Should DR, just stack?

[Judging__Eagle]

No, seriously.

I don't know if it's ever been discussed here before, but should DR stack?

Magic damage automatically negates any DR on a target (that's what Energy Resistances are for), so mages will be unaffected; but for the most part I notice that PCs almost never invest in or try to get any sort of DR.

Mostly, I think b/c they can't be stacked; that's my take at least.

Of course any single attack that negates one of your DR types increases the users damage; and people who own Blacksteel weapons or Swords of Adaption will be able to kill things with multiple stacked DRs, so I'm not sure if it could be done one way or the other.

Also, has anyone seen gear combinations or character concepts that revolve around increasing DR?


The reason I got to thinking about this is that, while there are many potential sources of DR.

Some examples of DR sources that I can think of off the top of my head: The immunity armour/sheild property; which is frankly not worth the +3 enchancement cost; the multiple 'shirts' out of the Mini Handbook; a small amount from Adamantine armours; and almost all of the rest of the DR sources are part of Team Monster's arsenal of defense.


There is an ulterior motive to this line of thought as well. I want to get more DR for my barbarian and right now I've got DR 5/- while raging and once I hit lvl 11 I'll hit DR 7/- plus an other DR 5/- from Great Fortitude; and I know those stack sicne they're "of the same type". Bringing my DR up to 12/-.


The problem is that while I notice the DR, I want more.

Right now, I have no real chance of dodging or negating enemy hits thanks to AC or Miss Chance (seriously, I've got AC 21 at lvl 6; most things can hit me at this point and do), and I can provoke up to my attacks per round as a minimum every round. So I get hit piles and piles.

Now, if my innate DR could stack with say; an Adamantine Breastplates DR (negated whenever I am hit of course by an Adamantine weapon), that would really pull up my DR back into "I don't need full healing in the first or second round of combat" range.

Really, I just want my barb to keep blitzing on a regular basis; but as it stands, he can't afford to do so since he gets hit way too often.

[User3]

"of the same type" doesn't help with DR stacking:

If a creature has damage reduction from more than one source, the two forms of damage reduction do not stack. Instead, the creature gets the benefit of the best damage reduction in a given situation.

If you have DR 7/-, then DR 5/- literally does nothing for you. You gain no benefit from it whatsoever, except when you're not raging (woo, out of combat DR for the win!).

DR should stack, though. It's pretty stupid that it doesn't.

Oh, and by the way, Adamantine Breastplate is DR 2/-, not DR X/adamantine. If your DM is allowing DR of the same type to stack (which would be a step towards sanity, at least), then it would stack with your other DR.

[Neeek]

Short response to the question: Yes, and obviously so.

[RandomCasualty]

Some DR should, like the barbarian's DR, or adamantine DR, but DR from stuff like stoneskin shouldn't stack wtih something from righteous might, otherwise you get crazy combos.

[Judging__Eagle]

Well, according to the SRD, DR X/- of all types would stack; as would gaining say.... gaining DR X/Magic from Blessing of Bahamut and wearing armour of Immunity to gain DR 20/Magic.

But you can't combine DR 10/Silver and Magic as well as DR 10/Magic, which would result in DR 20/ Silver and Magic (10), or Magic (10).

The notation would also need a system. Something like:

DR 50/ Epic (15), Lawful and Cold Iron(15), Magic (10), , Good (10)

Would be the result of something having:

DR 15/Epic
DR 15/Lawful and Cold Iron
DR 10/Magic
DR 10/Good

[Note: of course at this point we know that it's obviously a very powerful creature; probably an outsider, and most definately evil and chaotic; or it's wearing some gear that is granting it extra DRs]

So, attacking with an Axiomatic Cold Iron Weapon, negates 15 pts of DR; making it a +6 weapon negates an other 15, plus and other 10 since a +6 weapon is also a magic weapon. So 40 of 50 DR is negated.

Of course, in such a world, high level people will pack Blacksteel blades; hoever you are going to have to be pretty high level to afford one, since they're a +3 enchancement cost.

While Swords of Adaption (or whatever the +1 longsword that negates a targets DR for 10 rounds is called) cost at least 50k.

So DR negation is in the hands of highbies.

Me, I just want to be able to mix and add on new DR types.


Oh, about the adamantine breastplate; I know that 'core' it's DR 1/2/3 /- for light/med/heavy adamantine armours.

