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

[CreamCloud0]

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

don't forget DnD also has damage reduction, i could see

Absorb - restore health
Immune - no damage
Resisted - half damage
Damage Reduction - minus specific flat amount
Unresisted - normal damage
Trigger - add additional effect(s), can be used for positive or negative effects.
Damage Enhancement - add specific flat amount
Weakness - plus half damage
Vulnerable - double damage

I don't think i could see save or die being applied to a damage vulnerability, even for 5e that a little extreme, like: oops, i tagged your freshly summoned fire elemental with 0.5 cold damage, now you've got to roll to see if it spontaneously implodes!

personally one of the reasons i think vulnerabilities aren't used frequently in 5e is because double damage can just be so volatile to the creature, so adding steps below that lets them add more soft spots which aren't just giant 'delete me with X' buttons.

 

[Minigiant]

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.

It adds an in combat metagame where your players attempt to find the weakness of monsters during combat.

On the DM side, you structure resistances and vulnerability by type with few memorable exceptions. Especially with bosses and solos who make guessing before you take too much damage the game.

Outside of combat, it encourages players to seek out new magic weapons and spells.

5e overcorrected in damage simplicity to attract grognards and newbs but forgot old school D&D was never simple and often encouraged finding new magic weapons and spells to harm monsters. Choosing the right hammer was a common game.

This would make fighters and barbarians having multiple weapon masteries matter.

This mould make rogue and artificer item use and ranger and paladin half caster buffs and smites matter.

This would make the Wizard's spellbound and Sorcerer's metamagic matter.

Go from "Eeerr. Use Force or Radiant damage every time. Drool. Burp."

to

"Double danage? Pull out the Acid gear, boys!". "Not so fast. Your allies was deafened by a Thunder spell." "Objection. I use Common Sign Language to tell them to use Acid weapons" "Overruled. You are dual weilding. No free hands" "Sleight of Hand. 17. I sign 'Acid'"

 

[tetrasodium]

It adds an in combat metagame where your players attempt to find the weakness of monsters during combat.

On the DM side, you structure resistances and vulnerability by type with few memorable exceptions. Especially with bosses and solos who make guessing before you take too much damage the game.

Outside of combat, it encourages players to seek out new magic weapons and spells.

5e overcorrected in damage simplicity to attract grognards and newbs but forgot old school D&D was never simple and often encouraged finding new magic weapons and spells to harm monsters. Choosing the right hammer was a common game.

This would make fighters and barbarians having multiple weapon masteries matter.

This mould make rogue and artificer item use and ranger and paladin half caster buffs and smites matter.

This would make the Wizard's spellbound and Sorcerer's metamagic matter.

Go from "Eeerr. Use Force or Radiant damage every time. Drool. Burp."

to

"Double danage? Pull out the Acid gear, boys!". "Not so fast. Your allies was deafened by a Thunder spell." "Objection. I use Common Sign Language to tell them to use Acid weapons" "Overruled. You are dual weilding. No free hands" "Sleight of Hand. 17. I sign 'Acid'"

What game are you talking about? The math matters. D&d isn't some rapid fire 4x space sim set in the distant future with players facing wildly diverging technologies across different species/ship component maker. This sounds like it would feel random and arbitrary or amount to the weapon juggling equivalent of pixelbitching that serves as the deciding factor in if an encounter is an endless unscaleable wall completely irrelivant to the effort or instantly ended

 

[Minigiant]

What game are you talking about? The math matters. D&d isn't some rapid fire 4x space sim set in the distant future with players facing wildly diverging technologies across different species/ship component maker. This sounds like it would feel random and arbitrary or amount to the weapon juggling equivalent of pixelbitching that serves as the deciding factor in if an encounter is an endless unscaleable wall completely irrelivant to the effort or instantly ended

Is this the same D&D that said

"Thats not a cold iron weapon. No damage"
"Thats not a fire weapon. No damage"
"Thats not a +2 weapon. No damage"
"Thats not a blessed weapon. No damage"

Clicking pixel is the rule not the exception.

 

[DEFCON 1]

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

To what extent?

I mean, if you are saying that if the player says "I did 13 Fire damage" and the DM responds with a little flavor description of the hit with "The sword hits and a burst of fire poofs at the entry point"... then yes you are "building the narrative out" to a minor extent. But I would counter that you could still do that even if the "Fire" tag damage type was not on it. If you the player has a sword that is on fire for whatever reason and you hit someone with it-- even if the damage was not tagged with the keyword "Fire" damage-- the DM could still describe the poof of flame that bursts when the sword it. The player would say "My flaming sword does 13 damage" and the DM would describe the burst of flame. That can all happen even if there was no mechanical damage type connected to the attack. But the keyword itself did nothing in and of itself-- except as a mechanical indicator to the DM to check for Vulnerabilities, Resistances, and Immunities.

