I don't really have any suggestions, so not really thinking this goes in Advice or Homebrew stuff. Just a general musing thread.
I'm kind of wondering if there's a better threshold/gating mechanism for damage than the way damage reduction is set up. Over the years (decades even) I've run with the damage reduction mechanic and despite its changes as it crosses products and versions, it comes off as kinda "rail-roady" to me.
In an overall game (world environment) sense, it makes enemies potentially more dangerous to the public because of scarcity and the like. If a magic DR or special DR monster shows up in a town, theoretically that single monster could annihilate all or at least most of the town while all attempts to fight it are like stabbing at it with wet noodles. even with populations with better gear the way around that is having more of those DR mobs in the raid, where the outcome is still sorta the same, due to the time needed to take down 1 of those DR mobs, there's a chance they can nuke the defenders before the defenders take them down.
I get that part. Helps with the horror/fear angle of living in a world of monsters.
But it all sorta falls apart when you get to PCs, unless you railroad them. Part of it is in play, essentially mandating that PCs carry the golfbag of weapon types at lower levels until they can ditch it all for adamantine. Even Epic DR isn't that big a deal unless you're doing a cusp-of-mythic thing where the players aren't quite mythic or epic-geared yet, once they are its not really a big deal anymore.
So basically the only DR that tends to still work (penetrating strike aside), is weapon-type DR and untyped DR.
Oh back to the railroady, regular DR comes back into play when you do railroady stuff like "yeah you lost all your gear" story aspects or, "You've been ambushed while at the inn, and you're naked and the badguy is between you and your gear." or the "Prison. Deal with it."
Otherwise DR doesn't seem to really matter for PCs almost to the point you could replace DR /whatever with DR /well...unless you're a PC. In that regard I'm wondering if there's a better option.
fast healing isn't really a good approach, as its either too minimal a return per round, or you make it so massive that it really feels more railroady. Even 5 fast healing or Regen per round isn't really helpful until after the fight, especially with the various nuke builds we see here in build-threads. Theoretically DR could chew into that per attack, but tends to be negated unless you're using untyped or weapon specific stuff.
I dunno how to address it tho. Maybe for Magic DR it doesn't totally negate, instead reduces the effective DR by 1 per plus, so a DR 5/magic would be DR 4 vs a +1 weapon, and negated entirely by a +5 or better one. But that's only for magic dr, and its not really a great solution for it either.
Heh for some reason it makes me think of Resident Evil type games where you start off with some lower power guns that do minor dmg to early foes and basically no damage to boss types, and it makes you scramble around. But by the time you do some unlocks, maybe some bonus missions, you're carrying around chicago typewriter of doom or a rocket launcher and you can make most things that used to be threats go down like nothing. These would still be threats to everyone else, but because of the BFG you've got, and basically would never choose to NOT have, you now get something of a disconnect with the threat towards you vs the threat to the rest of the world.
In an overall game (world environment) sense, it makes enemies potentially more dangerous to the public because of scarcity and the like. If a magic DR or special DR monster shows up in a town, theoretically that single monster could annihilate all or at least most of the town while all attempts to fight it are like stabbing at it with wet noodles. even with populations with better gear the way around that is having more of those DR mobs in the raid, where the outcome is still sorta the same, due to the time needed to take down 1 of those DR mobs, there's a chance they can nuke the defenders before the defenders take them down.
i like to disagree on this statment. there is a reason you never see a linch mob without pitchforks AND TORCHES!!. fire damage will go past weapon dr any day of the week. yes a vampire is a deadly foe in 1 on 1 or even 1 on 10. but a mob with torches will take it down eventuly(after taking thier death toll tho). it's the fear and croud control effects that keep the sheep at bay.
I house rule that DR cant reduce something below 1. That way peasant armies can still take out demons and devils.
That's not a houserule. DR can't reduce damage below 1 nonlethal damage.
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I house rule that DR cant reduce something below 1. That way peasant armies can still take out demons and devils.That's not a houserule. DR can't reduce damage below 1 nonlethal damage.
This is 100% not correct. You're thinking of damage being dealt (EX a creature dealing 1d2-2 damage deals 1 nonlethal).
DR can block all damage any day of the week. There are even special rules about what happens (or more accurately DOESN'T) happen when DR reduces damage to 0.
