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<blockquote data-quote="Kurotowa" data-source="post: 7568699" data-attributes="member: 27957">It's a rabbit hole with a deep bottom once you start chasing it. Why does a Rogue's Sneak Attack not work but a Battlemaster's maneuvers do? Why do weapon attacks do variable damage against a creature with no vital points? Why do weapon attacks do damage at all against magically animated collections of inanimate matter?As Ovinomancer reminds us, damage is a poorly defined abstraction. There's always been a tug of war between HP as Meat Points versus Luck Points. Introducing what are ultimately arbitrary restrictions about who's damage works when is a dangerous road. It's one thing when a creature has Fire Resistance to encourage the Wizard to pull out a different spell for once, a smart Wizard doesn't ever go all in on one element. But flat out discarding Sneak Attack is like telling the Fighter &quot;No, I know you're 12th level, but you only get one attack a round against this monster.&quot;D&amp;D draws from its Sword &amp; Sorcery roots the principle that swords work on everything, with the concession that sometimes a sword doesn't work as well as it should unless it's a magic sword. Fighters take the attitude of &quot;Keep hitting it until it stops moving&quot;, while Rogues are specialized along the principle of &quot;Stab you once where it really hurts&quot;. There's no good reason, either narratively or mechanically, to invalidate just one of those.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Kurotowa, post: 7568699, member: 27957"] It's a rabbit hole with a deep bottom once you start chasing it. Why does a Rogue's Sneak Attack not work but a Battlemaster's maneuvers do? Why do weapon attacks do variable damage against a creature with no vital points? Why do weapon attacks do damage at all against magically animated collections of inanimate matter? As Ovinomancer reminds us, damage is a poorly defined abstraction. There's always been a tug of war between HP as Meat Points versus Luck Points. Introducing what are ultimately arbitrary restrictions about who's damage works when is a dangerous road. It's one thing when a creature has Fire Resistance to encourage the Wizard to pull out a different spell for once, a smart Wizard doesn't ever go all in on one element. But flat out discarding Sneak Attack is like telling the Fighter "No, I know you're 12th level, but you only get one attack a round against this monster." D&D draws from its Sword & Sorcery roots the principle that swords work on everything, with the concession that sometimes a sword doesn't work as well as it should unless it's a [I]magic[/I] sword. Fighters take the attitude of "Keep hitting it until it stops moving", while Rogues are specialized along the principle of "Stab you once where it really hurts". There's no good reason, either narratively or mechanically, to invalidate just one of those. [/QUOTE]

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