And that's my point-- and the reason why additional damage type keywords I don't feel are ultimately really that necessary.

That being said... if a DM decided to add additional mechanical effects to each damage type, like the chart that @Minigiant put together above... then at least there would be something to those damage type keywords. As they pointed out, a 'Poison' damage type on an attack usually adds the 'Poisoned' condition to the target for example. So if we are using that as our demonstration... were you to do that with every single damage type keyword, then okay, making more of them could make some sense (if each one had an additional effect beyond just the keyword used for description and Vuln/Resist/Imm).

The one problem with that idea though is that more often than not, the attacks that have a damage type keyword are 'spells'... and those spells already have additional effects given as part of the spell. So you would be doubling up on effects. A spell might cause 'Psychic' damage and add an additional effect (like Frightened, Charmed, forced movement or whatever). But if we give the 'Psychic' damage type keyword an automatic effect-- say forcing a Wisdom save or be Frightened... then the spell would now have two different effects. One from the 'Psychic' keyword, and another one as part of the spell description itself. You would basically then need to go through the entire Spells section of the book and remove a whole bunch of spell effects that are now doubled up and unnecessary because the keyword is doing the heavy lifting. That's not impossible by any stretch... but just seems like a whole heap of work just to add in more keywords. But hey... if some enterprising DM wanted to go through the effort to do that... they certainly can.

 

[Minigiant]

The one problem with that idea though is that more often than not, the attacks that have a damage type keyword are 'spells'... and those spells already have additional effects given as part of the spell. So you would be doubling up on effects.

They dont often have effects though.

Many spells are just damage.

 

[DEFCON 1]

They dont often have effects though.

Many spells are just damage.

Then that'll save the enterprising DM a bit of time as they re-do the spells.

 

[tetrasodium]

Is this the same D&D that said

"Thats not a cold iron weapon. No damage"
"Thats not a fire weapon. No damage"
"Thats not a +2 weapon. No damage"
"Thats not a blessed weapon. No damage"

No because you misunderstand how DR#/x & resis#t/X worked. Since you quoted a link to a post that included the transcribed explanation for those from the relevant monster manual & DMG I'm not sure what part of those forgotten mechanics didn't click, here's a handy behind the curtain sidebar

The highest DR#/cold iron I could find was the CR20 Balor with DR15/cold iron, good resist10/acid, cold & immune electric, poison, fire . Parties fighting CR20 monsters like that should have had no trouble overcoming that DR or still dealing functional levels of damage with something like power attack shock trooper the law/chaos component of such a weapon & many more options before a mere second level align weapon scroll at the absolute worst possible party makeup & gear whiteroom matchup. Given that the balor used to be called a pit fiend until TSR(?) did some cleanup of tolkein/lovecraft IP names it's almost a named creature specifically designed to be extremely difficult to damage without magic making it a bad choice to explain the system you aren't grasping without going into how a whole bunch of mechanics related to the stuff I noted above as functional partial damage options. Other creature like the beholder & various high SR high save creatures were designed to be difficult for spells to harm, there's no real singling out of archetypes, just a creature built to laugh at some PCs so it seems silly to use it for an example lesson in relevant mechanics.

If you want DR#/X cold iron specifically though, parties were more likely to face something like the cr7 nymph with DR10/cold iron The CR9 night hag with DR10/Cold Iron or the CR1 nixie with DR5/Cold iron.

A low to mid level PC like Bob facing those with 18(+4) strength & a simple acid longsword (1d6 slash+1d6 acid+ 4 from str)using average 3.5 damage roll per d6 would deal 7-8 slashing & 3.5 Acid each attack with multiple attacks likely. Those two values are black bold & green bold to make it extra clear that they should not be added into a single 10-11 depending on rounding. If Alice with a +2 longsword & the same 18(+4) strength were in the party she would deal 9-10 slashing per attack before any feats & abilities but she also hits more often on her attacks & that really matters on the second attack made with -5 tohit or borederline first attack rolls but it's complicated to model& just hides things so I'm just going to keep mentioning it.

