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<blockquote data-quote="Stormonu" data-source="post: 9041052" data-attributes="member: 52734">I think the issue with the Ranger fire arrows you mentioned was simply bad DMing, but a lot of D&amp;D is hooked on the premise &quot;if you don't have it on your character sheet, you don't have it&quot; - and similarily, if it isn't on the PHB equipment list, it can't be bought.&nbsp; There's a whole school of thought on &quot;be prepared&quot; in D&amp;D that expects players to have thought of or researched everything before going on an expedition - this includes not only equipment, but spell choices as well.&nbsp; Changing damage types on the fly is seen as a form of cheating for those in this school of thought/play.&nbsp; It sounds like in your DM's case it an unwillingness to allow creativity, possibly from fear of abuse (even though mundane fire arrows are pretty much a staple of movies and real life, since forever).As for the scarcity of damage type, that is somewhat reflected in the rarity of resistance to the damage type, and carrier effects.&nbsp; Poison tends to do the highest amount of damage because it has the greatest occurrence of resistance and/or mitigation.&nbsp; Force spells tend to be rare because there's almost no resistances to it.&nbsp; Radiant tends to be restricted to Divine casters but is designed to have no resistances against it; damage tends to be low-capped.There's a couple sorcerous options to change spell damage types and a handful of subclasses that do substitutions, but overall its relatively restricted to prevent monster resistances/immunities from being invalidated by the PCs switching from A to B easily, as needed.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Stormonu, post: 9041052, member: 52734"] I think the issue with the Ranger fire arrows you mentioned was simply bad DMing, but a lot of D&D is hooked on the premise "if you don't have it on your character sheet, you don't have it" - and similarily, if it isn't on the PHB equipment list, it can't be bought. There's a whole school of thought on "be prepared" in D&D that expects players to have thought of or researched everything before going on an expedition - this includes not only equipment, but spell choices as well. Changing damage types on the fly is seen as a form of cheating for those in this school of thought/play. It sounds like in your DM's case it an unwillingness to allow creativity, possibly from fear of abuse (even though mundane fire arrows are pretty much a staple of movies and real life, since forever). As for the scarcity of damage type, that is somewhat reflected in the rarity of resistance to the damage type, and carrier effects. Poison tends to do the highest amount of damage because it has the greatest occurrence of resistance and/or mitigation. Force spells tend to be rare because there's almost no resistances to it. Radiant tends to be restricted to Divine casters but is designed to have no resistances against it; damage tends to be low-capped. There's a couple sorcerous options to change spell damage types and a handful of subclasses that do substitutions, but overall its relatively restricted to prevent monster resistances/immunities from being invalidated by the PCs switching from A to B easily, as needed. [/QUOTE]

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