Should the DR system be scrapped?

[Endarire]

DR, like skill checks, matter most in early game but is often quickly outgrown.

DR/Magic matters most at levels 1 and 2.  Come level 3, people have Mountain Hammer and Foehammer.  Come level 5, people have greater magic weapon.

The current DR system assumes people are doing low damage on each hit.  The highest core DR I found was DR 20/Magic (True Dragons), DR 15/silver and good (Pit Fiends), and DR 15/epic and evil (Solars).

If DR is to matter, it must be a percentage, possibly with a minimum.  Sample:  DR 20%/Magic (Minimum 2).

But DR in general gimps non-casters while doing nothing directly to stop casters.  No amount of DR prevents fireball or web or fly (on himself) + invisibility + whatever.

What are your thoughts?

[oslecamo]

1-DR is a secondary defense. It softens up blows and helps protecting from mooks. If a dragon had enough DR to fully stop the ubercharger of same level, then something would be wrong. Specially because the ubercharger cannot afford to fully power attack already because of the dragon's insane natural armor.
2-DR is also aimed at protecting noncaster monsters from hordes of low level mooks. So altough the DR 10/magic is irrelevant against the PCs, it means a city of thousands of lv1 dudes can be menaced by a single monster that would otherwise suffer a death from a thousand cuts from natural 20s.

If you do it as a percentage, then we go back to death from a thousand cuts.

And really, you make it sound as if DR was the only defense from monsters. Again, it's a secondary defense. The Pit Fiend also has SLAs and nat armor and other stuff to back up his DR.

If monsters didn't have nat armor, you may have a point, but considering they have it, DR is more of level check to prevent deaths from a thousand cuts from dudes much lower level than you.

[wotmaniac]

DR is more of level check to prevent deaths from a thousand cuts from dudes much lower level than you.

Full fucking Stop.

[veekie]

Actually though, if not for the ways to totally bypass DR, I'd advocate, design wise, making DR a PRIMARY defense for melee and leave AC as secondary. Much better for tanking over multiple rounds than AC.

[RobbyPants]

Actually though, if not for the ways to totally bypass DR, I'd advocate, design wise, making DR a PRIMARY defense for melee and leave AC as secondary. Much better for tanking over multiple rounds than AC.

Only if it scales with your level, but I'm assuming you meant that.

I don't think DR should be scrapped.  I think it should scale.  It's easy enough to build into monsters, but it's not that hard to revamp for PCs.

[veekie]

Yeah, but as aspects of Rocket Tag go, Save or Die effects have a bigger role than it does.

[lans]

DR is great against multiattackers, like TWFs and Cat Pouncers. The TWFs aren't a big deal, but it drops the cat pouncers damage enough for it to not kill you.

DR/Magic is  useful for PCs if they get it early via incarnate. 10/Magic at level 7 and dealing 3d6 fire damage when ever it hits you, gives you a  huge shot against things like earth elementals, elephants, and hill giants that are GTFO when it comes to melee.

[axenome1]

O boy. Go go gadget wall-of-text!

Aright, damage reduction has its roots in the old days of advanced D&D where monsters were outright immune to weapons under a certain degree of enchantment. This in turn was based off of Lord of the Rings "Return of the King" where the Lich King of Angmar was hamstringed by a hobbit using ione of the old barrow blades that the party had acquired after their encounter with the wight just before they were rescued by Tom Bombadil (a series of events that were removed ostensibly to save movie running time but more likely to prevent moviegoers from being traumatized by the sight of four hobbits streaking through grassy fields under the supervision of a magical hermit. Too many things wrong with that scene).

Background aside, the blade was of exceeding quality, and "a lesser blade, even driven by a mightier arm, could not have dealt so vicious a blow." From this, the idea of damage reduction was drawn.

