D&D 5E What is Force Damage?

[Weiley31]

It's basically the raw Arcane energy of Magic itself. Like pre using it to cast a Fireball or maniuplating the Weave/The Force/Watchamacall it/Whatever your homebrew is source of all magic before being baked into a spell.

 

[Blue Orange]

I'm not sure trying to be logical about it makes sense. Actual electrocution either burns (which would be fire damage) or disrupts the nervous system (which would be more of a condition like stunned), so electrical and fire damage should be the same type...but try making Lightning Bolt and Fireball, one of the most iconic spells and probably the most iconic spell respectively, into the same thing.

Besides, who says the D&D universe has the same physics?

It's another type of damage that few things resist, that's probably as far as we're going to get. Make up a handwavey explanation for your universe and have fun

 

[Voadam]

I analogize force to mana spells from Shadowrun.

In certain prior editions magic missile only damaged creatures, so it was more like the SR mana spells where they would go through armor to damage the person underneath.

 

[Helpful NPC Thom]

Force damage seems to be the most nebulously defined damage types, sure the PHB describes it as "Pure magical energy in a damaging form" but it's not as clear as say Fire which is heat, Thunder which is sonic vibrations or concussive force, Radiant which is positive energy or occasionally radiation, or Necrotic which is negative energy or energy being drained away.

Force damage covers Magic Missile and Disintegrate, it also seems to cover teleportation mishaps or being incorporeal in solid matter. So in some cases would it be "physical pattern disruption"? But then some there's Telekinetic attacks, sometimes they're force but other times they are bludgeoning damage.

Also what's Force damage it generally supposed to supposed to look like? Some of the spells it seems to resemble concentrated light in the form of pulses like Magic Missile or beams like Disintegrate, but it could be invisible or maybe a distortion effect.

I've imagined force damage as magical bludgeoning damage.

If it is "pure magical energy," I think viewing it as "magic damage" or "arcane damage" would be more accurate. It is damage that transcends the material form.

 

[steeldragons]

We can define it...It's Magic. Raw -otherwise undefined or generating or controling some other form of energy or radiation- magic energy. Call it "sorcery." Call it "mana." Call it "abracadabranium." It's "raw magic energy."

"So it's energy."
Yes.
"But not positive energy or fire or psychic energy or electricity or..."
Yes.
"But I don't know what that means in the real world?"
Yes. You do. It's Magic.
"But we don't have something in physics to associate that with..."
Yes. Because? ....Right. It's Magic.

 

[J.Quondam]

Conveniently, "It's magic!" is always the correct answer.
Because... it's magic!

 

[Cadence]

Should a wall of force stop visible light? If not, should force spells be unable to harm creatures made out of light?

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Force damage does not affect the target. It's a magic effect directed at the representation of the target in the strand of fate. It leaves no mark, no burn, no pain. It just leaves less of your being linked to reality. Magic missiles severs the weakest strands but a full desintegrate simply leaves nothing of you in the Great Pattern. Unable to interact with the world that's a reflection of this pattern into the elemental chaos that are reality's material building block, you end up less than a ghost. Teleportation accident doesn't hurt you, it's simply because you used a spell to rewrite your fate strands at another place and the structural integrity of the pattern is damaged as there can be no way for you logically be at the exact same place as the Moonglow Mountain. The strands of Fate of the moutain are eroded as well as yours, but it has been there for a much longer time than you. Maybe a dragon could teleport into a moutain and erase it out? Force damage affects incorporeal being because they, too, are real and part of the pattern.

The shield spell protects from magic missiles because it weave a new strand with the quality "I am hard to hit" that's why it stacks easily with armor... and this quality also apply to the missiles striking you. Same with a wall of force. It's not a wall, its a cut in the Great Pattern. You can't move through it because there is a physical empty space but it no longer correspond to any coordinates in the pattern for your being to be. You'll have to walk around it.

 

[Charlaquin]

Kinetic?

This

Is kinetic different than bludgeoning?

No

Is force damage just a magical version of it that sidesteps some of the physics?

Pretty much

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah, good question; I've been thinking about this as well. Though I feel radiant is almost equally nebulous.

I think of radiant as radiation. Which technically fire is too, but I think of radiant as more like UV.