Virtually all monsters that have Resistance to Slashing/ Bludgeoning, and Piercing Damage lose that Resistance if the weapon Attack is considered Magical or is an actual Magical Weapon. Once most players get to 5th or 6th level they have access to a magical weapon, often much earlier., which renders the feature meaningless for anything really at CR7 or so.
I am considering altering that Resistance to all weapons, magical or not. What do DM's think of this?
The entire historical point of that resistance is "You need magic weapons to hurt it". Though if you want to emulate the 'you must be this tall to fight this monster' effect from prior editions you could gateway it by rarity, so you might need a Rare, Very Rare, Legendary, or even Artifact weapon to bypass resistance.
The entire historical point of that resistance is "You need magic weapons to hurt it". Though if you want to emulate the 'you must be this tall to fight this monster' effect from prior editions you could gateway it by rarity, so you might need a Rare, Very Rare, Legendary, or even Artifact weapon to bypass resistance.
So, are you thinking that resistance to non-magical weapon damage is a legacy thing exclusively within the D&D universe, or in the entire fantasy world, or something else entirely?
I really don't know what to do with the entire concept. WOTC devoted a lot of type to a lot of monsters for a feature that is pretty much meaningless for the vast majority of encounters.
The entire historical point of that resistance is "You need magic weapons to hurt it". Though if you want to emulate the 'you must be this tall to fight this monster' effect from prior editions you could gateway it by rarity, so you might need a Rare, Very Rare, Legendary, or even Artifact weapon to bypass resistance.
So, are you thinking that resistance to non-magical weapon damage is a legacy thing exclusively within the D&D universe, or in the entire fantasy world, or something else entirely?
It's a legacy thing in the D&D universe, but monsters that are impervious to ordinary weapons are perfectly traditional. Usually that means there's a side quest to get the weapon that can hurt it, of course. In practice, the main effect of resistance to ordinary weapons is that it means the monster isn't terribly vulnerable to a squad of guards or Conjure Animals.
You still need a way to harm a monster, which is why damage immunities are overridden by magic weapons.
You could give immunity to magic weapons, however I would keep it restricted to an immunity to a particular damage type, or immunity to magic weapons of a certain level (+1, or rarity type). Some monsters have immunity to magic spells under a certain level, after all.
An interesting reverse to this, would have a magical creature immune to magic weapons, but vulnerable or at least taking normal damage from non-magical weapons.
However, I wouldn't give resistance to ALL weapons, because that effectively doubles their health pool unless your players are caster-heavy.
An interesting reverse to this, would have a magical creature immune to magic weapons, but vulnerable or at least taking normal damage from non-magical weapons.
Love this idea.
Stealing!
Why do I love it? Above a certain level, most PCs will have ditched their mundane stuff for magical stuff. So now they have these awesome +2 and so forth items, every item is magical, and all of a sudden, they are facing resistance - much like at level 5 when their regular weapons started not working on monsters. I love the reversal... and I want to see the expression on the faces of players with level 11 characters whose +2 swords and +1 hand axes suddenly are doing half damage. MUH-HAHAHAHA.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
An interesting reverse to this, would have a magical creature immune to magic weapons, but vulnerable or at least taking normal damage from non-magical weapons.
Love this idea.
Stealing!
Why do I love it? Above a certain level, most PCs will have ditched their mundane stuff for magical stuff. So now they have these awesome +2 and so forth items, every item is magical, and all of a sudden, they are facing resistance - much like at level 5 when their regular weapons started not working on monsters. I love the reversal... and I want to see the expression on the faces of players with level 11 characters whose +2 swords and +1 hand axes suddenly are doing half damage. MUH-HAHAHAHA.
Unarmed damage is 1+STR non-magical damage (except for the Monk!).
An interesting reverse to this, would have a magical creature immune to magic weapons, but vulnerable or at least taking normal damage from non-magical weapons.
Love this idea.
Stealing!
