Psychic damage I tend to manifest as feeling like your mind is being torn apart, and if killed via psychic damage a creature is essentially rendered brain dead by having their mind destroyed. It can be interesting IMO.
I think the damage types we have are generally good though radiant being both holy and radiation feels a bit weird. I think you could potentially solidify radiant as 'holy' or at least stricly 'light' and make things like sickening radiance deal necrotic instead.
What about like an unholy radiant but not a necrotic? Like something that works against undeath and the gods. Maybe an Anti-Lich thing? Vecna seems a bit underlevel to be destroying the multiverse, what if there was an easier way to kill him? But instead of instantly murdering gods, what if it can't destroy anything that harbors a soul inside of it completely? Like a half-damage or reduce to 1 hp thing for anything with a soul.
If anything, there should be fewer damage types. Having so many different types is an unnecessary complication when most of the time, there's no difference between them.
Holy and unholy. Which is different than Radiant and Necrotic.
Cause Radiant is just light, a laser pistol would do radiant damage but laser pistols aren't holy.
Necrotic is just rotting, and there are plenty of things that cause rotting that aren't unholy.
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He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player. The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call To rise up in triumph should we all unite The spark for change is yours to ignite." Kalandra - The State of the World
If anything, there should be fewer damage types. Having so many different types is an unnecessary complication when most of the time, there's no difference between them.
Yeah, I wonder if it's worth having different effects associated with different kinds of damage, rather than it being just a rock/paper/scissors game between damage and resistance/immunity.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
The question then becomes what to pare back that doesn't impact general flavor or the few remaining mechanics- the Crusher/Slasher/Piercer feats provide a justification for the different weapon damages; Fire, Cold, and Lightning are pretty iconic to fantasy magic in general as well as quite distinct; Psychic is basically the only one for mind attacks; one could attempt to argue that Acid, Poison, and Necrotic ought to be condensed, but Poison is probably the most prominent case of a type where enemies will have resistance or immunity to it, leaving Acid and Necrotic- which have fairly distinct flavors and a fairly disparate pool of current monsters with resistances, potentially creating a notable nerf to effectiveness if combined; Radiant only has Fire as a near neighbor but there's enough Fire-resistant/immune Fiends that combining the two would have some significant balance implications. About the only instance I can really see a case for is Thunder and Force, although interestingly I get less than 20 Force-resistant monsters using the filter on Beyond but over 80 Thunder-resistant ones, so there's a case to be made for Force remaining apart as nearly never resisted type.
Depends on how you handle the effects of damage types.
If we're continuing with the rock/paper/scissors method we have now, I'd just scrap it as a statblock feature. I'd make it a DM tool instead - if the nature of the attack means you think it's going to be less effective (say, a fireball against a water elemental), then galve the damage. If it's something particularly nasty, give it immunity (or even healing!).
If you're going for the more flavoured mechanics I suggested, then there are a few that are redundant. Acid and Necrotic can be merged to form Corrosive. Force and Bludgeoning or Force and Thunder can be merged.
That's assuming you actually want to condense them. Unless actual mechanics are developed, I'm not sure they need to be. It depends on how complex the mechanics get.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I’m not sure making resistances and immunities a narrative free-for-all would be a productive design step. That’s going to make for pretty inconsistent combat performance for spells from table to table and probably lead to a lot of arguments between players and DMs about what the spell is “actually” doing as you get players trying to finagle around the DM or DMs trying to make a boss resistant to most damage.
This latest twist in this thread is reminding me of a guy who said we should merge Water and Ice Types in Pokemon because "Ice IS Water"
"Ice is Water" only holds up if the specific behaviors of each are ignored.
Likewise, a lot of suggestions for mashing types together seem to come from Other Stuff Exists as a trope, individual frustrations of various degrees of validity, & regional cultural differences, rather than exploring exactly why some damage types are different with nuance.
Force damage, in-universe, isn't Kinetic. Rather, it's raw, unfiltered magical energy. So Eldritch Blast & Disintegrate can't be Bludgeoning, piercing and/or slashing without other magical forces filtering said energy.
Likewise, Scorching Ray, despite the name, isn't a ray of light, but actual Elemental Energy originating in the Plane of Fire. It is associated with the sun because the sun is a force of Elemental Fire as well as Radiance aka light, & can be Radiance in the Holy sense, but for Evocation purposes, it is Fire due to not all Scorching Rays being sun-related.
If I were to fix the typing situation with damage, I'd make it so more spells work like the Hellfire Cantrip from MCDM:Half one damage, & Half Another, with some classes & subclasses able to change the split, or, like Scribes Wizard, change the type.
A new damage type is not going to help things(Still waiting for spells that do Blueberry damage, lol), but splitting spells up into 2-3 damage types would clarify exactly what those spells are trying to do, imagery & purpose-wise.
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DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
Psychic damage I tend to manifest as feeling like your mind is being torn apart, and if killed via psychic damage a creature is essentially rendered brain dead by having their mind destroyed. It can be interesting IMO.
I think the damage types we have are generally good though radiant being both holy and radiation feels a bit weird. I think you could potentially solidify radiant as 'holy' or at least stricly 'light' and make things like sickening radiance deal necrotic instead.