In my last several games I've run, Resistance and DR has simply meant take half damage. I group special materials together. So material X, Y, and Z are the Silver catagory while A, B, and C are Adamantine, etc. I changed DR Cold iron to DR Steel and cold iron simply counts as steel.
About houseruling DR so that you always deal at least 1 damage: Remember that every problem that can be solved by peasants is one less problem that adventurers are required for.
I've seen DR make a big difference, even for a PC. Had some really weak outsider with 5/magic DR stop a summoner in his tracks. An eidolin having 4 attacks doesn't matter if they're all 1d6. I've also never had a player actually do the golf bag approach. Most seem to prefer focusing on doing enough damage to punch through. I don't see DR as railroading, and while I can see the idea of it being a gating mechanism, I prefer to think of it as thematic. Fire creatures are immune to fire, powerful supernatural beings are increasingly immune to mundane weapons.
Also, fast heal 5 can make a big impact, when paired with either a high AC, or a decent DR. It's deadly with both.
But it all sorta falls apart when you get to PCs, unless you railroad them. Part of it is in play, essentially mandating that PCs carry the golfbag of weapon types at lower levels until they can ditch it all for adamantine.
Are you under the impression that adamantine weapons automatically overcome DR 15/Bludgeoning, DR 10/Cold Iron, DR 15/Good, etc? They don't.
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My warrior PCs do tend to carry the golf bag. Although they could also hit hard enough to just hack through.
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I'm all for something like DR existing. Piercing not working well on skeletons, needing silver to hurt werewolves; these are good things. I don't see those as railroady. Rather, they look to me like separating professional monster-hunters from the amateurs.
But is the current DR mechanic the best way of implementing this bit of flavour in rules? I'm not convinced of that.
On the one hand, it feels cheap to hack through special material DR with a +3ish weapon, which will probably be adamantine because that'll also handle Hardness. Having different DR types is a bit stupid if you solve them all in the same way.
On the other hand, there's a fairness issue here. If you couldn't just hack through with a +X weapon, then you'd need a different weapon for different enemies. That gets icky with WBL. Meanwhile, casters can switch to different energy types or even different sorts of nasty spells with greater ease.
Another issue is just how special a monster with DR is. Cannon-fodder demons and devils get DR that you can penetrate with "standard special" materials like silver and cold iron.
But if you're running something more like Ravenloft, where monsters are supposed to be individually special with their own story, having such catch-all solutions doesn't work so well. In such horror stories, you're supposed to flounder about a bit, run away a bit, have to do some research or investigation, before discovering what the monster is vulnerable to. It might be wooden weapons, obsidian weapons, or even a unique item connected to the critter.
In such cases, you'd want the monster to have Special DR; DR that can't just be brute-forced with a +X weapon or 2H mayhem. Also, the monster should have some counter to common spells used to circumvent DR/energy resistance/SR, like Create Pit. After all, it's not cool if the caster doesn't have to change his tactics at all.
I've seen DR make a big difference, even for a PC. Had some really weak outsider with 5/magic DR stop a summoner in his tracks. An eidolin having 4 attacks doesn't matter if they're all 1d6. I've also never had a player actually do the golf bag approach. Most seem to prefer focusing on doing enough damage to punch through. I don't see DR as railroading, and while I can see the idea of it being a gating mechanism, I prefer to think of it as thematic. Fire creatures are immune to fire, powerful supernatural beings are increasingly immune to mundane weapons.
Also, fast heal 5 can make a big impact, when paired with either a high AC, or a decent DR. It's deadly with both.
I've done it, but it was on a specific "jack of all trades professional mercenary" type, and even then he had different weapons for different things as opposed to a lot of the same weapon in different metals.
He had a silver mace, a cold iron axe, adamantine dagger, mithril greatsword, a bow, heavy shield with spikes and so on. Different things were kept in different places and some of it would stay on his horse (or whatever mount he had).
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I don't see it as rail roading. You have several ways to bypass it it. You can get a weapon made of material X, or that does a certain type of damage. You can get a weapon enhanced. You can use alchemical solutions applied to your weapons. You might not always have them availible, but it does not make a fight unbeatable just more difficult.
The rules are made more for the PC's than in world consistency so I really dont worry about what commoners can do.
If you want to look at real world consistency nobody is going to take on 100 people at once, but a CR 10 monster or level 10 PC might do that.
A giant hitting your shield, if they were real would probably break your arm and the shield, so shields really would be useless against certain monsters, and so would armor.