• The slashing part of Bob's attack is going o subtract the DR value because it's not a cold iron weapon & he has not factored in things like power attack shock trooper rage & many many other options that could boost the weapon's damage to deal at least 1 even when rolling a 1 on the slashing against the nymph who would take the full 3.5 acid. Once again there were lots of ways to boost the weapon damage with feats class abilities & so on but that's another more complicated rabbit hole on build choices. Meanwhile Alice is regularly dealing 9-10 slashing each attack before any feats & class abilities boost that number, the nixie effortlessly gets wrecked by alice & she feels good about her weapon choice.
• Things Get more interesting & the DR#/x resist#/X system starts showing it's strength as a component of play as DR rises though the point where it can block most or all of the base weapon damage before feats & class abilities are factored in.
  • Bob facing that cr7 nymph or cr9 night hag would find his 3.5 acid completely absorbed but feels good about his choice because the acid is unaffected & he was able to invest his feats & class ability choices in some other area that does not involve boosting the weapon damage like Alice.
  • Alice facing them could go a couple different ways & both of them were extremely common to see because players could cheaply & trivially plan for them.
    • Option1: She has mundane +0 silver & cold iron weapons just in case & knows that the cold iron is needed from whatever source (experience, a skill check from the wizard talking with npcs reasonable guess etc). She immediately switches to the cold iron longsword or whatever & loses the +2 tohit/damage but deals full damage and she still has her various feats class abilities & so on to boost it so her damage is similar to or well beyond Bob's
    • Option2: she has some trash elemental weapons like that flaming staff nobody wanted & the rogue's old ice(?) dagger & maybe an aligned weapon. This is probably less likely unless it's the first time encountering a monster with DR#/cold iron because Alice has a build heavily invested in boosting the base weapon damage, but it's easy enough to carry them just in case something like the balor shows up with DR well into the "virtually immune to physical attacks" range the monster manual sidebar above warns about. Those would all allow her to deal the full elemental or alignment damage like Bob and freeze water start fires etc while adventuring so there are definitely benefits even if not expecting to use them. They might not hit as often as her trusty +2 longsword, but they make a reliable enough extremely cheap backup.

Clicking pixel is the rule not the exception.

That doesn't make it enjoyable gameplay, you gave an example with multiple actions from multiple PCs with what is basically "You triggered my trap card" cascade & presented it as one turn or forgot that it's a turn based game.

I don't play MTG but I'm not even sure if I go I go I go wait no I godifferent You go like that is an option in MTG. Every PC & every monster gets a turn before anyone gets a second turn. The numbers you suggest are too big for the sort of nuanced build & gear backed choices that Alice & Bob show above. Worse is that they are so enormous that the math shatters the game & they become a required to trivializing component of combat or they don't break it & aren't really common enough to bother with. I probably should have been more clear earlier when I asked what they would do in play.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

A couple of things I've done regarding B, P, S. My goal is to make things more interesting and provide benefit to having different types of weapons for different situations, without making the penalty for not having those different weapons severe (except perhaps with some high CR opponents).

1) Give certain monsters blanket resistance or vulnerability to B, P, or S, regardless of whether it's magical. This is based on monster concept, so anything skeletal has resistance to piercing and vulnerability to bludgeoning. I use this sparingly, and use vulnerability especially sparingly, since the situations these apply to are fairly obvious and it's easy for PCs to benefit from. It's also worth pointing out that I let you take disadvantage to an attack to deal a different damage type if it makes sense for your weapon, and some weapons have a feature that lets them use one alternative type without penalty, so many swords deal your choice of P or S for instance.

2) For damage resistance/immunity against non-magical B, P, and S (I use 5.0 rules, not that "just add force" 5.5 rubbish), I add some 3.5 complexity. A monster can be resistant to a weapon that is neither silver nor magic, but they might instead be resistant to a weapon that isn't both silver and magic. Or maybe they are immune to a weapon that is neither silver nor magic AND resistant to a weapon that isn't both. I add cold iron to silver and adamantine, so there are three material options. Some types of monsters don't care as much what type of material, but just that there is a special material added on to the magic. I have some tables telling me what sorts of setups are most appropriate based on CR, as well as some revised monster math for how much I think it should actually count as increasing a monster's effective hit points, because I think the DMG values highly overestimate how impactful it actually is to a monster's challenge. I also almost always include either blanket resistance or immunity to cantrips along with this, because otherwise casters can trivialize something that is supposed to matter (such as the difficulty of killing a lycanthrope) with no resource expenditure.

We've only had it come up once so far, since I finished the rules recently, but it feels really satisfying.

 

[Minigiant]

That doesn't make it enjoyable gameplay, you gave an example with multiple actions from multiple PCs with what is basically "You triggered my trap card" cascade & presented it as one turn or forgot that it's a turn based game.

It was only unfun because that was the point back then.

You can make it fun.

The designers just have to prioritize fun over nostalgia.

Pokémon is a fun and popular game that has heavy emphasis on effectiveness. And the game isnt over if you have normally effective attacks in most cases.

To me the key is to give player agency while allowing DMs to offer challenge with little work and heavy guidance.

Then you can have Psychic, Ghost, and Fairy attacks.