Why do I love it? Above a certain level, most PCs will have ditched their mundane stuff for magical stuff. So now they have these awesome +2 and so forth items, every item is magical, and all of a sudden, they are facing resistance - much like at level 5 when their regular weapons started not working on monsters. I love the reversal... and I want to see the expression on the faces of players with level 11 characters whose +2 swords and +1 hand axes suddenly are doing half damage. MUH-HAHAHAHA.
I suspect most archers will have some non-magical arrows kicking around even at high level, as using magic arrows is an expense that can add up easily even at high level Ithis is also a case for resistance to normal weapons being relevant).
I am sure it would not take most higher level parties long to figure out a way around it... mostly it would be a fun little surprise for a battle or two.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Except that RAW normal arrows fired from a magic bow count as "magic weapon damage" for the purposes of overcoming resistances.
From the DMG (Chapter 7: Magic Item Categories) "If a magic weapon has the ammunition property, ammunition fired from it is considered magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage."
I like the idea of "not resistant to non-magical weapons", but as Biohazard pointed out, it becomes something the players clue into fairly quickly. I think it becomes more of a gimmick. A cool idea, and one I will definitely incorporate into my game, but in the long run, something that runs thin.
I am contemplating something else. It will be an additional level of complexity, and could also be considered a gimmick, but I believe it has legs.
There are two variations:
1. I decide certain monsters have Resistance to All Slashing. Piercing, and Bludgeoning damage. That would push those specific creatures' CR up, and I would have to keep track of what creatures I give that to.
2. I decide all creatures have the above mentioned Resistance. But I introduce a new set of Magical Weapons, that bypass that Resistance. So in some cases a +3 weapon is worse than some +1 Weapon (Ignores the creature's Resistance).
The second method is also gimmicky, and once again, adds a lot more complexity.
If you're going to add resistance to magic weapons, make sure you also add a lot more monsters with resistance to magical damage types -- almost nothing resists force or radiant.
I like the idea of "not resistant to non-magical weapons", but as Biohazard pointed out, it becomes something the players clue into fairly quickly. I think it becomes more of a gimmick. A cool idea, and one I will definitely incorporate into my game, but in the long run, something that runs thin.
I am contemplating something else. It will be an additional level of complexity, and could also be considered a gimmick, but I believe it has legs.
There are two variations:
1. I decide certain monsters have Resistance to All Slashing. Piercing, and Bludgeoning damage. That would push those specific creatures' CR up, and I would have to keep track of what creatures I give that to.
2. I decide all creatures have the above mentioned Resistance. But I introduce a new set of Magical Weapons, that bypass that Resistance. So in some cases a +3 weapon is worse than some +1 Weapon (Ignores the creature's Resistance).
The second method is also gimmicky, and once again, adds a lot more complexity.
Keep in mind this is basically "resistance to martial classes." If you truly want to expand resistances in order to create interesting combat, consider adding blanket "screw spellcaster" effects to some monsters as well. Maybe resistance to all spells below level X or something. Because I can tell you as someone who has experienced this, it's extremely demoralizing at high levels to run into things that resist your magic sword but take full damage from a piddly level 1 magic missile.
There is still plenty of sources of non-magical damage at high levels. Most of it is just environmental or from NPCs that are supposed to be weaker than PCs. The colossal titan at the castle gates shrugs off waves of arrows from the battlements, but the hero with the golden shining sword can pierce his hide. That's cool. That's D&D.
But ultimately I'm not sure what your complexity is bringing to the game unless you're just expressly trying to make martial classes feel weaker, which is not at all necessary beyond level 5 or so when Fireball comes into play.
I like the idea of "not resistant to non-magical weapons", but as Biohazard pointed out, it becomes something the players clue into fairly quickly. I think it becomes more of a gimmick. A cool idea, and one I will definitely incorporate into my game, but in the long run, something that runs thin.
I am contemplating something else. It will be an additional level of complexity, and could also be considered a gimmick, but I believe it has legs.
There are two variations:
1. I decide certain monsters have Resistance to All Slashing. Piercing, and Bludgeoning damage. That would push those specific creatures' CR up, and I would have to keep track of what creatures I give that to.
2. I decide all creatures have the above mentioned Resistance. But I introduce a new set of Magical Weapons, that bypass that Resistance. So in some cases a +3 weapon is worse than some +1 Weapon (Ignores the creature's Resistance).
