D&D (2024) The problem with weapon damage resistances.

[TwoSix]

How bizarre. Isn’t encouraging players to have different weapons for different situations and preventing over reliance on a singles favored weapon the point of material resistances (and weapon damage type resistances, for that matter)?

The problem is that the idea of preparing different tactics and logistics for various challenges sounds like a fun part of the game, but runs into the in-table reality that people mostly just want to hit things. And the players who really do like the preparation and logistical aspects of the game tend to play casters anyway.

Differentiating by equipment made more sense in the old-school eras because your ability to mechanically differentiate your characters was so limited; in modern games with multiple axes of customization it becomes much less necessary. Also, characters having "signature weapons" became a thing when weapon specialization became a rule, and is pretty much prevalent for warrior types across the broad spectrum of fantasy media.

So yea, sounds good in theory, but way too many trends push against it being a thing.

 

[payn]

The problem is that the idea of preparing different tactics and logistics for various challenges sounds like a fun part of the game, but runs into the in-table reality that people mostly just want to hit things. And the players who really do like the preparation and logistical aspects of the game tend to play casters anyway.

Differentiating by equipment made more sense in the old-school eras because your ability to mechanically differentiate your characters was so limited; in modern games with multiple axes of customization it becomes much less necessary. Also, characters having "signature weapons" became a thing when weapon specialization became a rule, and is pretty much prevalent for warrior types across the broad spectrum of fantasy media.

So yea, sounds good in theory, but way too many trends push against it being a thing.

A damn shame really. I greatly dislike the idea of having a signature weapon that the character is absolutely screwed if its ever disarmed and/or destroyed. I kind of miss the days equipment had unique properties, but going gonzo on a single weapon wasn't built into the mechanics. I prefer that to be loaded into character side progression and stay off equipment so it can do cool things.

 

[Charlaquin]

The problem is that the idea of preparing different tactics and logistics for various challenges sounds like a fun part of the game, but runs into the in-table reality that people mostly just want to hit things. And the players who really do like the preparation and logistical aspects of the game tend to play casters anyway.

Differentiating by equipment made more sense in the old-school eras because your ability to mechanically differentiate your characters was so limited; in modern games with multiple axes of customization it becomes much less necessary. Also, characters having "signature weapons" became a thing when weapon specialization became a rule, and is pretty much prevalent for warrior types across the broad spectrum of fantasy media.

So yea, sounds good in theory, but way too many trends push against it being a thing.

Oh, I understand that. It just seemed odd in the context of 3e to 3.5. Course, it turns out the person I was responding to got it backwards, which makes more sense to me.

 

[Undrave]

Can I just say I think it's dumb that a Skeleton would take less damage from a slashing weapon? You're still swinging at it with a chunk of metal! Almost every weapon should, realistically, have the option to deal bludgeoning damage. Heck, even just holding a dagger and punching should be like clocking someone while holding a roll of quarter in your hand.

How bizarre. Isn’t encouraging players to have different weapons for different situations and preventing over reliance on a singles favored weapon the point of material resistances (and weapon damage type resistances, for that matter)?

This is what gets you the "golfbag" warrior – a concept I personally like where a professional warrior would use different weapons for different foes ("the right tool for the job"), but I recognize that many didn't like it. Then you get Pathfinder 1 which adds in the concept that certain pluses count as different materials as well.

Magic weapons are just a toggle. There is nothing interesting about them.

See, I like the concept of a warrior with multiple options that brings them out when it's more favourable... but as a game mechanic in D&D it's REALLY boring. As Sulicius say, it's a toggle. It only comes up once in a while, if you have a magic weapon it all disappear, and the best thing it can do is have you waste a turn switching weapons.

In the end, it's not a true decision point, it's not in any way more interesting that just choosing between a club (single handed, d4), a short sword (single handed, d6) or a rapier (single handed, d8). If there's no incentive to pick the lower damage weapon then why would you EVER do that? That's not a choice, it's a speed bump. Itdoesn't make the experience of attacking with a weapon any more rich or engaging so it's essentially a wasted piece of design.

I don't know the solution to that, but I'm sure there's a way to make weapon types matter.

