About special metals (cold iron, adamantine etc.)

[imminence]

I could be wrong, but as far as I remember from NWN 2 etc. we could penetrate anything with an adamantine weapon.

So, if something "required" cold iron to be killed, it worked the better with adamantine.

Now, is my memory false or is there a difference in pathfinder?

Something else:

For certain were-XY type beasts, which require cold iron, too, it was enough to deal more damage than the reduction could absorbe.

But then there was that dragon in the cave at the bridge: He was down but kept regenerating until Linzi poked him with her cold iron dagger, did one or two damage and killed him.

When I read the description of cold iron, it says "...stops the regenerating..."
... but when I do more damage than something regenerates?

I guess, you can see my small confusion. Perhaps someone could enlighten me respectively refresh my memory.

Thx in advance !

[Mauman]

Apples and oranges.

Admantine essentially let's you get through hardness...simple enough.

Cold Iron is used for stopping certain monsters from regenerating so you can actually kill them.

Explanation - there are certain enemies that are for all intents and purposes immortal. Do as much damage as you like, they'll eventually get up (there might be limits to this, I haven't tested it). You need to stop their ability to regenerate with whatever they're weak to (like trolls and fire/acid).

edit - excuse me tired got my terms mixed up. In my defense Hardness and DR are VERY similar mechanics. Also, I'm talking about regeration of particular monsters not universal, so I AM right about that nym.

[nym_moondown]

Adamantine ignores HARDNESS when damaging objects if the hardness is less than 20, but has no effect on DR other then DR Adamantine. (tabletop at least).

In pnp cold iron doesn't block regeneration.

[Entropie]

Originally posted by nym_moondown:

In pnp cold iron doesn't block regeneration.

False, for example the PnP rulebook entry for the Crag Linnorm lists
regeneration 10 (cold iron)

[nym_moondown]

This is not a property of cold iron, but of the regeneration of Crag Linnorm (and other fey/creatures maybe)

[Entropie]

If you mean that cold iron will not stop regen of all monsters automatically (as would be the case with any specific material) you should phrase it as such, the way your statement read was that it has no impact on regeneration ever.

[nym_moondown]

Ok, you have a point :) But still/also saying that cold iron weapons stop regeneration is wrong, because they just stop some kinds of regeneration and not for example regeneration originated from other fonts, like spells/magic items.

[Entropie]

I think the confusion steams from the fact that no one here actually claimed cold iron would work against everything.

The op just cited a exerpt of the in game description for the purpose of explaining their confusion and Mauman correctly stated that only "certain" monsters would be affected.

[solthusx]

To answer the second part of the op's question, that's due to how Regeneration works in this system. Basically, a creature with Regeneration only takes non-lethal damage from all sources except whatever bypasses their Regeneration ability (they also constantly recover hit points, except those lost to whatever can deal lethal damage to them). You can beat them into unconsciousness through any means, by can only actually kill them through whatever ignores their regeneration. 'Regeneration' as we normally see in other settings (continuous restoration of health without the 'not dying' part') is defined as 'Fast Healing' in D&D/Pathfinder.

Note that Regeneration does not prevent death from effects that can kill without doing HP damage (stat damage, instant death spells, negative levels, etc)

[Entropie]

Also, in this game, negative energy hp-damage, like the one inflicted by cause wounds spells, seems to circumvent all regeneration.

[imminence]

Hmmm.. complicated, but I think I understand now better.

Then I must complain:

I have a truckload of adamantine weapons (lvl 16, after Pitax), but except one dagger +1 which I found when I had lvl 3 at Old Sycamore and a special sickle from the Bloom-campaingn I have ZERO cold iron weapons.

So, I must finally buy these +1 wepons from the dwarfen trader in my town...

[Entropie]

As you noted in the initial post:
Having one such weapon equipped is already enough to be able to kill the creature and for the purposes of overcoming the DR it should suffice to just have at least +3 enhancements on your weapons.

So there is probably no need for you to stock up on cold iron weapons that late in the game.

Furthermore, there are some monsters later on which are even harder to kill, though those are all unique encounters as well.

So making sure to have access to some of the other listed means is more important:
- negative damage effects like cause wounds
- negative level effects like enervation (though you would need a lot of casts)
- stacking ability damage effects (easiest when you have a rogue which can deal 2 str damage on each sneak attack)
- death effects

[imminence]

I have plenty of +4 and even +5 weapons, but I was steamrolled by the first encounter with the "Wild Hunt".

I reloaded after I saw that entry "Cold Iron" in the inspect-window and gave my shield master main, who usually has a falcata that old sickle and could kill the first scout.
The rest was killed by my custom monk, whose fists count as ... well, everything at that level.

At this time Valerie had the "Incorruptible Petal", a +5 Glaive but was not very successful with it.

BTW, enervation seems to be one of the "main" spells in this game. Most hard fights I win because of

"Sneak attack! Linzi drained xx levels from...." :)