Even in real life if you are attacked by a rhino while wearing full plate you are likely to die. In the game you have a good(better than 50%) chance of not getting hurt. There are other rules that don't really make "in-game" sense if you look at them closely.
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Is this you "dotting" the post?
I really like the 4e solution, nothing has DR but certain monsters have more hp and vulnerability to X instead so that hitting a werewolf with silver does an extra 5 or 10 damage per hit.
Doing nothing with your attacks is less fun than doing a little. Same reason I like the pathfinder rule that incorporeal take half damage more than incorporeal are missed 50% of the time.
4E has monsters with damage resistance (physical), they're just really rare.
Though it was more likely for a PC to get it from an item or ability than for a monster to have it. The Tarrasque with its damage resistance to everything is the only critter I can actually remember having physical damage resistance.
Pathfinder DR is funky, and as written is a low-level issue.
Though occasionally you'll have the occasional oddball thing, like the fexts from Rasputin Must Die! with DR 10/glass. I'm having a lot of fun with those.
Isn't this pretty much what every adventure is about?
"There is something going on in town that is bigger than what the common citizenry could possibly handle, but low-and-behold! There is a small group of extraordinary people available!"
Some monsters shouldn't brandish their super-powers, because they want to keep a low profile. Some shouldn't hone in on one location, because they aren't that single-minded. Some should just be predatory. Some should just be solitary. Some should just be so rare as to be irrelevant.
There are some monsters that should simply always be kept in crypts or dungeons, etc. Can you imagine the absolute devastation if even one shadow was set loose in a crowded metropolis??!? Even if they each only created spawn once per night (which there is absolutely no reason why they would limit themselves), the city would be entirely dead within 20 days!
As far as the PC's go... low magic can help, but you have to adjust the CR's to accommodate that. Enforcing weight limits and actions to draw weapons can help with the "golf bag", but that's limited. Dropping unusual, unexpected enemies on them at unexpected times can be fun, but can certainly be overdone. Giving immunities/DR to enemies that normally wouldn't have them, or substituting them (especially when PC's are prone to meta-gaming) can work, but can also be overdone.
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I think "golf bag" might be a little much. You only really need ~4 melee weapons, and most are pretty small and easy to carry alongside the rest of your equipment.
- Your normal weapon
- Masterwork Cold Iron Morningstar/Spiked Guantlet
- Masterwork Silvered Gauntlet/Light Mace/Heavy Mace
- Masterwork Cold Iron Dagger/Sickle
Bam, you're set for the majority of DR types, and the above options are all simple weapons, available to pretty much everybody.
If you want to include ranged weapons, Dagger + Sling gives you P/S/B, and can be made of different materials (adamantite sling bullets are a thing!).
.Is this you "dotting" the post?
Yes, I didn't have time to really think and respond so I was dotting for later.
I'm not sure I understand the OP's complaint.
Paizo changed how DR worked from 3.5 to get rid of the golfbag effect that was basically a tax on martial characters.
With feats like Clustered Shot and Pummeling Strike, DR is really only important to melee fighters with weapons. Caster don't care about DR either since most of their damage come from energy sources.
Now weapon wielding martials do make up a significant portion of the game, so they can't be ignored.
But honestly, DR is really only a low level issue before you get enough money together to afford the requisite number of pluses to bypass whatever the reistance is. Bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing resistances are pretty rare, only appearing at low levels.
So, is the complaint that DR isn't significant enough? I guess I don't really understand the issue.
I think the OP is complaining about the golf-bag effect. King Arthur had Excalibur; he didn't have Excalibur and five other weapons just in case he ran into a werewolf or a nosferatu.
Continuing to paraphrase, it's too easy for PCs to be able to get past any sort of DR they like; it's just a monster lore check and then they pull out the appropriate Swiss Army Halberd -- but NPCs are screwed.
Again, it was more a commentary of watching this mechanic change over the decades and products and versions. I'm not saying its terrible, I'm just wondering if its really being an effective mechanic. As some have noted here, in some games some GMs will play it in a way that it becomes an interesting mechanic, in other cases + how your player group is, it becomes almost an afterthought (oh, that thing had DR? Didn't notice.)
But that's more an issue of, "Hey you know that element type your Playerchar is immune to? Guess what monster-type the GM will now never attack you with?"
