James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
I can weigh in on this, in the game I'm currently playing, Scarlet Citadel by Kobold Press, our group often encounters enemies with resistances to various damage types (including non-magical weapons). Even though my Wizard isn't focused on damage at all, the DM often announces I do a ton in battles; magic missile against oozes, that one devil we fought, and last session, just bashing a flaming sphere against something every turn while we were fighting trolls and some kind of undead wolf that is resistant to nonmagical piercing and bludgeoning (but not slashing! Amazing!). We finally got some magic weapons for the Ranger and the Monk, so I hope that helps, but it's been a drag and we just hit level 5.Probably.
My basic point always remains the same though- people REALLY need to canvas their own groups. Track the damage output in your games for the next twenty or thirty rounds of combat. The results are very surprising. Heck, I was convinced that the Artificer in my group was dealing far, far more damage than she actually was. Her character was right in line with everyone else - it just seemed to my gut that she was dealing massively more damage than everyone else.
But, I did my due diligence. I tracked the damage output over twenty rounds of combat. And, I always count area damage as totals, not individual, so, hitting three targets with an AOE counts as triple. And, it turned out that nope. Her character was in line with everyone else. Any variation could be pretty easily explained (the bard, for example, focused on charms and battlefield control far more than any actual damage resulting in a much lower damage output, understandably).
I strongly suggest to everyone to track it. Fighters really do come in far lower than people seem to think and are very much not the top damage dealers.
I'm the only source of energy damage other than radiant or necrotic, and I find it seriously unfair. Non-magical characters should have good ways to reliably deal energy damage, but the game doesn't even have fire arrows in the PHB, thus forcing you to ask the DM questions like "hey can I make a flaming arrow?". Against a Troll, the Ranger had to ask if he could dual wield with a torch like Aragorn does in the Fellowship movie!
Ironically, AD&D had options like this; the Complete Thieves' book had this stuff called weaponblack, intended to keep blades from reflecting light sources at night, but even it says you can light the stuff on fire to turn a weapon into a non-magical Flametongue for a few turns (if you're willing to take d6 fire damage each turn for holding it!).
Heck, 3.5 had an extensive list of alchemical items for a wide array of circumstances, perfect for someone to spend money on. 5e barely has anything!
