Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Zaebos 08-03-03, 02:50 AM	So you mean to tell me that a dragon with a measly damage reduction of 15/magic takes full damage from a halfling with a dagger +1? WTF IS THAT!!! WHAT IS THE POINT NOW OF HAVING A WEAPON WITH A MAGIC BONUS GREATER THAN +1? I hope to god I am reading the rules wrong here, but it makes no sense to me that these magnificent creatures are now vulnerable to even the lowliest magical weapon. I am going to work this STUPID system like this DR 5/magic +1 or better to hit normally DR 10/magic +2 or better to hit normally DR 15/magic +3 or better to hit normally DR 20/magic +4 or better to hit normally DR 25/magic +5 or better to hit normally
NestroEmichae 08-03-03, 02:57 AM	You read it right. Now, excuse me while I go back to the old system.
Raynard the Black 08-03-03, 02:58 AM	I'm not trying to defend the decision for a 15/magic damage reduction, but is a dagger +1 doing full damage to a dragon really that much of a threat when you have over 200 hit points? I say let the dagger +1 affect it and then watch that full attack of the dragon come into play and swat the person down that thought to attack it with a +1 dagger. I think that the dragon's stats were revamped to take the damage reduction into account. The damage reduction of the dragon was probably just meant to protect it from normal or masterwork weapons. Dragons are combat monsters. If you don't go into combat with one with more than just a dagger +1 you will probably have the life crushed out of you pretty quickly. While we discussed a dagger here, I think that my argument applies to all +1 weapons with no other special abilities.
Zaebos 08-03-03, 03:03 AM	its not just dragons though, its everything. Tell me, what is the point of having greater magic weapons than +1 now? What possible incentive is there now to aquire greater magic weapons other than the bonus to hit and damage, which DEFINATELY does not compensate for the prices of these weapons.
Raynard the Black 08-03-03, 03:37 AM	I agree. Aside from damage and to hit bonus they have eliminated the need for weapons higher than a +1 enhancement bonus. It does allow someone to get a +1 longsword of icy burst and ingnore the +3 longsword that he finds down the road. It all depends on what you prefer to use now. In 3.0 you would always choose the +3 longsword over the +1 longsword of icy burst as it would allow you to damage more creatures than the +1 longsword would. However, now you can weigh in the extra damage that the icy burst weapon does versus the to hit bonus of the +3 longsword. You now have to think about which weapon you will use as both are useful in their own ways. I don't mind the new damage reduction so much. I think that WotC has made the +1 weapons with special abilities a lot more powerful than they were in 3.0. This makes them more useful. I would still rather have a +3 longsword of icy burst over the+1 sword of icy burst, but the +1 weapon now retains some power in your campaign when higher plussed weapons become available. Besides, there is nothing to say that you can't still use the old damage reduction values from the 3.0 monster manual.
Roxlimn 08-03-03, 03:47 AM	I don't suppose you can substantiate the claim that the bonuses to hit and damage can't compensate for the price?
rockfall22 08-03-03, 03:48 AM	Ahem... I actually enjoy this system better. I can see this is a "3.5 rules-bashing" but I must protest! I am reminded of a tv show where this old sage hands over a knife to the hero, which is meant to kill the villain. He comments "but the blade isn't sharp!" The old man promptly replies "Magic can cut magic!" You see, dragons are innately magical in nature, and as such, a magic weapon should be able to harm them. The same goes for all the other things harmed by magic. Besides, this system streamlines combat, so a DM doesn't have to keep track of the plusses as much on weapons. He just has to say "it's a magical sword, right?" instead of "it's a magical sword, right? Okay, so what plus is it? Oh, sorry, that bounces off." Besides, any dragon worth his salt should still be able to kick the living daylights out of most people. That's why most people fear them.
rockfall22 08-03-03, 03:54 AM	And, I'd also like to add one other thing: the fact that a character can ignore a magical weapon with a better plus is not that silly. I mean, look at Drizzt for instance. He had a chance to weild Cutter, which is much, much more powerful than his current swords, but he turned it down. Again, this is numbers-playing getting in the way of roleplaying. But, are you going to honestly turn down a +3 sword if you have a +1? Probably not. It is easier to hit targets, you inflict more damage per hit (on average, at least). I am tired of people running on at the mouth about how bad 3.5 is, when really, it is an improvement in every way. I have found no flaw in the 3.5 rules, and I am enjoying my roleplaying experience more because of them. So just chill out, sit back, and roll the damn dice!
Quirk 08-03-03, 04:01 AM	Yes, it is a little easier to hit the dragon, until it casts stoneskin, and gets adamantine damage reduction...or until you need good weapons to hurt those devils... Maybe dragons got the short end of the stick (and were probably given compensation), but a lot of other creatures got a significant boost to their toughness (and I'm not talking about the crappy feat that gives you +3 hp)
Raynard the Black 08-03-03, 04:08 AM	I agree that 3.5 is an improvement over 3.0. I just think that +1 weapon with a special ability is now the equal if not better in some ways than a weapon with a higher enhancement bonus. The people at WotC have made choosing your weapon more complex, which is a good thing! It gives you more variety to choose from. ...And no I can't justify the cost for these weapons Roxlimm as I did not design them.
Kkat 08-03-03, 04:34 AM	I'm nto a fan of 3.5 and don't allow most of it in my games. But... Originally posted by rockfall22 Besides, any dragon worth his salt should still be able to kick the living daylights out of most people. That's why most people fear them. I must say that this is absolutely right. And I have adopted the damage reduction types of 3.5 in my games. I think this is, in fact, one of the best changes that 3.5 has introduced. It has much, much better flavor. And it keeps the characters from immediately discarding that silver sword when they get a +1 sword. I agree that this devalues higher-plus weapons. But even in 3.0, the Sure Strike ability was only +1 and did the same thing. On the other paw: I do not like the reduction in the DR amounts. I think reducing all DR to 5,10 or (in rare cases) 15 makes DR pretty much worthless against higher level characters. As such, my own games will use the 3.5 DR types, but the 3.0 DR amounts. --Kkat
Roxlimn 08-03-03, 05:25 AM	Raynard the Black: The remark you responded to was in response to this statement: originally posted by Zaebos: Tell me, what is the point of having greater magic weapons than +1 now? What possible incentive is there now to aquire greater magic weapons other than the bonus to hit and damage, which DEFINATELY does not compensate for the prices of these weapons. It seemed clear that I was responding to this. Unfortunately, your post got in before mine, without my knowledge.
PraytosSilverstar 08-03-03, 05:39 AM	"WHAT IS THE POINT NOW OF HAVING A WEAPON WITH A MAGIC BONUS GREATER THAN +1?" -- Zaebos +5 versus a +1 weapon. What's the point? I'll give you four of them. Four more points to attack and four more points to damage. Front liners are always looking to squeeze in an extra point or two to either to hit or to damage. Weapon Focus, Weapon Spec. Are you seriously going to ask me what the point of taking these feats are? Same point. To improve your chances in combat. Well, you might say, there are plenty of ways to do that without having to spend X cash on a weapon. Sure there is. But there are limits. Enhancement bonuses to Strength and Dex have their reasonable limits (BA-roken combos aside). Inherent Bonuses are limted to +5. Luck and Morale bonuses will only get you so far. At some point you are going to look at the gold in your pocket, and the better chances to hit and the bonus to damage and realize that a +2,3,4 or 5 weapon isn't so bad afterall. Now, to another point, the fact that I no longer NEED to get a +5 weapon at some point is a weight off my shoulders. +1 will do it? Cool. But if I want to pay the extra for better to hit and damage, they're available. Cool. More choice. It's all good in my books. Be well. Praytos
Daeri Maer'jiir 08-03-03, 06:59 AM	Well said PraytosSilverstar I think the system works, +5 sounds cooler then +1, and it is better, it's simple. Kkat, I wouldn't mind seeing the way your system works, but if you don't have the right weapon it would seem you are, how shall I put it? Skrewed. The Iron Golem has 50/Admantium This means if you don't have admantine you have to deal 50+ damage. If you do have have it it's straight through 118. I don't think that would be very fair.
Derren S. 08-03-03, 07:38 AM	Originally posted by PraytosSilverstar "WHAT IS THE POINT NOW OF HAVING A WEAPON WITH A MAGIC BONUS GREATER THAN +1?" -- Zaebos +5 versus a +1 weapon. What's the point? I'll give you four of them. Four more points to attack and four more points to damage. Then lets rephrase it. Whats the point in having a weapon other than with +1 and +9 worth of abilities? Maybe dragons got the short end of the stick (and were probably given compensation) No, they weren't. Several dragon abilities were weakened without compensation. - Worse DR - Blindsense instead blindsight - Lower darkvision range - Higher CR which makes them "easier" to defeat when pitting them against a party with CR in mind.
Thrudjelmer 08-03-03, 08:17 AM	Originally posted by Zaebos Tell me, what is the point of having greater magic weapons than +1 now? What possible incentive is there now to aquire greater magic weapons other than the bonus to hit and damage, which DEFINATELY does not compensate for the prices of these weapons. The reason for having a weapon greater than +1 in enchantment now falls to other types of damage reduction... a monster with DR 5/adamantine doesn't lose its protection against a magic weapon, but a +5 longsword still does normal damage (1d8+5-5 = a range of 1 to 8 points of damage) whereas a +1 longsword may prove ineffective at times (1d8+1-5= a range of 0 to 4 points of damage). Same thing applies to other forms of damage reduction based on damage type or alignment...
Ahnehnois 08-03-03, 09:24 AM	I think they should have kept the +1, +2, etc. DR, but not made it overcome such things as adamantine DR, if you know what I mean. DR /+5 should be overcome by only a +5 weapon. DR/silver should be overcome only by a silver weapon. That would be the best of both worlds. No, they weren't. Several dragon abilities were weakened without compensation. The new skills and feats for monsters rules helped them out, right? Not full compensation, but it is meaningful. Whats the point in having a weapon other than with +1 and +9 worth of abilities? A +1 Greater Wounding Vorpal weapon that misses because your attack roll was too low (but the enhancement bonus could have made it hit) is not really advantageous. An enhancement bonus also helps with subtracting for the new Power Attack. You can do a whole lot of damage. There is plenty incentive for getting an enhancement bonus or for getting special abilities. Which was their intent. Which is a good thing.
Danharms 08-03-03, 11:41 AM	I like the new system, because it gives the characters real choices when choosing weaponry. I let characters enhance their weapons, but under 3.0 you were always giving up a big benefit if you chose a special ability instead of another +1. In 3.5, if you want your character to wield a "sword with the power of winter frost" or something else for RP reasons, you're not tempted to metagame regarding the plusses and creature's DR. Adamantium, on the other hand...
Quirk 08-03-03, 01:13 PM	They couldn't have kept both systems, really. I believe one of their goals was to open up some variety in weapon choice. It's cool not having to worry about making my sword +5, and then squeezing out the extra cash to make it keen, etc. Especially because you need axiomatic, holy, anarchic, and unholy etc to crack other DR. Remember, a +5 hits 20% more often than a +1.
Zaebos 08-05-03, 10:20 PM	Your stat is skewed. +5 is 20% better than +1 but it doesn't hit 20% more often. The problem here isn't the fact that the new DR system sucks, but it creates a tremendous vaccuum. NOW there is absolutely no need for magical weapons that have a +2 or greater enhancement bonus. DO YOU PEOPLE HONESTLY THINK THAT ADDING ANOTHER 6000gp TO A +1 WEAPON TO MAKE IT A +2 WEAPON JUSTIFIES THIS +1 to DAMAGE +1 to HIT???? This is way over priced. Not only that, but it is infinately easier to enter into combat with creatures with basic damage reduction. I mean really, what is the point of having damage reduction at all at this point??? Any character going up against a dragon no longer needs to fear that they can't do any damage to it even if all they have is a measly +1 weapon. And the reason that magic weapons are in the DMG is for the DM to decide which weapons that the characters get, not for players to decide what they get. But to continue, this DR system breaks the system of enhancement bonus. No longer is there a need to find better weapons. This is a major flaw within the rules. Hell, even a barbarian has better damage reduction than a dragon. Perhaps I will rule that a dragon has DR like a barbarian. Who ever came up with this modified DR system needs a bullet through the head (preferably by their own hand). I agree with a lot of the DR rules, EXCEPT for the all inclusive 'magic' descriptor.
devinmdp 08-05-03, 10:41 PM	I already started another thread like this in the Q&A forum. In any event, I recommend you house rule that each +1 of weapon negates 3 DR of DR/magic. Since the highest DR in 3.5 is now 15, a +5 weapon will now negate the best DR, while a +1 weapon is still somewhat useful in negating DR. As far as the person questioning the assertion that the mere plusses to attack and damage are no longer worth the price...look at it this way. In 3.0 weapons cost X gp and you got the attack and damage bonus AND the ability to affect DR. Now these selfsame weapons cost the same gp, but have no benefit viz a viz DR. So by definition, either the weapon prices for plusses are too high now OR they were too low in 3.0. You can't have it both ways. Devin
Luminous Crayon 08-05-03, 10:43 PM	Originally posted by Zaebos DO YOU PEOPLE HONESTLY THINK THAT ADDING ANOTHER 6000gp TO A +1 WEAPON TO MAKE IT A +2 WEAPON JUSTIFIES THIS +1 to DAMAGE +1 to HIT???? Yes. Yes, I do honestly think that. And there's no need to shout.
Zaebos 08-06-03, 12:34 AM	There is a need to shout... why on earth would they (wotc) do this ?!?! It makes absolutely NO SENSE!!! (oop look im shouting again) I thought the weapon prices in 3.0 were just right which is why I think either the magic descriptor for DR in 3.5 needs modification or the prices for weapons need to come down drastically. I don't like the house rule that each + of a weapon negates 3 pts of DR. Much to much like work. I am looking for an elegant and easy patch (yes it needs patching, this is obviously a rule that never underwent scrutiny at any level). Something simple that works both the incremental DR magic enhancement bonus of 3.0 into the fairly descent 3.5 system (with the exception of the magic descriptor). All in all, the 3.0 system is better, however, the only real benifit of 3.5 that I like is that if you something has silver in the description, you need silver, not just a magic weapon. Perhaps I will rule it this way. Keep the 3.0 DR system with the speical items (adamantine, cold iron, etc) from 3.5. I would most likely rule as well that special items also need to be magical as well.
Quirk 08-06-03, 12:39 AM	Really? I think if it was such an outrageous change, and the worst rule ever, at Gen Con, I probably would have seen Andy Collins and the rest of R&D surrounded by rings of shock troops just to keep angry players from beating them with their new 3.5 books.
Zaebos 08-06-03, 01:38 AM	The change in and of itself isn't outrageous... rather, STUPID is the correct term.
anglar 08-06-03, 02:08 AM	Originally posted by rockfall22 So just chill out, sit back, and roll the damn dice! And from that point on you are ROLL playing.
anglar 08-06-03, 02:18 AM	What the new DR does is make players need weapons that are made of special metal, have magical plusses, and some sort of other magical enhancement. It also makes them need to carry different types of the same weapon so that they can be effective versus any opponent. I'll be doing a graded system in my game.
Draco Argentum 08-06-03, 02:48 AM	Originally posted by Zaebos Your stat is skewed. +5 is 20% better than +1 but it doesn't hit 20% more often. Actually +5 does hit approximately 20% more often than +1. This assumes that you would hit on a 15 or less with a +1 weapon. The extra 4 damage and the increased chance to hit are definately worth haveing. Particulayly the extra hits, 20% more hits is 20% more damage.
Yankee 08-06-03, 04:08 AM	Under 3.5, there is a point to a +2 longsword over a +1 flaming longsword, if you're fighting things with fire resistance. Just think of any extra +1s as a special encahntment that does an extra d1 of damage, which gets past resistances. It doesn't feel like such a rip-off then.
Magus Occidentalus 08-06-03, 05:03 AM	Q:What's the point of a +5 weapon? A:Being a +FRICKIN' 5 weapon. so it no longer is necessary to hit some monsters, it's still vastly more powerful than a +1 sword. And as for cash, does anyone else remember 2ed, where buying magic items was actively discouraged? If you wanted a magic weapon, you had to go into some deep dark dungeon where it was guarded by incredible monsters, traps, and magic, and then have a mini-war/auction with your fellow PCs to see who gets it? Now it is hypothetically possible to walk around near town, killing random orcs, for years if need be, until you have enough money to buy a vorpal weapon!!! And we complain about price?
The_Arcanist 08-06-03, 09:17 AM	Now my players don't have to change weapons every three levels because the newest DR/+ showed up. They can actually spend their gold on giving their current weapons better properties, or on othe magic items that give them effects in other areas. They can actually spend their gold with less worry now... especially with spells that change the weapons alignment and psionic powers that change materials. My players rogue can now have a +1 Keen Wounding Holy short sword, and not have to worry about it not being about to deal with half the monsters out there. Or he can just make a +1 dagger and spend the rest of his gold on gloves of dexterity, or rings of invisibility, or something else that might make him a better rogue. Also, I can give them quests to find a weapon to hurt certain monsters. The BBEG has damage reduction of Good, Lawful, Adamantine and Magic over 25?. Well, there are tales of celetail dwarves that live in the far reaches of blah blah blah. Yeah, that's an extreme case, but its the classic, find the weapons needed for the fight quest.
Chobemaster 08-06-03, 10:47 AM	I believe you are harder to sunder with the higher enhancement bonuses, too, right? You're +1 vorpal thundering wounding sword is great until some punk with a +2 greataxe deep-sixes it. And really, while I understand the argument in principle, what are the practical ramifications? Most members of the party had the appropriate plus of weapon before they fought the beastie, and if you didn't, you used spells or GMW. Mostly, it didn't matter either because you had what you needed or the monsters you fought didn't have DR. Black dragons, for example, get to DR/+2 at Very Old, CR 17. Show me the 17th level party, or even 13th level, where the characters swinging weapons at the dragon are toting +1's. Now, in 3.5, I can still do full damage with my +1 weapon. For approximately 1 round, before I'm toast. The practical change is that the CR 17 dragon is, technically, more vulnerable to foes with +1 weapons...but such foes are generally not going to be making DC 27 will saves and DC 30 reflex saves against fear and breath, and they sure aren't going to be surviving 18d4 (45 average) for long. And if they have +1 armor to go with their +1 weapons, they aren't going to have the kinds of AC that stand up to attack bonus +36 for long, either. With huge reach, not a single one of these jokers is going to make a melee attack in any event. If you did a mortality table for black dragons, I don't think the DR change is going to make a big difference. In principle, part of the added value of the additional +1 was increased DR penetration...but the CR of creatures with greater than /+1 damage reduction basically guaranteed that you wouldn't need to buy such a weapon for that purpose...you'd find lots of +2 weapons in most campaigns well prior to level 17, even mine, which is slightly low magic. So from a practical standpoint, what you actually "got" was the additional hits, confirmed crits, damage, and sunder resistance. You can buy a lot of scrolls of GMW, especially if the party is making them, for what it would cost to trade-in your +1 for a +2. Analogize to buying a car with heated seats...sure that's a nice feature, worth something. Now imagine you live in Death Valley or some other absurdly hot place...the "value" the heated seat adds is worthless, because you'll never take advantage of it.