I was refering to the Races of War supplement's Armours section. There adamantine armours (only coming in medium and heavy variety) grant you DR equal to your BaB that is negatable by Adamantine weapons; among other cool things.

[Fwib]

If a creature has damage reduction from more than one source, the two forms of damage reduction do not stack. Instead, the creature gets the benefit of the best damage reduction in a given situation.

Well, according to the SRD, DR X/- of all types would stack...

How do you arrive at your conclusion, given the bit I quote from the SRD?

In our games, my group plays that DR/- stacks, and for other types, you just get whatever is best, but we consider it a house rule.

[User3]

That part of the SRD was already quoted in the second post of this thread.

I was refering to the Races of War supplement's Armours section. There adamantine armours (only coming in medium and heavy variety) grant you DR equal to your BaB that is negatable by Adamantine weapons; among other cool things.

If you're already using Frank and K's houserules, then take their advice and let DR stack (too lazy to find the links, but maybe Frank will chime in about how dumb non-stacking DR is).

[Judging__Eagle]

Will do, I thought I had read something about that a while back in something either of them had posted, but it wasn't something I could say came from one supplement or an other, hence this post.

I think that I'll be buying a +1 Adamantine Breastplate pretty soon; like, yesterday.

DR 5/- plus DR My BAB (+6) /Adamntine

for DR 11/Adamantine (6), - (5)

Oh, that will be some hot shit right there.

Wait... that means that people will actually want to buy Adamantine armours now?

Holy fvck, I thought I'd never see the day.

I wonder if I should get an Adamantine Sheild as well? With a one handed weapon and armour spikes, I'll still be laughing....

Edit: Adamantine shield is +3 Sheild Bonus to AC; not incredible, but still good. and it has no check penalties, so it's all good.

>_>

<_<


....

|_ (o_o) _| (thumbs up!)


Wait, is Adamantine still a black looking version of steel? It would be cool if it still was.

[RandomCasualty]

DR stacking just tends to kick nonmagical types in the balls even more, and that's not what we need to do. There's already enough incentive not to use physical combat and use magical attacks. Do we really need to reduce fighter's attacks to 5 damage per swing by stacked DR?

[Judging__Eagle]

Actually; doing this allows fighter types to want to actually pick up DR gear. And using the new armour rules and new feats from Races of War.

For example, at level 11 a fighter could have DR 16/ Adamantine (11), - (5). If they picked up Great Fortitude (DR 5/- is the +11 BaB ability) and are wearing an Adamantine Breastplate or Fullplate (Which as it's +1 BaB ability grants DR equal to your BaB; negated by Adamantine attacks; meaning that a Fighter could have decent DR that actually scales as they level).

Most monsters that have DR don't and won't have different stacked types of DR.

Players on the other hand, should. They face things that having DR for makes fights easier to not worry about.


Also, if we are using Races of War; Dungeonomicon and Tome of Fiends should not be disqualified from such a game (really; I think of these supplements as an all inclusive method to update the current system's explanations for the way things work as well as replace stupid ideas that people have about the game).

If we are using those other books; then the fighter needing a 'golf bag' is actually not that bad.

Why?

B/c they can get +2 weapons for free by level 11; thanks to the fact that they've entered the Wish-based economy (assuming a 15,000 gp cap on Wished for magical items; logically the cap could be raised to as high as 20,000 gp per magic item and still be short of the 25,000 gp cap for mundane wealth that the spell has).

So, they have a +2 Wood, Mithral, Adamantine and Stone weapon, or a +1 with a special ability. Plus a bunch of Oils of Align weapon (Good, Lawful, Chaos, and maybe, a few Evils; just in case). Each of these items is under 15,000 gp.

Of course, the fighter will need a 'main weapon'; but that's besides the point.

Heck, they all can be intelligent weapons that can make spot or listen checks, or knowledge checks (they'll have 10 ranks and each of them can make a check; so if you don't really want to be surprised, or want to make a knowledge roll; pack a half dozen magical darts with 10 Ranks in Spot, or Knowledge (The Planes) ; and they'll still be under the 15,000 gp cap.

