Is radiant damage classed as normal damage?

[Ryujin]

The easiest way to think of it is that damage is damage. The type of damage may have greater or lesser effects on specific targets, but it's all just damage.

Our Cleric has a Metric tonne of radiant powers and always holds back on things that aren't vulnerable to radiant, because he thinks that he won't really do anything. It's still damage and contributes to winning the encounter.

 

[Nichwee]

Lasers are high intensity visible light. It's not the wavelength, it's the amount of light.

Not actually true.

First, lasers can be of any wavelength (Infrared being common in remotes).

Second, lasers get their strength from coherence, not intensity. A 10 Watt light bulb isn't good enough to read a book by normally. A 10 Watt laser can probably burn through the book. It is the fact that lasers are focused, and that the light waves are in synch, so each photon enhances the effect, that makes them impressive.

 

[Eldorian]

Not actually true.

First, lasers can be of any wavelength (Infrared being common in remotes).

Second, lasers get their strength from coherence, not intensity. A 10 Watt light bulb isn't good enough to read a book by normally. A 10 Watt laser can probably burn through the book. It is the fact that lasers are focused, and that the light waves are in synch, so each photon enhances the effect, that makes them impressive.

TV remotes use a light emitting diode, not a laser (otherwise you'd never be able to hit the receiver and would never be able to change the channel). I was talking about intensity of light received, not of emitted, which I suppose is properly called irradiance (which is still a measure called intensity), and the vast majority of lasers emit light in the visible and near infrared spectrum.

Laser, the acronym, means light, not inferred, which would be an iraser, but this naming convention never caught on. Though it'd be cool to fry some aliens with my graser. Maser initially meant microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, but has come to mean something else, and masers emit light in other spectrum now.

 

[BASHMAN]

Radiant damage hurts everything- undead are usually just especially susceptible to it.

 

[CapnZapp]

All kinds of damage hurts every kind of creature, except where specifically noted.

There is nothing like "all fire creatures are extra hurt by cold damage", "undead are immune to light spells" or even "fire creatures are immune to fire damage".

Unless a monster is listed as having an immunity, resistance or vulnerability, treat all types of damage as just damage.

In 4E, a cold creature and a fire creature takes fire damage just as everybody else. It's just that a fire creature is likely to be resistant to fire damage.

Vulnerability is far less common in 4E - most cold creature is no more damaged by fire damage than, say, acid. Or being thumped on the head by a hammer (untyped damage). The main exception is that most undead is vulnerable to radiant damage. This does not mean other pairings exist.

Outright immunity is also very much uncommon in 4E. Mostly, you'll see creatures immune to things like fear, disease, or poison - which aren't damage types. Precious few fire creatures will be completely immune to fire, for instance.

 

[Jhaelen]

However, there's one thing that is slightly bothering me:

Not all energy types are equally useful. I've recently read the E1 module 'Death's Reach'. It's selection of monsters is a bit ... one-sided. Almost every monster in this adventure is vulnerable to radiant. That's imho bad design, but it's also something that can easily happen if you're trying to have a certain theme for your encounters in an adventure.

Given the choice between two powers, one dealing radiant damage and one dealing, say, cold damage, I'd always pick the radiant one. At the opposite of the spectrum is probably poison - lots of monsters seem to be resistant or even immune to it.

In other words: The inequality of energy types is a remnant of system mastery I could do without.

I also find it puzzling that untyped damage always seems to be the best choice. Nothing is resistant, vulnerable or immune to it specifically (i.e. there's resist all, of course).

 

[CapnZapp]

In other words: The inequality of energy types is a remnant of system mastery I could do without.

Not I.

The "inequality of damage types" is simply another tool to create variety.

Now, if designers weren't taking this into account, then you'd have a point. But as far as I am aware, indications suggest that fire and necrotic attacks are indeed valued lower than other types of damage.

For one thing, they're very roughly available more easily and at lower levels. The fact divine characters do well against undead I would guess is balanced by the fact they do very slightly worse against all others.

In short: making all types of damage equally useful would be boring. Removing types of damage would be boring.

The remaining question is: is the extra challenge in designing play balance (and encounter balance!) worth this greater variety?

 

[DracoSuave]

Fire damage has feats available at lower levels that allow it to negate resistance. Also, Tieflings.

I wouldn't call 'More reliability' to mean 'Less capable.'

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Various damage types have their various niches. Some are overall better (radiant) or worse (poison) in the sense that they are more or less resisted by monsters in general.

That being said many types evince a theme. Radiant works well against undead. Thunder often pushes, dazes, or stuns. Cold often slows or weakens. Acid and fire are often ongoing. Poison often imposes a variety of debilitating conditions and/or ongoing damage.

There are specific feat paths that work well with specific damage types too, like frostcheese (Wintertouched and Lasting Frost). Its hard to say which types overall are "best". Radiant in isolation is probably better than the others, but remember that radiant powers take this into account (or should at least) and are presumably overall a bit weaker.

I agree with CapnZapp, variety is worth the price of an occasional difficulty formulating a good challenging encounter vs a specific party. The DM can take this into account though. Plus undead tend to be fairly nasty opponents in their own right, so its not clear its a problem.

 

[Doctor Proctor]

However, there's one thing that is slightly bothering me:

Not all energy types are equally useful. I've recently read the E1 module 'Death's Reach'. It's selection of monsters is a bit ... one-sided. Almost every monster in this adventure is vulnerable to radiant. That's imho bad design, but it's also something that can easily happen if you're trying to have a certain theme for your encounters in an adventure.

Given the choice between two powers, one dealing radiant damage and one dealing, say, cold damage, I'd always pick the radiant one. At the opposite of the spectrum is probably poison - lots of monsters seem to be resistant or even immune to it.

In other words: The inequality of energy types is a remnant of system mastery I could do without.

I also find it puzzling that untyped damage always seems to be the best choice. Nothing is resistant, vulnerable or immune to it specifically (i.e. there's resist all, of course).

As others have pointed out, there's some balancing effects going on that help out with this. That, and many powers have rider effects in addition to the typed damage.

In the example of fighting a lot of undead though, yes, lots of radiant damage will be beneficial. However, I bet there will be quite a few of those undead enemies that use necrotic or cold powers, which aren't as easy to gain resistance to as say, fire. So, while you'll be blasting away with radiant damage, they might be doing things like hitting you with nasty necrotic attacks that you have no defense against. Or alternatively, the adventure might include a lot of hard hitting brutes or enemies of higher levels because a party with some radiant damage will be able to deal with them easier than if they were mundane creatures.

As for which damage types are the "best", that's complicated. There was a damage resistance chart for the MM1 on EnWorld awhile back that broke it down, and if IIRC it went something along the lines of Force/Psychic, then Acid, Radiant, Thunder, Cold, Lightning, Fire, Poison, Necrotic? Or something like that...

Even still though, sometimes you get surprised. When I rolled up my Dragonborn Fighter I went with Acid damage for the breath weapon and said to my group "Because nobody resists Acid!", and then of course we promptly ran into a group of Acid resistant Kobolds in the second encounter of KotS. So even though one damage type might be the least commonly resisted type in the MM, that doesn't mean your DM can't make an encounter or two full of monsters resistant to that damage type.