Derren S. 08-06-03, 11:46 AM	Originally posted by Magus Occidentalus Q:What's the point of a +5 weapon? A:Being a +FRICKIN' 5 weapon. so it no longer is necessary to hit some monsters, it's still vastly more powerful than a +1 sword. Bt is it equal to a +1 thundering wounding weapon?
Quirk 08-06-03, 02:21 PM	Originally posted by Chobemaster Analogize to buying a car with heated seats...sure that's a nice feature, worth something. Now imagine you live in Death Valley or some other absurdly hot place...the "value" the heated seat adds is worthless, because you'll never take advantage of it. Deserts get really freaking cold at night:angel:
Chobemaster 08-06-03, 05:38 PM	Originally posted by Quirk Deserts get really freaking cold at night:angel: I knew someone was going to say that. I almost qualified the remark...at least I got an angel!:)
Dash Branaghan 08-06-03, 06:15 PM	I think the change in DR is a step up in one way simply because it opens up the DM's Repetoire of WhoopAss. I can throw creatures at the PCs now that I would only consider throwing at them before without fear of a TPK because of ineffective weapons. Now, they can eventually whittle creatures down without having to have +5 Keen, Dancing, Wounding, Vorpal, Vampiric, Everything-Bane, Silver Mercurial Greatswords. So if I want, I can throw a lycanthrope up against a party of 5 2-3rd level PCs without worrying about their lack of silver or magic weapons. Which works better for me in light of the low magic campaign I run.
devinmdp 08-06-03, 07:23 PM	"So if I want, I can throw a lycanthrope up against a party of 5 2-3rd level PCs without worrying about their lack of silver or magic weapons. Which works better for me in light of the low magic campaign I run." You can? Praytell how. Aren't lycanthropes in 3.5 10/silver? Weren't they DR 10 in 3.0? Devin
Dash Branaghan 08-06-03, 07:26 PM	Originally posted by devinmdp You can? Praytell how. Aren't lycanthropes in 3.5 10/silver? Weren't they DR 10 in 3.0? Off the top of my head, I have no idea since my books aren't currently beside me. Feel free to substitute something that was 5/+1 in 3.0 and isn't now....it will illustrate the point I'm trying to make.
devinmdp 08-06-03, 07:35 PM	"Off the top of my head, I have no idea since my books aren't currently beside me. Feel free to substitute something that was 5/+1 in 3.0 and isn't now....it will illustrate the point I'm trying to make." Honestly then, I think you missed the point. I have yet to see a single anti-3.5 DR post that claims that lowering the DR number was a bad thing. In fact, almost universally everyone agrees that making the maximum DR lower (from 30 to 15) is a wonderful thing. The sole issue is with the word after the slash. So, for example, lowering all the DR ratings and leaving the +1, +2, +3, +4, +5 would take care of your need (to allow people without the proper weapons to still be somewhat effective) while still retaining the significance of plusses. To be honest, I wouldn't have a problem so much with the DR the way it is in 3.5 if they lowered weapon costs to account for the lesser importance of plusses now. The way it should work then is that cost for plusses should be linear (instead of exponential) and the costs for special abilities should be raised to compensate (i.e. something that is now the equivalent of one plus would be the equivalent of 2-3 plusses). Devin
Dash Branaghan 08-06-03, 08:11 PM	Hmmmm, maybe we aren't reading the same thread, because all I see here is ******* and moaning about +1 weapons being as good as +5 weapons as far as DR goes now, so what is the point of higher + weapons instead of getting abilities. Either that or you missed my point. To me, this is a pointless argument (the +1 vs. +5) because, as I stated, with the changes to the DR system I can now throw creatures at my players that have a DR without having to inundate my world with magic items for them to fight them. Which is how I like my world. I don't have to provide a +3 weapon for going against the iron golem or some other creature with DR X/+3. I don't like having to choose my monsters based on the DR /+X factor because I don't give out massive weapons of magical destruction to every PC at 2nd level who can't do 50+ points of damage in a single blow. I'm also not saying lowering the DR was a good or bad thing; to be honest, I haven't had much of a chance to sit down and read my books since I got them (working three jobs will do that for you) and so was unaware that they dropped the maximum damage aspect of DR...I'm saying that I'm glad they got rid of the + on the other side of the slash and made it silver, magic, iron, fuzzy bunnies, whatever. It makes my options for pulling something from the MM without having to houserule it into the game a lot broader, and allows me to give my players weapons to deal with the situation without prostituting myself to do so. I can keep my world at a low magic setting without having to worry about a TPK at higher levels. I hope that clears up the point I'm trying to make.
devinmdp 08-06-03, 08:15 PM	"Hmmmm, maybe we aren't reading the same thread, because all I see here is ******* and moaning about +1 weapons being as good as +5 weapons as far as DR goes now, so what is the point of higher + weapons instead of getting abilities. Either that or you missed my point. To me, this is a pointless argument (the +1 vs. +5) because, as I stated, with the changes to the DR system I can now throw creatures at my players that have a DR without having to inundate my world with magic items for them to fight them. Which is how I like my world. I don't have to provide a +3 weapon for going against the iron golem or some other creature with DR X/+3. I don't like having to choose my monsters based on the DR /+X factor because I don't give out massive weapons of magical destruction to every PC at 2nd level who can't do 50+ points of damage in a single blow. I'm also not saying lowering the DR was a good or bad thing; to be honest, I haven't had much of a chance to sit down and read my books since I got them (working three jobs will do that for you) and so was unaware that they dropped the maximum damage aspect of DR...I'm saying that I'm glad they got rid of the + on the other side of the slash and made it silver, magic, iron, fuzzy bunnies, whatever. It makes my options for pulling something from the MM without having to houserule it into the game a lot broader, and allows me to give my players weapons to deal with the situation without prostituting myself to do so. I can keep my world at a low magic setting without having to worry about a TPK at higher levels. I hope that clears up the point I'm trying to make." That makes it clearer. But what, as a DM, makes giving players, using the iron golem as an example, adamantium weapons more palatable than giving them +3 weapons? Why is giving the party a +3 weapon "prostituting" oneself but giving them adamantium weapons is not? As a DM from a low magic world myself, I sympathize with your desire not to flood the world with magic. But I would e just as leary flooding the world with mithril, adamantium, good aligned, etc. Devin
Israfel666 08-06-03, 08:42 PM	I believe that what DR system is better is *really* dependant on the approach to weapons you have in your campaign? A few examples... You want each player to wield his "chosen" weapon, which he never gives away/loses, which he takes Weapon Focus for, and which he invests a lot of his money on (my approach)? Use 3.0 DR - you won't face the disappointment on your player's face when his Mighty Axe of the Fire King can't hurt a clay golem. You want players to be experienced, canny planewalkers who always carry a dozen different weapons to deal with monsters they never thought could exist? Use 3.5 DR - a planewalker isn't worthy of his name without a lawful weapon, a chaotic one, a good one, an evil one, a cold iron one, an adamantine one, a silver one, etc. You want players to embark in epic quests to find the legendary weapons who are absolutely needed to hurt the mighty monster? Use 3.5 DR tags with 3.0 amount - let's see them fighting the Diamond Golem (DR 60/adamantine) without the Diamondbane Swords from the Forge-Under-The-Mountain. You don't want to worry about DR too much and your greatest fear is to throw the characters a monster they can't hurt, resulting in a TPK? After bashing yourself for being so unconfident of your improvisation, use 3.0 DR tags with 3.5 amounts - most likely, your players will manage to deal with DR (at least one of them will have a powerful enough weapon), but even if they don't have the weapons, they will still survive the encounter with just a few more bruises. Just my 2 cp.
anglar 08-06-03, 08:51 PM	The problem with DR now is that each PC needs to carry weapons made from each different metal type with a different set of magical bonuses and properties to be able to combat any random enemy effectively. I can just see combats going something like this in 3.5 games. PC spots opponent which is some type of beast with a DR. PC makes appropriate knowledge check to determine which longsword to pull. "Where's my cold iron archaic cold burtsing longsword? I don't need the silvered axiomic holy flaming longsword now? Get out of the way you silly adamantine unholy shocking longsword? Oh dear! It's right in front of me." Quick Draw has become a much more valuable feat.
Zaebos 08-07-03, 07:03 PM	Ok, many of you here fail to realize what this entails... To take my example from earlier, RED DRAGONS can now be damaged by the simplest minor magic items. With a top DR20/magic, its one of the few creatures that have broken the 'max DR15 for creatures' rule. The 3.0 dragon was DR20/+3. NOW, having said that, ANY magical weapon can hurt a dragon. Correct me if I am wrong, but arn't dragons (and other creatures) supposed to be harder to damage? By the time you meet up with a dragon, you will have a magic weapon. What is the POINT of DR#/magic if it isn't even going to help the creature? Almost all players will have at LEAST one magical weapon of a +1 enhancement by level 5 (going by the rules). TELL ME, what is the point of having DR#/magic at this point? It adds nothing to the monster, doesn't increase the difficulty of killing the creature, all damage will get through, what is the point of a creature even having it? Also, to reiterate, CHARACTERS SHOULD NOT CHOOSE THEIR MAGIC WEAPONS!!! Thats the DM's job. While I deveate here a little off topic, adding plusses does not increase the probability of hitting more often... esp if the AC of the victim is still higher than that of the character trying to hit. Adding extra plusses to a weapon is useless now. Might as well use bless to get your bonuses up rather than invest in bigger enhancement bonuses. Now, back on to the topic. There no longer exists a need for weapons that have greater enhancement bonuses. You all seem to think that getting a few extra plusses helps out, but tell me this. By the time a fighter is level 10, he already has a +10 to hit +Str bonus (say 18 Str for a +14 on melee) with weapon focus (+15). For the sake of arguement lets give the fighter a +1 great sword (+16) and weapon specialization. So the fighter is = TO HIT: Great Sword +16/+11 DAMAGE: 2d6 +4(str) +2(2 handed) +2(weapon specialization) +1(weapon enhancement bonus) AVG hit roll 26/21 AVG dmg roll 15 Before, a creature with DR10/+2 AC 25 stood a chance with this guy to survive a round or two. Resisting the first 10 pts of damage from this guy every round he hits. Now a creature with DR10/magic has no chance to resist this guy since his DR is useless and instead of taking 5 pts of damage every hit, the creature now takes 15. This severely weakens and, to me, breaks the system of DR. Sure they added in those special materials (like 2???), but this does not even begin to compensate for those creatures who have become shafted in this whole ordeal like dragons. Now any two bit fighter with a few gp invested in their weapons can damage a dragon no matter what. NOT many creatures in the new MM have DR/speical material either. The beauty of DR in 3.0 was that it removed the 'immunity' factor from 2nd edition and made it so that if you did do enough damage and wern't equipped correctly, you could still hurt the creature. This was a step forward in the game. However, now that they have essentially made DR##/magic useless (since everyone can hit the damned thing with even the lowliest of magic items), is there even a point now to even listing this as a Special Quality of the monster? DR in 3.0 made it possible for people to damage creatures without innundating your world with hefty magic items. A creature with DR25/+5 could still be damaged if you did more than 25 points of damage to it (which by the time you face such a creature, I bet the front line of the party could do that easily). Now, we, the DM's, have to mess around with speical items constantly, and now the players are either going to try to find cold iron and silvered items (since these don't have to be magical in nature to hit creatures with these weapons, they should be fairly easy to get) and weigh themselves down with more gear. In this instance, instead of simplifying a rule for 3.5, they made it 10 times more convoluted than it ever was in 3.0. Perhaps I will work it like this DR/magic CR = 1-4 +1 or better CR = 5-8 +2 or better CR = 9-12 +3 or better CR = 13-16 +4 or better CR = 17 and more +5 or better This would help justify the exponential cost of magic weapons. I can't fathom why adding a +2 to hit and +2 to damage to a speicific weapon needs to cost this much if all its going to do for the player is add +2 to hit and +2 to damage. Instead of reworking the pricing system, rework the DR#/magic system. This is the problem. THIS WILL CHANGE in my campaign.
Cindre2000 08-08-03, 12:04 AM	Originally posted by Zaebos NOW, having said that, ANY magical weapon can hurt a dragon. Correct me if I am wrong, but arn't dragons (and other creatures) supposed to be harder to damage? By the time you meet up with a dragon, you will have a magic weapon. What is the POINT of DR#/magic if it isn't even going to help the creature? Well of course is is going to help the dragon. It now has several more magic weapons in its hoard after is finishes ripping your head off. The Dragon became more balanced in 3.5 and is still going to kill most parties of equal level. It just happens that it is not immune to half of the magic items you have. The reason the left side was changed with the right side to to make less of an impact to characters that are fighting. A 30/Admantine creature is pointless for a fighter to go up against without a Admantine weapon. However, the 15/Admantine golem will still be possible to kill. HOwever, the brunt of your attack will be lost. That is the reasoning the WotC decided on. Fighters do not now need 5 different weapons because of the change in the right hand side. Their possibly two weapons will be enough; however, in some fights, they will be less effective but not completly useless. The change on the right hand side was for flavor. Why should a werewolf be hurt by any old magic weapon. I see most people agree with this. The change in magic is the only thing being debated here. The change makes it easier for DMs and players to use and understand. The most important use for this that I can see is my NPC does not have to throw away his great-grandfathers +1 longswords because it is to weak. It brings in roleplaying not rollplaying. Is your players paladin give up the greatsword given to him by the dying patriarch of the church just because he cannot hurt a measly dragon. Now, no. P.S. If your dragon has trouble killing the party. YOU ARE PLAYING IT WRONG. Or it is way to low level.
Loopy 08-08-03, 12:12 AM	Listen... Almost all the frickin' damage reductions in the game were set to be equal to the kinds of weapons the characters fighting them were supposed to have. As a mechanic, it was SUPPOSED to deter characters from flying blindly into battle against these creatures. SOME of us decided, of copurse to send really mean-ass creatures against our PCs, but for the most part it did no good. Besides, players shouldn't NEED a DR rule to tell them their level 3 party shouldn't fight the great wyrm Red Dragon. Duh! So! Since a Dragon (for example) has DR/magic, he'll still likely use the same MD or A-MF tactics he did before with the SAME results. What does it matter?? Oh yeah... it DOESN'T. The only difference is that that level 3 rogue with his +1 dagger poking the Ancient Blue Wyrm in the butt (I'm going to do THREE damage! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!) will get killed by said dragon as a warning instead of the customary "Well, it doesn't seem like the Dragon even FELT that. You deal zero damage and I'll give you a round to re-think this path you've taken in your life."
Draco Argentum 08-08-03, 01:01 AM	Originally posted by Zaebos NOW, having said that, ANY magical weapon can hurt a dragon. Correct me if I am wrong, but arn't dragons (and other creatures) supposed to be harder to damage? By the time you meet up with a dragon, you will have a magic weapon. What is the POINT of DR#/magic if it isn't even going to help the creature? Well if you didn't have a +3 weapon and you were facing a great wyrm something strange was going on. That means that in 3.0 you were effectively certain to get through the Dragon's DR. Now in 3.5 you are still certain to get through the Dragon's DR. However your summoned minions will have less chance of bypassing it. The Dragon actually gained something. Also, to reiterate, CHARACTERS SHOULD NOT CHOOSE THEIR MAGIC WEAPONS!!! Thats the DM's job. The craft Magic Arms & Armour feat disagrees. While I deveate here a little off topic, adding plusses does not increase the probability of hitting more often... esp if the AC of the victim is still higher than that of the character trying to hit. Adding extra plusses to a weapon is useless now. Might as well use bless to get your bonuses up rather than invest in bigger enhancement bonuses. Creature has AC 30. Your to hit bonus is 20 includeing your +1 sword. You hit 55% of the time. You upgrade to a +5 sword. Now you hit 75% of the time. Therefore getting a better enchanted weapon results in an increased chance of hitting. Before, a creature with DR10/+2 AC 25 stood a chance with this guy to survive a round or two. Resisting the first 10 pts of damage from this guy every round he hits. Now a creature with DR10/magic has no chance to resist this guy since his DR is useless and instead of taking 5 pts of damage every hit, the creature now takes 15. A +2 greatsword costs 8350gp. By the DMG guidelines a lvl 10 char has 49000gp. Unless you are playing a low magic game a lvl 10 fighter most likely has a +2 weapon and would've bypassed the creature's DR in 3.0 The beauty of DR in 3.0 was that it removed the 'immunity' factor from 2nd edition and made it so that if you did do enough damage and wern't equipped correctly, you could still hurt the creature. This was a step forward in the game. However, now that they have essentially made DR##/magic useless (since everyone can hit the damned thing with even the lowliest of magic items), is there even a point now to even listing this as a Special Quality of the monster? Since 3.5 has lower amounts of DR across the board it does a better job of removeing the immunity of 2e. 3.0 had things like the iron golem's 50/+3 so without a +3 sword you had no chance. That was effectively immunity. DR in 3.0 made it possible for people to damage creatures without innundating your world with hefty magic items. A creature with DR25/+5 could still be damaged if you did more than 25 points of damage to it (which by the time you face such a creature, I bet the front line of the party could do that easily). Now, we, the DM's, have to mess around with speical items constantly, and now the players are either going to try to find cold iron and silvered items (since these don't have to be magical in nature to hit creatures with these weapons, they should be fairly easy to get) and weigh themselves down with more gear. And since a number as high as 25 is rare in 3.5 pre-epic you can still hurt a creature whose DR you cannot bypass. Now it is possible to use unenchanted weapons to bypass more DR than was possible in 3.0. This means a DM could give out even less enchanted weapons and the PCs will still be able to bypass some DR.[/B][/QUOTE]
Roxlimn 08-08-03, 09:24 AM	On DR/magic: An excellent move, in my opinion. The reasoning behind this, I suppose, is that the DR's in 3.0 were generally estimated to be equal to the magic weapon plusses the weapons in 3.0 had for their character anyway at the appropriate levels. Thus, it didn't really matter what the plus was since you were more than likely to have it anyway. Savvy? In effect, higher weapons plusses were so easy and so routine to avoid that it was pointless to differentiate. In 3.0, they introduced many new aspects to weapons. Flaming weapons, adamantine weapons, mithril weapons, holy and unholy weapons. In many ways, these are more detailed ways of showing what magic was. In 2e, a "magic" weapon could be imagined as being extra keen, being holy, or whatever, represented by a higher plus. With the added effects in 3.0e, I don't see why 3.5e should not improve on the existing effects by naming the conditional magic modifiers on a per creature basis. In effect, it specifies what kind of "plus" particular creatures were vulnerable to, and plusses have evolved from being plusses to hit and damage into being plusses to damage only to particular creaures and particular circumstances. On making weapons less effective: Actually, they don't. There are circumstances when weapons are less effective and there are circumstances in which spells are less effective. Quid pro quo, eh? A creature with DR is expressly said to be physically tough, but in a way that isn't represented by hp. Said toughness could easily be represented by hp. Just add a HD or three. But by being vulnerable to a weapon type, this can be represented in a more elegant fashion, while maintaining relative simplicity. Are these creatures relatively vulnerable to magic? Absolutely. Being not subject to DR relflecting the creature's toughness, magic is explicitly presented as one of the creature's key weaknesses. Werewolves, in particular, SHOULD be vulnerable to supernatural effects, IMO, being supernatural in nature. If you want, you can model resistance to spells by adding SR, but base D&D would not agree with this. You can feel differently, but it's not necessarily a mistake.
