D&D 5E What Force Damage Tastes Like

[Fralex]

The flavor of force damage has always seemed a little unclear to me. It usually doesn't go any more in-depth than "this is pure magic damage," and that's not really helpful if you just want some idea of what it's actually doing to your body when it hurts you. I was puzzling over how force damage should be treated, and I came up with something I'm pretty satisfied with.

I was trying to imagine all the ways magic can hurt you, and then eliminate all the ones already represented by other damage types, and then it hit me: What's the most quintessential magic trick? The one thing everybody knows a magician can and will do? Make something disappear. When you take force damage, your wounds must be sections of your body that have just magically vanished from existence. It fits the flavor of disintegration magic, encompassing some of the most iconic force damage sources, and I can even sort of see why teleporting into a solid object would cause force damage; you're trying to make yourself exist in an impossible state.

It seems like force exists as both a type of matter (like Tenser's floating disc) and a type of energy (like disintegrate). Both have a strong connection to the Ethereal Plane, which creatures like ghosts and phase spiders rely on for their own disappearance-related powers.

I'm just really pleased with this theory, and I'm curious how others have treated force damage in their games.

 

[MarkB]

I always thought the name said it all. It's force - as in kinetic energy. You're using magic to punch something really hard.

 

[Lackhand]

I always thought the name said it all. It's force - as in kinetic energy. You're using magic to punch something really hard.

This matches how I've always thought about it too... Except then, shouldn't it be magical bludgeoning damage? Great against skeletons, bad against oozes?

Even if it doesn't really match the name, I like the idea of it being "disintegration" damage.

 

[El Mahdi]

I always thought the name said it all. It's force - as in kinetic energy. You're using magic to punch something really hard.

This is the way I've always envisioned it too.


And force damage tastes a little bitter and a bit nutty - with overtones of oak, vanilla and cinnamon.

 

[MechaPilot]

I always thought the name said it all. It's force - as in kinetic energy. You're using magic to punch something really hard.

That's how I've always seen it as well, although I have generally described it more like the concussive force from an explosion than the blunt force of a punch.

 

[Leatherhead]

It isn't kinetic energy, kinetic energy doesn't work all that well against ghosts.

The D&D world uses magic instead of physics. Force damage, like Magic Missile, or Disintegration, would likely work by destabilizing the magical equivalent of the Nuclear Forces in our world.

 

[not-so-newguy]

I always pictured it as similar to electricity, but not electricity. Ya'know, like Ghostbusters

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

It is pure magic. A fireball or lightning bolt or thunderwave is Magic manifesting the physical world to do harm, by harnessing fire, lightning, sound waves to inflict its damage. Force damage is when the corporeal world and its constituent elements are bypassed entirely and magic itself hits you in the face.
There is no simile for it, it just is.

It is capable of damaging the incorporeal because it exists at once in the physical and the metaphysical worlds.

What does it feel like to be struck by force damage?
How does a handshake smell? What colour is a decision? What shape is a quandary?

That's what force damage is.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I've always thought of it as kinetic but I really like your disintegration idea. From now on, in my game, Magic Missiles will be tiny arrows of negative matter which gradually ablate your flesh into nothingness. The term "force damage" is just a misnomer.

 

[Minigiant]

I think of it like more like kinetic energy that doesn't dissipate nor bounce off.
Force damage transfers its energy into your soul.
It literally hits you in the feels.
Even if you lack the feels.