Alignment Damage Reduction

[CrazyNoob]

Is it me or are alignment base damage reduction seem very counter intuitive.. It's always bugged me about it...

Lets say i'm playing a LE character, now I have a damage reduction 10/good. Whats the point?? If i'm evil, there's a pretty good chance my enemy are good.

Wouldn't it make more sense to have DR 10/evil if i'm evil? The likelihood a party of good players toting around evil weapons will be basically <5%.

Actually i'm kinda surprise there isn't an ability for high levels DR/Non-magical, though that be very anti-climatic.. since the last non-magical weapon a character had was at level one.. who would have that hey I should have kept that starting sword all this time. Or DR 10/Non-Magic and wood.

[Karl Aegis]

That's generally a sign that you're an outsider or a resident of an evil-aligned plane. Most everything else would have evil-aligned weapons. What's the point of having Damage Reduction if everything in your native environment is just going to rip through it anyways?

[AnimeTheCat]

I figure it's similar to energy immunities and weaknesses, just in a different format. In this case, you're resistant to all damage, except that specific type which you are weak to. Instead of having an immunity in the form of the word, and a weakness in the form of a 50% damage increase like Fire subtype creatures have to fire and cold, respectively, you have resistance (or immunity in some cases) to all physical damage, and a weakness to a certain aligned type of damage.

I suspect the reason that good aligned outsiders don't just invade the lower planes is because they similarly have that weakness and would be similarly shredded to pieces. Mortals with this damage alignment pose the greatest threat as they don't posess the same weakness, but they have other exploitable weaknesses making them less likely candidates for a lower plane crusade. It's all kind of a weird balance that sustains itself in a "If you don't, I won't" kind of way...

[eggynack]

Why would damage reduction be based on what would have the greatest utility? Demons do not, as far as I know, choose or create their damage reduction. So, demons, because they are made of evil and junk, are weak to the burning light of pure goodness. Classic demon junk.

[Uncle Pine]

Holy is supereffective versus Dark.
Dark is supereffective versus Holy.

[Daefos]

I suspect that in-universe, such damage reduction works because most things that have DR/alignment are Outsiders that embody that alignment. Angels aren’t “weak” to Evil, they’re unnaturally resistant to everything; Evil-aligned attacks are just so anti-thetical to their being that they hurt an angel even more then they would hurt a mortal. It’s certainly not like you suggest, where they got to sit around and decide what kind of damage reduction to have based on pragmatic and detached analysis of the kinds of opponents they’re likely to fight. Aligned Outsider DR is just one of those instances where mechanics and fluff are interwoven.

[CrazyNoob]

That's generally a sign that you're an outsider or a resident of an evil-aligned plane. Most everything else would have evil-aligned weapons. What's the point of having Damage Reduction if everything in your native environment is just going to rip through it anyways?

This might be true, but particularly the effect came from a magic item.. Shirt of or shirt of the XYZ.. while the DR gained provided wasn't great it was just an example.

It makes sense being a natural stalemate deterrent among the upper and lower planes. Its just didn't really, i guess i'm just over thinking it from a PC perspective.

[King of Nowhere]

Is it me or are alignment base damage reduction seem very counter intuitive.. It's always bugged me about it...

Lets say i'm playing a LE character, now I have a damage reduction 10/good. Whats the point?? If i'm evil, there's a pretty good chance my enemy are good.

Wouldn't it make more sense to have DR 10/evil if i'm evil? The likelihood a party of good players toting around evil weapons will be basically <5%.


if a party of good people knew demons to require evil weapons to hurt them, the likelyhood of them getting evil weapons would approach 100%.



Actually i'm kinda surprise there isn't an ability for high levels DR/Non-magical, though that be very anti-climatic.. since the last non-magical weapon a character had was at level one.. who would have that hey I should have kept that starting sword all this time. Or DR 10/Non-Magic and wood.
Again, people may keep a nonmagical weapon in stock, maybe - though once you have a +5 weapon, it will work better than a nonmagical one even if it suffers a DR 10.
I homebrewed something similar in my world by stating that strongly magical creatures are vulnerable to nonmagical weapons, but it requires specific nonmagical weapons that must be made with special procedures to minimize background magical radiation. those weapons count as +5 against those creatures, and cause a CON drain that works even on creatures that are normally immune to it. SO there is a good reason to pack up one of those as a backup

[Nifft]

Actually i'm kinda surprise there isn't an ability for high levels DR/Non-magical, though that be very anti-climatic.. since the last non-magical weapon a character had was at level one.. who would have that hey I should have kept that starting sword all this time. Or DR 10/Non-Magic and wood.

