3.5 Most Common Damage Reduction Types?

[Unusual Muse]

Greetings all...

I've been trying to make some choices about weapon damage types and special materials, and can't find much regarding the comparative ubiquity of different DR types. How common is DR/slashing compared to DR/piercing compared to DR/bludgeoning? How about silver vs. cold iron vs. etc. etc. etc.? I'm trying to avoid the GBOW (Golf Bag of Weapons). :smallsmile:

Has anyone ever seen some sort of list or index of monsters listed by DR type?

Cheers and thanks!

[ShriekingDrake]

I haven't seen such a list. But this may be just the thread to start one.

Of course, the rarer or more expensive the material, the greater the potential to reduce the damage, it would seem. Adamantine, for instance, seems pretty daunting to overcome, especially at earlier levels, where it is harder to get an adamantine weapon.

I have heard some people argue that a +1 magic sword would overcome that DR Adamantine, but that's not how I understood it to work (if I'm mistaken, someone should please correct me). So rare, it seems, equals good.

If I recall correctly, there are items in the MiC that would enable you to switch the material of the weapon you're wielding to address the enemy that faces you.

[Unusual Muse]

I haven't seen such a list. But this may be just the thread to start one.

That's what I was hoping for... :smallsmile:


I have heard some people argue that a +1 magic sword would overcome that DR Adamantine, but that's not how I understood it to work (if I'm mistaken, someone should please correct me). So rare, it seems, equals good.

I believe the argmuent there is that a +1 weapon is going to do damage against most DR [any type]/5, just out of sheer damage; it's not "overcoming" it per se, but it's doing enough damage so that most of the time you're going to do at least 1 point of damage. It doesn't beat the DR in terms of getting *all* of the damage through, but it almost always gets *some* through.[/QUOTE]

[jmelesky]

I have heard some people argue that a +1 magic sword would overcome that DR Adamantine, but that's not how I understood it to work (if I'm mistaken, someone should please correct me). So rare, it seems, equals good.

As of Pathfinder, that suggestion is at least verifiably wrong. The DR rules (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/glossary.html#_damage-reduction) allow you to bypass certain DRs with strong enough magic weapons. So a +4 weapon would bypass DR/adamantine.

But not a +1. And not in 3.5, where, to my knowledge, no such equivalency existed.

[Unusual Muse]

As of Pathfinder, that suggestion is at least verifiably wrong. The DR rules (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/glossary.html#_damage-reduction) allow you to bypass certain DRs with strong enough magic weapons. So a +4 weapon would bypass DR/adamantine.

But not a +1. And not in 3.5, where, to my knowledge, no such equivalency existed.

I've seen the magic weapon issue discussed quite a bit in other threads, but what I'm mostly interested in for this one is weapon materials and damage types as opposed to enchantments and other special properties.

Sooo... let's start with this one: If you had to rank the weapons in terms of damaing the most monsters, how would you rank slashing, piercing, & bludgeoning?

[Jeraa]

I have heard some people argue that a +1 magic sword would overcome that DR Adamantine, but that's not how I understood it to work (if I'm mistaken, someone should please correct me). So rare, it seems, equals good.

Not in 3.5 or Pathfinder. But in 3.0, that is correct. a +1 weapon would overcome any special material DR (page 74, 3.0 DMG).


Sooo... let's start with this one: If you had to rank the weapons in terms of damaing the most monsters, how would you rank slashing, piercing, & bludgeoning?
I would have to say they are equal. I don't think any one outshines the others.

[Douglas]

For S/P/B, I don't know which is most common, but I'm pretty sure none of them is a clear runaway winner. Thus, pick a weapon that deals two damage types. Looking through the core weapons list, that means dagger, morningstar, halberd, or scythe. They all do piercing, so your choice is between bludgeoning (morningstar) or slashing (dagger, halberd, scythe). Morningstar gets bonus points for doing two types at once rather than your choice of one.