Chobemaster 08-08-03, 10:16 AM	Originally posted by anglar The problem with DR now is that each PC needs to carry weapons made from each different metal type with a different set of magical bonuses and properties to be able to combat any random enemy effectively. I can just see combats going something like this in 3.5 games. PC spots opponent which is some type of beast with a DR. PC makes appropriate knowledge check to determine which longsword to pull. "Where's my cold iron archaic cold burtsing longsword? I don't need the silvered axiomic holy flaming longsword now? Get out of the way you silly adamantine unholy shocking longsword? Oh dear! It's right in front of me." Quick Draw has become a much more valuable feat. By also lowering the DR amounts, that's not really true. I'm fighting a flesh golem with my +2 steel sword, let's say. 3.5 flesh golem has 5/adamantine. So sure, I'd be better off, damage wise, with an adamantine weapon. But 7th level fighter-types can do a decent amount of minimum damage, especially with power attack...so I can still damage it pretty well with the "wrong" material. You're wizard is less effective now than he was with the right weapon. I'm OK with that. There's also a spell that changes the "substance" of a weapon temporarily, isn't there? So that replaces GMW as the back-up to not having the right weapon. Most PC's aren't going to waste the money stocking up on more than 2 materials, I'd guess, unless they are going on a specific hunting trip, so that's no different than now, where PC's have a sharp and a blunt, or a flaming and a shocking. You could buy a lot of the material-swapping scrolls instead and save on encumbrance.
Chobemaster 08-08-03, 11:06 AM	Originally posted by Zaebos Ok, many of you here fail to realize what this entails... To take my example from earlier, RED DRAGONS can now be damaged by the simplest minor magic items. With a top DR20/magic, its one of the few creatures that have broken the 'max DR15 for creatures' rule. The 3.0 dragon was DR20/+3. NOW, having said that, ANY magical weapon can hurt a dragon. Correct me if I am wrong, but arn't dragons (and other creatures) supposed to be harder to damage? By the time you meet up with a dragon, you will have a magic weapon. What is the POINT of DR#/magic if it isn't even going to help the creature? Almost all players will have at LEAST one magical weapon of a +1 enhancement by level 5 (going by the rules). TELL ME, what is the point of having DR#/magic at this point? It adds nothing to the monster, doesn't increase the difficulty of killing the creature, all damage will get through, what is the point of a creature even having it? While I deveate here a little off topic, adding plusses does not increase the probability of hitting more often... esp if the AC of the victim is still higher than that of the character trying to hit. Adding extra plusses to a weapon is useless now. Might as well use bless to get your bonuses up rather than invest in bigger enhancement bonuses. You're obfustcating. A WYRM Red Dragon had DR x/+3. A Wyrm is CR 23. If you are going to argue that all 5th level characters have +1 (debatable) but that not all 23rd level characters have a +3? Strikes me as rather absurd. What is the point in 3.0 of having such DR? And I don't understand your reasoning on the attack bonuses not impacting hitting. The only times that increasing your attack bonus by one wouldn't increase your odds of hitting would be when your chance was <-4% or > 99%...and since 1 always misses and 20 always hits, that's impossible. It is true that the blanket statement "+1 means you hit 5% more often" is flawed...you have to know your current rate of hitting, which is situational. I snipped your "analysis". In the same post you assumed that a 5th level party all has +1, but that a 10th level fighter is still stuck with +1, even in 3.0, where a large part of the value of a plus was allegedly DR penetration. You complain that it's 3.5 that destroyed the value of additional plusses, but your own 3.0 example assumes that the character already didn't value extra plusses. Your analysis also doesn't specify a monster with 15/+2, so I'll pick one...VO Green Dragon, CR 18. I think he'll do OK against an underequipped ftr 10 even under 3.5 rules. Vrock was 20/+2, so that's a more reasonable foe for a 10th level fighter. Under 3.0, foes of a CR 13 Vrock by the suggested NPC guidelines, even, are going to have +2, so the vrock essentially has no relevant DR. He's supposedly got this great damage resistance, but the BARD is wailing on him..."what's up with that?" he wonders for 2 rounds. Now, he's 10/good. So sure, the paladin likely has a good weapon, but the odds of every meleer in the party having one, unless they are demon-hunters is low-to-fair, I'd estimate. Certainly a 13th level 3.0 figher is more likely to have a +2 sword than a 13th level 3.5 figher is to have a holy sword. So now, the paladin or cleric is wailing on the demon, but others are having more trouble, but still doing some damage. Seems more appropriate to me. Since we should likely be considering monsters that went from X/+2 to Y/magic, the demon may not be directly on topic, but it is a good example of what the change is supposed to do, aside from the Iron Golem example that's already posted. I've already done dragons, and showed that the dragon, at equivalent CR/foe equipment levels, is unaffected. Pick something, and let's run it down.
Chobemaster 08-08-03, 11:17 AM	Originally posted by Draco Argentum Well if you didn't have a +3 weapon and you were facing a great wyrm something strange was going on. That means that in 3.0 you were effectively certain to get through the Dragon's DR. Now in 3.5 you are still certain to get through the Dragon's DR. However your summoned minions will have less chance of bypassing it. The Dragon actually gained something. [/B][/QUOTE] How so? 3.0 Summoned creatures that have+3 weapons would still have them in 3.5. 3.0 Summoned creatures without magic weapons still won't have them in 3.5. The old dragons lose their protection from being killed by armies with +2 weapons. Since that basically never happened, it's neutral from a practical standpoint. I've never understood why dragons had scaling damage resistance in the first place. Normally, DR is for creatures of supernatural origin. Outsiders, undead, golems. Makes a lot of sense to me. Werewolves w/ silver. Classic, gotta do it. If you say dragons are of supernatural origin (meaning some sort of magic in their very creation, not the ability to do a lot of cool magical stuff) then that's totally valid...but how is an older dragon of a greater supernatural origin than it was 100 years prior? As we've shown, it wasn't to make dragons "tougher" because the dragon's DR was never effacious in practical situations, and it still won't be in 3.5.
Quirk 08-08-03, 02:48 PM	Armies don't fit in dragon caves. Armies fight dragon in the open? Armies die before using their +1 daggers against the dragon.
sanishiver 08-08-03, 02:53 PM	Yup, I like it. A lot. Before, the PC's IMC could easily bypass the DR of a creature of average CR for their level. Now, my players are not always assured that they can overcome DR. It's more challenging this way, which is what adventuring is all about, really. (Read: Finding and overcoming challenges on the way to the loot). :cool:
Turin 08-08-03, 06:15 PM	Originally posted by anglar The problem with DR now is that each PC needs to carry weapons made from each different metal type with a different set of magical bonuses and properties to be able to combat any random enemy effectively. Piggybacking on Chobemaster's earlier comment to this post... last night I put my 6th/7th-lvl party against a few bunches of were-rats (well, they were dwarf barbarian wererats, but I digress... yeah, yeah, I know wererats are supposed to be LE... who cares?). The party didn't know they were going to be facing were-rats, and didn't have time to especially prepare for the fact that they were fighting were-rats. Most of the were-rats were "afflicted wererats" with DR5/silver, and a couple were "natural were-rats" with DR10/silver. Contrary to Anglar's prediction, the fight went pretty well for the PCs. The party's main fighter, a greatsword-wielding tank, was able to damage the wererats pretty easily, although he found the leaders surprisingly difficult to put down (especially the buffed-up dwarf barbarian/cleric wererat leader!). The party's rogue and bard had more difficulty, with the bard keeping to range and quickly depleting the handful of silvered arrows he happened to have had. The rogue had to withdraw from combat badly injured (mostly because her newb player wasn't really setting up her sneak-attacks well... she'll learn). The mages just blasted away ("What damage reduction?") The conclusion: the party won, although they found it a good deal more difficult than they might have if they were fighting similar creatures without DR. Oh my, how strange! The new DR system actually makes a difference in the fight but doesn't make it impossible for the combatants to defeat the DR-gifted opponent. Under the old system, this party would have breezed through the encounters without worrying about DR, because their +1 weapons would trump the DR/silver. Sounds like the new DR system works pretty well to me! :D
mirtos 08-08-03, 06:48 PM	I think one thing that people have failed to mention is that it brings the fantastic back to fantasy. Before it was simply a numbers game. By X level, you needed a +y blade, because your opponents were going to have that high DR. conversely, if you had a +5 blade, you were safe. While a +1 holy blade might have been nice, more and more people would say well the holy damage is nice, but i need that +2, because by now, more monsters will have a DR x/+2 It also brings the magic back to magic. It becomes somewhat less of a science. Of course this may mess up the forgotten Realms (never a bad thing, but thats another topic) sicne they practically base everything on magic being like a science. I do have a houserule though. I houserule that magical items DONT have to have a +. If they arent, they arent magical. Ie, you could make a holy dagger that does not have the "magical" effect to it. Personally, I love the new DR system. It makes it both more interesting and brings in more thought to the game. I too am against the "go out and buy magic". Oh sure, everything is for sale for a price, but its not like going into aa store for waterskins.
Optimus Prime. 08-08-03, 07:01 PM	I just would like to tpoint out that the higher the bonus of yuor weapon the more hardness and hit points it has. Sunder is very deadly as an attack option. Since dragons and other certain creatures have damage reduction / magic it means you need a magic weapon to negate their damage reduction. Since +1 will do it will also mean (at least in my eyes) that those creatures can harm(or even sunder) items that are magical. So the better the bonus the longer the item will survive and the faster you will kill it. I have alway's found it rather stupid to assume that a dragon with str 40 could not break a magical +1 sword with his claws since you need a weapon with the same or higher bonus to do that.......
Draco Argentum 08-08-03, 11:04 PM	Originally posted by Chobemaster How so? 3.0 Summoned creatures that have+3 weapons would still have them in 3.5. 3.0 Summoned creatures without magic weapons still won't have them in 3.5.[/B] Summoned creatures with DR in 3.0 were able to bypass like DR. In 3.5 some of the summoning options do not have DR X/magic. So high level creatures may be unable to bypass each other's DR whereas in 3.0 it was basically a given. I think the Dragon's DR has always been intended as an anti-rabble option, not something to keep special forces at bay. It just allows a Dragon to overfly an army and ignore the common soldiers.
mirtos 08-09-03, 12:35 AM	But on the other hand, if it stops everyone from wanting the "Sword +5", thats a good thing too. If they are more interested in the "Sword of Mark, flames upon command, striking dead a ghost upon touch, with the blade designed to slice through armor as one would slice through butter", thats a good thing too. Imagination is a good thing. Dont let it atrophy.
Aarathi 08-09-03, 12:38 AM	I think the new system is amazing, but i think it has a few(1 or 2) faults 1)i think epic level monsters should be able to have higher DR numbers, it just seems right to me the second is more a problem with the creatures themselves: i think some creatures with particularly tough hides should get a small amount of DR/- it seems to make sense that, though that +1 longsword got through the red dragons hide, it still isnt gonna go as deep as it would into say....i dunno....an overweight bard
deadite 08-09-03, 05:56 AM	I agree with Zaebos. I'm going to order the 3.5 monster manual soon, and I might simply vote that DR 15/magic reduces all damage done by spells. Keeping the old DR from 3.0 in addition. From alot of peoples perspective, I dont understand the Point of DR at all. It seems everybody expects to go up against a creature who's DR they can beat because they have the right weapon. I try to throw such creatures at the party, before they can beat the DR. That's why it has DR. A nighthag (3.0) has 44hp, but DR 20/+3 for a CR9. At 9th level the players should have +3 weapons, how long do you think she'll last against four players with +3 weapons? The way I see her is alot more nasty than a 3 round combat, throw her at them when only one of the players has a +3 weapon and she becomes a real challenge. I like the fact that weapon materials are included in the DR, but that's about it.
Demitheus 08-09-03, 08:55 AM	The new DR system is rather stupid and pointless and is only trying to incorporate more variables into a Roleplaying game from a Computer RPG which is different in to many ways. One person stated that the new DR makes it easier to say is it magical with at least this bonus? Compared to What do you have an Adamantine weapon? Is it Silver? Is it flaming? Big whoop you can combine adamantine and silver add flaming and your set, only thing you can't do is change alignments for fights. Another said magical weapons affect magical creatures. Thats just trying to simplify magic and not have to explain or go into detail of it in order to do something. DnD is supposed to be advanced and complex not another Warhammer 40K game where the stupid can play and win. All DR is suppose to represent is the ability to sustain physical damage. A dragon's hide is so think and powerful that a stupid dagger that is +1 should not be able to penetrate let alone even remotely injure it. The biggest flaw I see with this new DR is that a rogue can bypass the dmg reduction and then deliver the 10d6 dice of sneak attack damage.
mirtos 08-09-03, 11:11 AM	Wow. Some hostile emotions here. I guess my first advice would be to take a deep breath, relax, and calm down. Next, although I am unaware of what computer game you speak of, Its not really important where the concept came from. Its important to remember that the entire concept of damage resistance is a fairly new one. It doesnt, nor has it ever, simply meant the ability to sustain damage. It has always represented different things. It might represent a natural healing to all wounds except a particular type, it might represent a nature that means one can only be attacked by a similar thing, there are many reasons. You want D&D to be complex, that not just anyone can play and win. Well, first off, there is no winning (or losing) in D&D. Never has been. Next, the elitest attitude behind that statement is uncanny. And of course, if you want complex over simple, the old DR system was far more simplistic and orderly than the new system. As for the thickness of hides, that is not something represented by DR. That is something represented by natural armor. A variant rule that exists is that there is no such thing as an auto hit or auto miss. 20s are 30s and 1s are -10s (or are the -9s? they should be). So we have a wizard, reduced to hand-to-hand. Obviously hes going to die. Lets give him a strength of 12, a BAB of 9 (a very high level wizard, rather good at combat, better than an orc, or bugbear, for example). Even on a natural 20, with no other magic to aid him, with a +1 dagger, that because an Ac 41. There are some (though not all), that wont have their hide pierced. and thats 5% of the time. In melee, how often does the dragon miss? As for rogues and sneak attacks, it is both easier and harder for rogues to sneak attack. But there has always been the possibility of them getting through the DR and getting off a sneak. Of course, sneaking up upon a dragon (and surviving) isnt such an easy thing. assuming the dragon just sits there, the AoA would be a killer. Or since he rogue would probably tumble through, it would just be the attacks that the dragon would respond with. Considering the creature's reach, spring attack wouldnt be of much use, and considering its senses, the chances of surprising it to sneak with a bow would be minimal. The rogue gets one chance before getting splatterred. The rogue still has to get through a high AC, just as the "mage" has to get through a high SR, but the mage can be at a much safer distance. Considering its a rogues major combat ability, it SHOULD be allowed. finally, the idea thats its easy to be prepared is ludicrous. When you say combine items, I assume you mean multiple items, because i dont think theres a DM in the world that would allow silver and adamantine to be mixed together into a single item. In fact the DMG specifically says that it cannot. So we are talking about this: Cold Iron, Silver, Adamantine, one or all laced with magic, one laced with good energy, one with evil, one with lawful, and one with chaotic. Since you dont neccesarily know ahead of time what you will be fighting, it might be hard to decide. of course if you really want a powerful immunity to magic, there is epic (which requires a +6 item) Assuming I have three items, one for each material, how many can I keep ready? Lets assume I have all three. Since magic is the most common, im probably going to have them all be magical. All of a sudden we have a lot of combinations, and I cant be sure any combination is going to give me an automatic bypass. In the previous incarnation of DR, you could. a +5 item. As a DM, you could create another DR that required a +2, +3, +4, or even +5. Call it "strong magic". But is such as thing wise to do so, considering all of the other possibilities? And there is the reverse side of things. In the old system, a VERY powerful item that is unique would be in effect worthless. I had a rogue that had "The Luck Blade", the most expensive item in the game, that in combat was in effect worthless. She had to get another item. DR became an all/nothing thing, with most fighter types completely ignoring it, and most other types never getting through it.
king_of_evil007 08-09-03, 12:34 PM	One problem I have with 3.5 DR is that if you have this mighty fighter, who for RP'ing reasons just upgrades his sword (even if he finds a better one), then he finds a monster with DR 20/Adamantine. I haven't been able to find a table to find out whether adamantine is better than a +1 weapon, though adamantine adds +2. Odd, yes? But is adamantine better than +3? So if adamantine is better than magic, the fighter has to buy a new sword, loosing the old one, because the new one is completely useless. But why even have magic weapons if Adamantine is better? But then why have adamantine if magic is better? One argument for the DR ?/magic is that magic beats magic. But no one mentioned how powerful the magic is. So if a small god enhances himself with DR through his godly magic, then a mage comes and beats his godly magic with a +1 weapon. Yes, this is logical. Magic beats magic of the same power. So a weak dragon might have DR 10/+1, because it's magical DR has not grown enough yet. So if a fighter with a +1 weapon comes along and kills it, fine. It's logical. But then the great wyrm dragon mother comes along, and while it will probably kill the fighter, it's magical DR that's been becoming stronger for thousands of years gets beaten. Though he probably still eats the fighter and his weapon. My point is not the strength of a great wyrm, just the DR. Also(yes, I'm still rambling) why even have magic DR at high levels? Even the party wizard probably has a +1 quarterstaff, which can beat even the best magic DR. I like 3.5. I'm glad to have it around, so don'd dismiss this argument as 3.5 bashing. I just think the new DR rules are kind of muddled.