[RandomCasualty]

1169738489[/unixtime]]
For example, at level 11 a fighter could have DR 16/ Adamantine (11), - (5). If they picked up Great Fortitude (DR 5/- is the +11 BaB ability) and are wearing an Adamantine Breastplate or Fullplate (Which as it's +1 BaB ability grants DR equal to your BaB; negated by Adamantine attacks; meaning that a Fighter could have decent DR that actually scales as they level).

Well lets not forget an added stoneskin for 26 DR. Not many monsters can breach adamantine DR, so that's as good as 26/-.

At that point, basically you're so good that melee attacks no longer even matter from monsters, and that kind of sucks, because it means the majority of monsters aren't even going to be a threat at all. With 26 DR, you can clean through just about any melee bruiser with relative ease.

And honestly, do we really need more stuff that hoses melee based stuff? We already have fly, incorporeality, invisibility, forcecage, solid fog, and just about any counter you can think of.

Half the problem I have with most "fighter" abilities is that they're all based around countering other fighter abilities. Fighters don't need to be better against melee monsters. They really don't. They need stuff that beats magical abilities.

Melee bruisers are already the favored whipping boy of WotC, why are we continuing this trend. If anything those creatures need to be made more dangerous not less, since they're painfully easier to counter right now as it is. I'd like my games to still involve some attack rolls and not just be a bunch of monsters throwing around spelllike abilities. Because in the long run that's worse for the fighter. The fighter wants the pit fiend to try to engage him with its claws. He doesn't want it flying around invisible and tossing spell-likes.

Once you implement this stacking DR, it means no monster will ever make melee attacks because they've been made completely trivial. And there's nothing worse and annoying you can do to the fighter other than make it so no monster ever melees him. Most of my melee fighter PCs get so frustrated when monsters do nothing but hit and run attacks. This rule ensures that it's all monsters ever do, because they can't melee for shit anymore.

[Judging__Eagle]

Well, by level 11, if you've not moving at about 60 to 120 feet normally all the time, or able to fly a few times per day; you're not playing a level 11 game.

You're still playing a level 3-5 game, with higher HP, AC, saves and new spells than you had at lvl 3 or 5. By level 6 or 7 every PC can afford 4k for Boots of Expeditious Retreat.

As for keeping monsters shut down.... a fighter and or knight could do that no problem.

The Knight declares the mob his Chosen Opponent, and that guy better as fvck hit him, b/c if not that knight will be doing his level in d6s of damage on everyone of his BaB granted attacks; so +11d6 damage per sword swing.

If he chooses to 'hang back' and cast; the fighter should be shutting him down with his Foil Action ability. This can easily be done b/c by lvl 11, riding a Horeshoes of Zephyrus'ed Stone Horse Destrider is no big deal; so you can keep within 30-60 feet to keep foiling spells.

So, fighter shuts down spells; I'm nto gonna talk about how easy it is to Foil Actions, since they're ranged touch attacks.

While knight gives no excuse to not hit him; if not you take +33d6 of damage per round, and he'll probably land all of those attacks.

That's not including insanity like Blitz or Combat School to give +11/+9/+9 (+13/+11/+11 due to combat school) on attacks that are +21/+19/+19 (+23/+21/+21 thanks to CS) b/c you can now take 10 on your attack roles with your combat school.

Of course, that's assuming a mundane weapon and 10 str.

Really, a knight at lvl 11 should have his +5 inherent boost to str, a +4 str item, and lets say conservatively.. 15 str to start. So, he's got an str mod of +7 (15 + 5 + 4 = 24 with a +7 modifier).

So, he hits an AC of 30 all the time; and if the AC is 28 he can hit it 3 times per attack action (or per standard action at +16 BaB).

However, he's prolly got a +3 weapon by now, thus: +33/+31/+31. So, he'll probably land most of his attacks; Good Hope, Haste and Bard's song can pull it up an other +4-6 or even 8.

Makes me want to play a knight; but my Barb is just so much fun.

If you don't use races of war; then yeh, fighter's suck.

But only b/c they are being treated like 2e fighters in terms of special ability progression.


As for Samurai.... they can fvcking cut magic. Like, a Fireball is coming at Usagii Yojimbo; and he's all like "Aw hellz no you didaan't! Cut MAGICU!"

and then the fireball is like "owntwtfbbq!!!1eleventyone"

Then the samurai kills the spell caster; for "being dishonrorerorenamable." :|

While of course ignoring the fact that the druid and archivist in his party are a cheating bear-monster hippy that tells physics where to shove it and a book-stealing git who found out how to cast Underpants of Hextor fall from the sky and honorably kill my foes last adventure; but that's neither here nor there. Since we al lknow that people who adventure together must be good and stuff.

