Why is a creature in a silence spell immune to thunder damage if it is concussive damage? And why do you get blasted back by a Thunderwave spell cast into silence even if you take no damage if the silence were to negate the concussive force?
something something harmonics something somethingDo you want a real science explanation for magic?
We could concoct one, if you like, but it would only be a pleasant story to ease your fevered brow. It would not mean anything, or be true.
In the rules, the spells only do what they say they do. So, thunder damage is silent unless specified otherwise.
I choose to follow verisimilitude in this case. A fireball can be seen kilometers away in the night when cast on a mountaintop, despite, err, providing no light by RAW. Same with sound-emitting spells. If a bell tolls, it is going to be heard. I know it's neither the wording nor the intent of the rules.
In general, I hold that magically-created things die off much faster than physical ones You could view it as being effectively "double-decayed": the magic that permits the phenomenon to happen decays at some rate as you move away from the source, and the effect itself then also decays as you move away from the source.
It is magic.How loud is thunder damage in your game? How far away can it be heard?
In the real world - in typical outdoor conditions: Artillery and volcanoes have been heard from nearly 200 miles away. Thunder can be heard up to 10 miles from the lightning strike. A typical person's voice can be intelligibly heard nearly 600 feet away, and heard unintelligbly miles away (and over calm water in still air there are reports of screaming behind heard as far as 10 miles away).
With that in mind: Do you read the last part of the Thunderwave description ("...and the spell emits a thunderous boom audible out to 300 feet") as the thunder being magically limited to 300 feet because, you know, a thunderous boom can usually be heard much further away ... or do you treat it as the boom can be heard further than you might expect - as far as 300 feet away? And how do other sounds impact this distance - is it the same if you're in Limbo's howling winds or a silent dungeon?
Similarly, Thuderclap can be heard 100 feet away. With all due respect to the spell, give me a soda and I'll generate a sound that can be heard more than 100 feet away.
Many spells that deal thunder damage do not give a distance at which they can be heard. Booming Blade, Destructive Wave, Shatter,
The PHB describes thunder damage as a concussive burst of sound. Is it mostly concussive, or mostly sound for you?
There is not a lot of guidance in the official rules. The DMG notes that the ringing in the ears caused by a Thunderwave spell might be enough to give a PC disadvantage on a perception check performed after the spell has been cast - so clearly it makes a lot of noise, right?
Why is a creature in a silence spell immune to thunder damage if it is concussive damage? And why do you get blasted back by a Thunderwave spell cast into silence even if you take no damage if the silence were to negate the concussive force?
And what about the attacks of monsters that deal thunder damage - most of them do not specify a range at which they can be heard.
No right answers are possible, obviously, as any answer contradicts something - so which wrong answers do you apply?
Maybe we need to add rules for more granular representation of sound, the same way we do for light.It is magic.
If you are standing 299 feat away from thunderwave it sounds like lightning sruck at arms length. At 301 feet it is library quiet. The magic that creates the spell also dampens its effect outside its area of effect.
If two npcs are talking to each other with one on either side of the border one is going to say ;"holy moly what was that"? And the other will say; "what was what?"
What bothers me more about these spells is that thunder is almost completely divorced from lightning in the rules. Spells like Lightning Bolt and Call Lightning don't deal thunder damage or even state that they make noise.
I can see the scope for the odd sonic-damage spell, and smaller lightning-only effects like Shocking Grasp, but I'd like to see these damage types combined more often than not.