D&D 5E Spell damage = magical damage?

So far we've been running that a spell that does piercing, slashing or bludgeoning damage, that damage is non-magical except when the spell specifically says otherwise. Same with energy damage from spells (aka the magic of the fireball spell brought the flames here, but the flames are still just flames).

But were we doing it right? Would an ice knife actually ignore Heavy Armor Master? Would a fiendlock's Fiendish Resilience be of such limited use as every spell goes through?

Whether or not spell damage is magical or not is entirely irrelevant to resistances and immunity. Heavy Armour Master and every creature I have seen with resistance or immunity to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage are safe from "bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons." Whether or not spell damage counts as magical doesn't matter because it is not damage from a weapon.

Edit: I'm assuming that your question is relating to how it interacts with resistance and immunity, and not how it would interact with other spells (such as Detect Magic or Antimagic Field).

Edit 2: To answer your examples, Ice Knife is not a weapon, and therefore bypasses all resistance to nonmagical weapons such as HAM and most piercing resistant monsters (though not raging barbarians). Fiendish Resilience would resist magical damage so long as that damage is not coming from a magical weapon. For instance, it could resist the fire damage from Fireball, the piercing from a peasant's dagger, or the lightning from a blue dragon's breath, but not slashing damage from a +1 longsword or bludgeoning from a flesh golem.

Edit 3: Hopefully my last edit. As far as I can tell, there is no difference between magical and nonmagical for any damage types except bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing, and even those only care if it is a weapon dealing damage. Burning Hands and a flaming building both deal fire damage, and there is no mechanical effect of one being magical and the other not (correction: it matters for some creatures' Magic Resistance trait). Poison damage from an assassin's blade, a green dragon's breath, and the Poison Spray cantrip are also all the same.

I think you're doing it right but I can't find any confirmation in the Sage Advice Compendium.

EDIT: Whoops, misread your post. I'm pretty sure spell damage is assumed to be magical, but HAM and Barbarians get to resist it anyways if it's in their resistances. Still can't find support for my position, though.

Jaelommiss said:

Whether or not spell damage is magical or not is entirely irrelevant to resistances and immunity. Heavy Armour Master and every creature I have seen with resistance or immunity to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage are safe from "bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons." Whether or not spell damage counts as magical doesn't matter because it is not damage from a weapon.

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Good point. Thanks

Whether the piercing damage from Ice Knife counts as "weapon" damage at all (let alone "magical") is really up to the DM, but IMO it is not. It's a ranged spell attack; I'd rule that in general any attack that keys off a spell ability modifier is inherently magical and not a weapon attack of any sort.

I always figured fiendlocks would be choosing an energy type like "fire", in which case they'd definitely resist a fireball (I don't see how a fireball could be a magical or silvered weapon). I suppose they could also choose "piercing", in which case I'd rule that they do, in fact, resist the piercing damage of Ice Knife, but they wouldn't resist a +1 dagger.

Spell damage is magical damage. Linky

AaronOfBarbaria said:

Spell damage is magical damage. Linky

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Thanks