DR x/magic is useless ...

[wotmaniac]

... and I want to fix it.
Yes, I know, there are some situations where it can be a factor, but that gets old real quick.

Seriously, what is the point of a CR20 dragon having DR 20/magic?  Who the hell is going to try to fight a wyrm without a magical weapon?  It's a completely useless "special" ability (oh, it's "special", alright; but not in a good way)

So, what I'm looking for is some sort of viable option, akin to the 3.0 version (that I don't have to go through and change a bunch of crap -- i.e., that I can use on-the-fly).

I'm sure that this has been discussed ad nauseum somewhere -- y'all got anything?

a million thanks!

[Takanaki]

Change it to /- or /Adamantine. This is your solution.

[Sinfire Titan]

Or just Chain Suppress Magic targeting everyone's weapons and Extradimensional items. Then they have to waste an action in combat to cast Magic Weapon or something similar. Quicken a Dispel too, just for the hell of it.



In all seriousness, I usually add something to that, like Lawful or Chaotic.

[wotmaniac]

Change it to /- or /Adamantine. This is your solution.

well, now, that's a little too harsh.  thanks though.

Or just Chain Suppress Magic targeting everyone's weapons and Extradimensional items. Then they have to waste an action in combat to cast Magic Weapon or something similar. Quicken a Dispel too, just for the hell of it.

In all seriousness, I usually add something to that, like Lawful or Chaotic.

yeah, that's the kinda thing that I'm trying to avoid -- that gets old real quick with my players.


I like the 3.0 way of doing it, but I also know that the amount of DR drastically changed when they converted it all to "magic", and didn't want to go through the trouble of re-converting everything.  
Would it really be that much trouble to re-convert everything back to 3.0 DR?  Like some sort of template that I keep readily at hand?  If it was do-able, does anyone foresee any cascading effects (i.e. unintended consequences) from doing so?

[Sinfire Titan]

Change it to /- or /Adamantine. This is your solution.

well, now, that's a little too harsh.  thanks though.

Or just Chain Suppress Magic targeting everyone's weapons and Extradimensional items. Then they have to waste an action in combat to cast Magic Weapon or something similar. Quicken a Dispel too, just for the hell of it.

In all seriousness, I usually add something to that, like Lawful or Chaotic.

yeah, that's the kinda thing that I'm trying to avoid -- that gets old real quick with my players.


I like the 3.0 way of doing it, but I also know that the amount of DR drastically changed when they converted it all to "magic", and didn't want to go through the trouble of re-converting everything.  
Would it really be that much trouble to re-convert everything back to 3.0 DR?  Like some sort of template that I keep readily at hand?  If it was do-able, does anyone foresee any cascading effects (i.e. unintended consequences) from doing so?

It depends on if GMW allows the player to overcome the higher /+ values. And even then, some classes got piss-shit DR as a capstone, so those should be modified.

I don't foresee a problem beyond the extra book-work.

[Nachofan99]

I basically halve the value and make it DR/-

YMMV

[RobbyPants]

Of course...  this affects non-casters more than casters.  In fact, it really doesn't affect casters at all.  Is this something your game really needs?

[Havok4]

Of course...  this affects non-casters more than casters.  In fact, it really doesn't affect casters at all.  Is this something your game really needs?

Not really, losing DR will only make melee and ranged characters more viable which would probably be a good thing when they are compared to spellcasters.

[veekie]

The DR/magic would be a simple 'entry level' thing towards fighting dragons, it just means that only PCs(who have magic weapons) are able to hurt one at all, no matter how many peasant mobs get rounded up.

Maybe if you reduced the DR to a tenth if you had magic weapons?(so DR 20/magic becomes DR 2/- vs magic weapons)

[RobbyPants]

Of course...  this affects non-casters more than casters.  In fact, it really doesn't affect casters at all.  Is this something your game really needs?

Not really, losing DR will only make melee and ranged characters more viable which would probably be a good thing when they are compared to spellcasters.

Maybe I misunderstood wotmaniac's OP.  I thought he was considering DR as-is to be useless, and wanted to beef it up.  Beefing it up hurts non-casters.  If that's not what he meant, then I guess my last post was misguided.

The DR/magic would be a simple 'entry level' thing towards fighting dragons, it just means that only PCs(who have magic weapons) are able to hurt one at all, no matter how many peasant mobs get rounded up.

