D&D 5E Damage Types Are Lame

[Jeff Carlsen]

I always thought it would be cool to give each armor variable AC or resistance based on damage type. Sure, it's more complicated, but it would give a natural reason to choose different weapons. That is, of course, assuming that you want weapon choice to be tactical instead of flavor.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I always thought it would be cool to give each armor variable AC or resistance based on damage type. Sure, it's more complicated, but it would give a natural reason to choose different weapons. That is, of course, assuming that you want weapon choice to be tactical instead of flavor.

The big problem with resistance/vulnerability is that it's such a huge swing. When you're doing literally double the damage with one weapon as you would with another, it tends to overwhelm all other factors and you're forced into a golf bag scenario. But anything less significant than that, and you get into the fiddly little modifiers that just add bookkeeping.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I always thought it would be cool to give each armor variable AC or resistance based on damage type. Sure, it's more complicated, but it would give a natural reason to choose different weapons. That is, of course, assuming that you want weapon choice to be tactical instead of flavor.

Sure, and it would be slightly less involved than the weapon vs armor type adjustments of 1e - instead of each weapon, it'd just be each of the three damage types.

Historically, for instance, piercing weapons like picks, crossbows, the lucern hammer, lance, and estoc were good at, well, piercing heavy armors.

You might combine the two. Piercing weapons having a penalty to hit heavy armor like plate, but plate getting little resistance against them, while slashing weapons hit more easily but vs more resistance.

 

[happyhermit]

...
Kinda makes damage types pointless for most encounters.

Why did the developers make damage types so lame?

Because for most people the opposite (a constant mini-game of "guess that damage type") is more lame. As to your other point, yeah I would say not even "kinda", but that as presented in the default, it actually does makes damage "types" (b/p/s not all the other "types" like ranged/melee etc.) pointless for most encounters, by design. 4e got rid of it but they chose to bring it back because it is interesting to most people, in small doses, and as mentioned above it lays the groundwork and provides tools to GMs who want to make it a more important part of their games.

I mean, I have seen this myself way before 5e was a thing. Players encounter something that resists a certain damage and they scramble to adjust their tactics, and they have a great time especially if it is something that "makes sense". By the fifth time they encounter that type of monster it is no longer a very interesting part of combat and a bit of a pain. If every monster or even every second monster ends up being resistant/vulnerable to a particular damage type then most players just tune it out or deal with it like any other uninteresting overhead, grabbing the right club from their golf bag. Some players and some Gms and some types of games might really want to have this as a major aspect of play, and the framework is there for them, which is great but making it that way by default is "lame" for most people.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Is there an uncomplicated homebrew way to add these to monster stats, or does every single monster need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis?

You could do whole swaths of them. Monsters w/o functional internal organs - elementals, constructs, undead - resist piercing, for instance (and, since there's a complaint that ranged combat is too powerful, and the best ranged weapons, bows & crossbows, are piercing...).

 

[Satyrn]

The big problem with resistance/vulnerability is that it's such a huge swing. When you're doing literally double the damage with one weapon as you would with another, it tends to overwhelm all other factors and you're forced into a golf bag scenario. But anything less significant than that, and you get into the fiddly little modifiers that just add bookkeeping.

Aye. I think the ultimate result of any focus on damage types will be to have every warrior carrying a warhammer, battleaxe and rapier, and round one will have him drawing the likely best, round 2 will have him trying the second most likely and round 3 will have him drawing out the rapier and cursing the weird game logic that makes a pointy little pinprick so much more devastating to this hobgoblin halfdragon than a warhammer

 

[BoldItalic]

It's not to do with mechanics. It's to do with the narrative. You describe attacks differently depending on the type of weapon you are wielding.

Throg the barbarian whirled his mighty warhammer around his head and uttered the battle cry of his tribal forefathers but the hideous orc merely curled its upper lip in a sneer as it raised its iron shield high to counter the blow. The shield bore the signs of many such hammer-blows. It has stopped them all.

"I stab it with my hammer," announced Throg, "Upwards under its shield, straight into its ribcage."

"Wut?" said the DM.

"Well, you house-ruled away damage types, so if I can do stabbing with a dagger, I can do stabbing with a warhammer, can't it?

"Er ..."

 

[Hawk Diesel]

I do think it would be interesting that for every creature with a specific resistance or immunity, there is at least one type that they are vulnerable to. That could add some interesting stuff to combat. Because then the minute your DM describes damage as being less effective than you might expect, you start trying different energy types until you find the right one. And then you can have the rare boss or big bad that might be resistant or immune and doesn't have an accompanying vulnerability.

Of course, this only works if your players don't have access to monster stats. It also helps if you allow your players to do recon to discover potential vulnerabilities.

 

[Sunseeker]

These days I mostly use resistances and such for thematic reasons. I rarely use whats in the MM anyway, choosing to create my own monsters more fitting to my campaign. I want my players to feel like they can't just brute-force their way through everything and that finding the "right tool for the job" can be tricky, but more rewarding.

 

[Azzy]

The examples in the Monster Manual form the foundation for what DMs can include at their own table. By including the different damage types, and examples of how a monster can be resistant or vulnerable to some but not others, it sets a precedent for how those types of monsters will work when they are designed. If the system lacked the language to differentiate between slashing and piercing damage, it would be much more difficult for a DM to bring in straw golems (as an example).

I dunno, we did okay in bD&D and AD&D 1e without damage types.