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View Full Version : Altering DR [3.5]



Koury
2010-09-27, 07:18 PM
I've been thinking of changing the way DR works to be a flat % of damage reduced, instead of a flat amount. For example, a Skeleton would have DR 50%/Bludgeon. You hit it by 10 with your sword, it takes 5 damage. Round down, minimum 1.

I'd most likely be assigning the %'s on a case by case in my campaigns, but is there some hidden downside to doing this I should be aware of? Thoughts on the idea in general?

Susano-wo
2010-09-27, 07:27 PM
The only thing I would take into consideration is that its going to be even harder to fight critters with DR unless you have the bypass, so you might want to up some XP if people defeat one that they don't have the DR for

DaMullet
2010-09-27, 07:34 PM
I think 50% may be a bit much for a "standard skeleton", but you might consider scaling it with the HD of the monster. Further, you might need to tinker with the percents until you get something closer to the 5 it currently is... All in all it should make combat with many weak-DRed monsters faster, but depending on how you scale it it will make combat with high DR monsters like vampires a serious pain for any party without a magic silvered weapon.

SurlySeraph
2010-09-27, 08:00 PM
Having to calculate a percentage for every hit could get annoying, especially for builds based around making lots of attacks. Plus this weakens fighter-types a lot, and thus increases the melee-caster imbalance. It also makes having ways to overcome DR (Metalline weapons, Bless Weapon, Mountain Hammer, etc.) pretty much mandatory, meaning melee-ers will need to spend more.

Overall, this sounds like a pretty bad idea to me.

Chipp Zanuff
2010-09-27, 08:29 PM
Having to calculate a percentage for every hit could get annoying, especially for builds based around making lots of attacks. Plus this weakens fighter-types a lot, and thus increases the melee-caster imbalance. It also makes having ways to overcome DR (Metalline weapons, Bless Weapon, Mountain Hammer, etc.) pretty much mandatory, meaning melee-ers will need to spend more.

Overall, this sounds like a pretty bad idea to me.

Seconded.


Consider reducing die sizes (1d8 to 1d6, 2d6 to 2d4, then to 1d8).

Koury
2010-09-27, 08:54 PM
See, I liked the idea of puting focus on having the right weapon for the job.

The 50% was just an arbitrary number, not what I intended to use. For things like werewolves, yeah, like 50% seems good to me. They're supposed to be hard to kill without the right weapon, right? Skeletons, maybe like 25%

Though, at lower levels, that DR 5 is awful close to 50% anyway. It makes the fight harder unless you're equipped right. I dislike losing that as levels go up.

As for Melee/Caster imbalance, I'm not really trying to fix that here (and haven't had it be an issue for me personally either way), though I appreciate it being pointed out.

Reducing die size, while interesting, I feel won't do much in the end. So little of overall damage comes from the dice, usually.

Hmm... Instead of this, perhaps some form of bonus damage for having the right equipment? Maybe both?

lsfreak
2010-09-27, 11:31 PM
I thought about doing this, and switching all DR from 1-10. It's kind of a % system, but I think it would work better. For every DR they have, that much damage is subtracted per 10 hit points they take. So take a monster that has DR3:
Hit for 3. Takes no damage on damage counts 1, 2, 3, for 0 total.
Hit for 4. Takes no damage on damage counts 1, 2, 3, for 1 total.
Hit for 12. Takes 7 damage (no damage on counts 1, 2, 3, and no damage on counts 11, 12).
Hit for 82 damage. Takes 56 damage (Takes no damage on counts 1, 2, 3; 11, 12, 13; 21, 22, 23; etc. This can be replicated with a quick and simple 7 points of damage per full 10 rolled, so 56 damage. Extra for the last non-full-10 would then the added, but that's 0 this time, for a total of 56 damage.)

Tyndmyr
2010-09-28, 01:09 AM
See, I liked the idea of puting focus on having the right weapon for the job.

The 50% was just an arbitrary number, not what I intended to use. For things like werewolves, yeah, like 50% seems good to me. They're supposed to be hard to kill without the right weapon, right? Skeletons, maybe like 25%

Though, at lower levels, that DR 5 is awful close to 50% anyway. It makes the fight harder unless you're equipped right. I dislike losing that as levels go up.

As for Melee/Caster imbalance, I'm not really trying to fix that here (and haven't had it be an issue for me personally either way), though I appreciate it being pointed out.

Reducing die size, while interesting, I feel won't do much in the end. So little of overall damage comes from the dice, usually.

Hmm... Instead of this, perhaps some form of bonus damage for having the right equipment? Maybe both?

Problem is, DR scales in a funky way. It's really powerful at low levels, not so important in mid levels, and is on nearly everything at high levels. Also, things like DR/slashing are mostly replaced at high levels by things like DR/evil, so the type of DR changes too.

So, there's no good way to match it up to any percentage. I get what you're trying to do, and it's a worthy goal, as D&D generally doesn't differentiate well between weapons, but unfortunately, the system wasn't designed to make it easy to fix that.