Necrotic
What about like an unholy radiant but not a necrotic? Like something that works against undeath and the gods. Maybe an Anti-Lich thing? Vecna seems a bit underlevel to be destroying the multiverse, what if there was an easier way to kill him? But instead of instantly murdering gods, what if it can't destroy anything that harbors a soul inside of it completely? Like a half-damage or reduce to 1 hp thing for anything with a soul.
Ballistic for firearm.
If anything, there should be fewer damage types. Having so many different types is an unnecessary complication when most of the time, there's no difference between them.
Holy and unholy. Which is different than Radiant and Necrotic.
Cause Radiant is just light, a laser pistol would do radiant damage but laser pistols aren't holy.
Necrotic is just rotting, and there are plenty of things that cause rotting that aren't unholy.
He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player.
The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call
To rise up in triumph should we all unite
The spark for change is yours to ignite."
Kalandra - The State of the World
"EMOTIONALL DAAAMAAGE!!!!"
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
the opposite or radiant damage is necrotic damage
Yeah, I wonder if it's worth having different effects associated with different kinds of damage, rather than it being just a rock/paper/scissors game between damage and resistance/immunity.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
It doesn't help that 5E almost completely got rid of damage vulnerabilities, either.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The question then becomes what to pare back that doesn't impact general flavor or the few remaining mechanics- the Crusher/Slasher/Piercer feats provide a justification for the different weapon damages; Fire, Cold, and Lightning are pretty iconic to fantasy magic in general as well as quite distinct; Psychic is basically the only one for mind attacks; one could attempt to argue that Acid, Poison, and Necrotic ought to be condensed, but Poison is probably the most prominent case of a type where enemies will have resistance or immunity to it, leaving Acid and Necrotic- which have fairly distinct flavors and a fairly disparate pool of current monsters with resistances, potentially creating a notable nerf to effectiveness if combined; Radiant only has Fire as a near neighbor but there's enough Fire-resistant/immune Fiends that combining the two would have some significant balance implications. About the only instance I can really see a case for is Thunder and Force, although interestingly I get less than 20 Force-resistant monsters using the filter on Beyond but over 80 Thunder-resistant ones, so there's a case to be made for Force remaining apart as nearly never resisted type.
Depends on how you handle the effects of damage types.
If we're continuing with the rock/paper/scissors method we have now, I'd just scrap it as a statblock feature. I'd make it a DM tool instead - if the nature of the attack means you think it's going to be less effective (say, a fireball against a water elemental), then galve the damage. If it's something particularly nasty, give it immunity (or even healing!).
If you're going for the more flavoured mechanics I suggested, then there are a few that are redundant. Acid and Necrotic can be merged to form Corrosive. Force and Bludgeoning or Force and Thunder can be merged.
That's assuming you actually want to condense them. Unless actual mechanics are developed, I'm not sure they need to be. It depends on how complex the mechanics get.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I’m not sure making resistances and immunities a narrative free-for-all would be a productive design step. That’s going to make for pretty inconsistent combat performance for spells from table to table and probably lead to a lot of arguments between players and DMs about what the spell is “actually” doing as you get players trying to finagle around the DM or DMs trying to make a boss resistant to most damage.
This latest twist in this thread is reminding me of a guy who said we should merge Water and Ice Types in Pokemon because "Ice IS Water"
"Ice is Water" only holds up if the specific behaviors of each are ignored.
Likewise, a lot of suggestions for mashing types together seem to come from Other Stuff Exists as a trope, individual frustrations of various degrees of validity, & regional cultural differences, rather than exploring exactly why some damage types are different with nuance.
Force damage, in-universe, isn't Kinetic. Rather, it's raw, unfiltered magical energy. So Eldritch Blast & Disintegrate can't be Bludgeoning, piercing and/or slashing without other magical forces filtering said energy.
Likewise, Scorching Ray, despite the name, isn't a ray of light, but actual Elemental Energy originating in the Plane of Fire. It is associated with the sun because the sun is a force of Elemental Fire as well as Radiance aka light, & can be Radiance in the Holy sense, but for Evocation purposes, it is Fire due to not all Scorching Rays being sun-related.
If I were to fix the typing situation with damage, I'd make it so more spells work like the Hellfire Cantrip from MCDM:Half one damage, & Half Another, with some classes & subclasses able to change the split, or, like Scribes Wizard, change the type.
A new damage type is not going to help things(Still waiting for spells that do Blueberry damage, lol), but splitting spells up into 2-3 damage types would clarify exactly what those spells are trying to do, imagery & purpose-wise.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
BRAINSTORMING unique effects:
Enfeebling damage:
Your speed is reduced as your HP goes down (e.g. 1/2HP = 1/2 speed, 1/4HP = 1/4 speed)
Visual damage:
Your vision distance is reduced as your HP goes down (e.g. 1/2HP = 1/2 vision, 1/4HP = 1/4 vision)
Weapon damage:
Your weapon range is reduced and/or your damage is halved, etc.
Dazed damage (psychic?):
At 1/2HP you lose an Action or Bonus Action (player's choice each turn).
...just some spontaneous thoughts.