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

[Cadence]

I don't like Force as a damage type, generally. It's mostly just hitting people or stabbing into them. How is an Eldritch Blast beam or a Magic Missile that different from getting hit with a magic arrow? Why are elemental Earth effects Bludgeoning, but telekinetic effects are Force?

The system needs to move away from "resistant to physical but not magical effects" monsters.
If a monster is resistant to hammers and arrows, it should be resistant to Magic Missile and Eldritch Blast.

Make most Force damage into Bludgeoning, Piercing, or possibly Slashing or Thunder depending on the spell effect.

I had always thought of Force damage as being like a raw, pure, energy sort of attack that went beyond all of the others in hitting anything, with Magic Missile as the exemplar. And so Disintegrate always seemed off.

But yesterday I started wondering, what if we took Disintegrate as the exemplar. So magic missiles are balls of that kind of raw dissolutioning energy (the directed void).

It might mean that the Force in Wall of Force and the Force in Force Damage are different then, but it fills a gap in the cosmology I've had floating around in the back of my own game, and it would make some force effects bludgeoning instead.

It just feels like force isn't the right word for it now. Annihilation damage?

 

[Minigiant]

\

I had always thought of Force damage as being like a raw, pure, energy sort of attack that went beyond all of the others in hitting anything, with Magic Missile as the exemplar. And so Disintegrate always seemed off.

But yesterday I started wondering, what if we took Disintegrate as the exemplar. So magic missiles are balls of that kind of raw dissolutioning energy (the directed void).

It might mean that the Force in Wall of Force and the Force in Force Damage are different then, but it fills a gap in the cosmology I've had floating around in the back of my own game, and it would make some force effects bludgeoning instead.

It just feels like force isn't the right word for it now. Annihilation damage?

The answer is right there.

Void damage.

Void spells dissolves Force spells as Void is raw magic energy but Force is structure magic matter.

Magic missile are literally hard darts of magic force. They hit a Shield spells and bounce off.
Disintegrate is a beams of raw magic energy. It shoots through Shield. Save or Ouch.

 

[rmcoen]

In my campaign/headspace, [Force] is "pure magic". It is unassociated with any element, and ironically has no "force" associated with it (unless given that by something). So a magic missile is a bolt of pure energy that "harms" a target, perhaps by directly snuffing its animating energy (life) -- which is why it has no effect on objects. Eldritch blast has no impact... but the Warlock can enhance the bolts with an Invocation that layers in some concussion. A wall of force is simply impassable hardened magic - which does no damage to you, pushing on it, nor can you damage it.

A "blade" formed of "pure magic", though, shouldn't do [Force] damage... it would do [Magical Slash] damage, with an impossibly-sharp edge that slides between molecules (sci-fi). A spiritual hammer should do [Magical Bludgeon], but a spiritual trident would be [Magical Pierce]... magical, but not [Force].

When I took the time to implement side effects for every damage type (applied on Critical Hits, and "exceptional hits" [hit by 10+, or matched d20s when rolling more than 1 for any reason]), [Force]'s side effect wasn't push/pull/concussion; it was "supercharged"! The target became saturated with magical energy and acted like a lightning rod: Disadvantage on its next saving throw against any magically-caused effect (or Advantage on the next spell attack)! It made a nice one-two punch (occasionally) between the Warlock and Druid, with an eldritch blast crit-fishing, then the druid following up a guiding bolt.

[Thunder] is "sonic" and "concussion". If something has "impact" damage or effects, that's [Thunder]. Grenades and other explosives are usually [Fire] and [Thunder], by this definition in my world.


As for the OP... I also headcanon [Psychic] as brain-fry and/or emotional-trauma... anything that might "erode the target's will to fight or hold on". A recent cantrip on reddit called eyesore, for example: it makes the target hideous to his allies... no damage to the target, but allies take psychic damage if they end their turn near the target or try to include it in a spell. They are so disgusted that it "erodes their will to fight" (i guess they want to run off and rinse their eyes or take a bath or something). Mind spike, on the other hand, is just straight-up frying synapses. Do I want to distinguish between them... no-ish? I think the RARE occasions i might want to call out a unique perspective, as the DM, I simply will. "Gargan'k-tk'sh-l 's mind is so foreign that your spell just can't really affect it properly." (But then, I probably would use that same explanation for both "brain-fry" and "emotion", so just "Psychic Resistance" is fine.) UNLESS for some reason I wanted a campaign-unique/specific variant of a monster - like "undead are all animated not by magic, but by magically tying a spirit of some kind to the corpse... as such, weaker under are vulnerable to spells that target the 'spirit', but not those that target the 'mind'. " (or some such)



Related but different topic that someone brought up on an earlier page: "What if we had variations on resistance, like Lesser Resistance, or Greater Resistance?" You mean, like... all previous editions? You could have Fire Resistance 5 and stand comfortably in a campfire all day, but still die in a fireball. Or Fire Resistant 30 - functionally immune to Fire damage, but Ashardalon's breath is still going to cook you (as will bathing in lava). It also made a nice "upcasting" distinction between a level 1 resist elements spell (5pts), a level 2 (10-20 pts, depending on limitations), and a strong level 4 spell (30pts or even "immune... up to 120 total damage"). Not that I don't like "half damage, no matter what" as a concept, too... I just think both can exist, and have value in the system. [And say hello to Heavy Armor Master, which provides a flat DR... which is the same concept!]