As an alternative solution to making the weapon types more varied, I suggest giving each of them a small bonus, in a manner similar to WoW's talent trees, on natural 20s. Perhaps slashing weapons get a couple bonus damage, bludgeoning weapons have a chance to stun, etc. Also, using weapon groups from UA is a good way to promote somewhat more variety among player weaponry.

Susano-wo
2010-09-28, 02:24 PM
For what its worth, I really like the die lowering idea. It makes weapons mess effective, while still allowing you to do things against critters with DR.

Also, any ida that differentiates between weapons is cool by default :P (ONe of the things I really liked about RollMaster was different crit tables for the weapon types, which meant, in practice, that most rolls got different results for different weapon types)

Kindof an aside, but I think it would be awesome to, at least for some critters like Vampires and Werewolves, do Regen that is blocked by damage by the apropriate weapon. Makes things very scary when the werewolf is healing before your eyes after you just dealt what should have been a devastating blow.

Ruinix
2010-09-28, 02:38 PM
nice but over all, DR is another lame way to punish the non-caster PCs.

Steveotep
2010-09-28, 04:28 PM
This is how skeletons and zombies worked in 3.0, but not anything else.

Koury
2010-09-28, 04:35 PM
nice but over all, DR is another lame way to punish the non-caster PCs. Yes, thank you. This is both a useful insight and contributed to the topic at hand.


For what its worth, I really like the die lowering idea. It makes weapons mess effective, while still allowing you to do things against critters with DR.

Also, any ida that differentiates between weapons is cool by default :P (ONe of the things I really liked about RollMaster was different crit tables for the weapon types, which meant, in practice, that most rolls got different results for different weapon types)

Kindof an aside, but I think it would be awesome to, at least for some critters like Vampires and Werewolves, do Regen that is blocked by damage by the apropriate weapon. Makes things very scary when the werewolf is healing before your eyes after you just dealt what should have been a devastating blow. Thing about lowering die size is it lowers expected damage by a grand total of 1 per step. Oh no, my d10 sword only does d8?! OK, I PA for 1d8+18 instead, I guess.

Regen, however, is another interesting idea that makes sense for some, but not others (the skeletons bones just mended?)

A level 1 fighter fighting a human warrior skeleton (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/skeleton.htm) with DR 5 deals, say, 1d8+4 and hits on a 10. Thats ~2 damage/round. Change the DR to 25% and it goes up to ~3.5 damage per round. So at lower levels, it actually becomes easier to kill with this.

I feel like this makes it easier for lower op parties because they can still hurt that DR 60% high level monster instead of being inable to overcome its DR 30, but makes DR still relevent for higher op (melee) parties because it a percentage, not just "only 30 of my 300," if that makes sense.

EDIT: And if you have the right kind of weapon, which is the thing I'm encouraging in the first place, its all irrelevent.

Seffbasilisk
2010-09-28, 04:39 PM
I thought about doing this, and switching all DR from 1-10. It's kind of a % system, but I think it would work better. For every DR they have, that much damage is subtracted per 10 hit points they take. So take a monster that has DR3:
Hit for 3. Takes no damage on damage counts 1, 2, 3, for 0 total.
Hit for 4. Takes no damage on damage counts 1, 2, 3, for 1 total.
Hit for 12. Takes 7 damage (no damage on counts 1, 2, 3, and no damage on counts 11, 12).
Hit for 82 damage. Takes 56 damage (Takes no damage on counts 1, 2, 3; 11, 12, 13; 21, 22, 23; etc. This can be replicated with a quick and simple 7 points of damage per full 10 rolled, so 56 damage. Extra for the last non-full-10 would then the added, but that's 0 this time, for a total of 56 damage.)

I like this idea. It combines both the OP's intent, and the way of DR ignoring small attacks.

Aside from that, if you just make it a flat %, you miss a lot of it, as the housewife with the wooden spoon who thwacks the skeleton for 2 damage, actually does something to it? Just seems to feed into the Death Of A Thousand Cuts (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeathOfAThousandCuts) mentality.

Susano-wo
2010-09-28, 06:01 PM
yeah, I get that what you are wanting to do actually makes reducing the pain in the ass of DR counterproductive :P

And you are right about the Die-size thing. It sounds cool, but most people don't get a lot of damage out of their weapon die. (in 4th it might be a decent penalty, but that's irrelevant ^ ^). The % of total damage thing is actually pretty cool though, the more I think about it, and both consistantly penalizes while ensuring that you generally always do *something*

Finally, yeah, it can be hard to justify the regen on some monsters (though, I can easily see a zombie nearly having its head lopped off, righting it on its head and fibrous fleshy cords knit themselves together to reattach the neck.

If something's too pathetic to actually dael damage, I would just count it as a non-attack. Like the housewife with a spoon. I wouldn't allow it to do actual damage to a normal creature, much less undead, etc. (unless it was the wife of Jackie Chan.....:D)