GMs have a lot of power in making mechanics even if not houseruled, be easy, as intendend, or a huge pain in the ass. And that's even before considering if they're hungry or not.
Again, it was more a commentary of watching this mechanic change over the decades and products and versions. I'm not saying its terrible, I'm just wondering if its really being an effective mechanic.
I think it's effective for what it is designed to do, namely capture the idea that certain monsters are very difficult to kill in other than certain ways without shutting the game down entirely.
If you think about the plot of a typical werewolf film, the second reel all seems to hinge around the difficulty of getting a silver bullet. Similarly, the only way to kill a vampire is with a wooden stake, the only way to kill a zombie is with a called shot to the brain, the only way to kill a faerie is with cold iron, the only way to kill Achilles is to injure his heel, the only way to kill Baldur is with mistletoe, the only way to damage Superman is with Kryptonite, the only way to kill Medusa is to behead her, the only way to damage the Death Star is through the exhaust port, and the only way to kill Lord Voldemort is to be Harry Potter. It's a very common trope across all times and media.
In AD&D, this was explicit; I could make a smoothie out of a vampire and drink it and it wouldn't actually do anything to it. This had a tendency to make the game crawl to a halt, so they backed off on it and just made it REAL HARD to kill Superman without Kryptonite, but not impossible.
I think the OP is complaining about the golf-bag effect. King Arthur had Excalibur; he didn't have Excalibur and five other weapons just in case he ran into a werewolf or a nosferatu.
Excalibur has at least a +3 enhancement bonus, so werewolves wouldn't have been a problem.
I imagine the type of story DR is supposed to tell is "Oh no! These monsters are too powerful for us! We must retreat and find suitable weapons!" Later: "Aha! Now we have these weapons, we shall prevail!"
But since the DR concept is known to all players, and Cold Iron and Silver weapons are by RAW available in all good blacksmiths, and there's no disadvantage to strong characters carrying lots of weapons around, in reality this only happens when players decide to gimp themselves for role-playing reasons.
But it persists because everyone knows you need silver to beat werewolves, so there might as well be a mechanic for it. It's not too bad in gameplay effects - it stops a mid-level fighter with a greatsword from killing a lich in one round, for example.
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I think the OP is complaining about the golf-bag effect. King Arthur had Excalibur; he didn't have Excalibur and five other weapons just in case he ran into a werewolf or a nosferatu.
Actually, going by older myths, King arthur had Excalibur (given to him by the Lady of the Lake), the sword from the stone, and a magic dagger/short sword (aka big damn knife) as well...
Continuing to paraphrase, it's too easy for PCs to be able to get past any sort of DR they like; it's just a monster lore check and then they pull out the appropriate Swiss Army Halberd -- but NPCs are screwed.
NPCs are only screwed if they aren't prepared. Which most won't be, sure, but cold iron's cheap and even silver is less expensive than masterwork most days, so in a village at least a couple of people will have something available for those. Which rather puts a crimp in the style of those who want to use their DR to ignore the threat posed by puny mortals...if it's material based DR. They might kill several people before dying, but they would likely die, and most creatures have survival instincts.
Non-material based DR (or adamantine), meanwhile, is supposed to be as hardcore as it is, and even then any 3rd level Cleric of the right Good can align the weapon, and weapon blanch is expensive but affordable.
I think "golf bag" might be a little much. You only really need ~4 melee weapons, and most are pretty small and easy to carry alongside the rest of your equipment.
- Your normal weapon
- Masterwork Cold Iron Morningstar/Spiked Guantlet
- Masterwork Silvered Gauntlet/Light Mace/Heavy Mace
- Masterwork Cold Iron Dagger/Sickle
Bam, you're set for the majority of DR types, and the above options are all simple weapons, available to pretty much everybody.
If you want to include ranged weapons, Dagger + Sling gives you P/S/B, and can be made of different materials (adamantite sling bullets are a thing!).
An alchemical silver battle aspergillum (add holy water and it's even useable against incorporeal undead) and a cold iron dagger (even if it's used more as a tool than a weapon) are two weapons that just about any well-prepared character should have, IMO (as long as they have the appropriate proficiency).
Add a bow/crossbow/sling, plus a some cold iron ammunition treated with silver weapon blanch for ranged attacks, and an adamantine primary weapon (when you can afford it) and you can deal with most types of DR (assuming someone in the party can cast align weapon and/or bless weapon) without having a "golf bag." Of course, depending on the character, a "golf bag" of weapons may actually be appropriate*.
