Help with DR

[bradywan]

  Ok, there is a bit of a dispute in our campaign over damage reduction.  I need clarification, and if I'm wrong I need suggestions.  In the MM the entries for bearded devils and bone devils say they have damage reduction/ good. I checked the SRD and this is what it says:

  "Some monsters are vulnerable to chaotic-, evil-, good-, or lawful-aligned weapons. When a cleric casts align weapon, affected weapons might gain one or more of these properties, and certain magic weapons have these properties as well. A creature with an alignment subtype (chaotic, evil, good, or lawful) can overcome this type of damage reduction with its natural weapons and weapons it wields as if the weapons or natural weapons had an alignment (or alignments) that match the subtype(s) of the creature."

 That passage tells me that our lawful good, vop monk bypasses the DR and my neutral wizard does not.  Our GM says this isn't correct because our characters alignments are not "alignment subtypes."


 So if I'm right, can someone articulate this better than I am?   And if I'm wrong I need some suggestions, we are a wizard/JPM, vop monk/psycic warrior, scout/ranger, warblade/bloodstorm blade and cleric/crusader.  We are in the middle of a dungeon crawl and are just getting creamed by these devils.

[distributed]

If your wop monk has DR/good he penetrates, or the alignment subtypes or any other special ability that allows him to penetrate alignment based DR. Otherwise he doesn't.

Relatively few things penetrate alignment based DR

[Bozwevial]

Your GM is correct. While a monk does gain the ability to treat his unarmed strikes as lawful weapons, his alignment alone does not allow him to bypass DR/Good.

There are several maneuvers from the Tome of Battle that allow you to bypass damage reduction (although I suspect you may not have these, since you asked the question), and damage reduction doesn't affect the damage dealt by spells or powers (unless you're using the revised rules for Metacreativity from Complete Psionic, which you shouldn't).

As a quick note, questions like this would probably be better off in the Ask a Simple Question thread.

[Rejakor]

The Evil Subtype is a subtype, like 'human' or 'elf' or 'shapechanger'.  Humans are Humanoid (Human).  Dopplegangers are Humanoid (Shapechanger).  Lawful Good humans aren't Humanoid (lawful, good, human), they're just Humanoid (human)s that are Lawful Good in terms of alignment.

If you have DR/Good yourself, you can ignore DR/good.  If you have the Good subtype, you can ignore DR/good.  If you have a Holy weapon, or a cleric has cast Aligned Weapon on your sword, you can ignore DR/good.  Other than that, or one of the spells or effects that ignore all DR, you're SoL.

[snakeman830]

Umm, where does having DR/Good allow you to bypass DR/Good?  It works with DR/Magic and DR/Epic,but not with the alignments.

[Unbeliever]

Umm, where does having DR/Good allow you to bypass DR/Good?  It works with DR/Magic and DR/Epic,but not with the alignments.

Oh wow.  I've been doing things wrong this whole time.  I always thought that if you have DR x/something, your natural attacks pierce that something.  But, looking at it again, (Monster Manual 1, Damage Reduction in the Glossary), that only applies to Magic and Epic DR.  Thanks for the correction.  It would take alignment subtypes and other stuff that Rejakor mentions.

[SorO_Lost]

Also you don't need Epic enhancements to bypass Epic DR. A +4 Bane(elf) weapon when used on an elf is considered to have a +6 enhancement weapon and a +6 enhancement is considered epic for purposes of bypassing epic DR. Though technically your weapon isn't really enchanted with epic enhancements.

[Prime32]

A wizard who can cast fireball doesn't have the [Fire] subtype, but a fire elemental does.

A creature with the [Good] subtype isn't just Good, they (and their attacks) are made out of Good. Slashing a creature made out of Evil with a claw made out of Good hurts.

[Lycanthromancer]

I'd consider finding ways to either deal so much damage that DR hardly makes a dent (the psywar should be able to do this, if he's reasonably optimized), or find ways to disable your foes. Dust of Sneezing and Choking is great for this.