Weapons and Damage Reduction?

[Mindleshank]

Alright i have two questions this time. First is can you use a scimitar as a weapon for weapon finesse it has the same stats as a rapier minus the pierce damage. Is there anyway to use this Weapon with a dex modifiers. Second question is, can damage reduction be bypassed by magic or elemental damage you see i think it can but the rest of my party says that the weapon has to be made of a special material and magic does nothing.

[Assassin89]

For the scimitar, it would not work because the feat only works for light weapons and other specific weapons

Weapon Finesse [General]

Benefit

With a light weapon, rapier, whip, or spiked chain made for a creature of your size category, you may use your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier on attack rolls. If you carry a shield, its armor check penalty applies to your attack rolls.

And for Damage Reduction

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.

[KevLar]

Alright i have two questions this time. First is can you use a scimitar as a weapon for weapon finesse it has the same stats as a rapier minus the pierce damage. Is there anyway to use this Weapon with a dex modifiers.

Normally, no, and the "same stats" with the rapier are irrelevant. But you can do it with:

Dervish PrC (Complete Warrior). At 1st level you get the Slashing Blades ability, which allows you to treat scimitars as light weapons - therefore you can use Weapon Finesse with them.
Feycraft template (DMG II). With this template, a one-handed weapon is treated as light, but deals damage as one size smaller.
Graceful Edge feat (Dragon #128). Allows you to treat a one-handed slashing weapon as light, but you can't hold a weapon or a shield in your off-hand.

[Eldariel]

You can actually Finesse Scimitars. It requires a level of Dervish, but it's doable. Of course, entering Dervish is hard and thus it only works for characters intent on actually finishing Dervish, but regardless, it's possible.

Dervish allows you to treat Scimitars as light weapons which makes them eligible for Weapon Finesse.


EDIT: Sigh, board-down-ninja'd.

[Who_Da_Halfling]

Alright i have two questions this time. First is can you use a scimitar as a weapon for weapon finesse it has the same stats as a rapier minus the pierce damage. Is there anyway to use this Weapon with a dex modifiers. Second question is, can damage reduction be bypassed by magic or elemental damage you see i think it can but the rest of my party says that the weapon has to be made of a special material and magic does nothing.

It depends on the type of DR. DR/- or DR/adamantine or something, your friends are right, you need a weapon made of the appropriate type (or its unbreakable in the case of DR/-). However, DR/magic is broken by any magically enhanced weapon (any +1 or more weapon).

If you're talking strictly about spells like Fireball or Magic Missile, then you're also right, DR only applies to weapons, not spells.

-JM

[Baalthazaq]

DR/Magic = Any Weapon of +1 or greater ignores DR.
DR/Adamantine = Only Adamantine weapons ignore DR, even if +1.

Importantly:
Elemental/Energy Damage always ignores DR, but not Hardness. Read the hit point section too to see how energy deals with hardness.

[KillianHawkeye]

To further clarify, all elemental damage bypasses DR. So if you had a flaming sword, the fire damage would affect the target even if ALL of the sword's physical damage was stopped by DR.

Also, the +N magical enhancement bonus that's on a magic weapon adds to the physical damage and won't help you bypass DR (unless it is DR/magic, of course). It may help you slip a little extra damage past the limits of the target's DR's ability to reduce, however.