Beating DR with natural weapons

[BilltheCynic]

Hello playground!

So I'm making a Master of Many forms with some Warshaper levels for a fairly high level game and I was looking for ways to beat DR. I was originally going to get an AoMF with the transmuting property but the DM ruled that AoMF can't give weapon properties. I'd prefer to avoid the Necklace of Natural attacks since as a MoMF/Warshaper I'm going to have a ton of them and enchanting more than three with a necklace is cost prohibitive. If my begging for the PF AoMF doesn't work, I'm still going to need some way to beat enemy DR. So what I'm asking for is:
1) Items that will help me beat DR with natural weapons
2) Forms that will help beat DR, specifically forms under 19 HD that a MoMF could turn into and gain the ability to overcome DR.

Note: I'm not really worried about DR/Piercing, Slashing, or Bludgeoning since it's fairly easy to get a natural weapon to deal with those, so I'll leave those out of the list.

What I have so far:


DR TypeItemForms
Magic
Amulet of Mighty Fists (SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#amuletofMightyFists))
Wyrmfang Amulet (MIC 148)
Mantle of the Beast (CC 140)
Gauntlets of the Arcane (MIC 104)

Any form with DR/Magic
Silver
Gauntlets of the Arcane (MIC 104)


Cold Iron
Adamantine
Ring of Adamantine Touch (MIC 121)


Gulgar (MM3 77)


Lawful
Good
Chaotic
Evil
Epic
[tr]Incorporeal
Lesser Truedeath Crystal on an AoMF (MIC 66)
Ghost Shroud (MIC 104)




Any help would be appreciated.

[somethingrandom]

If I remember correctly having damage reduction allows you to beat damage reduction but you would need to look up the specific rules youself. As I am at work and don't have book access.

[BilltheCynic]

If I remember correctly having damage reduction allows you to beat damage reduction but you would need to look up the specific rules youself. As I am at work and don't have book access.

Only against Magic and Epic DR unfortunately (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#damageReduction). Beating DR/magic shouldn't be too hard, but I don't know many forms with DR/Epic with 19 HD or less.

[eggynack]

Well, you can't usually just jump into MoMF right away, which probably means five levels of druid. Druids have a bunch of spells that help bypass DR. For example, align fang from the spell compendium can get you past those aligned DR, or silvered weapon (http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/mc/mc20020130a) can get through DR/silver. You might want natural spell to make this stuff applicable in battle.

Edit: Correction, silvered weapon was updated to the BoED, and isn't on the druid list. Silvered claws is in the same book though, and it works for minutes/level and hits all your weapons, but it's a spell level higher. Worse for general druid purposes, but could work if that's an effect you need.

[BilltheCynic]

Well, you can't usually just jump into MoMF right away, which probably means five levels of druid. Druids have a bunch of spells that help bypass DR. For example, align fang from the spell compendium can get you past those aligned DR, or silvered weapon (http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/mc/mc20020130a) can get through DR/silver. You might want natural spell to make this stuff applicable in battle.

Edit: Correction, silvered weapon was updated to the BoED, and isn't on the druid list. Silvered claws is in the same book though, and it works for minutes/level and hits all your weapons, but it's a spell level higher. Worse for general druid purposes, but could work if that's an effect you need.

Should have mentioned this: I got in as a shapeshift Swift Hunter (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?170358-3-5-PEACH-The-ranger-reborn!) (basically wild shape ranger) that the DM houseruled to qualify. It's also a gestault game. I'll go ahead and post the sheet here (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=814106). Most of the items (with the exception of the wild shape amulet) can be changed as needed.

Bottom line, no druid spells, though I can get access to wizard and cleric spells.

[Darrin]

Consider Sense Weakness from Draconomicon, although the two prereqs are aggravating.

Shape Soulmeld: Crystal Helm and Open Least Chakra: Crown gets the [force] descriptor on all your melee attacks, which takes care of incorporeal.

1-level dip into Hellreaver gets you Holy Fury, which makes all your melee attacks are good-aligned.

1-level dip into Divine Mind can get you either the Good or Evil mantle, which will align all weapons (including your allies) within your aura accordingly. Elemental mantle can bypass DR on creatures with an energy subtype.

As far as creatures go... I'm having trouble finding anything that isn't an outsider.

[CharonsHelper]

Play with Pathfinder DR rules & you'll just need +3 to go through DR/silver & DR/cold iron & +5 goes through DR/Adamantine

[Flickerdart]

Only against Magic and Epic DR unfortunately (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#damageReduction). Beating DR/magic shouldn't be too hard, but I don't know many forms with DR/Epic with 19 HD or less.