*- For example:
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I actually like the gatekeeping effect, but don't particularly like how it plays out with most creatures.
DR to me feels like golems. They're just hard to hurt, but if you hit them hard enough, you're good to go. Other creatures, like werewolves, feel like they should have something along the lines of regeneration.
But hitting a creature like a skeleton and doing no damage just doesn't feel right. It feels more like there's a cap on damage that isn't bludgeoning.
I'm usually happier to have an encounter say "no, really, you can't win here unless you figure out the puzzle" than "okay, if you try really hard, it'll work." Because the first way, my players are more likely to take the hint and have fun. The latter way, they might win through, but they'll be frustrated.
Cheers!
Landon
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An alchemical silver battle aspergillum (add holy water and it's even useable against incorporeal undead) and a cold iron dagger (even if it's used more as a tool than a weapon) are two weapons that just about any well-prepared character should have, IMO (as long as they have the appropriate proficiency).
Add a bow/crossbow/sling, plus a some cold iron ammunition treated with silver weapon blanch for ranged attacks, and an adamantine primary weapon (when you can afford it) and you can deal with most types of DR (assuming someone in the party can cast align weapon and/or bless weapon) without having a "golf bag." Of course, depending on the character, a "golf bag" of weapons may actually be appropriate*.
*- For example:
** spoiler omitted **...
alchemical silver battle aspergillum
I was not aware it was a thing, but man that is awesome. Still a simple weapon, and it's a shame it can't be used in two hands like a morningstar or heavy mace can, but a beautiful option for beating DR and having use besides.
Also, that spoiler. I giggled.
.Is this you "dotting" the post?Yes, I didn't have time to really think and respond so I was dotting for later.
I'm not sure I understand the OP's complaint.
Paizo changed how DR worked from 3.5 to get rid of the golfbag effect that was basically a tax on martial characters.
With feats like Clustered Shot and Pummeling Strike, DR is really only important to melee fighters with weapons. Caster don't care about DR either since most of their damage come from energy sources.
Now weapon wielding martials do make up a significant portion of the game, so they can't be ignored.
But honestly, DR is really only a low level issue before you get enough money together to afford the requisite number of pluses to bypass whatever the reistance is. Bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing resistances are pretty rare, only appearing at low levels.
So, is the complaint that DR isn't significant enough? I guess I don't really understand the issue.
I think his complaint is that it does not work seamlessly as an in-world idea, and therefore is too much of a disassociated mechanic.
Another thing to consider is that quiet a few fantasy stories require the special or enchanted weapon to hurt or kill creature X. Pathfinder/D&D being a kitchen sink of fantasy tropes handles this with DR. If PF/D&D told more niche type stories then only having one special material or special weapon to overcome certain creatures would make more sense, but that is not it is.
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About houseruling DR so that you always deal at least 1 damage: Remember that every problem that can be solved by peasants is one less problem that adventurers are required for.
Just because they could deal with it doesn't mean that they wouldn't rather have adventurers do it so that they don't lose half of the town in a brawl.
Besides - that way it actually makes sense that they hang out in dungeons etc - it keeps the peasants from bringing their numbers to bear. :P
A lot of great points made in this thread so far.
Addressing townspeople killing things: lots of stuff with DR has an AC high enough that most townspeople couldn't hit except with a natural 20 anyhow.
My experience with DR is that it's really not that fun. As others have mentioned, halving certain types of damage is more fun than outright negation. Spell Resistance is another mechanic that isn't really fun.
I'm not fond of DR being used for requirements simply because it's pretty easy to bypass. DR is for sheer toughness. For trope monsters that can only be killed by silver et al., I'd rather use regeneration, possibly backed up by a small amount of DR if the monster is the type that should appear to shrug off weak attacks completely.
It is needed in order to enforce some of the power-ups required to keep going. Without DR, there would be no need for people to carry the golf-bag of weaponry. You could actually balance a campaign at mid levels without having to give magical weapons or special materials.
In case it isn't clear, I have never liked DR. I would much prefer a vulnerability to a special material along with bypassing some protections than DR.
