Damage Reduction Types

[Kyeudo]

How many different types of DR are there in published WotC products?

I'm trying to compile a list so I can figure the minimum number of weapons a fighter would need to carry to be prepared for any sort of DR without using such weapon enchantments as Shadowstriking.

So far I have:
DR/-
DR/magic
DR/slashing
DR/bludgeoning
DR/piercing
DR/cold iron
DR/silver
DR/adamantine
DR/byshek
DR/evil
DR/good
DR/law
DR/chaos
DR/epic
DR/silver and magic
DR/silver and good
DR/silver and evil
DR/cold iron and evil
DR/cold iron and good
DR/cold iron and lawful
DR/cold iron and magic
DR/adamantine and bludgeoning
DR/adamantine and good
DR/adamantine and magic
DR/adamantine and chaotic
DR/bludgeoning and magic
DR/slashing and magic
DR/piercing and magic
DR/piercing and good
DR/magic and evil
DR/magic and good
DR/epic and evil

Anyone have any more to add to my list? Please don't include things like DR/slashing or piercing, as they are already covered by something on the list already.

Now, the minimum weapons to cover all currently listed DRs are:

+1 adamantine anarchic holy shield bash
DR/magic
DR/bludgeoning
DR/adamantine
DR/good
DR/chaos
DR/adamantine and bludgeoning
DR/adamantine and good
DR/adamantine and magic
DR/adamantine and chaotic
DR/bludgeoning and magic
DR/magic and good

+1 Cold Iron Axiomatic Holy Unholy Longsword
DR/slashing
DR/cold iron
DR/evil
DR/cold iron and evil
DR/cold iron and good
DR/cold iron and lawful
DR/cold iron and magic
DR/slashing and magic
DR/magic and evil

+1 Silver Holy Unholy Armor Spikes
DR/piercing
DR/silver
DR/law
DR/silver and magic
DR/silver and good
DR/silver and evil
DR/piercing and magic
DR/piercing and good

+1 Byshek Morningstar (Only required in Eberron)
DR/byshek

The Sword of Kas - Artifact (Only core epic item)
DR/epic
DR/epic and evil

[Kurobara]

Just a quick dig through the outsiders in the SRD gives a few more:

DR/cold iron and good (a couple demons)
DR/silver and good (a couple devils)
DR/epic and evil (Angel, Solar)

Though I didn't look at many things - basically only at devils, demons, angels, and archons, plus one or two others I thought might have combination DR like these.

[Vasdenjas]

Based on the end of your entry, I'm assuming you are looking for combinations as well? If not, ignore the following:

Solar has 15/evil and epic
Latern Archon has 10/magic and evil
Crawling Head and Grisgol have x/magic and piercing
several Demons have x/cold iron and good
several Devils have x/good and silver
Ghaele Eladrin have 10/cold iron and evil
Alchemical Golem is an odd one, seems to have 10/adamantine and 20/piercing or slashing
Clay Golem 10/adamantine and bludgeoning
Demonflesh and Hellfire Golems 15/adamantine and good
Shadesteel Golem 10/adamantine and magic
Leonal Guardinal 10/evil and silver
Several Inevitables have x/chaotic and adamantine
Night Hag 10/cold iron and magic
Odopis 10/good and magic

I think that abou covers it. Not sure if anything new is in MM5 though.

[darthpower]

DR/nothing

Can not remember how it written right now but it is DR that Barbarians get.

[brian c]

DR/byshek

What's a byshek?

[Kurobara]

Latern Archon has 10/magic and evil

Heh, didn't notice that that one wasn't on the list already. Oops.

[kamikasei]

What's a byshek?

Byeshk is a metal from Eberron, so if you're not in Eberron it needn't figure in your arsenal.

[Drider]

DR/nothing

Can not remember how it written right now but it is DR that Barbarians get.

DR/--
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[Renx]

You forgot the best DR of all, DR/Plot.

[Kyeudo]

Alright, I've added all the new ones. Anymore anyone can find?

[Keld Denar]

Not a DR type, but somewhat relevent to the thread.

The "Transmuting" weapon property from MIC allows a weapon to "align" itself to any DR on the start of the round after you hit a creature. It's a +2 equivilant enhancement. So...you hit a creature, and at the start of your next turn, it bypasses whatever DR the creature you hit had. It does so until you hit another creature with a different DR, then it shifts to that DR. If your DM likes to throw a lot of screwy DRs at you, its so worth the upgrade. Pulls the size of your golf bag of weapons down to 1. I'd suggest using an adamantine or starmetal weapon as the base, for the added resiliance vs sunders.

DR/magic, good, vanillia, cheese, teal, epix? Covered!

[Kyeudo]

I'm trying to compile a list so I can figure the minimum number of weapons a fighter would need to carry to be prepared for any sort of DR without using such weapon enchantments as Shadowstriking.

Transmuting is the same as Shadowstriking I think. Just a different name.

[Keld Denar]

Sorry, I didn't know what shadowstriking was....

There is a creature, I'm pretty sure called Entropic Horror. It's undead. Has DR Lawful and Cold Iron. (I'm mostly sure)

I remember because we faught it with a Nightwalker which has good and silver in the same encounter. Blah, what a scary fight that was.

[Kyeudo]

Thanks for that obscure type. Now to start formulating the absolute minimum weapons.

