Warlock Damage

[irdeggman]

There's a specific blast essence that allows the Warlock to do full damage to objects, from which we can extrapolate that the eldritch blast does not normally deal full damage to objects. Probably half damage.

Like it says on pg 7 of Complete Arcdane

"An eldritch blast deals half damage to objects."

 

[Corsair]

What kind of damage are the following?

Disintegrate
Phantasmal Killer (Failed Wis, made Fort)
Slay Living (made save)
Unholy Blight

There are LOTS of things, particularly lots of MAGICAL things that do damage without it having a [descriptor] or a "type".

 

[Dandu]

Finger of Death deals untyped damage as well.

 

[Falling Icicle]

The "divine" half of Flame Strike's damage is untyped as well.

 

[pawsplay]

Magic missile is untyped in 3.0. In 3.5 it does the pseudo-energy "force" damage.

 

[irdeggman]

EB does "magic" damage, which is why SR applies and not DR.

The other types being bantered about are actually "energy" types which applies to energy resistance and not actually "damage".

Energy resistance (which the warlock gets at 10th level) works like DR but is different (if only to make the rules lawyers in us go crazy).

I think your DM was trying to apply DR to the damage that an EB does - which specifically does not apply.

Complete Arcane pg 7

An eldritch blast is subject to spell resistance. . .

Rules Compendium pg 41

A creature that has damage reduction (DR) ignores some of the hit point damage from weapons, natural weapons, and unarmed attacks that don't meet certain criteria.

note that DR X/magic does not mean it applies to "magic damage" rather it applies to awhether or not the weapon requires a magical enhancement (see RC pg 41)

RC pg 130

Spell resistance is the extraordinary ability to avoid being affected by some spelss and spell-like abilities.

RC pg 136 under weaponlike spells

Since a weapon like spells isn't actually a weapon, Strength modifiers on damage rolls and magical effects that increase weapon damage don't increase damage from a weapon like spell unless the description says otherwise.

from the FAQ

What kind of damage does the warlock’s eldritch blast
deal? Does damage reduction or resistance or immunity to
energy protect against the blast?

In its basic form, the eldritch blast’s damage has no type.
Since it is a spell-like ability, damage reduction does not
protect against the eldritch blast. Since it does not deal energy
damage, resistance or immunity to energy has no effect on the
eldritch blast’s damage.

Certain eldritch essence invocations change the type of
damage dealt by the eldritch blast. For example, brimstone
blast makes the eldritch blast deal fire damage, which means
that resistance or immunity to fire would apply against this
eldritch blast’s damage (as would vulnerability to fire, such as
that possessed by a frost giant).