Penny-pinching ranger

[Baron Malkar]

Greetings Playground,

I am playing a third level ranger with the wildshape ranger variant followed by the shapeshifter variant and am trying to find a way to make my natural attacks while shapeshifted count as cold iron for under 2700gp.

[Seffbasilisk]

My apologies, the only such feat I'm aware of would be 'Cold Iron Tracery" but that's a Warforged Only feat. Only other way I can think of is a specific magical item that far exceeds your budget.

[Baron Malkar]

That was what I was thinking, but I figured it would still be a good Idea to ask.

I am curious though what magic item do you mean and how much would I need to buy it?

[Seffbasilisk]

Well, Earth Fist would work as well, but you need to be a Gnome/Goliath/Dwarf and that has some harsh prereqs....also unavailable at third level.

My apologies, I'm away from my books. As soon as I hunt down the item I'm thinking of, I'll edit it in.

Edit: Still away, and my preliminary searches came up with nothing. May have just been a homebrewed Amulet of Might Fists.

[sonofzeal]

Note - there's a little known rule that says that the natural attacks of creatures with DR passes the relevant DR. It's hard to get your shapeshifted weapons all coldy, but DR 1/cold iron comes from a lot of things. A lesser bloodline might be the easiest.

[PinkysBrain]

Actually metal based DR's are the exception to that.

[Teron]

That rule only applies to DR x/magic, nothing else.

[Hawriel]

buy a chunk of cold iron from a blacksmith. Ask the black smith if he would file it down into a bowel full of fine dust. Take cold iron dust to an alcamist or cosmetics merchant. aks them to wip up a custome nail polish. Ask female in party for tips on nail polishing. Brase yourself for being 'such a good friend' comments from said female party member. The rest of the party will bite their tounges when they realize you can turn into a bear and eat them.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Can't do it for your gold cost, but you snag a Necklace of Natural Attacks enhanced with Metalline or Transmuting and you'll bypass most DRs. I'm sure there's an obscure spell somewhere that will do it, too, and you can possibly snag a custom item of it.

[levi]

Having DR/magic and DR/epic are the only DRs that grant you damage reduction bypassing automatically, so going all fae won't help. Alignment subtypes and a few other things will give you aligned natural weapons, but AFAIK, cold iron isn't really availible except as cold iron.

I'd suggest you shapeshift to a horse or similar creature and get cold iron horseshoes. It's a little iffy by RAW, but if I was the DM, I'd let it fly. Should be pretty cheap too. Of course, there's the logistics of where said shoes (and, more importantly, the nails holding them in) end up when you shift back.

The leiniant option would be to have them meld into you, kinda like your humanoid gear does when you shift in the first place. The other option is more painful, as I'm sure you can imagine. By the RAW, they land at your feet, which makes them kinda unusable, as you'd have to get reshod each time. Talk to your DM about it.

[sonofzeal]

Having DR/magic and DR/epic are the only DRs that grant you damage reduction bypassing automatically, so going all fae won't help. Alignment subtypes and a few other things will give you aligned natural weapons, but AFAIK, cold iron isn't really availible except as cold iron.

I'd suggest you shapeshift to a horse or similar creature and get cold iron horseshoes. It's a little iffy by RAW, but if I was the DM, I'd let it fly. Should be pretty cheap too. Of course, there's the logistics of where said shoes (and, more importantly, the nails holding them in) end up when you shift back.

The leiniant option would be to have them meld into you, kinda like your humanoid gear does when you shift in the first place. The other option is more painful, as I'm sure you can imagine. By the RAW, they land at your feet, which makes them kinda unusable, as you'd have to get reshod each time. Talk to your DM about it.

Well, my ruling is from Monster Manual 2, page 16, third paragraph in the first column. It may have been changed in 3.5, but it's pretty explicit right there and I haven't seen an updated ruling (not that I've searched for one).

[Teron]

Considering that 3.5 overhauled the DR system and specifically mentions only creatures with DR x/magic or x/epic being able to bypass the same (SRD reference), I think there's no reason to assume the old rule still applies.

[sonofzeal]

Considering that 3.5 overhauled the DR system and specifically mentions only creatures with DR x/magic or x/epic being able to bypass the same (SRD reference), I think there's no reason to assume the old rule still applies.

Ah, well there you go. Still, my group plays with the MM2 rule because, hey, it says it right there. It's worth a try for this guy, at least.

[Fitz10019]

Maybe a cold iron spiked gauntlet could be made for your animal form, under the barding rules. What is your animal form, and what attacks does it have?

[Coidzor]

What's the usual medium-size combat form anyway? Baboon? Black bear?

[Sstoopidtallkid]

What's the usual medium-size combat form anyway? Baboon? Black bear?

Fleshraker.

[Hunter Noventa]

The Martial Study Feat could net you either the Foehammer or Mountain Hammer manuvers, though I think those are both 2nd level manuvers so you'd have to be 6th level to take the feat.

Alternately, there are the magic items that grant manuvers, but I'm not sure how much they cost or if you qualify to use them at 3rd level. That, and manuvers only work once per encounter anyway.