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

[Enevhar Aldarion]

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

Tell that to Bilbo and Frodo. They did slashing with their short sword Sting. The way they so easily hit things with it, Sting may have even been vorpal.

Anyway, just because a bladed weapon only lists its primary type of damage as either piercing or slashing, does not mean it cannot also do the other, unless the weapon description specifically says it either does not have a point or does not have an edge. Or various hammers or axes with the hammer head or axe blade on one side and a spike on the other for penetrating armor. Some weapons are not limited to the damage type listed if it is common sense, and common knowledge of design, that they can do more than one type. A dagger can slash, a scimitar or longsword can pierce, a spear can do bludgeoning in trained hands, etc. Honestly, I would laugh at a DM who said my character's sword could only ever do piercing or slashing damage, and not both.

 

[RangerWickett]

It's a rather large change to the rules, but I've tinkered with a critical hit system that makes damage types more prominent. It will slow combat down a bit, and I'm not sure it's worth it. I haven't had a chance to try it since Corona.

First, in order to have crits happen more often, now a crit happens on a nat 20 or if you have advantage and both rolls hit.

Second, instead of dealing extra damage, crits have one of four effects. You choose, but different weapon types are better at certain types of effects.

• Bleed.
• Daze.
• Dent.
• Wound.

Bleed causes the creature to take damage equal to its hit dice at the start of its turn. It can make a Constitution saving throw at the end of its turn to end the bleeding, or a creature can spend an action and make a Medicine check to end the bleeding. The DC is 8 + your proficiency mod. If you inflict bleed with a piercing weapon, increase the DC by 5.

Daze causes a creature to be unable to take reactions and its speed is reduced to 0. It lasts for one round. If you inflict daze with a bludgeoning weapon, the creature also suffers disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks.

Dent works for any weapon type equally. You damage something on the target, which might mean a weapon can’t be used, or might break off a piece of armor (or natural armor) reducing the target’s AC by 2. Or you could break some magic item they have.

Wound causes an injury. Roll 1d6 to determine location (and tweak based on monster type). If you’re wounding with a slashing weapon, roll twice and pick which body part you hit.

1. Eyes.
2. Mouth.
3. Chest.
4. Primary Arm.
5. Secondary Arm.
6. Legs.

When a creature is wounded, it makes a Consitution saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency mod). If it succeeds, the wound only affects until it takes a long rest. If it fails, the wound is permanent.

Eyes blind the creature for a round. Thereafter, the creature treats everything as having concealment.

Mouth means the creature cannot speak (such as to cast spells) or make bite attacks or breath weapons for a round. Thereafter it has disadvantage on attacks with the mouth (or saves against such attacks have advantage) and it cannot speak above a whisper.

A wounded chest cracks some ribs, inflicting a level of exhaustion.

A wounded arm drops what it’s holding, cannot be used to do anything for one round, and thereafter has disadvantage on anything its used for.

A leg wound knocks a creature prone and reduces its speed to 0 for a round, and thereafter halves its speed.

---

The thing is, this works fine with enemies who might last a few rounds, but it’s kind of pointless for weaker foes. It’s all very tentative now.

 

[bedir than]

I think I'm working towards a handful of subclasses that gain a bonus to damage for these damage types.
So a Monk that gets +1 damage with bludgeoning. A Barbarian that gets a +1 damage with slashing.

I want a small change that connects with the narrative around a subclass. Not quite Fighting Styles (though that might be a good place for these!).

 

[Todd Roybark]

Heavy Armor Mastery would give 3 points of DR to physical damage.

Fair enough. The quatloos are yours...well played.
Just having ‘Physical’ damage is a bit vague for my tastes.

Regardless...the point of having to specify damage is the same. Wether you are saying “3 slashing damage and 6 fire damage” or “3 Physical damage and 6 fire damage”seems to be a trivial change to me.

