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 Weapon Bonuses bypassing Damage Reduction?

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T O P I C    R E V I E W
Wenin Posted - 19 Feb 2011 : 05:28:54
A friend of mine mentioned that enhancement bonuses automatically offer damage reduction against certain damage reduction types. I've been looking in the DMG and PH, but I can't find anything that supports this. He's a GM for one of my games, so I trust in his knowledge, but I want to note the table for my own GM notes.

Anyone heard of this?
11   L A T E S T    R E P L I E S    (Newest First)
idilippy Posted - 23 Feb 2011 : 06:11:05
No problem, glad I could help. I went the other way, when I started Pathfinder I thought 3.5e's DR rules were carried over exactly, and didn't realize until a lot later that they were slightly different.
Wenin Posted - 22 Feb 2011 : 16:21:41
idilippy, you got it. That is what is going on! Thank you!
Diffan Posted - 21 Feb 2011 : 03:28:17
What I do is if the monster my PCs go up against happens to have DR 5/+2 then I take it that the creature has above normal resistance to magical weapons. I can see why they did away with in in v3.5 but it completly removes any reason to add additional "+"s to your weapon's enhancement bonus (besides the usual bonus, which isn't all that great).

idilippy Posted - 20 Feb 2011 : 04:40:21
That's a change made in Pathfinder, Paizo's d20 fantasy RPG based off of the OGL. Now a +3, +4, or +5 weapon will bypass certain special material types. At least a +3 overcomes x/cold iron and x/silver, a +4 also overcomes x/adamantine, and +5 overcomes all of those plus x/alignment. So if you had a +5 sword you could overcome cold iron, silver, adamantine, and alignment based DR, but not x/bludgeoning or x/slashing, does that make sense? Maybe your DM used Pathfinder and didn't realize that the rules for DR were different in 3.5e.
Mystic Lemur Posted - 20 Feb 2011 : 03:12:59
Back in 3 there was only DR X/+# where X was the amount reduced, and # was the minimum enhancement bonus that would bypass it. Then in 3.5 they introduced DR X/type where X was the (usually smaller) amount reduced and 'type' was the type of material that would bypass it. For example, Skeletons in 3.0 take half damage from Piercing and Slashing weapons, but in 3.5 they have DR 5/Bludgeoning. Not even a +5 Longsword would overcome DR 5/Bludgeoning because it is not a bludgeoning weapon. There is, AFAIK, no core rule allowing otherwise.
Rhewtani Posted - 19 Feb 2011 : 23:08:43
Monte Cook had thrown it out as variant rule pretty early on. Essentially, "+"s would count as bypassing certain materials. This would to prevent fighters from carrying a "golf club bag" of swords for different situatios and more likely to just carry a signature weapon and get the + bumped up as they could. Also gave a reason for a +2 sword over a +1 keen, etc.
Kentinal Posted - 19 Feb 2011 : 17:07:44
The SRD is your friend
quote:
Damage Reduction

A creature with this special quality ignores damage from most weapons and natural attacks. Wounds heal immediately, or the weapon bounces off harmlessly (in either case, the opponent knows the attack was ineffective). The creature takes normal damage from energy attacks (even nonmagical ones), spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities. A certain kind of weapon can sometimes damage the creature normally, as noted below.

The entry indicates the amount of damage ignored (usually 5 to 15 points) and the type of weapon that negates the ability.

Some monsters are vulnerable to piercing, bludgeoning, or slashing damage.

Some monsters are vulnerable to certain materials, such as alchemical silver, adamantine, or cold iron. Attacks from weapons that are not made of the correct material have their damage reduced, even if the weapon has an enhancement bonus.

Some monsters are vulnerable to magic weapons. Any weapon with at least a +1 magical enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls overcomes the damage reduction of these monsters. Such creatures’ natural weapons (but not their attacks with weapons) are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

A few very powerful monsters are vulnerable only to epic weapons; that is, magic weapons with at least a +6 enhancement bonus. Such creatures’ natural weapons are also treated as epic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

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.

When a damage reduction entry has a dash (-) after the slash, no weapon negates the damage reduction.

A few creatures are harmed by more than one kind of weapon. A weapon of either type overcomes this damage reduction.

A few other creatures require combinations of different types of attacks to overcome their damage reduction. A weapon must be both types to overcome this damage reduction. A weapon that is only one type is still subject to damage reduction.

Ammunition fired from a projectile weapon with an enhancement bonus of +1 or higher is treated as a magic weapon for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. Similarly, ammunition fired from a projectile weapon with an alignment gains the alignment of that projectile weapon (in addition to any alignment it may already have).

Whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack, such as injury type poison, a monk’s stunning, and injury type disease. Damage reduction does not negate touch attacks, energy damage dealt along with an attack, or energy drains. Nor does it affect poisons or diseases delivered by inhalation, ingestion, or contact.

Attacks that deal no damage because of the target’s damage reduction do not disrupt spells.

If a creature has damage reduction from more than one source, the two forms of damage reduction do not stack. Instead, the creature gets the benefit of the best damage reduction in a given situation.


http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#damageReduction

As to +weapons in core rules, by them self, no rule exists. There might be a splat book that offers such a rule.
In the past from time to time in running a game a DM has asked for clarification of a player claim of a rule. Sometimes the player invented the rule, other times it might have been a house rule of another DM.
Quale Posted - 19 Feb 2011 : 16:33:36
Almost sure there is no such rule, e.g. look at the shadesteel golem in MM3.
Kuje Posted - 19 Feb 2011 : 07:01:51
Nods, that page and section also talks about cold iron, slashing, bludgeon, etc. Did you look it over? If it isn't that, then I have no idea....

quote:
Originally posted by Wenin

It is 3.5.

That sentence doesn't really go into detail as to what "Other kinds" there are though.... A magic weapon does get past #/magic, but from what I was being told I'm looking for something along the lines of....

+3 weapons - bypass cold iron
+5 weapons - bypass adamantine

(examples, not actual rules)

I read through the Complete Rules Compendium and couldn't find any details on this.

Wenin Posted - 19 Feb 2011 : 06:54:04
It is 3.5.

That sentence doesn't really go into detail as to what "Other kinds" there are though.... A magic weapon does get past #/magic, but from what I was being told I'm looking for something along the lines of....

+3 weapons - bypass cold iron
+5 weapons - bypass adamantine

(examples, not actual rules)

I read through the Complete Rules Compendium and couldn't find any details on this.
Kuje Posted - 19 Feb 2011 : 06:25:28
Think what you are after is on the lower right of page 291 of the 3.5 DMG. If it's 4e rules, no idea where it could be found.

"Other kinds of damage reduction are overcome by magic weapons (any weapon with a +1 or higher enhancement bonus, not counting the enhancement from masterwork quality)......"

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