D&D General Splitting, reshuffling, and creating new damage types

[Minigiant]

that is why I sad, except boring humanoids

Ugh, no thanks.

There's no reason a goblin should be immune, resistant, or vulnerable to anything.

When 5.5e goblins are fey.

So they should have vulnerability to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from cold iron weapons if WOTC had.. (gestures) to do it.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

My point though is that there is no narrative. No "story". It's simply a keyword. You as the player say "My longsword did 13 points of "juju damage" (insert whatever keyword you want in place of "juju")... and if the monster has Resistance to Juju then they say "It looks like the monster didn't take the full amount from your swing" and they halve the damage before subtracting it from the HP of the monster. That's it. That's the extent of it.

That use of the word "Juju" is meaningless. So it does not actually matter how many of those keywords the game has... they are all just random words that the DM needs to remember to trigger halving damage, and the authors of the Monster Manual have to remember to insert into more monster statblocks under the Resistances and Immunities line.

I got to say that is not how I (as a player) nor the other players in my group feel. We absolutely build the narrative out of the mechanical bits like fire and thunder damage

 

[CreamCloud0]

When 5.5e goblins are fey.

So they should have vulnerability to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from cold iron weapons if WOTC had.. (gestures) to do it.

true, but at the same time while that's a vulnerability it's not also including a resistance and immunity on them too.

also, weapon materials are the elemental damage of martials and i think they should've been a basic mechanic in the 5e14 original books.

 

[Minigiant]

true, but at the same time while that's a vulnerability it's not also including a resistance and immunity on them too.

also, weapon materials are the elemental damage of martials and i think they should've been a basic mechanic in the 5e14 original books.

Fey
Resistance: Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage from vermin and wooden or cursed weapons
Resists: Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage from cold iron weapons, Poison,
Immunity: Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage from dragons

 

[Silam]

I think more types could be interesting, but I’m especially hoping for more interactions between types… and hopefully more spells for the under-represented types.

If we think of the "classical 4" elements of air, earth, fire, water… why is fire the only one we have in the game? Because the other three are not so obviously causing damage, but they should!

Water can make you drown, or can even be bludgeoning at high enough pressure.

Air can wreck structures which also end up causing physical damage. Air pressure can also have deleterious effects.

Earth can bury you alive, and is yet another cause of physical damage…

But more importantly than the above exploration of the "neglected 3" in isolation is the opportunity for interactions. Air could be useful as a way to increase the intensity of a fire. Conversely, water and earth can put out a fire.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I think more types could be interesting, but I’m especially hoping for more interactions between types… and hopefully more spells for the under-represented types.

now i do agree with this

If we think of the "classical 4" elements of air, earth, fire, water… why is fire the only one we have in the game? Because the other three are not so obviously causing damage, but they should!

Water can make you drown, or can even be bludgeoning at high enough pressure.

Air can wreck structures which also end up causing physical damage. Air pressure can also have deleterious effects.

Earth can bury you alive, and is yet another cause of physical damage…

But more importantly than the above exploration of the "neglected 3" in isolation is the opportunity for interactions. Air could be useful as a way to increase the intensity of a fire. Conversely, water and earth can put out a fire.

which is why, when i read this and it sounds like 'add water, air and earth spells with B/S/P physical damage' is seems like such a swerve in the other direction, if you want water to interact with things in ways that react to water give it an aqua damage type so things can work off that tag, if you want your landslide spell to be able to smother a fire elemental rather than just doing basic damage have it be dealing terra damage.

 

[Minigiant]

I think more types could be interesting, but I’m especially hoping for more interactions between types… and hopefully more spells for the under-represented types.

If we think of the "classical 4" elements of air, earth, fire, water… why is fire the only one we have in the game? Because the other three are not so obviously causing damage, but they should

Because D&D designers see it as Bludgeoning but its resisted by magic.

Thats precisely what happen to Force.

"We have to make bludgeoning but it has to affect fiends and golem that resist bludgeoning."
"Make it force damage!"

"We're have to make an magic earth attack but rocks dont harm constructs and outsiders"
"Add how it bypasses BPS resistance "
"Too wordy":
"Earth damage?"
"No"
"Make it acid damage"
"Cool"

 

[tetrasodium]

Well part of why 5E is "lazy" has also to do with the fact that some mechanics are just not really good. Immunity and to a lesser degree resistance are just frustrating at most and rarely fun. Vulnerability could be fun, but only if there is a good way to get this knowledge, else its random guessing and or metagaming which both are not really good mechanics.

That's the trouble with making additional damage types. 5e only has half damage full damage & immune so it doesn't have the mechanical hooks where new damage types could hang any meaningful function like 3.5's flat DR/restist/vulnerability trio provided a framework that could be leveraged for functional results in actual play at the table where different elements & alignments on a weapon could provide a viscerally different result encounter to encounter. 5e could have done "hurt & magic hurt" as the only da,age types & the only real differences in play would have been how much more obvious the unfilled nonfunctional skeleton of damage types was.

 

[Minigiant]

That's the trouble with making additional damage types. 5e only has half damage full damage & immune so it doesn't have the mechanical hooks where new damage types could hang any meaningful function like 3.5's flat DR/restist/vulnerability trio provided a framework that could be leveraged for functional results in actual play at the table where different elements & alignments on a weapon could provide a viscerally different result encounter to encounter. 5e could have done "hurt & magic hurt" as the only da,age types & the only real differences in play would have been how much more obvious the unfilled nonfunctional skeleton of damage types was.

What if it were

No Damage
Half damage
Normal damage
Max damage
Double Max damage
Save or Die

Or

No Damage
Half damage
Normal damage
Doulble damage
Double damage plus Effect
Sace or Die

 

[tetrasodium]

What if it were

No Damage
Half damage
Normal damage
Max damage
Double Max damage
Save or Die

Or

No Damage
Half damage
Normal damage
Doulble damage
Double damage plus Effect
Sace or Die

TWhat function do you expect that to add to play beyond the pile of "Here's a subsystem but your the gm, figure out how to finish itwith function" pile 5e already has? Those all look like crude hammers. I was going to list & link to the 8-10 types of hammer I know of and got two hammers in before discovering that the first was a lot more subdivided than I knew & the second perfectly demonstrated that hammers have more nuanced function. Numeric values paired with a simple " is it the type: [yes/no]" didn't require a quick reference table & a couple points didn't generally completely trivialize an encounter to the point it's required.