Antimagic Field and DR

[bdh5533]

Guru's of game, i have a question for you!

If I am in a antimagic field, my magic weapon's bonuses are suppressed. If a monster has DR 30/magic, Does my magic weapon still count as magic for overcoming DR in an antimagic field?

Rrephrased: In an Antimagic field Is the only way I can damage this monster with DR 30/magic is to do more than 30 damage?

[Talya]

Guru's of game, i have a question for you!

If I am in a antimagic field, my magic weapon's bonuses are suppressed. If a monster has DR 30/magic, Does my magic weapon still count as magic for overcoming DR in an antimagic field?

Rrephrased: In an Antimagic field Is the only way I can damage this monster with DR 30/magic is to do more than 30 damage?

Well, I'm not sure if it's the same for all creatures, but for most, DR/magic is a Su ability, and therefore it is also supressed in an antimagic field, so your weapon would hit it normally.

[Dhavaer]

DR/magic, /alignment and /epic all go away in an antimagic field.

[Penguinsushi]

Yeah - to sort of coalesce what has been said already: basically, it boils down to whether the DR in question is treated as a supernatural (su) or extraordinary (ex) ability. The prior is suppressed in an anti-magic field, the latter is not.

~PS

[bdh5533]

I guess i was under the impression that DR was an Extraordinary ability and thus not affected by antimagic field?

edit: thank you penguinsushi


next question:

say it is an extraordinary ability, will my magic weapon (now suppressed) still count toward the DR requirement?

[Emperor Tippy]

No.

If something has DR 30/Magic and its EX DR then you need to deal over 30 damage to get through.

[SpiderBrigade]

I think in all cases where it's DR/Magic, it will be Su. Ex. is reserved for stuff like the barbarian's DR/-- and some of the DR/damage type abilities like undead have.

There may be some exceptions out there somewhere. In that case I think...hmm, I think you'd be screwed, as in an AMF your weapon is not considered magical.

[bdh5533]

I have yet to find a monster listed in the SRD that specifically lists DR as any type of ability (i have just randomly checked ones i know to have DR)

[TheOOB]

Is DR/Special material (such as adamatine or silver) considered supernatural?

[Jasdoif]

The FAQ has a long entry on this one. Long story short, it's like Dhavaer said: /magic (and the similar /epic I must assume) and /alignment go away in an antimagic field.

Short story long :

The description for the antimagic field spell says that it negates supernatural abilities but not extraordinary abilities. The description for the damage reduction special quality in the Monster Manual glossary says damage reduction can be either supernatural or extraordinary, but it doesn’t say which monsters have which kind. Suppose my fighter/wizard casts antimagic field on herself and attacks a pit fiend. The pit fiend has damage reduction 15/good and silver. The antimagic field would negate the weapon’s “good” quality, right? Does the pit fiend lose its damage reduction special quality completely? Or is silver extraordinary and good supernatural? What about the damage reduction of golems, dragons, werewolves, and other creatures?

Damage reduction is extraordinary unless the weapon property that bypasses the damage reduction is “magic” (as in damage reduction #/magic) or one of the four alignment qualities (chaotic, evil, good, or lawful), in which case it is supernatural. Damage reduction that is bypassed by any other weapon quality that a manufactured weapon could not have without being magical also would be a supernatural special quality.

When a creature’s damage reduction entry has two or more elements, some extraordinary and some supernatural, only the supernatural elements go away inside an antimagic field.

If a creature’s damage reduction entry has multiple parts separated by the word “and,” a weapon must have all those qualities to bypass the damage reduction. A creature such as a pit fiend, whose damage reduction is 15/good and silver, has damage reduction that’s difficult to bypass because the weapon must be both good and silver to overcome its damage reduction. Attacks from a creature with the good subtype would bypass a pit fiend’s damage reduction if the creature wielded a silver weapon. As a natural ability, such a creature’s attacks with natural or manufactured weaponry bypass damage reduction as good weapons. Otherwise, a silver weapon must also be magical and have the good quality to bypass the damage reduction. Inside an antimagic field, however, only the “silver” portion of the pit fiend damage reduction functions, so the pit fiend effectively has damage reduction 15/silver. Anyone wielding a silver weapon can bypass the pit fiend’s damage reduction inside an antimagic field.