Israfel666 08-09-03, 01:58 PM	Originally posted by king_of_evil007 One problem I have with 3.5 DR is that if you have this mighty fighter, who for RP'ing reasons just upgrades his sword (even if he finds a better one), then he finds a monster with DR 20/Adamantine. I haven't been able to find a table to find out whether adamantine is better than a +1 weapon, though adamantine adds +2. Odd, yes? But is adamantine better than +3? The new DR system is completely different. Damage reduction is no longer scaled, with one quality better than another - each is different. DR x/adamantine is going to be bypassed by adamantine weapons, and only by them. It does not matter if you have a kickass legendary +5 greataxe blessed by the God of Battle, you will lose those 10, 15, 20 points of damage because it is not adamantine. That's what I don't like about the new DR. I could stand it, and probably like it, if they made CR adjustments, but apparently they didn't. You see, DR is not like immunity to an element; if you faced a cold-immune monster and your spellcaster mostly has cold offensive spells, all the worse for him - he should have been more versatile and prepared, thus he doesn't deserve a CR adjustment. But you can't do the same to a fighter - if the monster becomes tougher because he/she doesn't have a bludgeoning and cold iron weapon, most likely it's not his/her fault, unless your world is literally filled with magic shops which sell all kind of enhanced weaponry (and most worlds don't).
mirtos 08-09-03, 02:23 PM	I agree with the Cr thing. Ive always assumed DR affected Cr, if it doesnt, then CR needs to be modified. I actually like the new DR things. As for being unprepared, why is it that spellcasters have to consider it, yet other classes dont? If youre going to fight skeletons, then its a safe bet that arrows arent a good choice. If you are going to fight a demon (and unless demons just happen to danomly appear, you CAN be prepared for them), its a safe bet that cold-iron is a good idea to have. While I would admit that adamantine is ridiculously expensive and might be rare, having a silver dagger, or something is always a good bet. In the days BEFORE damage resistance, when monsters were just flat-out immune to things, fighters used to prepare themselves. As for levels of magic, there is no reason why you cant do that. The designers didnt think it was a hot idea (I happen to agrfee with them) but considering the "epic" DR, its certainly evident that the basic idea to do that is there. The idea of different doesnt bother me in the least. If we get into the concept of "better than" too much (obviously, its a game, and it must be done to a degree), then you lose a certain something. I like magic to be magical, and fantasy to be fantastic. OR, another way to think of it is that the DR is against non-magical things. Its either non-magical, or its not. Its not that the dragon becomes immune to more magical things, it means "mundane" things do less and less to it as it grows. That IS logical.
Propheous 08-09-03, 02:30 PM	Originally posted by Israfel666 The new DR system is completely different. Damage reduction is no longer scaled, with one quality better than another - each is different. DR x/adamantine is going to be bypassed by adamantine weapons, and only by them. It does not matter if you have a kickass legendary +5 greataxe blessed by the God of Battle, you will lose those 10, 15, 20 points of damage because it is not adamantine. That's what I don't like about the new DR. I could stand it, and probably like it, if they made CR adjustments, but apparently they didn't. You see, DR is not like immunity to an element; if you faced a cold-immune monster and your spellcaster mostly has cold offensive spells, all the worse for him - he should have been more versatile and prepared, thus he doesn't deserve a CR adjustment. But you can't do the same to a fighter - if the monster becomes tougher because he/she doesn't have a bludgeoning and cold iron weapon, most likely it's not his/her fault, unless your world is literally filled with magic shops which sell all kind of enhanced weaponry (and most worlds don't). This is a completely hypocritical statement. Why is the fighter only carrying one weapon? Why is he not versatile enough to come packing a cold iron dagger or maybe a silver mace or something else as backup. Bottomline if you don't like then use the old system. I personally think your smoking some fine crack if your still using the old system though. Simply put all the people seem to be whining because they have to carry one or two more weapons then normal instead of being a completely useless toad when they ran into a monster who had a decent DR in 3.0. Well if you want your fighter to be a one trick monster then I bow to your ability to be a one trick poney. However, if you like a little spice and having a system that allows you to keep everyone on thier toes then welcome to the new DR.
Israfel666 08-09-03, 03:25 PM	Originally posted by Propheous This is a completely hypocritical statement. First of all, I will not accept offenses. If you want to turn a discussion into a flame war, then state it openly and I will deal with it appropriately (i.e. ignore you). Besides, you have used a completely inappropriate term: a hypocrite is someone who states something he doesn't believe in. You have no way to know what I really think, then restrain yourself from such foolish insults. Why is the fighter only carrying one weapon? Why is he not versatile enough to come packing a cold iron dagger or maybe a silver mace or something else as backup. Bottomline {eight lines of meaningless insults} Because fighters weren't meant to be mobile weapon arsenals. In my conception (and had you read my first post on this thread you would have known that, btw), it is perfectly right for a fighter to specialise in the use of one weapon, become a master with it, and carry a single weapon of his choice which he invests money on to turn it into "his" weapon. This is what 90% of fantasy heroes do, and what I'd expect an equally large part of my fighter characters to desire to become. Under 3.5 DR, instead, the most effective fighter is the jack-of-all-weapons type, who carries different weapons for different monsters. While it is theoretically a tolerable strategy, it is one that cannot be easily justified by roleplaying ("Hmm, I'll buy a cold iron weapon b/c I think I'll have to fight demons someday, and a silver one b/c I might travel to a lycanthrope-infested land. Oh, and one should be a mace and the other a dagger, please - some monsters are more resistant to different types of weaponry"=WHAT?! That's something only a handful of Sigilian planewalkers would think). What's more, my old, traditional, narrow-minded character who wants to become the absolute master of the greatsword and turn his/her heirloom Foebane into a weapon bards will sing of for eons, will be seriously nerfed because he won't carry twelve different weapons, and a CR 9 encounter will become far more difficult to him - only because he wants to roleplay his character instead of metagaming.
Demitheus 08-09-03, 05:51 PM	If it is so wonderful that there is this new versitility where you need different items of power in order to defeat DR's. That is fine but what is wrong with still have 5/+1 10/+2 etc. That would only require you to have a more versatile arsenal. That would only make it more complex and confusing. Like some one stated about metagaming, I totaly agree that the game is becoming more metagammed. Like I said before this pen and paper game that was so wonderful and RP oriented is being turned into Computer RPG's where everything is geared to make every encounter difficult if not prepared. But in DnD that is not what the whole game is about for most. But for those who it is then this is a wonderful change.
king_of_evil007 08-09-03, 05:55 PM	They say 3.5 is all about customization, but they make fighter (or barbs) who specialize in a single weapon useless. So your only good choice is to buy a +1 cold iron weapon, and a +1 adamantine weapon, and a +1 silver weapon, if you want to be useful. That really cuts down on role-playing ideas, and kills customization. Variety is different than customization. Imagine a fighter who's had this steel sword since level 1, and he's upgraded it, etc. He gave it it's own name, made it intelligent, and it's an NPC in it's own right. He's had adventures based around it. Then, he realizes he's about to fight a demon. "Wait, my weapon isn't cold iron!" and the fighter is killed due to the fact that he had great role-playing oppourtunities, but chose no to metagame (well, I'll probably fight demons because they're high-level and I saw my DM buying MotP, so I'll buy a cold iron sword) Bottom line - I use 3.5 rules, but with the old DR.
Demitheus 08-09-03, 07:36 PM	Sunder is an important feat for monsters now, "Oh how cute you brought an adamantite weapon, let me see that SNAP!" Evily Smiles
Quirk 08-09-03, 09:47 PM	Or you know, you can customize your fighter and accept that you might not be effective against every creature in the world. (Mages have to deal with that, like Rakshasha SR, or steamroller thingy from MMII, etc)
OrigamiCommando 08-09-03, 11:41 PM	Originally posted by Zaebos So you mean to tell me that a dragon with a measly damage reduction of 15/magic takes full damage from a halfling with a dagger +1? WTF IS THAT!!! WHAT IS THE POINT NOW OF HAVING A WEAPON WITH A MAGIC BONUS GREATER THAN +1? I hope to god I am reading the rules wrong here, but it makes no sense to me that these magnificent creatures are now vulnerable to even the lowliest magical weapon. I am going to work this STUPID system like this DR 5/magic +1 or better to hit normally DR 10/magic +2 or better to hit normally DR 15/magic +3 or better to hit normally DR 20/magic +4 or better to hit normally DR 25/magic +5 or better to hit normally In 3.5 you need magic weapons to damage a dragon w/out worrying about DR (cost around 2000gps for +1, otherwise, good luck with that SR) In 3.0 you needed some sort of energy attack to damage a dragon as energy attacks totally ignore damage reduction in 3.0 (costs about 1gps is you use a torch as a club and deal it fire damage or 20gps for flask of acid/alchemists fire) I prefer 3.5, but your entitled to your opinions.
mirtos 08-10-03, 12:50 AM	There is an idea that the concept of multiple types of attacks being more versatile is new to 3.5 In fact, 3.0 is the one that got rid of that. It used to be the day that ever self-respecting fighter had a weapon of silver in case a werewolf struck, had a sword for primary attacks, and a mace in case a legion of undead was to be found. Does this WEAKEN the pure specialization fighter? Yes. does it make it worthless? hardly. As for comparing to fantasy heroes, that (as most D&D players know) is garbage. Most fantasy hereoes dont improve their weapons, and many dont even improve their skills with those weapons. Mosst dont get a plethora of gold to spend on personal matters, but those that do dont spend it on magical items. Actually, magical items often come from soemthing very special or sacred.
darkside 08-10-03, 04:38 AM	No one seems to have mentioned this, and by the arguments presented, few people seem to be aware of it, but the amount of damage that DR soaks has been reduced. So you CAN still hit enemies for whom you do not have the appropriate weapon. I mean, by the time enemies have 15/something DR, a fighter should be able to do a good deal more damage than 15. So while it makes them tougher, it does not (as 3.0 did) make any enemy invulnerable without the proper weapon.
Raynard the Black 08-10-03, 06:50 AM	I think that DR #/Magic is meant to protect creatures from mundane and masterwork weapons. A dragon could fly into a village and soak up any damage that the villagers would do to it before it would take what it wanted and left. Then along comes a hero with a magic sword. He tries to protect the town from the next dragon attack. His (+1) blade "fang" bites deeply into the dragons flesh. The dragon then wheels around and breathes fire onto our hero. Our hero fails his reflex save and dies. The dragon ransacks the town, takes the heroes gear and returns to its lair. The dragon is wounded but not defeated. The dragon does not need to be immune to damage to be effective. Dragons have other abilities that are able to deal with their agressors. Damage reduction should protect a creature from mundane attacks. Magical attacks should affect it. However. A dragon does do massive amounts of damage in return and I wouldn't expect a party to have an easy time of attacking a dragon regardless of the magic of their weapons. If the dragon's CR is equal to the parties level then it should only expend about 20% of the parties resources. If you want to make the challenge more difficult for your party you need to up the CR of the monster they are facing. A monster with damage reduction is really meant to protect it from regular joes in town. Remember there are a lot fewer adventurers in the world than commoners, experts, etc... I think that the new damage reduction is fine the way it is.
Savras 08-10-03, 08:14 AM	Originally posted by king_of_evil007 Imagine a fighter who's had this steel sword since level 1, and he's upgraded it, etc. He gave it it's own name, made it intelligent, and it's an NPC in it's own right. He's had adventures based around it. Then, he realizes he's about to fight a demon. "Wait, my weapon isn't cold iron!" and the fighter is killed due to the fact that he had great role-playing oppourtunities, but chose no to metagame (well, I'll probably fight demons because they're high-level and I saw my DM buying MotP, so I'll buy a cold iron sword) Riiiight... What demon? Let us say a Bloodfiend, OK? Your fighter is level 12 (this is suppoesed to be a hard battle, CR 14). So, the Bloodfiends DR is 15\Good. A. Cold Iron wouldn't help. B. What sword? Let's assume Longswrod (1d8), and base strength of 14. You are seriously going to tell me that your fighter (assuming his sword isn't Holy) can't dish 20 points of damage? At 12th level? The Str is around 22 (18 level +4 belt), the *magic* sword is, say, +2, he is specialized with it and by now he propably has a few levels of the Weapon Master PrC. I think he can. Savras
Israfel666 08-10-03, 09:25 AM	Originally posted by Savras So, the Bloodfiends DR is 15\Good. A. Cold Iron wouldn't help. B. What sword? Let's assume Longswrod (1d8), and base strength of 14. You are seriously going to tell me that your fighter (assuming his sword isn't Holy) can't dish 20 points of damage? At 12th level? The Str is around 22 (18 level +4 belt), the *magic* sword is, say, +2, he is specialized with it and by now he propably has a few levels of the Weapon Master PrC. I think he can. First of all, with a +4 belt (which not everybody has) and a +2 sword (which is more common) the fighter will deal 1d8+8 damage, 1d8+10 if he has Weap. Specialistion (which is rare). This means that, at best, he'll deal 1 to 3 points of damage. Wow. Still, for such a tough fight, he gets the XP of a CR 14 encounter, the same as the metagamer of the party, who keeps four different +1 short swords (one per alignment) and can dish out easily twice to thrice as much damage, without worrying about DR like most "normal" fighters do or about SR as spellcasters do.
Cindre2000 08-10-03, 11:11 AM	Level 14 Half Orc Fighter: Full Attack: Great Sword +26/+21/+16 (roll: 5/10/15) or Power Attack +21/+19/+14 (roll: 10/15/20) Damage: 2d6+14 or 2d6+24 Feats: 13 w/ Power attack, Weapon Focus/Spec. Tree Str: 26 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Level 14 Human Fighter Full Attack: Bastard Sword +25/+20/+15 (roll: 6/11/16) Damage: 1d10+13 Feats: 14 w/ Exotic WP (Bastard Sword), Weapon Focus/Spec. tree Str: 24 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Those are two different builds of fighters. Both have some sort of str. boosting item and both have +2 swords. This does not take into account any spells that might be cast on to them during the fight. You could add a misc +1 to damage and attack rolls for bless or other such spells or items. ----But as you can see the Half-Orc can average about 6 damage two times a round w/o power attack. 16 damage once a round with power attack (I know it is barely 50/50 chance). ----The Human shield and sword fighter can do 3-4 damage almost twice around. Power attack is useless. However due to his higher AC he will be sticking around longer. But from the above stats you can see that it is possible to hurt the creature with a fighter even if they cannot pass the Damage Reduction. Also we can see that it is more important that some fighters have the right sword. The lesson always have a magical good sword of admantine. P.S. The use of a 15/something DR is a biased analyses. 15 is the highest possible and is not really meant to be over come, the character will rarely be able to get through. They are supposed to be challenging. A DR of 10 or 5 is better example of wether a fighter can do enought damage to be effective. Oh yeah, don't give examples with minimum ability scores. Ex. How is a lvl. 14 Wizard with 12 int. going to get through SR 25? (I didn't do 12th lvl fighter because he will die if he fights melee. The higher the CR above the lvl of the party the more likely someone will die and he is already at a disadvantage. A good dm doesn't look in his books and say "Oh, this look good, DR 15/cold iron isn't to hard" without checking out what the party has first.)
OrigamiCommando 08-10-03, 11:16 AM	Heh, maybe you should have used a real man's sword like a great sword or a falchion! Not a little pansy sword like a long sword :D
Cindre2000 08-10-03, 11:18 AM	You tell them OrigamiCommando. :D
Loopy 08-10-03, 11:45 AM	Wah wah wah. If you guys ACTUALLY consider a fighter having to carry *GASP!* more than one weapon a detriment on your role-playing abilities, then you have no idea what role-playing is. And by the way... yeah, sure you can fight that Great Wyrm Blue Dragon with only a +1 weapon, but good luck on that MD or Dispell save. A dragon (since he has DR Magic) will cheerfully sunder that weapon for you as well. Jeeezus, man. You guys cry more than a baby in a bucket of fire ants.
Jhulae 08-10-03, 11:48 AM	Oh, yes. Here we go. Under 3.0, if you couldn't beat the magical +, you might as well not even have rolled the damage. Hmmm. The DR is 50/+3. Only have a +2 weapon? Aww, guess you might as well just go home. Yeah. That was so much better. :rolleyes: So, cry and whine about the new damage reduction if you want. At least now almost anyone has a chance of at least hurting a creature with almost any weapon they're carrying because the DRs are lower. Want to specialize in greatsword? Great, you'll be doing a lot more damage overall, especially if you put power attack into it. The new DR is so much better.
deadite 08-10-03, 01:10 PM	You can crunch all those numbers to justify the purchase of a higher enhancement weapon. You can calculate a min/max character who can still hit anything, no matter what. However, try explaining to a real roleplayer why he needs to fork over alot more gold pieces, for a weapon he doesn't really need. Blacksmith: This great and legendary sword was discovered just a tenday ago, it's yours for only 18000gp. Surely you will need it to defeat Raughilin the red dragon, It's scales have proven useless to the weaponry of our militia. Gerilen the annoyed customer: No thanks, I'll just have that twohanded sword for 2000gp, that'll do just fine. Why not buy nine +1 weapons for the same price as one +4? If one get's sundered, just grab another from your bag of holding.... The fact that you need specific metals to harm certain creatures is great though. If you know there are legends about werewolves in the region, why not buy some silvered weapons just in case? That only adds to the roleplaying. Mot people (3.5) who replied to this post have not addressed the argument that higher enhancements are a waste of gold.
Demitheus 08-10-03, 04:52 PM	I do have to agree that the new DR with Resistence types is better and more versatile. What I dislike is the whole 15/+1 it doesn't do justice to some of the superior monster Ie. Dragon, and Tarasque(dont know spelling). There should be the +1- +3 also with the new types so a dragon isn't injured by no lame +1 dagger of uselessness.