So what is the problem that we're trying to solve here? Do we want the game to become more complex and spend more time on what we already do now? Do we want flavor to have more effect on the rules? Do we want to make monsters stronger, as CR is a total shitshow?

That's a good question. Is there more to this weapon damage thing and the associated resistance that's not just nostalgia pandering? Is there a game design reason it's there?

 

[Undrave]

The problem is that the idea of preparing different tactics and logistics for various challenges sounds like a fun part of the game, but runs into the in-table reality that people mostly just want to hit things. And the players who really do like the preparation and logistical aspects of the game tend to play casters anyway.

That and the game mechanic doesn't actually reward you for thinking this way beyond a few corner cases, with the most common being "enemy be way over there=use ranged weapon I'm not as good with"

Even a Fighter's fighting style barely interacts with weapon properties.

 

[Laurefindel]

The problem is that the idea of preparing different tactics and logistics for various challenges sounds like a fun part of the game, but runs into the in-table reality that people mostly just want to hit things. And the players who really do like the preparation and logistical aspects of the game tend to play casters anyway.

Differentiating by equipment made more sense in the old-school eras because your ability to mechanically differentiate your characters was so limited; in modern games with multiple axes of customization it becomes much less necessary. Also, characters having "signature weapons" became a thing when weapon specialization became a rule, and is pretty much prevalent for warrior types across the broad spectrum of fantasy media.

So yea, sounds good in theory, but way too many trends push against it being a thing.

To be fair, players enjoying the logistical aspect of the game tend to play casters because we're removing every logistical decision-making from martials...

Personally, I like signature weapons both as a player and as a DM, but I accept (and ask that my players expect) that there will be times when that signature weapon won't be part of the solution to a problem at hand. I'm also fond of spells or alchemical components that can transform the properties of a weapon temporarily. But vulnerabilities could also come in different format than just the material or esoteric property of a weapon. As mentioned earlier, vulnerabilities could take more poetic/folkloric significations such as "while inside a circle" or "under moonlight at full moon", or "as long as the sun shines", or "while bathing in the high tide", or whatever.

 

[Charlaquin]

Can I just say I think it's dumb that a Skeleton would take less damage from a slashing weapon? You're still swinging at it with a chunk of metal! Almost every weapon should, realistically, have the option to deal bludgeoning damage. Heck, even just holding a dagger and punching should be like clocking someone while holding a roll of quarter in your hand.

I agree. If you wanted to really get into the weeds with it, you could give each weapon a damage rating with each damage type. Maybe a longsword does d8 slashing or d8 piercing but only d6 bludgeoning, for example. But that would be a lot of extra details for not much benefit. Personally, I rule that you can use a weapon to deal whatever damage type makes sense for the weapon. If doing so would require you to use it in a manner contrary to its design, it might count as an improvised weapon.

See, I like the concept of a warrior with multiple options that brings them out when it's more favourable... but as a game mechanic in D&D it's REALLY boring. As Sulicius say, it's a toggle. It only comes up once in a while, if you have a magic weapon it all disappear, and the best thing it can do is have you waste a turn switching weapons.

In the end, it's not a true decision point, it's not in any way more interesting that just choosing between a club (single handed, d4), a short sword (single handed, d6) or a rapier (single handed, d8). If there's no incentive to pick the lower damage weapon then why would you EVER do that? That's not a choice, it's a speed bump. Itdoesn't make the experience of attacking with a weapon any more rich or engaging so it's essentially a wasted piece of design.

I don't know the solution to that, but I'm sure there's a way to make weapon types matter.

I agree with this as well. I think damage types can be made to matter, but it takes a lot more adventure design work. Just slapping some weaknesses and/or resistances on some monsters and calling it a day results in what you describe here. To make damage types really matter, you have to design adventures like The Witcher 3. Monsters have to be like puzzles, where brute-forcing your way past their resistances is very nearly futile, and finding their weaknesses is a quest in and of itself.

That's a good question. Is there more to this weapon damage thing and the associated resistance that's not just nostalgia pandering? Is there a game design reason it's there?