[Person_Man]

Seriously, if you're that concerned about DR, you should just buy a Shadow Striking weapon, as you mentioned in your first post. Keeping a Greatsword of Shadow Striking +1 or something similar is pretty much a requirement for a high level meatshield who doesn't want to be screwed by high level DR.

[Indon]

Is it just me, or is a Holy/Unholy weapon a sure ticket to negative-levels-land?

[Setra]

Seriously, if you're that concerned about DR, you should just buy a Shadow Striking weapon, as you mentioned in your first post. Keeping a Greatsword of Shadow Striking +1 or something similar is pretty much a requirement for a high level meatshield who doesn't want to be screwed by high level DR.

I think he's just doing the list for the hell of it.

[Keld Denar]

You know, if you look in enough books, you are gonna find something with just about every DR permutation known to books. Therefore, the easiest way to figure it out is with math. First, look at the different independant types

Damage type (3)
-piercing
-slashing
-bludgeoning

Special Materials (4)
-silver
-cold iron
-adamantine
-byshek

Alignment (up/down) (2)
-good
-evil

Alignment (left/right) (2)
-lawful
-chaotic

Magic (1)

Epic (1)

Now, you can have any combination of those 12 types with up to 6 discripters (a weapon could require good and law, but not good and evil, likewise not piercing and slashing)

Just get enough weapon that can cover all those bases (3x4x2x2x1x1 = 48)

You would need 48 weapons to cover every DR on your list
Therefore:
A +10 long cold iron holy anarchic sword would bypass DR/magic, epic, chaotic, good, cold iron, and slashing and any of the subtypes that it makes up (ie good and cold iron or slashing and epic)

The question is....Do you have DR/math?
Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!

[kamikasei]

You know, if you look in enough books, you are gonna find something with just about every DR permutation known to books. Therefore, the easiest way to figure it out is with math. First, look at the different independant types

Damage type (3)
-piercing
-slashing
-bludgeoning

...

You would need 48 weapons to cover every DR on your list

Instead of separate piercing and bludgeoning weapons, just have a range of morningstars. That way you only need morningstars and slashing weapons to cover the basic damage types, cutting it down to 32 weapons.

Probably the best practical option is to do it with spells. Disregard byeshk and epic as irrelevant below level 20 outside Eberron. Two weapons each in two materials will cover you for the three basic damage types and for adamantine and cold iron. Carry silversheen for when you need a silver weapon. Carry a command-word item of align weapon (or one in each flavor - could get pricey, but eh). Possibly a command-word item of magic weapon too, cheaper than making them all magical...

Now to work out the cost and limitations of the align weapon item!

[Wooter]

Is there DR/wood?

If not, there should be.

[Keld Denar]

Is there DR/wood?

If not, there should be.

yeah, it's called "Rust Monsters"

Now that you mention it, I vaguely remember seeing DR/nonmagical bludgeoning...a total hoser for a high level fighter heavy party.

[Lavidor]

DR/magic, good, vanillia, cheese, teal, epix? Covered!

I totally have to make a monster with DR/Vanilla.

[kamikasei]

Possibly a command-word item of magic weapon too, cheaper than making them all magical...

If I'm working this out correctly, a command-word item of greater magic weapon made at caster level 20 usable four times a day will let you give all your weapons +5 at the start of the day which will last twenty hours. It costs 172,800gp where adding +5 to all of the weapons would be, what, 200,000? So a slight saving... hmmm. On the other hand if all we care about is making them magic then magic weapon will do, unlimited uses/day (short duration) gives us a cost of 3600gp.

A single item of align weapon is 21,600gp and will last for three minutes at a pop, so we can't save anything here by cutting in to its uses/day. Great if we need just one of them for all four alignments, otherwise we'll need four for a total of 86,400gp.

Silversheen is ridiculously cheap. We might need a lot though.

[Chronos]

Is there DR/wood?

There used to be, but it got changed to DR/yellow.

One should also bear in mind that you only need one weapon to deal with all forms of damage reduction... provided that that one weapon deals enough damage.

[Kyeudo]

Alright, I've gotten the weapons worked out now so that with 3 weapons a TN Sword and Board Fighter could deal with all normal DR types without using a special weapon property such as Transmuting and without switching weapons. In Eberron or when killing a Tarrasque or a Solar, he might occasionaly have to switch weapons.

As someone said earlier, this is just for fun. Besides, not everyone has access to MIC or ToM.

[bosssmiley]

There used to be, but it got changed to DR/yellow.

"In brightest day...(etc.)"

IIRC there are also creatures in OA with damage reduction --/jade (and/or kuni crystal). A very specific case where jade replaces silver & cold iron, but a case nonetheless.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Also, don't forget Nekomusumes (catgirls, but it sounds better the other way). They have the unique DR 9999999999/antimatter, to which they have vulnerability.

[AtomicKitKat]

Considering the amount of effort it normally takes to acquire DR of any sort, yeah, Transmuting is cheese. DR X/Anything except a Shadowstriking or Transmuting weapon.

[Miraqariftsky]

Byeshk is a metal from Eberron, so if you're not in Eberron it needn't figure in your arsenal.

Byeshk is a metal that's anathema to aberrations... As silver is to lycans, so byeshk is to aberrations.

[Alleine]

Can't remember what it's from but there is a morphing enchantment that allows you to change the weapon to one of a similar size and weight, so all you'd really need is a morphing, metalline, your choice of alignment enchantment. That covers all weapon types(slashing, bludgeoning, piercing) with morphing, and all metals with metalline. Now, if only there was some enchantment that let you switch alignments too....