PF2 uses "physical" as a super-category of bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage (as well as bleed damage). There are still monsters as well as certain character options where the distinction is relevant, but those with a general resistance to weapons have something like "resistance physical 5". If the resistance can be bypassed by certain weapons, it's instead written as something like "resistance physical 5 (except magical)" or "resistance physical 12 (except adamantine or bludgeoning)".
D&D (2024) The problem with weapon damage resistances.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
I don't see silver as doing any more damage, just that it can hurt them when normal weapons can't. So the idea that magic+silver gets double damage is actively against matching the lore.
As a mechanical solution it's fine-ish. Could be confusing to new players or to a DM who doesn't realize the interaction and stops after applying one line. Lore-wise it does not model what I want.
As a mechanical solution it's fine-ish. Could be confusing to new players or to a DM who doesn't realize the interaction and stops after applying one line. Lore-wise it does not model what I want.
While vulnerability is a bit strong, something I've done in the past is to slightly boost the damage of special materials against various creature types. A truesilver (mithril) weapon can deal d4 extra damage to lycanthropes, an adamantine weapon can deal d4 extra damage to constructs, and so on.
Cold iron would do the same, but I don't really have "cold iron" in my games, since there really isn't any such thing (don't bring up cold forging, please), but I have other materials for that. Similarly, I don't have silver weapons because they are a bit fragile, instead, as indicated above, there's a rare metal called truesilver (basically mithril).
Cold iron would do the same, but I don't really have "cold iron" in my games, since there really isn't any such thing (don't bring up cold forging, please), but I have other materials for that. Similarly, I don't have silver weapons because they are a bit fragile, instead, as indicated above, there's a rare metal called truesilver (basically mithril).
Scars Unseen
Hero
One way you could mitigate the issue of vulnerabilities making things too easy would be to only have them do extra damage on a critical.
Some great discussion here so far, everyone.
As a relatively new DM (4 years of weekly 5e), the nonmagical weapon resistance was real problem for me. It started when I made a demon boss using the DMG rules, and as a low level monster with these resistances, it got shredded by my players. They all got a way to do magical weapon damage around level 5-6, and so all that power hidden behind b/p/s resistance was lost. I struggled to challenge my players by building encounters the way the rulebooks advised me.
Now I just max out the possible HP for enemies that are supposed to be any threat. My players are 19th level, and they have +3 weapons (when would they otherwise wield such artifacts?) and they are well optimized. They are not challenged by ancient dragons in their lairs. I have to do massive amounts of damage and double the HP of my bosses.
Magic weapons are just a toggle. There is nothing interesting about them. When I read about the struggles of older editions and their solutions, I can totally understand why the way things are as they are now. 5e wants to simplify things so players can spend more time rolling dice and less time doing calculations. With my high level players, they have all these bonuses and additional weapon dice and smite damage that it actually takes a little while to calculate all the damage. It is working like it is now, and the martials are almost overshadowing the spellcasters. So if you just play the game as it is now and use magic weapons, things sorta work out. Monsters do need a power boost. vincegetorix mentioned HP bloat, which is a numerical thing, but not a gameplay thing to me. There is a bigger problem with monsters not hitting hard enough compared to their CR, because all the "value" is pumped into their defenses, just so that they can get in a turn or two.
Do I want to calculate half of the damage more often? Maybe, it's not hard. Double it for vulnerabilities? Sure. Add bigger crit ranges, damage reductions or added dice? It would be more math, and I am not looking forward to it.
So the game as it is now works, sorta. Monsters are usually too weak as CR once intended it, even using Xanathar's rules. Resistance/immunity to nonmagic b/p/s damage will probably stay to show that some monsters can't be killed by farmers. It's more for flavour then, that these immunities and resistances are still there than for balance reasons. No cobbler will kill Orcus with a hammer. Also, DM's will have a mutiny on their hands if they don't hand out magical weapons soon enough. Published adventures tend to give magic weapons long before lvl5.
So what is the problem that we're trying to solve here? Do we want the game to become more complex and spend more time on what we already do now? Do we want flavor to have more effect on the rules? Do we want to make monsters stronger, as CR is a total shitshow?
In any case, I have learnt a lot about combat balance in my current campaign, which will finish up soon. I have a couple of fun campaign ideas lined up, and some of them might improve with additional rules for resistances/vulnerabilities to certain materials. If my players are interested in additional mechanics, I will look into them. I like the concepts of Leatherhead a lot, and I might expand on them.