You can also overcome alignment-based DR if you have the alignment subtype. Achieving this is left as an exercise to the reader, since just using the Savage Species ritual is boring.

[eggynack]

Should have mentioned this: I got in as a shapeshift Swift Hunter (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?170358-3-5-PEACH-The-ranger-reborn!) (basically wild shape ranger) that the DM houseruled to qualify. It's also a gestault game. I'll go ahead and post the sheet here (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=814106). Most of the items (with the exception of the wild shape amulet) can be changed as needed.

Bottom line, no druid spells, though I can get access to wizard and cleric spells.
You still have that swift hunter list, which happens to have align fang at least. Not quite the same level of spell power, cause you're only hitting seconds on a smaller list, but there are places it could help.

[BilltheCynic]

Consider Sense Weakness from Draconomicon, although the two prereqs are aggravating.

Shape Soulmeld: Crystal Helm and Open Least Chakra: Crown gets the [force] descriptor on all your melee attacks, which takes care of incorporeal.

1-level dip into Hellreaver gets you Holy Fury, which makes all your melee attacks are good-aligned.

1-level dip into Divine Mind can get you either the Good or Evil mantle, which will align all weapons (including your allies) within your aura accordingly. Elemental mantle can bypass DR on creatures with an energy subtype.

As far as creatures go... I'm having trouble finding anything that isn't an outsider.

I'd prefer to avoid feat or class based solutions, since my feats and classes are mostly already selected.


Play with Pathfinder DR rules & you'll just need +3 to go through DR/silver & DR/cold iron & +5 goes through DR/Adamantine

Unfortunately, DM just disallowed PF AoMF and PF DR rules.


You still have that swift hunter list, which happens to have align fang at least. Not quite the same level of spell power, cause you're only hitting seconds on a smaller list, but there are places it could help.

I traded out the Swift Hunter spell list for feats to help with a feat tax for MoMF and because I am only staying in SH for 5 levels. However, I do have Chameleon levels, right now up to fourth level wizard or cleric spells but eventually up to 6th level, so any spells from those lists that apply to natural weapons would help.

[mabriss lethe]

Instead of an AoMF, Why not get a Necklace of Natural Weapons? It explicitly *does* allow weapon special properties to be added to natural weapons.

[Necroticplague]

Instead of an AoMF, Why not get a Necklace of Natural Weapons? It explicitly *does* allow weapon special properties to be added to natural weapons.

Because it only applies to one natural weapon, while MoMFs will typically have a great many. An AoMF applies to all natural weapons.

[Thurbane]

I believe there's a couple of classes and PrCs that allow melee attacks to count as cold iron.

Only one that springs to mind is Cold Iron Warrior (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fey/20040507a) 7, but that's going to be kind of hard to shoehorn into your build.

Aren't there some "add-on" weapon that add damage to natural attacks? Set's over over-claws or some-such? The Urskin from Frostburn has some, and I think there's a dragon equivalent, maybe in Draconomicon? If these were made from Cold Iron, might be useful?

[Âmesang]

Correction, silvered weapon was updated to the BoED, and isn't on the druid list. Silvered claws is in the same book though, and it works for minutes/level and hits all your weapons, but it's a spell level higher. Worse for general druid purposes, but could work if that's an effect you need.
An upside is that silvered claws can be made permanent, so keep an eye out for a caster with a ring of enduring arcana?

[Red Fel]

Because it only applies to one natural weapon, while MoMFs will typically have a great many. An AoMF applies to all natural weapons.

If memory serves, you can enhance an NNW for each natural weapon separately, although it becomes prohibitively expensive.

Also, while am AoMF is more cost-effective when you have more than three natural weapons, it only adds +X modifiers, rendering your natural weapons magic. That's fine for overcoming DR/magic, but it doesn't help with overcoming other forms of DR.

But yeah. An NNW with, say, Metalline (standard action to change it to a special DR-overcoming material) or Transmuting (on contact, takes on the property necessary to overcome that DR), is perfect. You could even get a mouthpick weapon with either of those properties - any form with a bite attack is instantly proficient with a mouthpick weapon.

[Khedrac]

Not so useful to this character (unless you can get someone else to cast it) metal fang is a druid spell from Complete Champion that helps with substance DRs

[Rebel7284]

I am just going to point out that depending on how many hoops you are jumping through to overcome DR, optimizing your character to deal 10-15 more damage per hit may be more efficient.