The second method is also gimmicky, and once again, adds a lot more complexity.
Keep in mind this is basically "resistance to martial classes." If you truly want to expand resistances in order to create interesting combat, consider adding blanket "screw spellcaster" effects to some monsters as well. Maybe resistance to all spells below level X or something. Because I can tell you as someone who has experienced this, it's extremely demoralizing at high levels to run into things that resist your magic sword but take full damage from a piddly level 1 magic missile.
There is still plenty of sources of non-magical damage at high levels. Most of it is just environmental or from NPCs that are supposed to be weaker than PCs. The colossal titan at the castle gates shrugs off waves of arrows from the battlements, but the hero with the golden shining sword can pierce his hide. That's cool. That's D&D.
But ultimately I'm not sure what your complexity is bringing to the game unless you're just expressly trying to make martial classes feel weaker, which is not at all necessary beyond level 5 or so when Fireball comes into play.
Good points about making it tougher for casters, and Force Damage definitely should have more resists.
Incidentally, the standard way of making monsters resistant to all weapons is by giving them a high armor class. If you want a monster that's easiest for casters to deal with, give it high armor class and low saves. If you want easier for martial classes, low armor class and high saves.
A few things that I think are worth pointing out for this conversation:
Instances of certain monsters being resistant or immune to conventional injuries is not anywhere near exclusive to D&D. In fact, on all 6 of the populated continents on Earth, there are legends or myths of creatures that cannot be harmed by mundane weapons or other sources of injury dating back the the earliest recorded histories of those peoples. The modern concept of a Vampire/Vampyre may not have developed until the 19th-century, but “vampire” is really more of an umbrella term for a litany of creature dating back to Mesopotamia. The sag of Beowulf may not have been written down until the late 10th-century, but the legend of the hero who’s very might was on parallel to magic, since mundane weapons could not hurt Grendel or his Mother, or did very little damage at most. If you really dig into the IRL lore for the monsters that actually originated from real life mythologies and legends, you’ll see that much of those details have made it into D&D in some way or other.
There is not really any such thing as “magic damage,” or “nonmagical damage” in 5e. There is really only “damage from magical source/attacks.” The “attack” might be magical, such as a class feature or spell, or the “source of the damage” might be magical, such as damage from a magic weapon, but the actual damage itself is not considered “magical.” Note, if something is resistant to “bludgeoning, piercing, and slash damage from nonmagical attacks (that aren’t silvered),” that resistance does not apply to anti that does not require an attack roll, such as falling damage for instance, nor does it protect against any other types of damage than the three listed. So, if you hit a werewolf with a lit torch used as an improvised club, that critter will only take half of the bludgeoning damage, but it will still take that 1 fire damage, even though it is from a “nonmagical attack.”
In older editions of D&D, they even went as far as to say that some monsters could only be harmed by attacks made with a weapon that carried a +1 or better enchantment, and others that could only be hurt by +2 or even +3 weapons. However, 5e has really streamlined the Magic Items so much compared to older editions. So, if I were contemplating something like this I would use “uncommon,” “rare,” and “very rare” as those levels of distinction above simply “magic.” And, in keeping with that scaling, if you really wanna do right, any monster that is immune/resistant to damage from attacks made with a weapon of lower than uncommon rarity, that resistance should also apply to cantrips and 1st-level spells. Monsters that could only be hurt (or fully hurt) by rare or rarer magic weapons should also apply that resistance against 1st & 2nd-level spells too. I Would not apply this resistance against class features other than Spellcasting however.
A few things that I think are worth pointing out for this conversation:
Instances of certain monsters being resistant or immune to conventional injuries is not anywhere near exclusive to D&D. In fact, on all 6 of the populated continents on Earth, there are legends or myths of creatures that cannot be harmed by mundane weapons or other sources of injury dating back the the earliest recorded histories of those peoples. The modern concept of a Vampire/Vampyre may not have developed until the 19th-century, but “vampire” is really more of an umbrella term for a litany of creature dating back to Mesopotamia. The sag of Beowulf may not have been written down until the late 10th-century, but the legend of the hero who’s very might was on parallel to magic, since mundane weapons could not hurt Grendel or his Mother, or did very little damage at most. If you really dig into the IRL lore for the monsters that actually originated from real life mythologies and legends, you’ll see that much of those details have made it into D&D in some way or other.
