D&D 5E (2014) What Force Damage Tastes Like

PnPgamer · Sep 28, 2015

I always thought that its more of a magical explosion. Yes you could argue a fireball is that, but fireball does only fire damage, which is different, imo. Real life bombs don't leave you charred, they leave you in pieces.

Shadai · Sep 28, 2015

I've always said it's damage flavored damage

GX.Sigma · Sep 28, 2015

I imagine that a magic missile passes all the way through you. It's not like an arrow that sticks into you, and it's not like a club that knocks against you. It is force without matter. It can pass through matter, and it applies evenly to all the areas it passes through. This means a magic missile aimed at the vital organs will unerringly damage the vital organs, whereas a club might just glance off the armor or whatever. That's a rather different type of damage, and one that is hard to resist.

Or you could just say it deals piercing damage. That works too.

Fishing_Minigame · Sep 29, 2015

Alternately, maybe Force damage works by attacking your midichlorians!

*flees*

FormerlyHemlock · Sep 29, 2015

PnPgamer said:
I always thought that its more of a magical explosion. Yes you could argue a fireball is that, but fireball does only fire damage, which is different, imo. Real life bombs don't leave you charred, they leave you in pieces.

I view fireball less like an explosion and more like, well, high-intensity flames over a large area. No concussive force, lots of burns. As if you had instantaneously doused everybody with invisible kerosene and lit their wicks.

If I wanted to model an explosion in 5E I would give it Thunder damage, like Shatter, although I concede the point that Thunder is in fact redundant vis-a-vis Bludgeoning damage.

steeldragons · Sep 29, 2015

I don't think or see it as redundant...Bludgeoning damage, for 5e's purposes, is blunt physical damage. It's, for lack of a better term, a weapon attack. Some thing HITS you (or you it in the case of falling) and does "blunt/brute force" damage as opposed to slicing your or skewering you.

In thunder damage, that thing is energy. Call it sonic waves or, simply, "magic" or anything else you want...but it's not some physically "solid" thing (a mace, a skull, a bar stool, a rock) that impacts you. So, keeping them separate makes sense (and is fine) with me.

Mouseferatu · Sep 29, 2015

Judging by other threads, it tastes like lemon curry.

Fralex · Sep 29, 2015

It is very heartening how many people saw that I was secretly hoping they'd take the thread title literally.

Yunru · Sep 30, 2015

Force damage is kinetic, it's the closest thing to Psionic you can get: it's the force of your will reshaping reality. That's why so few things resist it, and why it only exists magically.

That said I've always thought it taste of Iocane Powder.