IIRC there was a 1e monster ("Nilbog") which was immune to magical weapons.

I think one of these creatures appeared in a later Baldur's Gate game, too, so I guess it survived into 2e.


As far as I can tell, it was from the same school of gotcha-DM'ing that brought us Ear Seekers ("You want to listen at the door?! Ha ha ha, f--- you!").

I would suggest that gotcha-DM'ing is usually not good DM'ing.

[Yogibear41]

Good Ole Evil vs Evil campaigns as my Devil descended character wit his DR/good laughs off the attacks of the demon horde. (of course they laugh off his attacks to, unless the non-good cold iron sword is enough)

Who needs to be good, when you are lawful, amirite? :sabine:


Also do note the blood war, which like my example has devils fighting demons, while the demons vastly outnumber the devils its more or less a stalemate, if you look at many of the devils in fC2 many of them use cold iron weapons, so they can dispatch lesser demons.

[ericgrau]

Is it me or are alignment base damage reduction seem very counter intuitive.. It's always bugged me about it...

Lets say i'm playing a LE character, now I have a damage reduction 10/good. Whats the point?? If i'm evil, there's a pretty good chance my enemy are good.

Wouldn't it make more sense to have DR 10/evil if i'm evil? The likelihood a party of good players toting around evil weapons will be basically <5%.

Actually i'm kinda surprise there isn't an ability for high levels DR/Non-magical, though that be very anti-climatic.. since the last non-magical weapon a character had was at level one.. who would have that hey I should have kept that starting sword all this time. Or DR 10/Non-Magic and wood.

Why would a fire elemental have a fire based attack when everyone around him is resistant? It's more a matter of its nature than a personal choice. Same thing with evil outsiders.

[Zaq]

Actually i'm kinda surprise there isn't an ability for high levels DR/Non-magical, though that be very anti-climatic.. since the last non-magical weapon a character had was at level one.. who would have that hey I should have kept that starting sword all this time. Or DR 10/Non-Magic and wood.

One could argue that, since cold iron is "resistant" to magic and costs significantly more to enchant, DR/cold iron (which is reasonably common among DR types, or at least shouldn't be treated as being crazy niche) encourages attacking with a weapon that is less likely to be enchanted than, say, a silver weapon would be.

I agree that straight up DR/nonmagical would actually be a little bit interesting, though I can see the balance being wonky. (Not necessarily OP, of course, but potentially having weird side effects.)

[Khedrac]

IIRC there was a 1e monster ("Nilbog") which was immune to magical weapons.

I think one of these creatures appeared in a later Baldur's Gate game, too, so I guess it survived into 2e.


As far as I can tell, it was from the same school of gotcha-DM'ing that brought us Ear Seekers ("You want to listen at the door?! Ha ha ha, f--- you!").

I would suggest that gotcha-DM'ing is usually not good DM'ing.
Iirc it wasn't the "nilbog", though I cannot remember what it was (been too long and I no longer have the books).

The Nilbog was the one that took damage from healing effects and was healed by damaging effect.

[skunk3]

When it comes to items like the Shirt of Demonskin and Shirt of Angels (or whatever they are called) my DM initially said that if I was a good character I had to take the shirt of angels if I were to buy one. I thought about it for a moment and told him that it doesn't make any sense at all. First of all, having DR overcome by evil seemed odd to me since we are fighting against primarily evil creatures, but also on a more ethical level, how does it make sense for a good character to wear a shirt made from feathers from angel wings? Unless the angels donated the feathers voluntarily that's a major problem. I told him that it makes far more sense for me to be able to buy and wear a shirt of demonskin because not only does it give me DR only overcome by good (which I would never fight against), it also makes sense in that my character wouldn't ethically be opposed to wearing it to aid him in fighting against evil. As far as I know, simply wearing an item make from demon skin isn't going to turn my character evil or crazy unless it's somehow cursed.

I imagine that if I, as a good aligned PC, were to somehow encounter an angel, there might be some raised eyebrows (to say the least) if they saw that I was wearing a shirt made from their feathers.

[Nifft]

Why would a fire elemental have a fire based attack when everyone around him is resistant? It's more a matter of its nature than a personal choice. Same thing with evil outsiders. Maybe non-evil creatures are friendly with their subtype bros, so the inability of a [Fire] creature to burn another [Fire] creature just doesn't come up that often.



Iirc it wasn't the "nilbog", though I cannot remember what it was (been too long and I no longer have the books).

The Nilbog was the one that took damage from healing effects and was healed by damaging effect.

Ah maybe I don't remember correctly then.

I *think* there was such a beast... but maybe it was homebrewed.