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r/DnD•
eklu

How do you let your players know about damage reduction?

So I'm running a campaign, and my players are level 5. I'm starting to run into a lot of monsters I want to throw at them that have damage reduction of some sort. I was planning to let my players know about the damage reduction by mentioning "thick skin" or whatnot, but how should I let my players know what the monsters are vulnerable to? There don't seem to be hard and fast rules. I don't even see a pattern to what monsters are weak to silver or cold iron.

I was thinking something like a knowledge check, to let them know about the special qualities for the monsters. But then I run into the problem of them not having the right weapons. I was planning on including several demons pretty quickly, which would require silver, cold iron, or good weapons. We play on roll20, and I don't think it would be a huge breach of etiquette if I fiddled with their weapon types (each player insists on owning 5-6 weapons, that they'll never use).

If anyone has any better ideas for telegraphing DR or providing them with weapons, or even helping my figure out the difference between Cold Iron and Silver, I'd greatly appreciate hearing them.

Edit: 3.5

Posted Jul 1, 2015, 2:31 AM UTC · edited

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zanbatoDM•

That is actually one of the primary uses for knowledge checks, to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a monster. I think knowing about DR is DC 20, but it might be 25. If they don't have applicable knowledge though u/grimnir__ has some good suggestions.

As for silver and cold iron, typically silver is for undead and other "creatures of the night" like werewolves. Cold iron is for fey creatures.

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ekluOP•

Just looked at the knowledge skill. It says that remembering useful knowledge about a monster is a DC 10 + HD. Good call!

Although, for silver and cold iron, I was just looking at two monsters. A dretch is CE and has DR 5/Cold Iron, while a yeth hound is NE and has DR 10/silver. Neither is undead, a "creature of the night" (I think), or fey. So that's where my confusion stems from.

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zanbatoDM•

Right, I forgot about extraplanars. Demons, or other chaotic (evil) type extraplanars tend to be cold iron, good, lawful, or some combination, depending on how powerful they are. Devils and other lawful (or neutral, evil) planars are typically silver, good, or chaotic. At least with 3.5 and pathfinder, which is what I've mostly played with.

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JDuCalissonWarlock•

When you say "figure out the difference between Cold Iron and Silver," what do you mean?

In a recent campaign, I was a ranged attack character with both Cold Iron and Silver arrows. I was trying to figure out which one a Succubus would take damage normally from, but I failed my Knowledge roll, so I didn't know which would work. So I used Rapid Shot to fire both. Both hit, and here's what my DM said that was an obvious way to determine which did normal damage.

"The silver arrow hits, but the Succubus seems not to notice it. The cold iron arrow, however, hits and causes her skin to pop and sizzle, and she shrieks in pain."

Very often, a good way to let PCs know that something got past a creature's damage resistance(s) is to tell them that the creature looks surprised or even fearful. It always makes it seem like the creature wasn't expecting to get hurt and now knows just what exactly it's up against.

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MisterDrProfAbjurer•

That's almost exactly what they did in the order of the stick. The rogue in that used many shot to fire one of each at a succubus

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costumus•

I love that Haley never figured out which one was the right arrow.

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MisterDrProfAbjurer•

Yeah, twas great (even though cold iron is the correct choice)

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BleakFallsTransmuter•

A method my DM uses is that, if you're fighting a creature and your character would think they should be doing more damage, you get either a Knowledge check(in melee or mundane ranged attacks) or an Arcana check(if you're casting spells on it). Each will reveal different information if you succeed. For example, if you hit a monster that has immunity to Lightning damage and your character doesn't know, if you cast Lightning Bolt on it and hit, he'll say "The lightning hits him, but you're not sure whether or not it harmed him or not.". A successful Arcana check will reveal the immunity to you, where a failure returns a mere suspicion or no knowledge at all.

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grimnir__DM•

Descriptions do wonders, but you shouldn't forfeit a weakeness without significant investment. Creatures that are flesh and bone that have DR don't seem to bleed unless a threshold is reached. Mere scratches, if anything. Automatons and elementals take solid blows but appear unfazed by what should have been a massive blow or direct hit. You don't have to use hard numbers, or refer to DR when you describe what's going on. They'll catch on. Just give them a chance to run like hell when the battle isn't winnable, and they'll find a way to deal damage the next time.

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ekluOP•

That's true. I should probably give them a chance to retreat from the battle. That'll be difficult, because I know from past experience, my players assume that if I put something in front of them, they can kill it. Hopefully, I'll be able to subtly suggest that retreat is a good option.

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RTukkaDM•

It sounds like you're playing 3rd edition. There used to be a great resource on the WotC forums for 3.5 called the Monster Lore Compendium where users submitted Knowledge check results for basically every monster published, but now it seems that you have to access it through an cache/archival site like the Wayback Machine, which is slow.

In any event, try to get into the habit of calling for knowledge checks as soon as the PCs get a good look at the creature in question, because the PCs should be able to immediately identify and call to mind any pertinent knowledge about a monster as soon as they recognize it.

I don't think damage reduction should usually be any great secret though. Demons, devils, fey, dragons, lycanthropes and constructs are some of the creatures which most typically have DR, and usually they have DR of more or less the type kind; devils have DR that's typically overcome by alchemical silver or good weapons, constructs tend to have have their DR overcome by adamantine, dragons have their DR overcome by magic weapons, and so on.

I think these qualities would be pretty much common knowledge for adventurers at a certain point. As long as you could identify a creature's Type and subtype, you could probably make a reasonable guess about what it takes to overcome any DR it might have.

And I'd always inform the party of the fact that a creature has DR or resistance if they make a damaging attack that is affected by the DR/resistance. You can do it descriptively if you want, but I'd also always tell them outright, "this creature has DR." Of course that doesn't necessarily reveal what it takes to overcome the DR.

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