For materials, the common ones are cold iron, silver, and adamantine. There are strong associations between each of these and certain types of enemies, so which one is most common depends very much on what kind of enemy you are facing, which will vary from campaign to campaign. For a comprehensive solution without spending valuable pluses on the weapon itself, Magic Item Compendium has a pair of magic items that make all your weapons count as a particular metal for penetrating DR - Gauntlets of Weaponry Arcane beats DR/silver, and a Ring of Adamantine Touch beats DR/adamantine. They each cost 6000 gp. Magic has more difficulty emulating cold iron, so that should be the weapon's actual material.

+1 beating DR/adamantine is something from 3.0, which was changed in the transition to 3.5 when WotC realized that it made anything but magic-based DR meaningless past very low levels.

[Gavinfoxx]

There are various specific magic item properties that overcome DR in 3.5e... first it was True Striking and Metalline and Shaping and such like that, but I believe there was a better one in Tome of Magic...

[Incriptus]

MIC has Transmuting and Metalline both are plus 2.

Transmuting - Strike the enemy and for the next 10 rounds over come what ever DR they have.
--- Honestly I'm not sure how far to take this one. "Takes on the properties required to overcome that creatures damage reduction" --- Do I limit it to just material properties, or do I include damage types [piercing, slashing, bludgeoning], Should I include alignments?

Metalline - Command Action to become Adamantine, Alchemical Silver, Cold Iron or Ordinary steel.

[Urpriest]

Campaigns will generally have a focus on one or another depending on the sorts of stuff you're fighting. You want bludgeoning and holy stuff for the undead, maybe a bit of slashing, silver and holy stuff for devils, cold iron and holy stuff for demons, cold iron for fey, silver for lycanthropes, adamantine for constructs. You're unlikely to have a campaign where all, or even most of those are relevant. Chances are you'll see two or three categories, so pick the ones you'll see.

[Zaydos]

In Core Piercing is the least common; treants and zombies have DR /slashing, while skeletons, xorns, and gibbering mouthers have DR /bludgeoning. I don't think anything in Core has DR /piercing.

Outside of Core, I'm not sure, but I think slashing and bludgeoning tend to be more prevalent than piercing.

[KillianHawkeye]

In Core Piercing is the least common; treants and zombies have DR /slashing, while skeletons, xorns, and gibbering mouthers have DR /bludgeoning. I don't think anything in Core has DR /piercing.

I think the Rakshasa's DR is /piercing and good, to mimic the need for blessed crossbow bolts from older editions, but that's the only one I can think of off hand.

[ShriekingDrake]

Here's a thought...Were I selecting a DR type for a character, I think generally, I'd prefer bludgeoning or slashing over piercing. Piercing is the bailiwick of distance weapons and have additional protection from them is often helpful. Attacks from a distance can be harder to escape. Then again, piercing weapons appear to be in the minority, at least by a little.

[Thurbane]

Purely off the top of my head, I'd say that DR/magic is by far the most common (and least useful).

For weapon type, I'd say Slashing is slightly more common that Bludgeoning, and both are more prevalent than Piercing.

For materials, I'd say DR/Silver is the most common, and Cold Iron is slightly more common than Adamantine, although they might well be vice-versa.

Alignment based? DR/Good would be the clear winner, since there are far more Evil Outsiders in the books than any other type. Dr/evil might be next common, and Lawful/Chaotic would be neck and neck.

DR/- pops up a bit, but not as much as magic, type, materials or alignments.

Of course, as I say, I am pulling these out of memory. speculation and thin air. :smalltongue:

[Gavinfoxx]

Found it! Tome of Magic, page 155. Shadow Striking, +3 equivalent. There you go, that's Metalline / True Striking / Shaping / etc., all in one item!

[Unusual Muse]

Thanks all! Some good food for thought.

Now, if someone wants to assemble that comprehensive list of monsters sorted by DR... :smallwink:

[ShneekeyTheLost]

If ToB is on the table, then Shards of Granite renders this point moot, as it ignores all DR.

Most DR is DR/Magic, DR/Silver, DR/Cold Iron, or more rarely DR/[alignment]. Sometimes you get a combination of these like DR/Good AND Silver.