[RandomCasualty]

Well I mean, it just seems that with stacking DR especially, any races of War warrior type is going to roll over basically any monster as though it were a speedbump. Only primary are going to be a problem, and even then only if they totally cheese you out, like a CL pumped blasphemy.

Stacking DR seems like such overkill. Melee combat is already a crappy choice fro monsters, since PCs have wands of CLW that make any hit points lost automatically come back between encounters. I'm just kind of curious why you'd want to nerf physical combat more.

It seems that the stacking DR will just turn the game into a series of save or dies being tossed back and forth, alongside minions making trivial hit point based attacks that might as well not even exist, since you could care less at 11th level about an attack that deals 4 points of damage after DR. You might as well not even waste the DM's time.

And that's even more important given abilities like foil action, which make individual monsters irrelevant. Foil forces you to have monster hordes, only uber DR negates monster hordes, so you're left with no real challenges to the PCs aside from things of truly overwhelming EL.

[Catharz]

I think the idea is to let a closet troll monster and closet troll PC toe-to-toe.

[Judging__Eagle]

Well, really; even a DR of.... 11 at level 6 isn't the king shit it should be noted.

There are mobs that will still wear you down.

And, if you're playing a crazy blitzer, you'll be taking so many hits that it doesn't matter what your DR is, eventually someone's gonna crit ya on one of the 1, 2, 3 or 4 of your attacks per round (or 2, 4, 6, 8+ if you're a TWFer).

Really, it's a matter of situation and context.

The average high AC tank doesn't gain as much from more DR. The low AC, Rage-dice fueled damage meter gains a pile, since now every hit on him doesn't hurt as badly.

Seriously, I wasn't using one of my feats key features b/c I was taking too serious of a beating when using it. DR 11/ Adamantine (6), - (5) will help him really clear through the slush so that he can get to deal with the enemies own physical monsters.

[MrWaeseL]

I think creatures who now have DR X/A+B should have DR 2X/A(X), B(X) under the stacking system.

[RandomCasualty]

1169762568[/unixtime]]Well, really; even a DR of.... 11 at level 6 isn't the king shit it should be noted.

At level 6? That's really damn good.

It might be balanced if you didn't have wands of CLW, but because those wands exist, it means that basically no encounter anywhere close to your EL involving damaging creatures is going to take you down, ever. Basically you laugh in the face of anything that doesn't have a save or die ability or isn't overwhelming opposition, like EL +6 or greater.

Even then you've probably got a decent shot if it's pure melee.

I don't think monsters are as powerful as most people seem to think. If you use the Races of War rules tactically you're going to chew up any kind of monster that doesn't throw save or dies at you. At worst, you're going to burn some charges of the old CLW wand, but there's no real fear of death.

[Username17]

I don't know about that. Imagine for a second that you're up against some easy prey, say CR 5 monsters.

Earth Elemental: Slam is 2d8+7 (average 16) and can Power Attack for up to +12 damage.

Skullcrusher Ogre: Morningstar is 2d6+7, Power Attacks for the same as before.

I mean seriously, brute of even CR5 can grind you down through DR 11/Fvck Off. They probably shouldn't be able to - but as written they totally can.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1169784252[/unixtime]]I don't know about that. Imagine for a second that you're up against some easy prey, say CR 5 monsters.

Earth Elemental: Slam is 2d8+7 (average 16) and can Power Attack for up to +12 damage.

Skullcrusher Ogre: Morningstar is 2d6+7, Power Attacks for the same as before.

I mean seriously, brute of even CR5 can grind you down through DR 11/Fvck Off. They probably shouldn't be able to - but as written they totally can.

Well, they certainly won't be able to power attack for full or even near full if you've kept your AC competitive. As far as the base damage goes, 16 average versus a DR of 11 is pretty much something you don't care much about at all.

[Judging__Eagle]

1169784442[/unixtime]]

1169784252[/unixtime]]I don't know about that. Imagine for a second that you're up against some easy prey, say CR 5 monsters.

Earth Elemental: Slam is 2d8+7 (average 16) and can Power Attack for up to +12 damage.