As it happens, home rule in my game, Resistance provides a tiny "threshhold" of immunity equal to your PB. If you take damage of a type you resist, up to your threshhold... you take nothing. If you take more, it's just half, no minuses. For example, a level 5 tielfling (PB+3) simply ignores flames of 3pts or less... but if he takes 4 fire damage, it is halved to 2 per the normal rules. This also provides a nice baseline for "what if you have the same resistance from multiple sources?" Double the threshhold! (rather than "no benefit" which is RAW, or "halved again" - i.e. 1/4 damage - which is common at a lot of tables)

 

[Aurel Guthrie]

So a few things I guess,

I've never liked that Radiant is sometimes portrayed like radiation and vice versa. always found it a little weird. If anything radioactive damage leans more towards Necrotic to me, and if I was running a modern/post apocalyptic campaign where radiation was a concern, It'd probably be its own damage type.

I don't mind that Psychic is tied to both illusion and psionic-like abilities, because they're both targetting the same thing (your brain/mental state) so it makes sense that they share a damage type, even if they get there through different means.

I would like it if there were instances of damage that bypassed damage resistance, but with a bit more flair than writing in the stat block "this attack bypasses resistance". Rare instances of damage like Hellfire instead of Fire for example. These would be few and far between so as to not punish players, and could be telegraphed. Greatwyrms, powerful demons, god's avatars etc could have that special little extra going on for them. You could get super creative and have bosses that deal stuff like Cruel damage, Spirit/Soul damage, etc. Then, having these more hyper-specific damage types tied to few monsters gives you the opportunity to give your adventures artifacts meant to counter these specific enemies rather than being effective against a whole damage type like psychic. Or, you could get an item that allows you to deal Hellfire damage with x charges, rather than something that deals fire damage that bypasses resistance/immunity, which feels a lot less flavorful.

 

[tetrasodium]

So a few things I guess,

I've never liked that Radiant is sometimes portrayed like radiation and vice versa. always found it a little weird.

Radiant & radiation are different things that just happen to have similar names. Like creatine & creatinine. It's used with weight a lot in the bible, I;d imagine using the term instead of holy/divine/etc was partly "sounds more magical" & partly threading awkward needle between the satanic panic/scandalized religious types since it allowed an in the know adjacent term without giving any particular religion room someone could claim made for the appearance of being (dis)favored

If anything radioactive damage leans more towards Necrotic to me, and if I was running a modern/post apocalyptic campaign where radiation was a concern, It'd probably be its own damage type.

I don't mind that Psychic is tied to both illusion and psionic-like abilities, because they're both targetting the same thing (your brain/mental state) so it makes sense that they share a damage type, even if they get there through different means.

I would like it if there were instances of damage that bypassed damage resistance, but with a bit more flair than writing in the stat block "this attack bypasses resistance". Rare instances of damage like Hellfire instead of Fire for example. These would be few and far between so as to not punish players, and could be telegraphed. Greatwyrms, powerful demons, god's avatars etc could have that special little extra going on for them. You could get super creative and have bosses that deal stuff like Cruel damage, Spirit/Soul damage, etc. Then, having these more hyper-specific damage types tied to few monsters gives you the opportunity to give your adventures artifacts meant to counter these specific enemies rather than being effective against a whole damage type like psychic. Or, you could get an item that allows you to deal Hellfire damage with x charges, rather than something that deals fire damage that bypasses resistance/immunity, which feels a lot less flavorful.

 

[Minigiant]

Radiant being both holy and light and Necrotic being both unholy and death feels both okay and not okay.

Because Death gods exist.
Grave Domain Exists.
Death is often an aspect and under care the divine.
It's Undeath that D&D deems unholy under most circumstances.
However Good and Evil damage would only be available to divine powered characters. So it's a mechanically sacrifice.

Though I'd like Lightning to be more associated to the divine (Lightning Strikes from Heaven)

 

[rmcoen]

So a few things I guess,

I've never liked that Radiant is sometimes portrayed like radiation and vice versa. always found it a little weird. If anything radioactive damage leans more towards Necrotic to me, and if I was running a modern/post apocalyptic campaign where radiation was a concern, It'd probably be its own damage type.

