Silver weapons do less damage?

[Quasqueton]

I just found this interesting and unexpected note in the 3.5 SRD [emphasis mine]:

Silver, Alchemical: A complex process involving metallurgy and alchemy can bond silver to a weapon made of steel so that it bypasses the damage reduction of creatures such as lycanthropes.
On a successful attack with a silvered weapon, the wielder takes a -1 penalty on the damage roll (with the usual minimum of 1 point of damage). The alchemical silvering process can’t be applied to nonmetal items, and it doesn’t work on rare metals such as adamantine, cold iron, and mithral.

Was this in 3.0? What is the reasoning for this?

Quasqueton

 

[DM2]

I'm no real words weapon expert, but it sounds reasonable to me.

You take a perfectly good sword and coat it with silver...perhaps it isn't as sharp as it could be without the silver.

In exchange, you can bypass DR/Silver.

DM2

 

[Magic Slim]

I think they re-introduced the AD&D 2nd edition notion that silver weapons are not as effective as their steel counterparts, that was left out in 3.0 (you can check the description of the Dagger, silvered, in the equipment chapter of the PHB).

IIRC, in AD&D, you didn't have a damage penalty, but your weapon had a chance of bending / breaking / becoming dull and useless if you used it all the time.

Although I find it reasonable that silver slashing and piercing weapons might not be as effective as their steel equivalents, a bludgeoning weapon, IMO, shouldn't be penalized by being made out of another material...

Slim

 

[Quasqueton]

Most rules adjustments aren't made to be "realistic". They are usually for a balance issue.

That's why I asked why this rule was made. I mean, how can you penalize an alchemical silver addition to a steel sword because of "realism" when the other options for weapons are adamantine and mithral and magic enhancement? Where's the realism that says adamantine weapons bypass hardness, or mithral weapons are lighter, or magical weapons do their thing.

I was presuming there was a balance reason for the penalty to damage.

Quasqueton

 

[Camarath]

Magic of Faerun has magical silver as a special material which has no penalty and does +1 damage vs. creatures with DR/silver but it costs +1000gp. It is from a 3.0 supplement but I don't see why it couldn't be used in 3.5.

 

[Camarath]

I was presuming there was a balance reason for the penalty to damage.

Well DR changed in 3.5 making silver weapon much more useful. Let us compare some DR types and the cost of a weapon that can overcome that DR.

DR/Magic - 2000
DR/Cold Iron - x2 base weapon cost +2000 if any magical enhancements
DR/Adamantine - 3000
DR/Silver - 2 Ammunition/20 Light weapon/90 One-handed weapon/180 Two-handed weapon

 

[buzzard]

Most rules adjustments aren't made to be "realistic". They are usually for a balance issue.

That's why I asked why this rule was made. I mean, how can you penalize an alchemical silver addition to a steel sword because of "realism" when the other options for weapons are adamantine and mithral and magic enhancement? Where's the realism that says adamantine weapons bypass hardness, or mithral weapons are lighter, or magical weapons do their thing.

I was presuming there was a balance reason for the penalty to damage.

Quasqueton

Actually what cheeses me about the new DR fules is how they nerfed adamantine. Also the silver rule is in direct contradiction of how they changed adamantine.

It used to be that since adamantine was stronger/harder it got +1 or +2 natural enhancement bonus depending on the weapon damage die size. This was sensible since there were also provisions that bronze and stone weapons would receive minuses compared to the steel baseline. Now, I guess since they didn't want adamantine to be too expensive since it's almost a must have, so they had to take away the natural enhancement bonus (can't get something for nothing). Of course throwing in the bypass hardness thing was just a token compensation.

Now logically if we are changing adamantine to not have a natural enhancement bonus, how can we have silver have a natural minus? This is inconsistent. They should have just made it have a low hardness, and kept it at that. The mentioned point that bludgeoning weapons should not be affected is another hole in the logic of this move.

Overall I am not at all taken with the new DR rules. I don't understand why they allowed someone to screw with the system is such a drastic, yet pointless manner.

buzzard

 

[hong]

Most rules adjustments aren't made to be "realistic".

This one was.