In D&D I think it’s mostly nostalgia pandering. You could make it matter, but it would take a lot of adventure design work and what you would end up with would look very different than your typical high-adventure D&D campaign.

 

[Charlaquin]

To be fair, players enjoying the logistical aspect of the game tend to play casters because we're removing every logistical decision-making from martials...

So much this. As a player, I’m absolutely the sort who prefers that kind of logistical play, and I generally find martial characters conceptually more interesting, in part because they should theoretically have to do more of that type of thinking to compensate for lacking the versatility of magic. But the actual mechanics don’t bear that out. The need for logistical thinking has been almost entirely streamlined out of the game, and even casters mostly don’t have to worry about it with neo-vancian casting.

Personally, I like signature weapons both as a player and as a DM, but I accept (and ask that my players expect) that there will be times when that signature weapon won't be part of the solution to a problem at hand. I'm also fond of spells or alchemical components that can transform the properties of a weapon temporarily.

Heck yeah! Crafting special oils to coat your sword with or whatever sounds like my kind of game!

But vulnerabilities could also come in different format than just the material or esoteric property of a weapon. As mentioned earlier, vulnerabilities could take more poetic/folkloric significations such as "while inside a circle" or "under moonlight at full moon", or "as long as the sun shines", or "while bathing in the high tide", or whatever.

Yeeeeeeeessssssss!!!

 

[Staffan]

Can I just say I think it's dumb that a Skeleton would take less damage from a slashing weapon? You're still swinging at it with a chunk of metal! Almost every weapon should, realistically, have the option to deal bludgeoning damage. Heck, even just holding a dagger and punching should be like clocking someone while holding a roll of quarter in your hand.

The idea is that the damage from a sword to a large degree is the result of a sharp object slicing into your soft flesh and organs (for the moment we're ignoring the debate about hit points being meat or skill), and if you don't have soft flesh or organs the sword is going to be less effective – so, half damage.

If you wanted to be more realistic you could look at a game like the Swedish RPG Eon, where most weapons can do either slashing, crushing, or piercing damage, but many do significantly more damage of one type. For example, a spear deals basic damage (a calculated value depending on your stats, usually 2d6 to 4d6) +1 when used to deal crushing or slashing damage, but basic damage +3d6 piercing. So unless there's a really good reason to do otherwise, you're going to deal piercing damage with your spear.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Hmmm...

I'm not sure they completely disregard damage types in the game as much as you think. I understand why you can get that impression, though.

Thumbing through the Monster Manual, you can see that basically a creature resistant against one physical attack is resistant to all of them. But if you look at player-facing options, its not completely as all-encompassing.

Barbarian's rage resists all physical damage, but Fiend warlock's resistance only let's you choose one. So if a warlock is expecting to fight, say, a snake, they can resist bludgeoning against their constrict or piercing against their bite but not both.

That...would seem to be even less representation than the MMs. Based on what sources are available to me (which are reasonably comprehensive), as far as I can tell there are less than two dozen monsters in all of 5e that have only partial physical resistances (that is, they resist at least one of those three types, and do not resist at least one of the other two)--and that's counting unique named creatures that are just copying the base form (e.g. there's apparently a flaming skull NPC of some kind, that inherits those characteristics).

To be represented in all of one class seems even less relevant than it would otherwise be. You'd have gotten better results from citing the fact that a large number of spells do at least one of those types of damage. Meaning...spellcasters are now more deeply-invested in the physical damage types than melee characters are. Yet another case of "if you want to do it right, be a spellcaster," le sigh.

Magic items are the same. It's pretty easy to get a physical resistance, but it's fairly hard to get all three of them without using up all your attunement. Which makes sense. Most of these resistances don't discriminate against magical/nonmagical and even if they did, most creatures use nonmagical damage.

In other words, offensively, they're kinda monotonous but defensively, there is room for meaningful choices.

The bigger problem, of course, is that attuning a magic item only to get resistance to one damage type is a huge waste. Like, you've shown that the limit is present, but because of that limit, almost no one is going to seek out that benefit. There are dramatically better benefits than "maybe taking less damage some of the time."