 

[Minigiant]

Tell that to Bilbo and Frodo. They did slashing with their short sword Sting. The way they so easily hit things with it, Sting may have even been vorpal.

Anyway, just because a bladed weapon only lists its primary type of damage as either piercing or slashing, does not mean it cannot also do the other, unless the weapon description specifically says it either does not have a point or does not have an edge. Or various hammers or axes with the hammer head or axe blade on one side and a spike on the other for penetrating armor. Some weapons are not limited to the damage type listed if it is common sense, and common knowledge of design, that they can do more than one type. A dagger can slash, a scimitar or longsword can pierce, a spear can do bludgeoning in trained hands, etc. Honestly, I would laugh at a DM who said my character's sword could only ever do piercing or slashing damage, and not both.

Well there is very very few applications for PSB damage type. So a DM ruling that you can slash with a rapier means nothing.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I always got the sense that they had brought in a weapons table from a past edition in preparation for working on it during the run-up to 5E's release, but then just never got around to completing the work on it. We just need to look at the unnecessary trident to see that there was probably meant to be something done but just never happened.

BPS probably was intended to be a bigger thing (more monsters having resistance or vulnerability to one or more of the three) but they just ran out of time to implement it.

As to why it's there at all then? Same reason I suspect as like why the individual specific items for Material components are listed-- not ever going to be used by 99% of the tables, but for the 1% who really wants to delve into it and make it into a bigger thing, why not help them out by giving it to them?

 

[Oofta]

As others have stated, it doesn't matter except for a few iconic monsters.

Another reason they may not have is that they found out through surveys people didn't care or thought it was too finicky. In previous editions it sometimes felt like you had to carry a small golf-bag of weapons depending on what you hit. It kind of goes hand in hand with simplifying things that don't really matter design goal.

Easy enough to add in of course if you want to as a DM, but as others have pointed out it shouldn't really matter all that much very often. Hammers and axes typically had a spike on the back end, rapiers were not epees and could do slashing at least to a degree and so on.

 

[Dausuul]

As to why it's there at all then? Same reason I suspect as like why the individual specific items for Material components are listed-- not ever going to be used by 99% of the tables, but for the 1% who really wants to delve into it and make it into a bigger thing, why not help them out by giving it to them?

Because it bloats the statblocks of an absurd number of monsters, making them harder to read, which is one more small bit of DM brainpower devoted to processing the rules. In the Monster Manual alone, there are over 60 monsters with some variant of resistance or immunity to S/P/B.

This is a small cost, it's true. But if your position is "why not do something to benefit a tiny fraction of tables," even a small cost is enough to answer "why not."

 

[tetrasodium]

Because it bloats the statblocks of an absurd number of monsters, making them harder to read, which is one more small bit of DM brainpower devoted to processing the rules. In the Monster Manual alone, there are over 60 monsters with some variant of resistance or immunity to S/P/B.

This is a small cost, it's true. But if your position is "why not do something to benefit a tiny fraction of tables," even a small cost is enough to answer "why not."

There's a section in the PHB that draws attention to how badly they dropped the ball on making B/P/S more meaningful or imparting some form of value elsewhere.

I don't think there are any monsters in monster manual/volos/ggtr/etc that explicitly say their attacks count as magical & if there are I'd be surprised if that number can not be counted on one hand (possibly with fingers left over). Even the hack of magic/nonmagic B/P/S damage couldn't swing enough interest to bother finishing it into something interesting.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Because it bloats the statblocks of an absurd number of monsters, making them harder to read, which is one more small bit of DM brainpower devoted to processing the rules. In the Monster Manual alone, there are over 60 monsters with some variant of resistance or immunity to S/P/B.

This is a small cost, it's true. But if your position is "why not do something to benefit a tiny fraction of tables," even a small cost is enough to answer "why not."

Yeah, well, what's done is done. Nothing we can do about it now unless folks just want to start stumping for getting BPS either removed or enhanced for 6E in another ten years.