D&D 5E Thunder damage passing through silence?

[Satyrn]

I'd say that thunder damage is pretty much sound-based so if you suppress the sound, you will lose the additional Thunder damage.
I'd suggest you look into converting the Thunder Monger damage into another type, such as Fire damage before you start trying to suppress the sound of the cannon.

I'd be saying much the same thing if I was the DM here.

 

[kagayaku]

I'd be saying much the same thing if I was the DM here.

Same here. I love the idea though and would try to give the opportunity for it for the non-sonic weapons you mentioned. I'm not sure what the shape of the silence spells is but if you had two objects on either side of the barrel maybe you could suppress most of the sound directionally. ie:
[silence] [silence]
[silence]0[silence]
[silence] [silence]

Where the 0 is looking down the barrel of the gun :O

It would be super loud upwards, downwards, forwards and backwards, but sidewards there would only be the echo. It'd be quite hard to locate the origin by sound alone that way I imagine...

 

[Satyrn]

Same here. I love the idea though and would try to give the opportunity for it for the non-sonic weapons you mentioned. I'm not sure what the shape of the silence spells is but if you had two objects on either side of the barrel maybe you could suppress most of the sound directionally. ie:
[silence] [silence]
[silence]0[silence]
[silence] [silence]

Where the 0 is looking down the barrel of the gun :O

It would be super loud upwards, downwards, forwards and backwards, but sidewards there would only be the echo. It'd be quite hard to locate the origin by sound alone that way I imagine...

I'd go with that. It would make it more like a realworld silencer, queiter than normal, but not completely silent.

 

[Zeoh]

Wow, thanks for all the replies everyone. I have a lot to consider now for this idea... which I've also started considering a private sanctum spell for. (not sure if the silent component of that would work any differently for thunder or not)

Starting to wonder if the thunder damage is considered "vibrations" and if those vibrations are simply suppressed while traveling through the silence, reactivating on the other side. It'll be something on the back burner for now. Thanks everyone again for all of the input.

Guess I'll put more thought into some other ideas, such as an enclosed and focused continual flame in a small attachment box/cylinder with a shutter (tactical flashlight attachment), or even a modification in the same way to a lantern of revealing...

 

[Satyrn]

Just don't forget that no matter what we might say, your DM may be fine with it.

Your question anout how thunder damage works is a very table-specific thing. It will vary by group.

 

[Tormyr]

If I were your DM (which I obviously am not), I would allow the silencer to be a 1/day silence spell on the gun. So it would have applications in addition to just silencing the gun.

As for the thunder damage, if memory serves, all thunder damage (or nearly all) is accompanied by text that says it is audible up to 300 feet away. So even if the thunder damage could pass through the silence spell, it would still be audible when the projectile strikes something.

Part of my ruling would be dependent on whether the gun is enchanting the ammunition (a la a bow adding fire damage to an arrow) or the ammunition does the thunder damage (exploding ammunition). I would probably have the thunder damage stripped if it was the former and not if it was the latter.