D&D 5E Does Slashing/Piercing/Bludgeoning even matter?

[tetrasodium]

Are these legacy traits at all useful mechanically, or are they there so that we understand the narrative behind the weapon?

Asking, because I've considered a subclass that specializes in one of these (as opposed to light, finesse, ranged).

There is almost no mechanical difference between damage types. Piercing is needed for sneak attack & there are a number of monsters you could probably count on one hand with fingers left over that have some special reaction/treatment of a particular damage type... Other than that, the only meaningful damage type split is nonmagical Bludgeoning, Piercing, & Slashing vrs magical Bludgeoning, Piercing, & Slashing. That boneheaded design choice was a big blow to 5e.

In past editions you had things like a lot of creatures that had dr5/$damageType or dr5/+1 meaning that the first 5 points of any attack you make with a different damage type or weapon that was not at least +1 were nullified so a player would need to weigh the tradeoffs of using their +3 slashing sword of awesome vrs a zombie* with dr5/slash or pull out their not so nice backup slashing weapon (maybe someone's old slash/pierce +1 dagger vrs a greatsword). That had he added benefit of changing how elemental weapons functioned so if Alice had a +1 hevy mace with 1d6 elemental damage attached to it might deal 1d8 bludgeoning and 1d6 fire. That was great at dealing with trash & mook type baddies & remained a good option even if the d8 was subtracting 5 points every attack but against a high AC target Bob with his +3 dagger who was just good at dealing with trash/mook baddies is great at dealing with high AC types. Meanwhile in 5e that flaming mace does 1d8+1 magical bludgeoning and 1d6 fire against everything and is better than bob's +3 dagger in nearly every way against virtually every creature.


Also going in favor of bob's 3.5 dagger is that alice did double damage on a crit & only got a crit on a 20 while bob did doube on a crit if he rolled a 19 or 20. Chuck by contrast might have a rapier or scimitar that does 1d6 damage, crits for double, but crits on an 18-20. Dave's battleaxe i 1d8 & he's really feeling awesome when he rolls a 20 for3x damage & Dave's Heavy pick that does 1d6 crits on a 20 & does 4x crit damage. Those are examples from 3.5's weapons allowed different subjective qualities to make a really magic weapon not as good or differently good than some other magical weapon where in 5e one is objecively better than the other in all ways or entirely unsuitable to someone (ie not heavy, not light, one/two handed rather than two/one handed). 4e weapons also had some of those subjective qualities but the systems are so different that it's more difficult to make simple comparisons

*just an example

 

[Dausuul]

There is almost no mechanical difference between damage types. Piercing is needed for sneak attack...

Not even there. Sneak attack requires a finesse or ranged weapon; there is no requirement to deal piercing damage. A rogue can sneak attack with a sling for bludgeoning damage, for example.

 

[tetrasodium]

Not even there. Sneak attack requires a finesse or ranged weapon; there is no requirement to deal piercing damage. A rogue can sneak attack with a sling for bludgeoning damage, for example.

thanks for the correction

 

[TheCosmicKid]

If you use poisons, they have to be applied with slashing or piercing damage.

 

[Kurotowa]

EDIT: Found it, it was on rpg.net and there were 8 monsters in the monster manual, armor of vulnerability, and one vague reference in the DMG to objects having resistance/vulnerability/immunity to certain damage types at DM discretion.

Sounds about right. The only times I can remember it coming up are against skeletons at low level and when the DM applies a restriction to attacking objects. You can't smash a door with a piercing weapon and you can't cut a rope with a bludgeoning weapon, that sort of thing. It's why my characters often have a backup dagger for if they need to do some cutting.

But yeah, in general at this point it's one of those vestigial legacy things that rarely comes up and mostly pads the word count because you can't just say "physical damage".

 

[Charlaquin]

Sounds about right. The only times I can remember it coming up are against skeletons at low level and when the DM applies a restriction to attacking objects. You can't smash a door with a piercing weapon and you can't cut a rope with a bludgeoning weapon, that sort of thing. It's why my characters often have a backup dagger for if they need to do some cutting.

But yeah, in general at this point it's one of those vestigial legacy things that rarely comes up and mostly pads the word count because you can't just say "physical damage".

I feel similarly about the b/p/s distinction to how I do about alignment. It has the potential to be interesting if the rules do something with it, but if they don’t then why is it there?

 

[Minigiant]

A vorpal sword has to be slashing.
So no vorpal shortswords and rapiers

 

[Fenris-77]

Vorpal Rapier. Lets all agree to just never use those two words together any more, K?

I don't feel the need for physical damage types generally, so I'm happy to give the good ol' handwave treatment and move on. It's a level of detail I don't really want to deal with. Back in the day I was all over it, a weapon for this, a weapon for that, and a hockey bag of holding to carry them all around. Every combat was like the Sommelier scene from John Wick.

Pardon me sir, can I suggest something in an enchanted hammer for the opening course of skeletons? And perhaps something sharper for the second course, a Sword of Wounding perhaps? And to finish, something classic, something bold - a Mace of Disruption is always in fashion.

Now I'm like meh, paperwork. Lotta weapons. Sorry you have what and what now? I got bored half way through your inventory. Yeah, yeah, stick him with whatever you have handy, it'll work fine.

 

[Kurotowa]

I feel similarly about the b/p/s distinction to how I do about alignment. It has the potential to be interesting if the rules do something with it, but if they don’t then why is it there?

Because evolution, in life or in game editions, is never a clean process made with the benefit of hindsight. The design mandate for 5e was to made an edition that "felt like D&D" and could bring back a lot of the lapsed players that 4e had lost. So first they crammed in a bunch of the traditional oddities of D&D that had become signature flourishes over the decades, and then tried to find constructive uses for them. In some cases they succeeded. In others they didn't.

So yeah, weapon damage types are pretty pointless. Maybe when we get 6e in another ten years it'll find a use for them, or maybe it'll do away with them entirely. For now, though, they take up pretty little space and don't cause any real inconvenience, so it's a pointless little detail I don't mind existing.

 

[tetrasodium]

I feel similarly about the b/p/s distinction to how I do about alignment. It has the potential to be interesting if the rules do something with it, but if they don’t then why is it there?

Agreed. If they were going to reduce them to 1-2dwhatever hurt & magical hurt they should have added various subjective mechanical qualities elsewhere that were capable of being more interesting & useful than a true/false "this functions for my character". I don't get the paperwork complaint though because it's not like adding b p or s next to the damage die/dice is a heavy level of documentation. It would have been a truly stupid choice if saving people from writing one letter was why they removed practically any mechanical impact from damage types other than a vanishingly small selection of specific creaturres