If you are worried about DR as a means by which to prevent the BBEG from being nibbled to death by a swarm of ducks wielding natural 20's consider one of the following options:
1) For each magical "plus" of the weapon, reduce the damage reduction provided by 20% (from DR x/magic), to where the magical DR is negated completely only by a +5 enhancement bonus weapon. I've found this house rule nips a lot of minmaxing of weapon fluff bonuses VERY quickly.
2) Armor provides DR as well as armor bonus. Apply some of the damage prevented this way to the armor. Gives a good reason for the fighter to want to wear scale mail instead of streaking with the wizard's Mage Armor, and gives the base Fighter a chance to survive ye olde Grand Master Fists of Flurry-San who is facing off against him with Bracers of Armor +8. (Another time I will get into my rant against the ludicrous damage dice afforded to unarmed monks, but not today)
3) natural 20's do not afford an automatic hit should your bonuses not add up t the AC, they just grant you another attack roll with a +19, cumulatively if necessary. This turns a flat 5% chance to hit into something far more realistic- it's feasible for a single peasant to get a lucky shot in, but not so often as 1 in 20. Especially not against something that's rocking a 35 AC.

Just some food for thought.

-Axenme1's wall of text crits you for OVER 9000!!!
 

[veekie]

1 will be problematic, I suspect, all it does is penalize people who don't realize that Greater Magic Weapon is a winning strategy further, and at lower levels, monsters are significantly tougher.

2, the first part makes sense in implementing less rockety combat, but the bit about damage dice is hilariously laughable.

3, ah, ye old exploding dice. The more common one I see is +20 and reroll, vs -20 and reroll on nat 1s. 20 because it adds/subtracts faster than 19.

[Bloody Initiate]

Yeah that monk damage dice bit really shook my faith.

I was just looking back through some old facebook messages between me and a buddy from when we were just "learning D&D" and he was looking at all this cool AC he had and stuff and "just wished I could do more than 1d10+6" at level 8 or so. If only we knew...

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Background aside, the blade was of exceeding quality, and "a lesser blade, even driven by a mightier arm, could not have dealt so vicious a blow." From this, the idea of damage reduction was drawn.

Which, in turn, was based off Beowulf.

[axenome1]

Which, in turn, was based off Beowulf.

I freely confess that I had completely forgotten Beowulf. My bad 

[Bloody Initiate]

Background aside, the blade was of exceeding quality, and "a lesser blade, even driven by a mightier arm, could not have dealt so vicious a blow." From this, the idea of damage reduction was drawn.

Which, in turn, was based off Beowulf.

Angelina Jolie had pulverize, not DR.

[Tenebrus]

Background aside, the blade was of exceeding quality, and "a lesser blade, even driven by a mightier arm, could not have dealt so vicious a blow." From this, the idea of damage reduction was drawn.

Which, in turn, was based off Beowulf.

Angelina Jolie had pulverize, not DR.

Just making sure you understand that Beowulf the book is not the novelization of the movie, right?

[nightshade]

But DR in general gimps non-casters while doing nothing directly to stop casters.  No amount of DR prevents fireball or web or fly (on himself) + invisibility + whatever.

Isn't that what SR is good for? 

[veekie]

Nope, SR doesn't work against 3/4 of those, and the one it does work on doesn't matter so much in the grand scheme of things.

[nightshade]

Nope, SR doesn't work against 3/4 of those, and the one it does work on doesn't matter so much in the grand scheme of things.

The Thread is about damage reduction and SR may prevent you from damaging spells. So it is something similar. Okay, there are spells that simply don't allow SR but there are also weapons that overcome DR. SR won't work vs invisibility etc. but thats something different and its well known that spells > weapons.

[veekie]

At least DR does its job.

All SR does is mostly get in the way.
Of yourself.

[lianightdemon]

And I honestly believe that as the monster/creature with SR should be able suppress their SR for a moment when casting on themselves.

[oslecamo]

And I honestly believe that as the monster/creature with SR should be able suppress their SR for a moment when casting on themselves.

IT ALREADY DOES SO DAMNIT!


It's right there on the ability description! It even has its own paragraph! You can totally buff yourself whitout worrying about your own SR by RAW!

I really don't get all this hate SR gets. Either your caster allies suddenly want to shower you with buffs and in-combat healing (while in every other thread it's more like "in-combat healing is the suckorz!" and "casters are better off buffing their minions"), or you're plainly ignoring the ability rules so it works on the worst may imageanable.