If the damage reduction entry has two or more elements separated by the word “or,” then an attack needs only one of those qualities to bypass the damage reduction. For example, a bearded devil’s damage reduction entry reads 5/silver or good, so any silver weapon or any good weapon can bypass the damage reduction. Inside an antimagic field, the “good” element in the damage reduction would still be suppressed, and a silver weapon still would bypass the damage reduction.

[bdh5533]

Thanks!

although it does put an end to evil DM plans :D

[AtomicKitKat]

It's always more fun if you can mix in all 3 metal types(Silver/Cold Iron/Adamantine). To the best of my knowledge, only a Warforged with Silver Tracery+Cold Iron Tracery and probably Adamantine Armouring(or something similar) can bypass all 3.

To sum it up, material type(3 metals and /-) and damage type(P/B/S) are the only types of DR that are not supressed by AMF.

[martyboy74]

It's always more fun if you can mix in all 3 metal types(Silver/Cold Iron/Adamantine). To the best of my knowledge, only a Warforged with Silver Tracery+Cold Iron Tracery and probably Adamantine Armouring(or something similar) can bypass all 3.

Get a +1 Metalline Shifting weapon. What (non-alignment based) DR?

[Arbitrarity]

Get a +1 metalline shifting sure striking weapon.

What DR/(not epic or -)

[AtomicKitKat]

Get a +1 Metalline Shifting weapon. What (non-alignment based) DR?

It can only be 1 metal at a time.

[Dausuul]

Get a +1 Metalline Shifting weapon. What (non-alignment based) DR?

Alternatively, pick up Tome of Battle and use the Mountain Hammer series of maneuvers. Look at me! I'm a level 3 character wielding a piercing, bludgeoning, slashing, silver, cold iron, adamantine, good, evil, lawful, chaotic, magic, epic weapon!* Mwa ha ha!

*Offer expires when you run out of Mountain Hammer maneuvers. Enhancement bonuses not included.

[Awetugiw]

Just summon some lantern archons.

What DR?

They even work into (though not in) an antimagic field.

[SpiderBrigade]

It can only be 1 metal at a time.

But by the same token, I'm pretty sure most monsters will only have DR that's vulnerable to 1 metal at a time, right? Unless there are a lot of things with DR 15/Cold Iron and Silver out there? WHich is great, because as you say, you can't have a weapon that's cold iron AND silver, which means they basically have DR/--

[Bauglir]

You could take, say, a Nymph and apply the Half-Dragon and then Elder Eidolon templates to it. Cheesy, but DR /Adamantine and Cold Iron.

[Fax Celestis]

One could also reverse engineer the concordant property from the Concordant Killer in the MM-IV. I'd say it's about a +4, personally, but a concordant metalline greatsword +1 overcomes anything short of DR/epic or DR/-.

[Merlin the Tuna]

Apparently no one's really sure how antimagic fields are supposed to work.

[AtomicKitKat]

But by the same token, I'm pretty sure most monsters will only have DR that's vulnerable to 1 metal at a time, right? Unless there are a lot of things with DR 15/Cold Iron and Silver out there? WHich is great, because as you say, you can't have a weapon that's cold iron AND silver, which means they basically have DR/--

Wererat(Silver)>> Warlock 4?(Cold Iron) >> Green Star Adept. Not optimal, but you get all 3 metal types, so anything you can do to increase your DR in any of them(but especially in whichever gives the fewest points of DR) gives you more and more effective DR X/-.

[TheOOB]

There are some rare and isolated attacks out there that ignore either all DR, or all DR that can be bypassed, in either case it would break through DR 10/silver, adamatine, cold iron, & elderberries (or whatever else you want in there).

[DreadArchon]

A Cold Iron Warrior Warrior could easily get through two types of metal DR at once (though he couldn't do it in an antimagic field), but I'm not sure what you'd do about the third.

If you were epic, you could be a Monk 16/CIW 7 and dip your hands in silversheen, but that seems like a silly thing to base a build around, especially if you have to be level 23 to do it.

[AtomicKitKat]

There are some rare and isolated attacks out there that ignore either all DR, or all DR that can be bypassed, in either case it would break through DR 10/silver, adamatine, cold iron, & elderberries (or whatever else you want in there).

Off the top of my head, Lantern Archons are about the only thing out there that ignores DR with attacks. Spells still hurt(unless they produce a weapon, I guess).