That's just it, though. DR encourages golf-bagging, but it doesn't even get close to requiring it. I can't think of a single battle where we were actually stopped by DR--only slowed a bit. Even at level 1, doing more than 5 damage a strike is pretty usual for a martial type. At higher levels where DR 10+ comes into play, there are more options for stacking attacks (Clustered Shots, Pummeling Style, Vital Strike), bypassing DR, or just doing a ton of damage per attack through having a large Strength bonus.
My dislike for DR as it is used right now is that it is mostly ineffective.
And to a certain extent the idea of 'golf-bagging' isn't unrealistic or uncommon in mythology either. As pointed out King Author had different weapons and Odysseus used the right tool for the job whatever that may have been.
I would actually argue that the problem is that DR isn't significant enough. For practical purposes, there are only three materials that matter (silver, cold iron, and adamantium), and DR 5 will only slow people down, even at low levels. This makes it possible either to carry all-possible-weapons or just to power through it.
I'd like to see DR/wood or even DR/holly, DR/stone or even DR/flint, DR/bronze, and so forth. If there are too many material DR to plan for, it again becomes part of the story (and a plot coupon) to find a source for an obsidian weapon to slay the <whatsit>.
I'm not fond of DR being used for requirements simply because it's pretty easy to bypass. DR is for sheer toughness. For trope monsters that can only be killed by silver et al., I'd rather use regeneration, possibly backed up by a small amount of DR if the monster is the type that should appear to shrug off weak attacks completely.
I agree that it is too easy to bypass now. The core feat that allows someone to ignore X amount of DR would be fine. I think that is how clustered shots should have been. Well not exactly, but it basically ignores DR.
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I do really like the idea of hunting down unusual materials in order to hurt certain monsters, and agree that the current DR system is not the best way to implement that.
On the other hand, there's a fairness issue here. If you couldn't just hack through with a +X weapon, then you'd need a different weapon for different enemies. That gets icky with WBL. Meanwhile, casters can switch to different energy types or even different sorts of nasty spells with greater ease.
I think this is the biggest argument against having DR be more significant or harder to circumvent, at least if a party expects to encounter a variety of DRs frequently. Martial characters are encouraged to invest heavily in at most two magic weapons, and if you often can't use those weapons (or are significantly penalized for doing so) that investment is wasted. Natural weapons and unarmed specialists would be even more screwed if you couldn't work around DR. If you invest character abilities in fighting with a greatsword, you can put down your +X greatsword for a cold iron one, but you can't pick up a cold iron UAS or bite which means you're not just wasting money on the +X AoMF you're wasting feats or class features.
Spells like align weapon or versatile weapon prevent that but also make DR somewhat trivial.
If you were to make it harder to circumvent or power through DR, I would suggest also adding houserules to make +X weapons less important generally (like granting inherent bonuses to weapon attack, damage, etc as characters level), though that still doesn't help unarmed builds.
Switching to vulnerabilities is an interesting idea in that it would be a relative nerf to energy damage, which ignores DR but doesn't trigger vulnerability. Helps martials vs casters, but still disadvantages unarmed builds.
(There is a DR/wood, by the way: Nosferatu.)
Balder had DR/mistletoe. Can't get much more specific than that.
I would actually argue that the problem is that DR isn't significant enough. For practical purposes, there are only three materials that matter (silver, cold iron, and adamantium), and DR 5 will only slow people down, even at low levels. This makes it possible either to carry all-possible-weapons or just to power through it.
I'd like to see DR/wood or even DR/holly, DR/stone or even DR/flint, DR/bronze, and so forth. If there are too many material DR to plan for, it again becomes part of the story (and a plot coupon) to find a source for an obsidian weapon to slay the <whatsit>.
There are a few specific creatures with stuff like this. Nosferatu have DR/Wood and Piercing, the Jabberwock has DR/Vorpal, and I'm sure there's a few others floating around.
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what about Good/Evil DR?
My PC's keep forgetting about that in WOTR and complain when they can't get past it right away, they then have to use a spell to cast said ability.
Frankly, past a certain level, most of the frontline characters shouldn't really be bothered much if their weapon bypasses the DR or not, because they're doing enough damage that at worst they have to spend 1 more round full attacking.
TL;DR version - DR 15/whatever doesn't matter worth a damn when your fighters static bonus to damage is twice that.
One thiing I do for demons and other big nasty outsiders is switch around their damage reduction so players dont know for sure what their weakness is. After all no demon or devil is going to come out and say, hi im Bob and I am weak agains fire and cold iron.