok sweet so there are a few monsters out there that have piercing dr. That puts things into perspective then. I gotta admit this was a nitpick thing but hey that's what forums are for. To nit your picks.
Also that's cool that aquatic creatures have it. Makes perfect sense really.
Yeah, the underwater rules limit the damage of anything that isn't piercing by half. Piercing can do normal damage if you have: footing, a good swim check, or a swim speed. There is a lot more to it, but that is the gist of it.
And again, it makes enough 'sense'. In this case, it would mean that the large arcs needed for most slashing and bludgeoning weapons would not work with water resistence, while the slim profile of a piercing attack still works.
And again, it makes enough 'sense'. In this case, it would mean that the large arcs needed for most slashing and bludgeoning weapons would not work with water resistence, while the slim profile of a piercing attack still works.
For that matter, the large arcs required would limit the effectiveness of bludgeoning and slashing weapons in narrow tunnels as well. Yet dwarves still favor axes and hammers.
And again, it makes enough 'sense'. In this case, it would mean that the large arcs needed for most slashing and bludgeoning weapons would not work with water resistence, while the slim profile of a piercing attack still works.For that matter, the large arcs required would limit the effectiveness of bludgeoning and slashing weapons in narrow tunnels as well. Yet dwarves still favor axes and hammers.
I am fully willing to admit that the word 'sense' has been put into quotation marks during each of my post on this thread. Interpret that as you will, although I am not exactly disparaging the rule sets here.
I am also going to say that, from a game design perspective, players are far, far more likely to be in tunnels rather than fighting underwater. That, combined with the 'sense' that most PCs are of nonaquatic races, and as such 'should' have a large degree of trouble fighting underwater (thus making the rather location restricted aquatic encounters more challenging), I am willing to overlook the selective 'sense'.