Quirk 08-10-03, 04:56 PM	It's not a lame +1 dagger of uselessness if it hurts dragons, now is it? :) The advantage to + >1 weapons? Sunder protection, +5% chance to hit, no chance to have your damage reduced outside of damage reduction. "Oh, your sword is firey? That fire elemental is gonna love you!"
mirtos 08-10-03, 05:00 PM	Ok, so here is a question: You are playing 3.0. Your DM tells you you are not going to find anything with DR other than DR - (ie 5/-) Other sorts of adventures, mass armies, other warriors, etc.... Do you only get a +1 weapon? do you consider +3 or +4 weapons useless? The reason I ask is that the majority of opponents have never had DR.
Demitheus 08-10-03, 05:05 PM	It's not a lame +1 dagger of uselessness if it hurts dragons, now is it? Yeah can't be that useless. 80) I can just see it now... A dragon goes to lay on his horde when he is poked in the ***, Thinks to himself man do I remeber the good ole days when I was immune to these tiny pieces of ****
Draco Argentum 08-11-03, 03:58 AM	Originally posted by deadite However, try explaining to a real roleplayer why he needs to fork over alot more gold pieces, for a weapon he doesn't really need. I addressed it mathematically. A real roleplayer won't go wingeing about the cost of a +3 weapon. He'll just use whatever is in character. If he can justify it in character he uses it, if not he dosen't. No difference from anything else.
mirtos 08-11-03, 10:02 AM	Then again a "real" roleplayer is happy to have a sword +1 if there is more to it than just a +1 in the story, if not game effects.
Chobemaster 08-11-03, 10:08 AM	Originally posted by Draco Argentum Summoned creatures with DR in 3.0 were able to bypass like DR. In 3.5 some of the summoning options do not have DR X/magic. So high level creatures may be unable to bypass each other's DR whereas in 3.0 it was basically a given. I think the Dragon's DR has always been intended as an anti-rabble option, not something to keep special forces at bay. It just allows a Dragon to overfly an army and ignore the common soldiers. Ahh, the inherent DR of the summonee. Gotcha. So now my vrock won't penetrate dr/magic. Good point.
Chobemaster 08-11-03, 10:17 AM	Originally posted by deadite I agree with Zaebos. I'm going to order the 3.5 monster manual soon, and I might simply vote that DR 15/magic reduces all damage done by spells. Keeping the old DR from 3.0 in addition. From alot of peoples perspective, I dont understand the Point of DR at all. It seems everybody expects to go up against a creature who's DR they can beat because they have the right weapon. I try to throw such creatures at the party, before they can beat the DR. That's why it has DR. A nighthag (3.0) has 44hp, but DR 20/+3 for a CR9. At 9th level the players should have +3 weapons, how long do you think she'll last against four players with +3 weapons? The way I see her is alot more nasty than a 3 round combat, throw her at them when only one of the players has a +3 weapon and she becomes a real challenge. I like the fact that weapon materials are included in the DR, but that's about it. I think we may almost have a convert here. I'm going to disregard damage from spells, as its non-germane to the comparison. Under 3.0, as you point out, the typical PCs of the right level will have the weapons...so she doesn't last long. It's as if she didn't have DR at all. If for some reason, you use her "early" or your PC's are "late" to get +3 weapons, then she is way too hard for her CR...4 9th level chars with +2 weapons are going to lose a lot more than 20% of their resources, and may well all be killed. Few characters will be able to do more than 20 points of damage with a single shot very often, and even if 1-2 characters can, it will be single digit differences. 2-4 HP of damage around...she can toast 4 guys in 10 rounds and survive. Assumes all attacks hit....really they won't so its even longer, and she's going to kill the guy who can do 20 points first, then dine on the rest of the party at leisure. Under 3.5, she's dr 10/Cold Iron AND Magic. If you use her against 4 9th level PC's, maybe 1 of them will have a cold iron magic weapon and can do full effect. The rest of the party has to get past DR 10, which isn't that bad. By 9th level, the main-line guys will have strength of +4 or so, +2 for specialization, +1 to +3 for favored enemy, several sneack attack dice, +2 or +3 for weapons, power attack, dirty fighting, etc. (note, not all at once) so they should be able to do more than 10 points per attack...so after DR, they're still hurting her. If we assume that at least someone in the party could crack 20 in 3.0, then that's another 10 points per round, right? So her HP are going to last her 4 rounds or so...but without any DR, she'd likely be toast in 1-2 rounds. Again, assuming all attacks hit. She now represents an EL 9 encounter for your party, even if they are improperly armed or lower in level. With 3.5, you can use creatures with "too hard" of DR with GREATER frequency, and with LESS risk of an accidental TPK...the new rules are designed with EXACTLY what you want in mind!
Chobemaster 08-11-03, 10:46 AM	Originally posted by king_of_evil007 One problem I have with 3.5 DR is that if you have this mighty fighter, who for RP'ing reasons just upgrades his sword (even if he finds a better one), then he finds a monster with DR 20/Adamantine. I haven't been able to find a table to find out whether adamantine is better than a +1 weapon, though adamantine adds +2. Odd, yes? But is adamantine better than +3? So if adamantine is better than magic, the fighter has to buy a new sword, loosing the old one, because the new one is completely useless. But why even have magic weapons if Adamantine is better? But then why have adamantine if magic is better? One argument for the DR ?/magic is that magic beats magic. But no one mentioned how powerful the magic is. So if a small god enhances himself with DR through his godly magic, then a mage comes and beats his godly magic with a +1 weapon. Yes, this is logical. Magic beats magic of the same power. So a weak dragon might have DR 10/+1, because it's magical DR has not grown enough yet. So if a fighter with a +1 weapon comes along and kills it, fine. It's logical. But then the great wyrm dragon mother comes along, and while it will probably kill the fighter, it's magical DR that's been becoming stronger for thousands of years gets beaten. Though he probably still eats the fighter and his weapon. My point is not the strength of a great wyrm, just the DR. Also(yes, I'm still rambling) why even have magic DR at high levels? Even the party wizard probably has a +1 quarterstaff, which can beat even the best magic DR. . Your argument ignores the "left side" change...there's nothing with 20/ad. in the SRD that I spotted. Iron golems are 15/ad. Unless your campaign world has iron golems randomly rampaging across the terrain, then it wouldn't make sense to toss his existing weapon for an adamantine one. For 99.9% of his opponents, the magic weapon is still "better" and he can get by with it against golems in extremis. If he KNOWS there's an iron golem in his future, or a series of them, then it makes sense to pick up an adamantine weapon, but a nonmagical or +1 one, relatively "inexpensive" to a 13th level character (Iron G CR=13) Your god argument is also flawed. In this case, it would be DR x/epic, so your +1 wouldn't matter. So you are left with the Great Wyrm dragon now being susceptible to +1 weapons. And you've admitted that that's a theoretical-only difference, since if the best you have is +1 crap, you're toast anyway, especially since you likely need a 20 to hit in the first place. On dragons specifically, DR was new for them in 3.0 anyway. Undead, outsiders, and golems had the precusrsor to DR in 1st edition. Dragons did not, which makes sense to me. Those first types of monsters are supernatural in origin. Dragons, while wielding many magic powers, are biological creatures. If they've made a change to an irrelevancy to keep it equally irrelevant as it impacts the PC's, while perhaps dialing back a change to dragons that made little sense in 3.0 to more reasonable irrelevant levels, I suppose I don't care too much. It certainly doesn't change dragon lifespans.
Chobemaster 08-11-03, 10:58 AM	Originally posted by Israfel666 The new DR system is completely different. Damage reduction is no longer scaled, with one quality better than another - each is different. DR x/adamantine is going to be bypassed by adamantine weapons, and only by them. It does not matter if you have a kickass legendary +5 greataxe blessed by the God of Battle, you will lose those 10, 15, 20 points of damage because it is not adamantine. That's what I don't like about the new DR. I could stand it, and probably like it, if they made CR adjustments, but apparently they didn't. You see, DR is not like immunity to an element; if you faced a cold-immune monster and your spellcaster mostly has cold offensive spells, all the worse for him - he should have been more versatile and prepared, thus he doesn't deserve a CR adjustment. But you can't do the same to a fighter - if the monster becomes tougher because he/she doesn't have a bludgeoning and cold iron weapon, most likely it's not his/her fault, unless your world is literally filled with magic shops which sell all kind of enhanced weaponry (and most worlds don't). But, with the change in the left side, your 20th level character with a +5 weapon is still going to do decent damage to an iron golem, even without adamantine. It makes the monster defeatable by the unprepared and leaves it equally defeatable by the prepared. The old DR was considered in CR, but didn't really fit the mechanic...high DR either made encounters impossible or didn't impact them at all...so its hard to quantify that effect with one number. (what's the average between infinity and zero...infinity.) Now, the CR number can more reliably be determined. Is an iron golem easier to beat now, or harder? You can't answer, because the ease before was totally party equipment dependent. Your mileage may vary, but I would argue that the fact that you don't HAVE to have adamantine, but that someone likely WILL balances it out. In 3.0, an iron golem was ideally used from a balance perspective when SOME or ONE of the characters had +3...but then this just turned into a duel. If no one had one, in was insurmountable, and if everyone had them, it was too easy. Now, the one guy with the adamantine weapon is in the role of the dueler, still, but can at least get some help from the rest of the party.
Chobemaster 08-11-03, 11:03 AM	Originally posted by mirtos I agree with the Cr thing. Ive always assumed DR affected Cr, if it doesnt, then CR needs to be modified. OR, another way to think of it is that the DR is against non-magical things. Its either non-magical, or its not. Its not that the dragon becomes immune to more magical things, it means "mundane" things do less and less to it as it grows. That IS logical. It was included in CR, but it wasn't properly quantifiable before (though they pretended it was), as I indicated already. The theory is that 15/adamantine now has the same CR impact as 50/+3 before, so you don't have to change the CR of an iron golem. And I like the "flip-side" logic on the dragon DR, and for that matter, when DR 5/magic moves to DR 10/magic, a simple +1 weapon becomes considerably less effective as well...5 points fewer worth, in fact.
Chobemaster 08-11-03, 11:22 AM	Originally posted by Israfel666 Because fighters weren't meant to be mobile weapon arsenals. In my conception (and had you read my first post on this thread you would have known that, btw), it is perfectly right for a fighter to specialise in the use of one weapon, become a master with it, and carry a single weapon of his choice which he invests money on to turn it into "his" weapon. This is what 90% of fantasy heroes do, and what I'd expect an equally large part of my fighter characters to desire to become. Under 3.5 DR, instead, the most effective fighter is the jack-of-all-weapons type, who carries different weapons for different monsters. While it is theoretically a tolerable strategy, it is one that cannot be easily justified by roleplaying ("Hmm, I'll buy a cold iron weapon b/c I think I'll have to fight demons someday, and a silver one b/c I might travel to a lycanthrope-infested land. Oh, and one should be a mace and the other a dagger, please - some monsters are more resistant to different types of weaponry"=[b]WTF?! That's something only a handful of Sigilian planewalkers would think). What's more, my old, traditional, narrow-minded character who wants to become the absolute master of the greatsword and turn his/her heirloom Foebane into a weapon bards will sing of for eons, will be seriously nerfed because he won't carry twelve different weapons, and a CR 9 encounter will become far more difficult to him - only because he wants to roleplay his character instead of metagaming. If your fighter carried no backup weapon in 3.0, he was dumb and your DM merciful. Sunder? Disarm? Grappling? Nothing in the new system prevents you from still maxxing out your preferred weapon and using it all the time. Your sword-saint character is going to have so many bonuses with his main weapon that he'll do some damage after DR anyway, since they dropped the left side numbers. Golems are tougher but still beatable, or equally beatable, depending on your chosen weapon. The outsiders that take materials to overcome DR are actually getting a benefit from their ability that they were supposed to but never actually did, which sounds like the change is doing the right thing...giving effect to an existing ability that didn't help them because the rule was broken. There's nothing metagaming about carrying weapons of specific materials...they exist in the world and have known properties. Even non-D&D players know about silver bullets & werewolves, holy water & vampires, etc. It's reasonable to assume that in a world where werewolves are real, tales of using silver against them are AT LEAST as prevalent as they are in RL, when people have more important things to worry about. Metagaming is either taking actions based on player knowledge or acting as if your character knows its a game. ("There must be a way out, or this wouldn't be fair") Getting a silver dagger to go after the werewolf on the moor is neither. And since the left side numbers dropped, there's no need to carry more than 1-2 backups anyway, which you should already have been doing. Most characters at least have a sharp and a blunt. Just make your blunt a special material. You've got a large part of the monsters covered, then. It's actually MORE metagame to say, "hey, I'm going up against an iron golem next week, I'd better get another plus enchanted into my sword" than to say "Hey, I'm going up against an iron golem next week. They are known to resist non-adamantine weapons, so maybe I should get one." Note how one cites a game mechanic (plusses of weapons), the other doesn't. Your CR 9 encounter is tougher if the weapon you stick with is magic only and not magic & cold iron (night hag.) But this is because night hag was brokenly easy if you had the right weapon under 3.0. And if you didn't have the right weapon before, and still don't, you're actually better off. Indeed, you used to have to use your dagger +3 instead of your greatsword +2 holy thundering keen ghost touch defender against an iron golem...so in that regard, you're better off as well, and you needed a backup even in 3.0 If, in the past, barbarians got 2d20 for HP each level, and 3.5 changed it to d12, that makes barbarians weaker and makes encounters harder for them. That doesn't mean its a bad change.
Chobemaster 08-11-03, 11:46 AM	Originally posted by Demitheus If it is so wonderful that there is this new versitility where you need different items of power in order to defeat DR's. That is fine but what is wrong with still have 5/+1 10/+2 etc. That would only require you to have a more versatile arsenal. That would only make it more complex and confusing. Like some one stated about metagaming, I totaly agree that the game is becoming more metagammed. Like I said before this pen and paper game that was so wonderful and RP oriented is being turned into Computer RPG's where everything is geared to make every encounter difficult if not prepared. But in DnD that is not what the whole game is about for most. But for those who it is then this is a wonderful change. As has been stated like 1000 times already, the grades by plus never had the in-game effect intended. Either you had it and walked all over it, or didn't and died. And because if you have special materials (which adds more dimension and fantasy to the game, and makes it _less_ of a numbers-crunch) and also have graded plusses, then you have even more of a need to carry multiple weapons. 2-3 weapons for most characters is pretty reasonable, with one main and a couple of backups. Games can't, by definition, be meta-game, and in-game knowledge of legendary monsters has more flavor than discussions of quantized levels of magic. I grew up on 1st edition, and I don't understand what you mean by the game being more about balancing encounters or requiring preparation. Indeed, an ambush by an iron golem requires LESS preparation than it did in 1st edition. Then, if you didn't have a +3, you had to run away. Now, you might be able to make it. I really don't understand how changing DR 5/+1 to DR 5/magic impacts your opportunities to roleplay significantly either way, but what minor changes I can see are in the favor of a richer world with more informed decisions being made by characters...i.e. MORE roleplaying. It's not roleplaying to take the highest plus weapon you can find. It is roleplaying to be so stubborn, stupid, or dedicated to that weapon that you use it even when the player can see its not working as well as another option might. Please explain how a game can "be metagame" or how 3.5 is more like a CRPG than 3.0, 2.0, or 1.0. Unless you mean the mathematical basis for the game has been streamlined. It's still equally mathematical, but it uses fewer separate tables and algorithms. I think some people find 3.0+ to be more mathematical because more people can comprehend the math and attempt to manipulate it, or because the solutions are more universal.
Chobemaster 08-11-03, 12:54 PM	Originally posted by Israfel666 First of all, with a +4 belt (which not everybody has) and a +2 sword (which is more common) the fighter will deal 1d8+8 damage, 1d8+10 if he has Weap. Specialistion (which is rare). This means that, at best, he'll deal 1 to 3 points of damage. Wow. Still, for such a tough fight, he gets the XP of a CR 14 encounter, the same as the metagamer of the party, who keeps four different +1 short swords (one per alignment) and can dish out easily twice to thrice as much damage, without worrying about DR like most "normal" fighters do or about SR as spellcasters do. It's not metagaming for your character to decide to get an effective weapon, it is, in fact, actual roleplaying. What would a rational person locked in mortal combat with a demon do? Aside from RUN, it would be to use the most effective weapon available. Most DM's, I think, would rule it reasonable that by the time you've gotten to 12th level, you've heard a story or two about demons, if not having fought some weaker ones to learn a lesson on. It also isn't too unreasonable a guess to use a holy weapon. The various susbstances exist within the game world...if no one knew what they did, no one would make weapons out of them. But they do make weapons out of various substances...ergo, some people, at least, swordsmiths being one group, know about the various alleged susceptibilities of "mythical" creatures. And if you really are set on using your ineffective weapon in lieu of a more effective one because your character is some sort of kensai, then have the cleric cast the SECOND LEVEL spell Align Weapon. It's not rocket science. In fact, it would be a lot cheaper to have a wand of align weapon than to buy 3 or 4 extra swords. Again, that's not metagaming, because the spell, and knowledge of damage resistance, exist within the gameworld.
Chobemaster 08-11-03, 01:05 PM	Originally posted by deadite Mot people (3.5) who replied to this post have not addressed the argument that higher enhancements are a waste of gold. I thought that issue was resolved on page one. You hit more often, confirm crits more often, resist sunders better, and do more damage. DR penetration was always an afterthought with weapon value, because you had "better" than the requirement by the time you fought most DR monsters anyway. For example, you didn't buy a +2 weapon at level 17 to take on the VO Black dragon. You had it way before then, and by the time you were getting ready to take on the dragon, you wanted (and had) something better than +2 anyway. You MIGHT buy a +3 weapon at level 13 in 3.0 specifically because you knew about an iron golem coming up...save your money and buy a normal adamantite in 3.5, its much cheaper. The reason you don't carry 9 +1 swords is that each only gives you +1 to hit and damage. Especially at higher levels, when sneack attacks, smite evils, strength bonuses, elemental weapon characteristics, power attacks, etc are more meaningful, hitting at all is the most important thing. Also, each is much more susceptible to sunder individually. Also, retrieving a stored item from your bag of holding is a MEA that draws AoO.