I think CR should be a pretty good entry level requirement (assuming CR worked, and dragons weren't under CRed in the first place ).  Even without DR, I don't see hundreds of peasants being a meaningful threat to a dragon; at least not a smart dragon.

[veekie]

Well, without it, theres always rounding up a few thousand mook archers, get a bard with war drums and go nuts.

[Prime32]

Replace it with DR/epic, which requires +6 weapons to overcome.

This still allows you to penetrate it with a +4 bane weapon.

[veekie]

Well, one thing is that the threshold level is odd, /magic becomes virtually nonexistent by 5th level, if not earlier(depending on if you had someone to Magic Weapon things up, first level even), and  /epic would take 15th or so barring shenanigans to breach at all.

Seems like we need finer distinctions(3.0 style /+1?)

[wotmaniac]

allow me to clarify (as it seems that I was unintentionally ambiguous):

In 3.0, there was a class of DR that was like: "x/+1", "x/+2", etc. ; an the "+" was the weapon enhancement bonus needed to bypass that DR.  In 3.5, that was all converted to "x/magic" ; and as such, all of the "x" values drastically changed (which is where my backward-conversion issue lies).

My thing is that you have this CR 20+ creature that has this massive damage reduction ... ... that can be easily bypassed by anybody by level 5 (and plausibly earlier).  My point is -- what's the point of that massive DR on such incredibly powerful creatures, if the DR is completely pointless and totally useless against any of those who have any real aspirations of conquering it?  It's like:
- PC 1: "uh-oh, he's totally invulnerable against weapon damage"
- PC 2: "yeah, but as long as your weapon is magical, then it goes through him like warm butter"
- PC 1: "so, that weapon that I found like 15 levels ago is just as good as the one I have now?"
- PC 2: "yup"
- PC 1: "not like that werewolf from 12 levels back? or that pixie?"
- PC 2: "nope.  uh-uh."
- PC 1: "lets go get some treasure!"

See my point?  Which is why the 3.0 "+x" made sense.  Where am I going wrong?  What am I missing?

[Prime32]

What am I missing?

Magic must defeat magic!

[wotmaniac]

What am I missing?

Magic must defeat magic!

but not all magic is created equal. 
a lowly +1 versus a sweet-ass +5?

[Sinfire Titan]

but not all magic is created equal. 
a lowly +1 versus a sweet-ass +5?

*thwack!*


Never question Uncle.

[RobbyPants]

Well, without it, theres always rounding up a few thousand mook archers, get a bard with war drums and go nuts.

Any dragon willing to fly over a few thousand armed people deserves to get shot down.

See my point?  Which is why the 3.0 "+x" made sense.  Where am I going wrong?  What am I missing?

That makes sense.  I'm assuming they changed DR to "magic" just for simplicity, because they were also adding in material-dependant DR as well.  They probably didn't want you to have to worry about if your adamantine weapon was +1 or +2, as well as your silver weapon and your cold iron weapon.  So, converting back to the 3.0 method isn't that bad, other than that it forces the fighter to keep his weapon plusses up even more than in 3.5.  Of course, there's always Greater Magic Weapon.

I think 3.0 made the distinction possibly because of 2E.  Back in 2E, certain monsters required various strengths of magic weapons, as in 3.0, but if you didn't have that weapon, you couldn't hit them at all!  So, the 3.0 DR was really just a more forgiving version of the 2E concept.

[awaken DM golem]

Well, without it, theres always rounding up a few thousand mook archers, get a bard with war drums and go nuts.

Any dragon willing to fly over a few thousand armed people deserves to get shot down.

Wait ... its coming to me ... Dragons don't like being shot in the belly, ala Smaug in the LotR cartoon.
Cats don't like being tickled in the belly.

You mean to tell me Smaug is a polymorphed House Cat ?? !!

**

(anyways)

All the various DR's seem to be an early level mini-game.
Once the Frontliners start to fall behind, they might as well have a Golf Bag.
Fighter: Shadows get the "nine" iron, right?
"Caddy": Nah, use the "sand wedge" for more follow through.
Fighter: Right ... DOH !! The Wizard just won again  ; Can I have some treasure please ?!

[bhu]

How about change all DR to DR/-, and make a little alteration to magic weapons.  For example a +1 weapon ignores 1 point of DR (or maybe 2).  A +2 weapon ignores 2 (or more) points of DR.