I don't mind that Psychic is tied to both illusion and psionic-like abilities, because they're both targetting the same thing (your brain/mental state) so it makes sense that they share a damage type, even if they get there through different means.

I would like it if there were instances of damage that bypassed damage resistance, but with a bit more flair than writing in the stat block "this attack bypasses resistance". Rare instances of damage like Hellfire instead of Fire for example. These would be few and far between so as to not punish players, and could be telegraphed. Greatwyrms, powerful demons, god's avatars etc could have that special little extra going on for them. You could get super creative and have bosses that deal stuff like Cruel damage, Spirit/Soul damage, etc. Then, having these more hyper-specific damage types tied to few monsters gives you the opportunity to give your adventures artifacts meant to counter these specific enemies rather than being effective against a whole damage type like psychic. Or, you could get an item that allows you to deal Hellfire damage with x charges, rather than something that deals fire damage that bypasses resistance/immunity, which feels a lot less flavorful.

"Radiation" is a thing in my current game; you have to resist "Poison", "Necrotic", and "Radiant" to resist radiation damage ("Taint"). If you don't resist it, you have the "Poisoned" condition after a certain amount of exposure (duration or damage, depending on the source). Basically, it is its own damage type, but with a grandfathered-in method of resistance for existing creatures. Aberrations (in my game) all naturally Resist it or are Immune; most cause it, too!

My game also now has "Chaos" as a damage type. Anything that resists [Force] also provides resistance to [Chaos]. The unique identifier for [Chaos] damage is that it corrupts the surviving tissue/structure; it requires magical healing in order to recover, and requires five "points of healing" to heal a single [Chaos] point (with excess healing being lost). Disintegrate and a couple other spells are rewritten to inflict [Chaos] damage instead, and a couple of items and Feats in the campaign inflict [Chaos] damage - usually on both the target and the wielder!

EDIT: (Whoops, saved too early.) I had also made plans for a [True] damage type, most likely influenced by the litrpg genre of books I've been reading recently. I eventually decided on [Chaos] instead as the unique standalone damage type, and chose to go with [True...] as an upgraded damage type like your suggestion of "Hellfire" - that would be [True Fire] in my game. But while [Chaos] goes through pretty much anything, [True...] simply downgrades your Resistance. So [True Fire] ignores "Fire Resistance", and treats "Fire Immunity" as "Resistance" instead. Thus ancient red dragons can harm each other, but still enjoy some defenses against their kin.

 

[rmcoen]

Radiant being both holy and light and Necrotic being both unholy and death feels both okay and not okay.

Because Death gods exist.
Grave Domain Exists.
Death is often an aspect and under care the divine.
It's Undeath that D&D deems unholy under most circumstances.
However A good and Evil damage would only be available to divine powered characters. So it's a mechanically sacrifice.

Though I'd like Lightning to be more associated to the divine (Lightning Strikes from Heaven)

I liked the idea that [holy] and [unholy] could be their own damage type, if you built a system around that. Otherwise, I think they work better as maybe "upgrade" modifiers like @Aurel Guthrie 's "Hellfire" or my "True..." modifier. Flame Strike could thus be "HOLY + FIRE", bypassing a level of fire resistance... but while a Death God might like [Necrotic], an Evil Sun God could just as easily empower his clerics with "UNHOLY + FIRE". (And either could be called sacred flame, frickin' chill touch-esque misnaming!)

 

[Minigiant]

I liked the idea that [holy] and [unholy] could be their own damage type, if you built a system around that. Otherwise, I think they work better as maybe "upgrade" modifiers like @Aurel Guthrie 's "Hellfire" or my "True..." modifier. Flame Strike could thus be "HOLY + FIRE", bypassing a level of fire resistance... but while a Death God might like [Necrotic], an Evil Sun God could just as easily empower his clerics with "UNHOLY + FIRE". (And either could be called sacred flame, frickin' chill touch-esque misnaming!)

I like modifiers better as it's easier for designers to design.

Like Divine spells would be

Radiant
Lightning
Fire
Poison
Necrotic

And just be Holy if good, Unholy if evil, either in neutral.

But then would you need and Reverse-Necrotic for Life Energy? Like 3e's Positive. And make Radiant just Light and the Electromagnetic Spectrum except Heat/Fire?

Biotic?

 

[CreamCloud0]

But then would you need and Reverse-Necrotic for Life Energy? Like 3e's Positive. And make Radiant just Light and the Electromagnetic Spectrum except Heat/Fire?

honestly i kind of do like psychic as necrotic's opposite in a way, necrotic being like (if you removed the unholy undertones) something that affects the body while psychic is something that affects the mind.