Chobemaster 08-11-03, 01:14 PM	Originally posted by Demitheus Yeah can't be that useless. 80) I can just see it now... A dragon goes to lay on his horde when he is poked in the ***, Thinks to himself man do I remeber the good ole days when I was immune to these tiny pieces of **** A VO black dragon (10/+2 in 3.0, 15/magic in 3.5) is immune to your +1 dagger anyway. This dragon has 350 hit points. I don't care what DR it has or doesn't have, or how many plusses your dagger has...if your plan was to hide in the treasure then poke it, you are 100% dead. So that's a worthless example of how it works in practice. I've said it like 10 times...dragon mortality is unchanged by the DR rule change, so don't use that as an argument. edit: snipped some back-asswards analysis that made no sense
mirtos 08-11-03, 02:20 PM	The knowledge of characters is a very good point. In the "old days" (before 3.0), had you found out you were hunting a werewolf, you would insure you had silver weapons. Who went after a vampire without holy water and a couple of wooden stakes? If you were fighting skeletons, a mace hammer or club was always in your equipment. you went after trolls with fire.
deadite 08-11-03, 04:47 PM	Oh that brings up another point. What is the DR of vampires in 3.5? I'm going to put the matter before my players and see what they think of it. I'm willing to bet they like the new DR, so I might give it a go.... :embarrass
Quirk 08-11-03, 06:32 PM	Originally posted by Chobemaster A VO black dragon (10/+2 in 3.0, 15/magic in 3.5) is immune to your +1 dagger anyway. max damage =4+1+2 for specialization (like there are any fighters specialized in daggers) +6 for strength (pretty much the high side of what's reasonable, and higher than some of the 3.0 folks are arguing for) +2 for something else (could be any number of things) = 15. Subtract 15 for DR and you get, low and behold, zero! Note that this dragon has 350 hit points. I don't care what DR it has or doesn't have, or how many plusses your dagger has...if your plan was to hide in the treasure then poke it, you are 100% dead. So that's a worthless example of how it works in practice. I've said it like 10 times...dragon mortality is unchanged by the DR rule change, so don't use that as an argument. errrr....correct me if I'm wrong, but if the dagger is +1, it's going to break that DR, because it's magic. Or maybe I don't see the point, Chobe?
Draco Argentum 08-11-03, 09:07 PM	Originally posted by Quirk errrr....correct me if I'm wrong, but if the dagger is +1, it's going to break that DR, because it's magic. Or maybe I don't see the point, Chobe? You're right, Chobe made one mistake (in two places IIRC) in all those posts, pretty good.
Zaebos 08-13-03, 08:21 PM	There is a definete slide in what people are reading. I have stated before that the 3.5 DR system makes much more sense than 2e or 3.0, EXCEPT FOR DR#/Magic descriptor. The problem is not with the new DR system, it is with ONE component of it. That being Magic resistance. There is now absolutely no need for any player to have a weapon greater than +1 enhancement bonus. This is the real issue at hand here. Who would craft, buy or otherwise aquire a magic item of a better enhancement bonus than +1? There is absolutely NO NEED to do so. It is a WANT issue now, and that does not JUSTIFY the exponential increase per enhancement bonus. This is an abosulte failing of the DR system since it is the most prevalent. Why? Because it doesn't make sense that a younger dragon can deal full damage to a great wyrm (just as an example), or that Mr.HalfDork the HalfOrc Barbarian can slaughter almost anything with a +1 weapon even at lower levels. Who ever modified the DR#/magic enhancement bonus needs a serious smack upside the head, and if he/she were here now, they would get it. WHAT THE HECK WERE THEY THINKING??? Obviously they never play tested this out very well at all. It seems they are trying in their infinite wisdom (yes that is sarcasm), to simplify the DR magic system... but in doing so have made it a much bigger pain for DM's to use. I would seriously like to know who the idiot was who came up with this idea, then I would like to know the idiot responsibile for allowing this bit of crap to enter into what otherwise is a much better way of doing things on the whole. I am not 3.5 bashing, but this DR#/magic rule is probably the WORST rule since 2e had put in a called shot penalty of -4 to hit. Yes, ITS THAT BAD! Suffice it to say, I will be using a hybrid of the 2 systems with a little dash of my own thrown in for good measure in regards to DR. I like both of them for different reasons, and there are things in both that required changes. If given only the 2 choices however, I would stick with 3.0 rather than 3.5 (oh, by the way, there was never immunity to damage in 3.0 from weapons, so who ever said that in an earlier post must be on glue). No one here has made a single logical statement that could redeem DR#/magic. I have heard a lot of half assed explanations and faulty reasoning about why the change was made, but yet to hear anyone suggest anything to why this change was made in a convincing and meaningful manner. It seems that after 4 pages of posts that the rule is indeed broken. And to those 'fan boys' out there that would jump off the golden gate bridge if WotC said that that was what you need to do for the next version of DnD, I sincerely pity you. YOu have taken much to great offense at this simple thread and really need to get a life. IT IS OK TO CHANGE THE RULES YOU DIM WITS!!! In closing (for now), the DR#/Magic comparison to CR seems to have worked ok for me in the last 2 sessions I have played. THose of you who have tried it out let me know how it played. It may be a rule that will stick in without much changes later if it indeed is a good rule.
Quirk 08-13-03, 08:54 PM	I use the rules as written, and have no problems. I just had a character buy a +5 sword to start with, and he had no problems overcoming my monsters. So in short, don't flame me explicitly or implicitly for using the rule book.
mirtos 08-13-03, 11:45 PM	My problem with this argument is the fact that magic items have ALWAYS been more expensive beyond just an arithmatic measure. Its never been a want/need thing before. I say +5 weapons are no less valuable now than they were before. If anything, all magic items are more valuable. Yes, you're right, there is no longer an absolute requirement to have +5 items. On the other hand, they become no less valuable. Just because the desire to have them comes from a want as opposed to need, that doesnt get rid of their value. Or how about this. Lets say you crit on 15-20 with a rapier. We are talking about 30% of the time. Now you can be assured that +1 is enough to be sure your blade will be able to get through those who have a specific resistence to magic. So you do on average 1d6 +1, with getting 2d6+2 a fair amount of the time. (doing an average 4.5 points of damage, 9 on some nice shots). On the other hand, same weapon is a +5, you do an average of 8.5/17 (again average rolls). Assuming three attacks, non hasted, we are talking numbers of 13.5/27 vs 25.5/51 (again average rolls). Obviously, against foes of more hit points, and foes who do a fair amount of damage, you NEED this. Or, heres another thought. You are a thief. How important is that +4 difference if you are flanking. To get it without the magic, you would have to roll 20% better. And at a high enough level that could mean the difference of 30d6 of extra damage. (since +5 weapons dont come along at low levels, you have to assume opponents AC is also going to be higher). As a DM and player, I like the fact that it doesnt invlidate higher plusses, but makes the options more interesting. And if it stops everyone from wandering around with "boring" +5 weapons rather than weapons of magic, fire, and holy/unholy energy (since the increased price is still basically the same thing) thats fine in miy book. Of course, if someone is purely about damage, then the extra +'s come in handy. One last argument: The old way, with some of the old rules, made one of the most powerful weapons in the game almost useless. They have improved the weapon the same way I did, but the old DR would have made it still almost useless. Im speaking of The Luck Blade. In the old system it simply would have been smarter to buy a ring of 3 wishes and a sword +5, because once the wishes were expended, the luck blade was all but useless (because at the level you could acquire it, it was extremely likely that almost every foe you would fight would have at least a +2 DR, if not a +3). Now its at least somewhat more powerful, and the reroll is nice (which is what i turned one of the wishes to), but even so, if old DR rules were used, it would be mostly useless in combat, not appropriate for the most expensive weapon in the game. And this shows one of the biggest problem with the old DR rules, it actually discourages creativity. If a more powerful weapon simply didnt mean more plusses, or more damage, it was in fact weaker. Many classic stories suggest that even artifacts dont mean just more plusses (Shanarra is a perfect example).
Draco Argentum 08-14-03, 12:23 AM	Originally posted by Zaebos And to those 'fan boys' out there that would jump off the golden gate bridge if WotC said that that was what you need to do for the next version of DnD, I sincerely pity you. YOu have taken much to great offense at this simple thread and really need to get a life. IT IS OK TO CHANGE THE RULES YOU DIM WITS!!! This is so priceless. I love the way you juxtapose complaining about people taking offense at a simple thread with the screaming about it. Its so funny I won't bother to report you in the hope that you post more statements like this.
mirtos 08-14-03, 01:17 AM	If given only the 2 choices however, I would stick with 3.0 rather than 3.5 (oh, by the way, there was never immunity to damage in 3.0 from weapons, so who ever said that in an earlier post must be on glue). LOL. :pile: Im laughing because that post probably refers to me. What I said was that BEFORE 3.0 and 2.0 (yes D&D existed pre 1990), there were creatures that were flat out immune to weapons, or to types of weapons, etc., and that in some ways, the 3.5 DR is much more like that than the 3.0 ever was.
Roxlimn 08-14-03, 04:42 AM	Zaebos: There is now absolutely no need for any player to have a weapon greater than +1 enhancement bonus. This is the real issue at hand here. Who would craft, buy or otherwise aquire a magic item of a better enhancement bonus than +1? There is absolutely NO NEED to do so. It is a WANT issue now, and that does not JUSTIFY the exponential increase per enhancement bonus. Well, first of all, barring isolated examples, an extra enhancement bonus on a weapon IS worth the extra cost of enhancing it compared with enhancing it by giving it flaming, frost, or sonic properties. If that the the argument you were proposing, the you can drop that argument now because it is mathematically provable that while elemental and aligned modifications are on the whole more efficient at dealing damage against their targetted creatures, the consistency and versatility of a +1/+1 easily weighs against this equitably. On the other hand, while there is no need to actually get an additional enhancement bonuses specifically to improve weapon damage and creature penetration, there IS a greater need to craft a weapon that will peirce through a specific kind of damage reduction in order to assure that you get DR penetration in at least some cases. Getting a Holy aligned Cold Iron weapon is probably very advisable for your typical paladin, while getting a flaming adamantite weapon is probably best for your fighter or barbarian. Other fighting classes have enhancment interests of their own. In a way, this is a more specific evolution of the DR requirement for a minimum +. Whereas in 2e, monsters were vulnerable only to an unspecified enchantment on a weapon represented by an enhancment bonus (and this was carried over in 3e); now, monsters are resistant to damage generally and are highly vulnerable to detailed enhancements to weapons (as opposed to a generic +), while still being defeatable even if you didn't have the DR piercing material. Moreover, knowing this special material or aligned enchantment is often no more complicated than a Knowledge check away. Generally, monster vulnerabilities can be discerned with the appropriate HD+10 Knowledge check. Any mid to high level wizard worth the name would know the vulnerability of an Flesh Golem off the top of his head (DC 19 check), and you can deduce Iron Golem off of that. Even low level wizards, bards, and clerics would have a chance to know this. This is an abosulte failing of the DR system since it is the most prevalent. Why? Because it doesn't make sense that a younger dragon can deal full damage to a great wyrm (just as an example), or that Mr.HalfDork the HalfOrc Barbarian can slaughter almost anything with a +1 weapon even at lower levels. Dragons never had DR before, and fantasy literature is rife with tales of younger dragons taking on older dragons and winning through force of might as against guile and sorcery. The Barbarian is right to get a magic weapon, but what is he to do against things that are DR magic AND something else? I suppose that if you wanted, you could create a heirarchy of DRs in which magic would be the highest form of vulnerability, but that's up to you. You could default right back to enhancement bonuses, but again, that's up to you. Personally, I'm finding the added flavor better. I already posted a message to this effect a page or so earlier, but apparently you missed it.
mirtos 08-14-03, 10:36 AM	Originally posted by Zaebos TThis is an abosulte failing of the DR system since it is the most prevalent. Why? Because it doesn't make sense that a younger dragon can deal full damage to a great wyrm (just as an example), or that Mr.HalfDork the HalfOrc Barbarian can slaughter almost anything with a +1 weapon even at lower levels. As said before, there is no reason to suggest that a younger dragon cannot do full damage to an older dragon when it hits. When it hits. that is a key phrase. In the 3.0 system not only is that hard to do, but even upon a hit, it is virtually impossible for damage to be done. As for your 1st level half-orc barbarian, assuming no strength boosting items, spells, or potions, lets give Mr.HalfDork a maximum strength of 20 (a roll of 18, pretty good for 1st level). When Raging that strength becomes 24, IIRC. Assuming Weapon Focus, (and not power attack), with a +1 magical greataxe, his attack bonus becomes a +10. Of course the rage isnt going to last more than a possible 6 rounds (now we are talking two 18s at first level, beyond good to amazing). If we're talking high level dragons only a natural 20 would work. And if you go with the variant rule that says nat 20s arent auto hits, but treated as 30s, then no roll could ever damage the dragon. Assuming you dont, he hits 5-15% of the time. Most enemies that had a DR of +3 or more also had a really high armor class. Actually, many of a +2 or more also tended to have above a 25-28 AC, but we're talking "anything". If that 15% hits, 15% of those would be crits. And considering how long the rage lasts, I dont think that 1st level barbarian is a threat to the "biggies", even WITH perfect rolls.
Chobemaster 08-14-03, 02:14 PM	Originally posted by Quirk errrr....correct me if I'm wrong, but if the dagger is +1, it's going to break that DR, because it's magic. Or maybe I don't see the point, Chobe? No, you're right, my head was inserted in a lower orifice when I posted that.
devinmdp 08-14-03, 02:17 PM	"My problem with this argument is the fact that magic items have ALWAYS been more expensive beyond just an arithmatic measure. Its never been a want/need thing before. I say +5 weapons are no less valuable now than they were before. If anything, all magic items are more valuable. Yes, you're right, there is no longer an absolute requirement to have +5 items. On the other hand, they become no less valuable. Just because the desire to have them comes from a want as opposed to need, that doesnt get rid of their value." There is no logical basis to this argument. Mainly because there is no distinction between want and need. A need is simply a very powerful want. The fact is, while a +5 blade has all the same characteristics it did before, it's marginal utility, meaning its utility above a +4 weapon, has diminished precicely because there are now no creatures that require a +5 weapon to hit but are able to reduce damage from a +4 weapon. The cost of producing a +5 weapon as compared to a +4 weapon should be inextricably related to its marginal utility. In 3.0 when you chose to purchase a +5 weapon over a +4 weapon you were purchasing not only a +1 attack, +1 damage and a better crit threat...you were also purchasing the power to affect a panoply of creatures. Now you are only purchasing the +1 attack, +1 damage, and a better crit threat. I am frankly not here to argue whether these +1's are worth the cost. I am saying that almost by definition, EITHER the incremental cost between a +4 weapon and a +5 weapon was too low in 3.0 and is now just right in 3.5. Or the cost was just right in 3.0 and should be lowered now. You cannot have it both ways. Devin
Zaebos 08-14-03, 02:40 PM	Hey Draco Argentum, go ahead, report me. In no way did I violate the CoC.... (sounds like a 5 year old 'I'm telling mom!') I have to laugh at the apparent self appointed importance you place upon yourself. Roxlimn, Dragons in 3.0 did have DR... I don't know why you said they never had it before. Mirtos, if you want to play Shanara, go ahead. As for me, I prefer to play D&D in the spirit with which it was intended all those years ago. I am no newb here, I have been playing since Basic D&D (17 years in all) and DM'ing for 13 of those. What I am trying to say is that D&D is not FICTION and FICTION is not D&D. D&D is it's own much like Starwars is to science fiction. Just because Star Trek has Transporters doesn't mean that Star Wars should. Anyways... What is at issue here is WHY EVEN HAVE DR#/MAGIC IF EVERYONE CAN BEAT IT? What possible use is it to the monster. All you people who are for the new DR#/MAGIC system are coming at this problem (and yes it is a problem) from a players point of view, not a DM's point of view. (AND WE ARE IN A DM's FORUM) DR#/MAGIC for a monster is absolutely useless. It adds nothing to the monster, why even print it? WHY EVEN HAVE IT IN THE RULES? What possible use can it be? By the time characters are of a level that they start meeting up with creatures with DR#/MAGIC, they will have a weapon that will defeat it, so what possible benifit does DR#/MAGIC have for the monster? The point here is that the NEW DR rules have trivialized Damage Reduction to a point where it makes no sense on a rules level. It reduces the effectiveness of magic weapons and it reduces creature combat prowess. The question here is not about the players weapons, its about how the DM is supposed to take DR#/MAGIC seriously when it can NEVER be USED. You read up a monster entry and find that anything that has DR#/MAGIC is a waste of time. Why even throw a creature with DR#/MAGIC at a party of greater than 4th level? Unless you constantly run a game where no one has magic weapons, DR#/MAGIC IS an ABSOLUTE WASTE and you thumb over it when deciding on what monsters you want to put your party up against. We are supposed to challenge our players. NOT throw monsters at them that they will always beat or coddle them to our DM breasts for fear they may get hurt. The whole point of D&D is to risk life and limb to defeat those who would otherwise hurt you, your family, friends or innocents. When DR#/MAGIC has become so trivial that it no longer matters beyond a players first 5 levels, what is the blasted point of even having it in the game.
Artur King of the Britons 08-14-03, 02:53 PM	Because fighters weren't meant to be mobile weapon arsenals. In my conception It is also right that the fighter is ALSO a master of pick any weapon up and use it. it is perfectly right for a fighter to specialise in the use of one weapon, become a master with it, and carry a single weapon of his choice which he invests money on to turn it into "his" weapon. This is what 90% of fantasy heroes do And what is to say that that weapon is not cold iron or has a silver edge etc. , and what I'd expect an equally large part of my fighter characters to desire to become. Under 3.5 DR, instead, the most effective fighter is the jack-of-all-weapons type, who carries different weapons for different monsters. While it is theoretically a tolerable strategy, it is one that cannot be easily justified by roleplaying . WTF?! Is also an offence against the CoC, just like insulting ppl That's something only a handful of Sigilian planewalkers would think) Or anyone with knowledge the planes What's more, my old, traditional, narrow-minded character who wants to become the absolute master of the greatsword and turn his/her heirloom Foebane into a weapon bards will sing of for eons, will be seriously nerfed because he won't carry twelve different weapons, and a CR 9 encounter will become far more difficult to him - only because he wants to roleplay his character instead of metagaming. And I BET Foebane is a + 3 Weapon, or gets more powerful as you go up in levels does'nt it, because 3.0 DR was not very good, and a +3 weapon will penetrate almost all DRs
Chobemaster 08-14-03, 03:01 PM	Originally posted by Zaebos There is now absolutely no need for any player to have a weapon greater than +1 enhancement bonus. This is the real issue at hand here. Who would craft, buy or otherwise aquire a magic item of a better enhancement bonus than +1? There is absolutely NO NEED to do so. It is a WANT issue now, and that does not JUSTIFY the exponential increase per enhancement bonus. No one here has made a single logical statement that could redeem DR#/magic. I have heard a lot of half assed explanations and faulty reasoning about why the change was made, but yet to hear anyone suggest anything to why this change was made in a convincing and meaningful manner. It seems that after 4 pages of posts that the rule is indeed broken. In closing (for now), the DR#/Magic comparison to CR seems to have worked ok for me in the last 2 sessions I have played. THose of you who have tried it out let me know how it played. It may be a rule that will stick in without much changes later if it indeed is a good rule. It must be great to be so infallible that anyone who disagrees with you is automatically guilty of faulty and half-assed reasoning. I've asked several times for a practical example of how the change actually does what you say it does. You prefer to argue using the shout-down approach, I guess. It is easier to just type "you're wrong" than to show it, I'll admit that. In fact, I wish I hadn't wasted so much time attempting to discuss it rationally with examples, since that was apparently worthless. I did make a mistake in a post, too much switching back and forth between rulesets, I guess. I don't think that invalidates everything else I said, but you apparently disagree. I'm curious, though. What is the purpose of posting a question if you are going to dismiss all the answers other than yours? I'm not suprised your new system worked. If you set the extra plusses such that the PC's already have them at that CR, then yes, I guarantee it will work flawlessly...and meaninglessly. If you've fine-tuned is such that some PC's penetrate and others don't, and that's what you want, then, great, you go ahead and use it. I don't see anything wrong with the system in that case...but I don't particularly see what it accomplishes, either.