As a relatively new DM (4 years of weekly 5e), the nonmagical weapon resistance was real problem for me. It started when I made a demon boss using the DMG rules, and as a low level monster with these resistances, it got shredded by my players. They all got a way to do magical weapon damage around level 5-6, and so all that power hidden behind b/p/s resistance was lost. I struggled to challenge my players by building encounters the way the rulebooks advised me.
Now I just max out the possible HP for enemies that are supposed to be any threat. My players are 19th level, and they have +3 weapons (when would they otherwise wield such artifacts?) and they are well optimized. They are not challenged by ancient dragons in their lairs. I have to do massive amounts of damage and double the HP of my bosses.
Magic weapons are just a toggle. There is nothing interesting about them. When I read about the struggles of older editions and their solutions, I can totally understand why the way things are as they are now. 5e wants to simplify things so players can spend more time rolling dice and less time doing calculations. With my high level players, they have all these bonuses and additional weapon dice and smite damage that it actually takes a little while to calculate all the damage. It is working like it is now, and the martials are almost overshadowing the spellcasters. So if you just play the game as it is now and use magic weapons, things sorta work out. Monsters do need a power boost. vincegetorix mentioned HP bloat, which is a numerical thing, but not a gameplay thing to me. There is a bigger problem with monsters not hitting hard enough compared to their CR, because all the "value" is pumped into their defenses, just so that they can get in a turn or two.
Do I want to calculate half of the damage more often? Maybe, it's not hard. Double it for vulnerabilities? Sure. Add bigger crit ranges, damage reductions or added dice? It would be more math, and I am not looking forward to it.
So the game as it is now works, sorta. Monsters are usually too weak as CR once intended it, even using Xanathar's rules. Resistance/immunity to nonmagic b/p/s damage will probably stay to show that some monsters can't be killed by farmers. It's more for flavour then, that these immunities and resistances are still there than for balance reasons. No cobbler will kill Orcus with a hammer. Also, DM's will have a mutiny on their hands if they don't hand out magical weapons soon enough. Published adventures tend to give magic weapons long before lvl5.
So what is the problem that we're trying to solve here? Do we want the game to become more complex and spend more time on what we already do now? Do we want flavor to have more effect on the rules? Do we want to make monsters stronger, as CR is a total shitshow?
In any case, I have learnt a lot about combat balance in my current campaign, which will finish up soon. I have a couple of fun campaign ideas lined up, and some of them might improve with additional rules for resistances/vulnerabilities to certain materials. If my players are interested in additional mechanics, I will look into them. I like the concepts of Leatherhead a lot, and I might expand on them.
Asisreo
Patron Badass
Hmmm...
I'm not sure they completely disregard damage types in the game as much as you think. I understand why you can get that impression, though.
Thumbing through the Monster Manual, you can see that basically a creature resistant against one physical attack is resistant to all of them. But if you look at player-facing options, its not completely as all-encompassing.
Barbarian's rage resists all physical damage, but Fiend warlock's resistance only let's you choose one. So if a warlock is expecting to fight, say, a snake, they can resist bludgeoning against their constrict or piercing against their bite but not both.
Magic items are the same. It's pretty easy to get a physical resistance, but it's fairly hard to get all three of them without using up all your attunement. Which makes sense. Most of these resistances don't discriminate against magical/nonmagical and even if they did, most creatures use nonmagical damage.
In other words, offensively, they're kinda monotonous but defensively, there is room for meaningful choices.
The goal is simulation.
In the case of a skeleton, the goal is to simulate the logic that a mace is a more effective weapon than a rapier against enemies without flesh. In the case of classical monsters like werewolves and vampires, the goal is to simulate the common literatary tropes that these monsters are killed with a certain type of material.
And how the rules work now is not sufficient? Should we change things as they are now?
My own guesstimation with regards to the B / P / S differentiations-- but then not doing much with them for resistances and such-- is that I've always felt the entire armor, weapon, and equipment sections were written as a first draft for playtest purposes but then never really iterated on past that. None of them ever really got looked at again later on in the game's development and determined whether the bits they had were useful or fun or necessary. Weapon types and resistances/vulnerabilities seems like one of those things. As well as things like the goofiness of the spear and trident being the exact same weapon except one's Simple and the other is Martial and they cost differently for no reason. And how the three levels of the armor chart have prices set up such that there's armors on it that will never be bought or used (like Ring mail). These entire chapters really needed to be reviewed again and cleaned up before publication, and I'm only hoping someone actually does this for the 2024 edits, because it could certainly use it. Making the differences between B, P & S meaningful would be one of those things.
Similar Threads