Skullcrusher Ogre: Morningstar is 2d6+7, Power Attacks for the same as before.

I mean seriously, brute of even CR5 can grind you down through DR 11/Fvck Off. They probably shouldn't be able to - but as written they totally can.

Well, they certainly won't be able to power attack for full or even near full if you've kept your AC competitive. As far as the base damage goes, 16 average versus a DR of 11 is pretty much something you don't care much about at all.

Actually; it is.

If I'm full attacking; I'm provoking 4 AoOs per round. Minimum. So, 20-ish damage a round if there's 4 guys with no way to have extra AoOs; more if any of them can AoO more than once per round.

That's not including the fact that everyone wants to take me down b/c of my damage output.

So, whatever my AoOs add up to, plus actual enemies melee, ranged and spell attacks.

If I'm lunging past enemies to help a party member by pulling enemies off of them, that's more AoOs.

With 70 HP they punch through my HP in a few rounds. I actually picked up Great Fortitude for the +1 HP/Hit Dice.

[RandomCasualty]

1169942892[/unixtime]]
Actually; it is.

If I'm full attacking; I'm provoking 4 AoOs per round. Minimum. So, 20-ish damage a round if there's 4 guys with no way to have extra AoOs; more if any of them can AoO more than once per round.

well you're also dealing 44 more damage, which ensure that whatever you're attacking doesn't last very long.

That's not including the fact that everyone wants to take me down b/c of my damage output.

I can't say for certain here, under Frank's rules, it really appears everyone has a large damage output or at least abilities that kill creatures outright, like save or dies.

With 70 HP they punch through my HP in a few rounds. I actually picked up Great Fortitude for the +1 HP/Hit Dice.

If it's more than two rounds, it probably doesn't matter. With Frank's rules, battles will be over very fast. PCs can do tremendous amounts of damage, and two PC class characters fighting is the equivalent of rocket launcher tag. Monsters do somewhat less damage, but are still chewed up rather easily with the offensive capabilities you've got. If you haven't killed the monster in 2 rounds or less, it probably means that it's way above your CR and you're fuxxored anyway.

[Judging__Eagle]

1169953955[/unixtime]]

1169942892[/unixtime]]
Actually; it is.

If I'm full attacking; I'm provoking 4 AoOs per round. Minimum. So, 20-ish damage a round if there's 4 guys with no way to have extra AoOs; more if any of them can AoO more than once per round.

well you're also dealing 44 more damage, which ensure that whatever you're attacking doesn't last very long.

That's not including the fact that everyone wants to take me down b/c of my damage output.

I can't say for certain here, under Frank's rules, it really appears everyone has a large damage output or at least abilities that kill creatures outright, like save or dies.

With 70 HP they punch through my HP in a few rounds. I actually picked up Great Fortitude for the +1 HP/Hit Dice.

If it's more than two rounds, it probably doesn't matter. With Frank's rules, battles will be over very fast. PCs can do tremendous amounts of damage, and two PC class characters fighting is the equivalent of rocket launcher tag. Monsters do somewhat less damage, but are still chewed up rather easily with the offensive capabilities you've got. If you haven't killed the monster in 2 rounds or less, it probably means that it's way above your CR and you're fuxxored anyway.

Well, most of the party isn't able to deal mad damage. Yet. That and they might not know all of their classes tricks to do so.

Seriously, two of the rogue players who picked up Races of War's Point Blank Shot and Sniper were forgetting to add their BaB to damage on each arrow shot and I've had to remind them that they should be doing at least Str + BaB + Magic Enhancement + 1d8 damage (so, about 1d8 + 2 + 4 +1 = 8-15 damage, before sneak attacking).

Also, the group's composition (which varies vastly from session to session as only players who are there have their PC participate in any one session) is made up of:

1 Human Barbarian
1 Ogre Barbarian (who hasn't kicked up her damage thanks to rage dice due to her 4 giant levels)

3 Rogues (1 Teifling (ranged), 1 Bugbear (ranged), 1 human (TWF))

2 Clerics (1 Aasimar and evil, one human and followed by an ettin skeleton I helped him kill and then debone for him to animate)

2 Druids (their companions bite it so often from bad luck)

Plus a Savage Bard and an other player who had a knight but will remake his char as an other martial class (Samurai or Knight probably).