Zaebos 08-14-03, 03:22 PM	Chobemaster, sorry, i have you on ignore for good reasons... (which I will not get into here) I clicked on your thing by mistake. Anyways I read it, and I thought I had given examples (a few times over) of why DR#/MAGIC is useless. What you fail to see is that because you no longer minus the damage from the creature, the creature will not last very long in combat. The new rules haven't compensated for the lower DR and the ease it is to hit the creatures for full damage now. The CR's have remained, largely, the same, and so now it is much easier to defeat a monster, throwing the whole CR system (when creatures have DR#/Magic) out the window. The AC of creatures too have remained largely the same for DR#/MAGIC so it is still about the same to hit these creatures. No new natural armor bonus for creatures who had the ability to shrug off damage. Also, I don't know if anyone has taken this into consideration, but for those people who have fairly low strength score, carrying multiple weapons is not an option. Keep in mind also that since DR#/Magic is all inclusive, any weapon with a +1 enhancement bonus will get through. This means that even if the creature sunders a weapon, that boot dagger will come in handy. From the DM's perspective, DR#/MAGIC is completely useless.
mirtos 08-14-03, 03:25 PM	Originally posted by devinmdp "My problem with this argument is the fact that magic items have ALWAYS been more expensive beyond just an arithmatic measure. Its never been a want/need thing before. I say +5 weapons are no less valuable now than they were before. If anything, all magic items are more valuable. Yes, you're right, there is no longer an absolute requirement to have +5 items. On the other hand, they become no less valuable. Just because the desire to have them comes from a want as opposed to need, that doesnt get rid of their value." There is no logical basis to this argument. Mainly because there is no distinction between want and need. A need is simply a very powerful want. The fact is, while a +5 blade has all the same characteristics it did before, it's marginal utility, meaning its utility above a +4 weapon, has diminished precicely because there are now no creatures that require a +5 weapon to hit but are able to reduce damage from a +4 weapon. The cost of producing a +5 weapon as compared to a +4 weapon should be inextricably related to its marginal utility. In 3.0 when you chose to purchase a +5 weapon over a +4 weapon you were purchasing not only a +1 attack, +1 damage and a better crit threat...you were also purchasing the power to affect a panoply of creatures. Now you are only purchasing the +1 attack, +1 damage, and a better crit threat. I am frankly not here to argue whether these +1's are worth the cost. I am saying that almost by definition, EITHER the incremental cost between a +4 weapon and a +5 weapon was too low in 3.0 and is now just right in 3.5. Or the cost was just right in 3.0 and should be lowered now. You cannot have it both ways. Devin Im probably leaving too much in the quoted post, but hey. A need is a very powerful want. Then a gain, some might say a want is a powerful need. Of course, should cost equate the beneift? Or does it have something to do with the power needed to create it? does anyone actually believe a 20th level wizard is only 20 times as powerful as a 1st level wizard? I doubt anyone would say 'yes' to that. to play D&D as D&D was intended is a very interesting argument, because the concept of Damage reduction never existed in the earliest versions of D&D. Then again, neither was the idea of different items doing different ammounts of damage. Therefore, all new concepts should be lost, as they dont follow tradition. And do you go by the basic set, or AD&D? they came out at the same time, different groups in TSR produced them. Which was the intended way? Actually, the only way to fairly answer that question is to look at the original game. Hmm... but the game developers later worked on later versions. Getting a bit sticky around here. Is every rule, every ability meant as an escalating challenge? If so, your argument isnt why have DR/magic, its why have DR/magic above a certain level. Otherwise, we'd have to wonder why have creatures that only do a certain amount of damage. Its a waste of space. Why have spells like charm person or suggestion which are eventually made useless? And of course, the point about Shanarra was lost, or ignored. I cannot be sure which. Unless you are saying that the point behind D&D is to have an ever-escalating series of numbers, and not the possibility of creativity. You might be right, I might be right, but personally I dont think any of us can ever say how it was "intended" for the game to be. Finally, is the cost of an item linked to how much it can be sold for? In a campaign, perhaps, but not by the books. An item costs the same to make in both a high magic and a low magic campaign. The DMG does not bring supply/demand into this. This, one might assume, is what one might by the item for in an average situation. In a situation where it is is extremely useful, cost might be higher than the "base" cost. similar to in a world filled with creatures who take extra damage from fire, a wand of fireballs might be more rare, and thus more expensive, but this doesnt have to do with the effort needed to create such an item. So, actually I can have it both ways.
Derren S. 08-14-03, 03:28 PM	Originally posted by Artur King of the Britons Because fighters weren't meant to be mobile weapon arsenals. In my conception It is also right that the fighter is ALSO a master of pick any weapon up and use it. it is perfectly right for a fighter to specialise in the use of one weapon, become a master with it, and carry a single weapon of his choice which he invests money on to turn it into "his" weapon. This is what 90% of fantasy heroes do And what is to say that that weapon is not cold iron or has a silver edge etc. , and what I'd expect an equally large part of my fighter characters to desire to become. Under 3.5 DR, instead, the most effective fighter is the jack-of-all-weapons type, who carries different weapons for different monsters. While it is theoretically a tolerable strategy, it is one that cannot be easily justified by roleplaying . WTF?! Is also an offence against the CoC, just like insulting ppl That's something only a handful of Sigilian planewalkers would think) Or anyone with knowledge the planes What's more, my old, traditional, narrow-minded character who wants to become the absolute master of the greatsword and turn his/her heirloom Foebane into a weapon bards will sing of for eons, will be seriously nerfed because he won't carry twelve different weapons, and a CR 9 encounter will become far more difficult to him - only because he wants to roleplay his character instead of metagaming. And I BET Foebane is a + 3 Weapon, or gets more powerful as you go up in levels does'nt it, because 3.0 DR was not very good, and a +3 weapon will penetrate almost all DRs I can't hear it anymore. DR 3.5 dosn't restrict the ability to roleplay! You can perfectly roleplay fighters who use multiple weapons and who are pride of their knowledge of the various vulnerabilites of monsters. The DR in 3.5 is just a D&D rule. Nothing more, nothing less. Wheny ou want to roll play a perfectly efficent fighter it would be a minmax monster with 0 personality, because every form of a personality can be seen as a weakness which the DM can exploit. To play a fighter who only use one weapon is the same as playing a two-weapon fighter (weaker than two-handed weapon wielder), a honorable rogue who refuses to use sneak attack, a pacifist character who dosn't want to kill or even fight or a mage with only defensive/utility spells and no offensive spells. That are all possible personalitys player can give to their characters. Do they make the game harder? Yes, but this is the decision of the player and he knows that the personality he gave to his character may reduce his combat efficiency. How many of your 90% of fantasy heroes come from D&D? When you copy a character from some book, movie, whatever which isn't D&D you can't expect that he is still as powerfull in D&D than in his own "world" where the "rules" are different. And you still can play a weapon master who only use one type of weapon. Against some enemies he will deal less damage than usual but he can still fight them not like in 3.0 where you were nearly useless when your weapon couldn't penetrate the DR.
Chobemaster 08-14-03, 03:34 PM	Originally posted by devinmdp The fact is, while a +5 blade has all the same characteristics it did before, it's marginal utility, meaning its utility above a +4 weapon, has diminished precicely because there are now no creatures that require a +5 weapon to hit but are able to reduce damage from a +4 weapon. The cost of producing a +5 weapon as compared to a +4 weapon should be inextricably related to its marginal utility. In 3.0 when you chose to purchase a +5 weapon over a +4 weapon you were purchasing not only a +1 attack, +1 damage and a better crit threat...you were also purchasing the power to affect a panoply of creatures. Now you are only purchasing the +1 attack, +1 damage, and a better crit threat. I am frankly not here to argue whether these +1's are worth the cost. I am saying that almost by definition, EITHER the incremental cost between a +4 weapon and a +5 weapon was too low in 3.0 and is now just right in 3.5. Or the cost was just right in 3.0 and should be lowered now. You cannot have it both ways. Devin You're exactly right to look at it from a marginal standpoint. And if you consider the 5 things you used to get (+1 attack, +1 damage, crit threat, sunder, DR penetration) compared to the 4 things you get now, (same list, less DR penetration) then you're right, that the same solution set (i.e. the gp cost) can't fit both situations...UNLESS YOU ASCRIBE ZERO VALUE TO DR PENETRATION IN AND OF ITSELF. To call it truly zero is probably too draconian, no pun intended. But I've shown that in the situations where you were actually moving up by a plus, it didn't actually help you with real-world DR penetration vis-a-vis the creatures you were encountering. Since we're comparing creatures moving from dr x/+2 (or greater) to dr/magic, I'll come back to my CR 17 VO Black Dragon. Your character bought his +2 sword, I'd bet, WAY before 17th level. so he was either paying today for DR penetration he'll get later, or he didn't ascribe much, if any, value to DR penetration. Since most PC's have better things to spend their money on today than something that will help them in 5 levels, the more reasonable proposition is that he didn't much value the DR penetration. After all, you don't normally see purchase of scrolls 3-4 spell levels above what a caster could use, or pearls of power/rings of wizardry for inaccessible spell levels. Or a dwarf who buys goggles of darkvision on the off-chance he's killed and reincarnated as a human.
Chobemaster 08-14-03, 03:45 PM	Originally posted by Zaebos Chobemaster, sorry, i have you on ignore for good reasons... (which I will not get into here) I clicked on your thing by mistake. Anyways I read it, and I thought I had given examples (a few times over) of why DR#/MAGIC is useless. What you fail to see is that because you no longer minus the damage from the creature, the creature will not last very long in combat. The new rules haven't compensated for the lower DR and the ease it is to hit the creatures for full damage now. The CR's have remained, largely, the same, and so now it is much easier to defeat a monster, throwing the whole CR system (when creatures have DR#/Magic) out the window. From the DM's perspective, DR#/MAGIC is completely useless. Since you may have ignored it, I do understand that in theory, creatures dropping from dr 10/+2 to dr 5/magic will take more damage now from +1 weapons. My point has always been that a high percentage of the foes of dr10/+2 creatures (VO CR 17 black dragon) were using better than +1 anyway, so there's no practical difference, so the party has no easier a time beating it than if it hadn't had DR at all. And if for some reason the party had only +1, they were toast, so the encounter is much harder than the CR would lead you to believe. I firmly believe that in practice, this makes the CR system MORE reliable, not less. Are there circumstances where a given 3.5 creature who moved from dr x/+2 to dr y/magic takes more damage from a +1 weapon? Yes. Do I think these situations are common? No. Do I think that means the rule is bad/broken? No. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, since I understand your argument, and you claim to understand mine. If I've offended you in the past to the extent that you ignored me, I apologize. If you find my posts to be that worthless, well, then I guess I'm glad for you that there's an ignore feature. FWIW, I agree with you more often and not (although I may not post when I agree!) and look for your posts.
Chobemaster 08-14-03, 03:51 PM	Originally posted by mirtos to play D&D as D&D was intended is a very interesting argument, because the concept of Damage reduction never existed in the earliest versions of D&D. Then again, neither was the idea of different items doing different ammounts of damage. Therefore, all new concepts should be lost, as they dont follow tradition. And do you go by the basic set, or AD&D? they came out at the same time, different groups in TSR produced them. Which was the intended way? Actually, the only way to fairly answer that question is to look at the original game. Hmm... but the game developers later worked on later versions. Getting a bit sticky around here. . As we've established on other threads, you predate even me, but in my 1st printing MM, certain creatures, using current nomenclature, had infinite/+1 or greater. Ditto my red basic dungeon masters' book. You had to have the requisite plus, or you did no damage at all. Which led to situations where your fighter with a girdle of giant strength who should have been doing +12 to damage with his normal sword did nothing, but the gnome illusionist with a str 5 did full damage with his +1 dagger. That REALLY shows how much a +1 was worth! The Basic monster entry for gargoyle even warned you to not use it unless at least one PC had a +1 weapon.
Chobemaster 08-14-03, 04:13 PM	It's worth noting, I think, that very few monsters moved from dr x/+2 (+3, +4) to dr y/magic. Very high-age dragons, where it didn't protect them from PC's anyway. More of them moved to the special materials or special materials AND magic. So I think this may be a lot of noise signifying nothing, if all we're concerned about is x/+2 --> y/magic
devinmdp 08-14-03, 05:40 PM	"Im probably leaving too much in the quoted post, but hey. A need is a very powerful want. Then a gain, some might say a want is a powerful need. Of course, should cost equate the beneift? Or does it have something to do with the power needed to create it? does anyone actually believe a 20th level wizard is only 20 times as powerful as a 1st level wizard? I doubt anyone would say 'yes' to that." I fail to see what the one has to do with the other. From a game design point of view, cost should equate to benefit. If not, you either get no one bothering (if cost is greater than benefit) or everyone munchkining on it (if cost is lower than benefit). What "cost" has to do with a 20th level wizard compared to a 1st level wizard I don't know. I am not arguing that a +5 weapon should necessarily be 5 times the cost of a +1 weapon, though one could make a case for that. "to play D&D as D&D was intended is a very interesting argument, because the concept of Damage reduction never existed in the earliest versions of D&D. Then again, neither was the idea of different items doing different ammounts of damage. Therefore, all new concepts should be lost, as they dont follow tradition. And do you go by the basic set, or AD&D? they came out at the same time, different groups in TSR produced them. Which was the intended way? Actually, the only way to fairly answer that question is to look at the original game. Hmm... but the game developers later worked on later versions. Getting a bit sticky around here." When did I intimate any sort of suggestion that D&D be played "as intended"? I can't even grasp what you are getting at here. Are you simply implying I am against change in general? "Is every rule, every ability meant as an escalating challenge? If so, your argument isnt why have DR/magic, its why have DR/magic above a certain level. Otherwise, we'd have to wonder why have creatures that only do a certain amount of damage. Its a waste of space. Why have spells like charm person or suggestion which are eventually made useless? " In some sense you could distil it to that, but it is not the crux of my point. I like damage reduction in general as a concept. It helps to keep certain creatures out of the realm of lower level players. It lends them a desired air of invincibility. It also lends more importance to magical weapons, making them much more the object of quests. Let's face it, there are a lot of ways to buff attack and damage in 3.5 without even resorting to a magic weapon. Various levels of specialization, an amazing number of spells (arcane and divine), feats, strength, etc. "And of course, the point about Shanarra was lost, or ignored. I cannot be sure which." You made a single offhand reference to Shanarra. How am I supposed to comment to that? Explain it better. " Unless you are saying that the point behind D&D is to have an ever-escalating series of numbers, and not the possibility of creativity." Why does one preculde the other? Are you saying you can't have both? I can be a creative as heck with a normal kobold, but at some point, no matter how creative I am, it becomes no challenge for higher level PCs. That's the nature of the game. " You might be right, I might be right, but personally I dont think any of us can ever say how it was "intended" for the game to be." Then why are you bringing it up? I never implied that I knew how the game was intended. "Finally, is the cost of an item linked to how much it can be sold for? In a campaign, perhaps, but not by the books. An item costs the same to make in both a high magic and a low magic campaign." Says....who? "The DMG does not bring supply/demand into this." That is a separate issue that I also have a problem with, but it's not the point. Unless you wish to assume that magic item prices were constructed randomly, then by definition, there was some modus used to decide that magic weapons cost the square of their plus. When that decision was made, magic weapons dealt with 3.0 DR. The same costs are now being used with 3.5 DR. By definition, maybe only in hindsight, one of those costs schemas is wrong. " This, one might assume, is what one might by the item for in an average situation. In a situation where it is is extremely useful, cost might be higher than the "base" cost. similar to in a world filled with creatures who take extra damage from fire, a wand of fireballs might be more rare, and thus more expensive, but this doesnt have to do with the effort needed to create such an item. So, actually I can have it both ways." You miss my point entirely. In any single given situation (i.e. a sword +4 vs a sword +5) at a given point in time and a given point in space now has a different marginal utility in 3.5 than in 3.0. The fact that marginal utility and price might vary from cricumstance to circumstance or location t location within a game world has absolutely no bearing on the prices suggested in the PHB/DMG. Devin
devinmdp 08-14-03, 05:44 PM	"Since we're comparing creatures moving from dr x/+2 (or greater) to dr/magic, I'll come back to my CR 17 VO Black Dragon. Your character bought his +2 sword, I'd bet, WAY before 17th level. so he was either paying today for DR penetration he'll get later, or he didn't ascribe much, if any, value to DR penetration. Since most PC's have better things to spend their money on today than something that will help them in 5 levels, the more reasonable proposition is that he didn't much value the DR penetration. After all, you don't normally see purchase of scrolls 3-4 spell levels above what a caster could use, or pearls of power/rings of wizardry for inaccessible spell levels. Or a dwarf who buys goggles of darkvision on the off-chance he's killed and reincarnated as a human." It's very nice that you choose to use the dragon example, which is frankly a very skewed one. A good many of the demons and outsiders in 3.0 were getting their DR levels right about when the party could indeed be getting weapons of that calibre. In addition, please keep in mind that not every campaign world is FR munchkin land where everyone has a +1 weapon by 3rd level, +2 by 6th, +3 by 9th etc. If you play in a world that adjusts those levels by even 1, then you will have 11th level parties with +2 weapons. Meaning that giving them a tough quest to get a +3 weapon meant something in 3.0 because they were ready to take on some +3 DR monsters and could really appreciate the value of acquiring that +3 weapon. Devin
Draco Argentum 08-15-03, 12:54 AM	Originally posted by Zaebos Hey Draco Argentum, go ahead, report me. In no way did I violate the CoC.... (sounds like a 5 year old 'I'm telling mom!') I have to laugh at the apparent self appointed importance you place upon yourself. Roxlimn, Dragons in 3.0 did have DR... I don't know why you said they never had it before. Why would I report you? It would be like reporting Sarge or any of the other masters of humourous posts. You actually have violated the CoC though. A cookie to whoever posts an example first. You know why Dragons didn't have DR in 3.0. Or rather you would if you read the thread. (I'm agreeing with Roxlimn. :P)
Roxlimn 08-15-03, 07:06 AM	Zaebos: I was actually referring to 2e, when I said "before". It was supposed to mean "before 3e". My bad. Now that I think about it, I may be mistaken. It's just that weapon immunities were never accessed by me during my stint as a player in 2e because it never came into play. What is at issue here is WHY EVEN HAVE DR#/MAGIC IF EVERYONE CAN BEAT IT? What possible use is it to the monster. All you people who are for the new DR#/MAGIC system are coming at this problem (and yes it is a problem) from a players point of view, not a DM's point of view. (AND WE ARE IN A DM's FORUM) First of all, practically every single instance of DR before 3.5 was already like this. The DR of a young adult dragon with a CR of 11 was 5/+1. In the highly unlikely event you didn't have a magic weapon by the time you hit level 7, you could simply ignore it since it was so small, or have your casters cast magic weapon, or bless weapon, or greater magic weapon. Parties of average level 6 or below were not expected to survive or succeed an encounter with a CR 11 rating anyway, so arguing levels any lower than 7 is pointless. After level 7 the likelihood of getting a +1 weapon is practically assured by the treasure tables. Thus, your argument against the uselessness of graded magic enhancement DR is not at all lost on me, because I had always regarded DR in that fashion anyway. DR#/MAGIC for a monster is absolutely useless. It adds nothing to the monster, why even print it? WHY EVEN HAVE IT IN THE RULES? What possible use can it be? By the time characters are of a level that they start meeting up with creatures with DR#/MAGIC, they will have a weapon that will defeat it, so what possible benifit does DR#/MAGIC have for the monster? There are several possible benefits to having DR/magic. 1. For monsters of CR 4 or lower, DR/magic is highly advantageous. Characters of this level can't be expected to regularly acquire magic weapons. 2. Even at higher levels, characters cannot always be expected to have magic weapons in 3.5. Now that materials matter as much as magic enhancements, the likelihood that the Fighter will opt for an adamantite sword before he gets a magic one is about the same, especially because adamantite is also useful in a noncombat encounter. Adding more materials and more material DR and options only lessens the probability of an early magic weapon. 3. DR/magic AND something else adds an additional requirement for the weapon. In this case, the magic requirement may be the one that pushes the edge of the envelope, as the Fighter may have an adamantite weapon, but not a magic adamantite one, or in another encounter, have a magic adamantite sword, but not a magic AND silver one, even though he may have a nonmagical silvered sword or dagger as a secondary weapon. 4. In yet another fashion, DR/magic may be substantial in a higher level environment where anti-magic or disjunctive abilities negate weapon magic but not weapon material. In this case, PCs may still penetrate with their material (which argues better for having a special material weapon first) but not with magic. In at least these four senses, the DR/magic of 3.5 makes significantly more sense than the graded DR of 3e.
Chobemaster 08-15-03, 08:40 AM	Originally posted by devinmdp It's very nice that you choose to use the dragon example, which is frankly a very skewed one. A good many of the demons and outsiders in 3.0 were getting their DR levels right about when the party could indeed be getting weapons of that calibre. In addition, please keep in mind that not every campaign world is FR munchkin land where everyone has a +1 weapon by 3rd level, +2 by 6th, +3 by 9th etc. If you play in a world that adjusts those levels by even 1, then you will have 11th level parties with +2 weapons. Meaning that giving them a tough quest to get a +3 weapon meant something in 3.0 because they were ready to take on some +3 DR monsters and could really appreciate the value of acquiring that +3 weapon. Devin It's not skewed. Provide me with another monster that went from dr x/+2 to dr y/magic (only) and we can look at it. And I've certainly never indicated that I'm running a FR or similar game. My players, one in particular, find my world to be unbelievably low magic. Although he's got 7 permanent magic items, at least, off the top of my head... And I can accept 11th level parties that only have +2. Indeed, that's where my party is going to be shortly. What practical context is that, though? What 3.0 monster with x/+3 were you going to throw at your 11th level PC's? I certainly think its got more flavor to say, IC "oh, crap, Brightedge, my sword crafted in the deeps of time by the elves for their war against the drow is made of steel...but these devils are more susceptible to silver weapons" than to say, IC "oh, gee. My +2 sword won't work, I need a +3 sword." It seems more credible to me that in-game, characters would have knowledge of special substances and monsters reputed vulnerabilities thereto than knowledge of quantized levels of "plusses" and the necessary "plus" to beat a given creature. Plus, by its nature, is a game mechanic, and PC's should refer to game mechanics directly. And anyway, now they can quest for that cold-iron weapon, or the holy weapon, or the adamantite weapon, or whatever. Indeed, it gives you more quest opportunities. I'd expect that most higher level parties would seek for each member to have a special material weapon and coordinate the effort so that, as a party, they've got everything "covered."
Israfel666 08-15-03, 09:58 AM	Originally posted by Roxlimn 4. In yet another fashion, DR/magic may be substantial in a higher level environment where anti-magic or disjunctive abilities negate weapon magic but not weapon material. In this case, PCs may still penetrate with their material (which argues better for having a special material weapon first) but not with magic. Damage reduction is supernatural and thus negated by AMF or similar effects. That, BTW, has always been the "trick" to allow even the archer with +1/+2 arrows to hit an iron golem under 3.0.
Chobemaster 08-15-03, 10:08 AM	Originally posted by Israfel666 Damage reduction is supernatural and thus negated by AMF or similar effects. That, BTW, has always been the "trick" to allow even the archer with +1/+2 arrows to hit an iron golem under 3.0. According to the SRD, "Damage Reduction (Ex or Su)" It doesn't specify, of course, which DR's are EX and which are Su.
OrigamiCommando 08-15-03, 10:42 AM	Actually, I saw an interesting interperetation of the rules on DR/magic at a fellow DMs house just a little while ago. Concerning magic spells, magic DR is useless, but weapons work different. He read it as magic weapons only deal their bonus in damage that gets by damage reduction. So fighting a creature with DR10/magic, a +1 dagger would only deal 1 point of magic damage and the 1d4 from the dagger would still count as normal damage. That makes them a little too tough in my opinion. If you want to make DR vs magic really powerful, double the cost of enhancement bonuses all around, to 4000gps for a +1. That way not ever barbarian will be wandering around with a magic weapon.
devinmdp 08-15-03, 01:58 PM	Originally posted by Chobemaster It's not skewed. Provide me with another monster that went from dr x/+2 to dr y/magic (only) and we can look at it. And I've certainly never indicated that I'm running a FR or similar game. My players, one in particular, find my world to be unbelievably low magic. Although he's got 7 permanent magic items, at least, off the top of my head... And I can accept 11th level parties that only have +2. Indeed, that's where my party is going to be shortly. What practical context is that, though? What 3.0 monster with x/+3 were you going to throw at your 11th level PC's? I certainly think its got more flavor to say, IC "oh, crap, Brightedge, my sword crafted in the deeps of time by the elves for their war against the drow is made of steel...but these devils are more susceptible to silver weapons" than to say, IC "oh, gee. My +2 sword won't work, I need a +3 sword." It seems more credible to me that in-game, characters would have knowledge of special substances and monsters reputed vulnerabilities thereto than knowledge of quantized levels of "plusses" and the necessary "plus" to beat a given creature. Plus, by its nature, is a game mechanic, and PC's should refer to game mechanics directly. And anyway, now they can quest for that cold-iron weapon, or the holy weapon, or the adamantite weapon, or whatever. Indeed, it gives you more quest opportunities. I'd expect that most higher level parties would seek for each member to have a special material weapon and coordinate the effort so that, as a party, they've got everything "covered." I'll be happy to look one up this weekend. As far as discerning plusses, obvously the characters would not speak in jargon such as +2 and +3. But I don't find it implausible to believe they would think in terms of the magic of this blade not being strong enough to pierce the fiendish hide of the balor. Devin
Chobemaster 08-15-03, 03:06 PM	Originally posted by OrigamiCommando Actually, I saw an interesting interperetation of the rules on DR/magic at a fellow DMs house just a little while ago. Concerning magic spells, magic DR is useless, but weapons work different. He read it as magic weapons only deal their bonus in damage that gets by damage reduction. So fighting a creature with DR10/magic, a +1 dagger would only deal 1 point of magic damage and the 1d4 from the dagger would still count as normal damage. That makes them a little too tough in my opinion. If you want to make DR vs magic really powerful, double the cost of enhancement bonuses all around, to 4000gps for a +1. That way not ever barbarian will be wandering around with a magic weapon. Wow. That's 100% counter to the intention of the change. In 3.0, did this DM rule the same way? A +1 weapon did +1 damage? What does he think the x in x/magic is for?
Chobemaster 08-15-03, 03:11 PM	Originally posted by devinmdp I'll be happy to look one up this weekend. As far as discerning plusses, obvously the characters would not speak in jargon such as +2 and +3. But I don't find it implausible to believe they would think in terms of the magic of this blade not being strong enough to pierce the fiendish hide of the balor. Devin I'm sure they should, but I've never seen a satisfactory means for characters, especially non-wizards, to discuss enhancements IC. Even if you say something like "the effect of 3 bless spells" the characters are still, at the root, discussing a games-mechanic quantization of the "amount" of magic, and quantization at that level is very arbitrary. Wish spells can do almost anything, but they can't make me 7.5% more likely to hit a foe, only 5% or 10%. And without discussing quantization, how would they know that sword X can pierce a balor and sword y can't? Sure, in combat, they can say "bob's sword seems to work a lot better than jim's" But how do the bards of the realm describe this? How does the balor's DR enter the lore of the populace? How does Homer know if his sword has the same "plus" as the legendary Bob?
devinmdp 08-15-03, 03:21 PM	"And without discussing quantization, how would they know that sword X can pierce a balor and sword y can't? Sure, in combat, they can say "bob's sword seems to work a lot better than jim's" But how do the bards of the realm describe this? How does the balor's DR enter the lore of the populace? How does Homer know if his sword has the same "plus" as the legendary Bob?" Since there are only five discrete and observable levels of magic plusses, not a continuous spectrum, it can't be that difficult. I tend to, in my campaign, use words like faint or low or strong or overpowering to describe such plusses. After all, since you have definite gradations of power describable via the detect magic spell, why not adopt those terms for plusses? In a normal mid powered D&D campaign, you would get: Faint or low = +1 Medium = +2 Strong = +3 Powerful = +4 Overwhelming = +5 As for how the balor's DR enters the local jargon...why does it even need to be quantified. OLD TIMER: "I hear tell of a terrible fiend of fire that haunts the catacombs beneath the ruined tower of Tharikthiril. I hear tell this fiend is as tall as two men and half again and sheathed in a cloak of flame. In its left hand is a fiery scourge and in its right hand is a blade made out of a lightning bolt that cleaves through stone like a knife though butter!" YOUNG TIMER: "But didn't the warrior Voskalm and his wizard friend enter the catacombs and fight the field?" OLD TIMER: "Aye...that they did. and the wizard was ne'er heard from again. Voskalm...he comes running out of the catacombs singed and cut and told those who would listen that his family blade, old Ereskosa...you know....the one that he used to cleave the head off of that dog headed fiend with the crab claws up in Artiniria, couldn't give this fiery fiend nary a paper cut on its flaming hide. It'd take a blade more magical than Ereskosa to cut that fiend down to size I think. Probably something along the lines of the king's blade Wahramlit. They say that sword can cleave through a foot of stone with a goodly stroke." Devin
Chobemaster 08-15-03, 04:00 PM	Calling it faint, moderate, whatever isn't really any better than calling it +1, it just pretends to be. If an +1 enchanted item radiates a faint aura, 10 "magicains per second" or whatever, and the +2 radiates a medium one of 20 MPS, then there's no weapon in the whole world that radiates 15 MPS. Which doesn't make any sense to me. I accept the quantization for game mechanic principles, but I don't buy it inside the game-world. And the need for it to be quantized in the lore of the populace is from an example in the thread. Someone lamented that the PC's wouldn't go on a quest for a +3 weapon to fight the balor, since they don't need it for that anymore. How do the 3.0 PC's know that the weapons they have aren't as good as Erekosa already?
devinmdp 08-15-03, 06:49 PM	"Calling it faint, moderate, whatever isn't really any better than calling it +1, it just pretends to be. If an +1 enchanted item radiates a faint aura, 10 "magicains per second" or whatever, and the +2 radiates a medium one of 20 MPS, then there's no weapon in the whole world that radiates 15 MPS. Which doesn't make any sense to me. I accept the quantization for game mechanic principles, but I don't buy it inside the game-world." Well here's a newsflash, there's a lot of stuff you have to "buy" in order to play the game. What you are essentially complaining about now is the fact that there are only 5 levels of "plusses" in D&D. First, change DR all you want, you are still stuck with that problem. How do you describe Person X trying to sell a +2 blade to Person Y and Person Z trying to sell a +1 blade to the same person? Is this an insurmountable situation in your campaign? How does person X describe his blade in reference to person Z's inferior blade? Second, irrespective of DR, why can't you forge a +1.5 weapon in your game? Third, how does your game world explain the fact that a person with 999 XP has a certain set of capabilities, but the moment he gains 1 XP all of a suddent BING! he has greately improved capabilities (and the jump from 1st to second level is, relatively speaking, the largest most profound jump you make in overall power)? The fact is that because this is a game, you have to have discrete levels of everything to keep it manageable. All your argument does, basically, is cry out for a percentile gaming system where you could have a Sword +01, Sword +15, Sword +37. Then you'd have 100 discrete levels of plusses and there really wouldn't be a good in world way to differantiate the slight difference between a Sword +07 and a Sword +08. In that case, I'd have a big problem with DR based on plusses too because you'd have this weird situation where a Sword +29 can't hit something but a Sword +30 can. However, with a mere 5 plusses in D&D, I don't think this is a problem. "And the need for it to be quantized in the lore of the populace is from an example in the thread. Someone lamented that the PC's wouldn't go on a quest for a +3 weapon to fight the balor, since they don't need it for that anymore. How do the 3.0 PC's know that the weapons they have aren't as good as Erekosa already?" Well, if Erekosa is rumoured to be able to cut through an arm's length of wood with a nice even stroke and you go up to the nearest tree and try it and the blade sinks in maybe 3 inches, while it's not a scientific test, you might want to consider whether that blade is going to pierce a balor's hide. So maybe you do research and find a musty tome that tells the tale how the lost blade of Querness, as weilded by the paladin Mortuim in the battle of the Abyssal Gate was scene by eyewitnesses to chop the head from a being that describes much like a balor. I frankly see nothing wrong with keeping the characters (and the players) guessing as to the exact capabilities of their weapons. is their blade more powerful than Ereskosa? Who knows? What do the legends say? Have a magical scholar examine it. Does a Detect Magic show a greater aura on one than the other? Maybe the party will have to go up against a fiend and see what happens. All sounds pretty realistic and exciting to me. Devin
Chobemaster 08-18-03, 12:47 PM	Originally posted by devinmdp Well here's a newsflash, there's a lot of stuff you have to "buy" in order to play the game. What you are essentially complaining about now is the fact that there are only 5 levels of "plusses" in D&D. First, change DR all you want, you are still stuck with that problem. How do you describe Person X trying to sell a +2 blade to Person Y and Person Z trying to sell a +1 blade to the same person? Is this an insurmountable situation in your campaign? How does person X describe his blade in reference to person Z's inferior blade? Second, irrespective of DR, why can't you forge a +1.5 weapon in your game? Third, how does your game world explain the fact that a person with 999 XP has a certain set of capabilities, but the moment he gains 1 XP all of a suddent BING! he has greately improved capabilities (and the jump from 1st to second level is, relatively speaking, the largest most profound jump you make in overall power)? Devin Now, there's no need to get huffy. I don't need any newsflashes. I'm fine that from a game-mechanic standpoint, there are 5 levels of plus. But I don't want PC's to refer to game mechanics, either directly or by transparent proxy. As to a +1.5 blade, you "can't" do that because +1 is a game mechanic and doesn't allow for fractions. Could I change the mechanic? Yes, but that's not the point of the discussion, we're talking about the existing mechanics. If someone is looking to buy 1 of 2 magic swords, or compare one to the one he has, I tell the caster of detect magic which has a stronger aura. But I don't quantify the difference. I will admit that there is a certain level of "meta" built into the system since prices are quantized as well, but I prefer to accept that grudgingly and minimize it, not expand on it. The PC's don't explain or discuss XP totals at all, that's the point I'm trying to make...game mechanics should not be discussed by the PC's. Your example on how to determine the strength of the magic of a given blade not in-hand is good, I like it. But that's not really supportive of the reason I brought it up in the first place, the poster who mentioned that now PC's aren't incented to quest for +3 weapons b/c of DR 3.5. And if, in 3.0, they couldn't find out what they needed, then the argument that 3.5 is taking away the ability to find out what they needed, since they didn't have it anyway, is moot. If someone had a weapon that wailed on a 3.0 balor, and the PC's wanted to find out about it, great, they found out, OOC, that it was +3, IC that it cuts trees (or stone statues, or whatever.) Under 3.5, the PC's find out it's magical holysilver...which is comprehensible in-game, and from a "coolness of adventuring" standpoint, no different. So while 3.0 isn't "broken" in this regard, 3.5 isn't either, and takes slightly less finagling The finagling isn't excessive, so I'm willing to spot it to you and call it a wash. So this doesn't support the argument that 3.5 is flawed. I appear to have worn down or exasperated all other posters, so I guess this horse is dead, whether it had dr 10/+2 or 5/magic. Game on, and thanks for the discussion!
deadite 08-18-03, 05:43 PM	Well Chobey, You have convinced me. I have a player that has asked a merchant if he could buy a +3 longbow from him, how crappy is it to have to explain that he shouldnt use that term? I have finally found the one positive argument to use 3.5 DR that will tilt the balance that was previously on my mind. thanks.