There is not really any such thing as “magic damage,” or “nonmagical damage” in 5e. There is really only “damage from magical source/attacks.” The “attack” might be magical, such as a class feature or spell, or the “source of the damage” might be magical, such as damage from a magic weapon, but the actual damage itself is not considered “magical.” Note, if something is resistant to “bludgeoning, piercing, and slash damage from nonmagical attacks (that aren’t silvered),” that resistance does not apply to anti that does not require an attack roll, such as falling damage for instance, nor does it protect against any other types of damage than the three listed. So, if you hit a werewolf with a lit torch used as an improvised club, that critter will only take half of the bludgeoning damage, but it will still take that 1 fire damage, even though it is from a “nonmagical attack.”
In older editions of D&D, they even went as far as to say that some monsters could only be harmed by attacks made with a weapon that carried a +1 or better enchantment, and others that could only be hurt by +2 or even +3 weapons. However, 5e has really streamlined the Magic Items so much compared to older editions. So, if I were contemplating something like this I would use “uncommon,” “rare,” and “very rare” as those levels of distinction above simply “magic.” And, in keeping with that scaling, if you really wanna do right, any monster that is immune/resistant to damage from attacks made with a weapon of lower than uncommon rarity, that resistance should also apply to cantrips and 1st-level spells. Monsters that could only be hurt (or fully hurt) by rare or rarer magic weapons should also apply that resistance against 1st & 2nd-level spells too. I Would not apply this resistance against class features other than Spellcasting however.
Yeah, sloppy wording on my part about "magic damage".
The more I think about it, the tracking of damage by various "Rarity" of weapon becomes a real issue, at least for the DM. Knowing who has what weapons becomes tricky in the heat of managing combat. Same goes for 2nd option I listed in an earlier post. It is far more simple to say "this creature has Resistance to damage from damage types X, Y and Z", and "this one doesn't". Given that my players know most of the monsters backwards and forward, this option also lends to more surprise for the players, more of a challenge, and hopefully more enjoyment.
I see one idea I love and have one of my own I was going to implement in a dungeon crawl.
The notion of a monster suddenly becoming resistant to magical damage is simply marvelous IMO. It would, as Bio mentioned, throw the party for a loop on the first encounter of it. I feel Monks would be best suited for these kinds of shifts, because I feel a Monk could NOT infuse his strike with his Ki if he wished, making his swap from magical to non-magical a verbal note to the DM.
My idea was the party was going to encounter a monster IMMUNE to melee damage (undead ghost-ish creature I made, using existing monster as a base) I had planted a couple weapons that dealt extra damage (one fire and one poison if memory serves) By balancing it's HP, it was going to make for a very challenging encounter that would rely heavily on the Wizard and Cleric to survive. Thought it was an interesting twist.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
The other thing you can do is, rather than giving a monster a slew of resistances, give it high hit points and a vulnerability to whatever you want people to choose to take it out. Very few monsters are assigned vulnerabilities, which seems like unused design space.
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I would like opinions from DM's on this concept.
Virtually all monsters that have Resistance to Slashing/ Bludgeoning, and Piercing Damage lose that Resistance if the weapon Attack is considered Magical or is an actual Magical Weapon. Once most players get to 5th or 6th level they have access to a magical weapon, often much earlier., which renders the feature meaningless for anything really at CR7 or so.
I am considering altering that Resistance to all weapons, magical or not. What do DM's think of this?
The entire historical point of that resistance is "You need magic weapons to hurt it". Though if you want to emulate the 'you must be this tall to fight this monster' effect from prior editions you could gateway it by rarity, so you might need a Rare, Very Rare, Legendary, or even Artifact weapon to bypass resistance.
So, are you thinking that resistance to non-magical weapon damage is a legacy thing exclusively within the D&D universe, or in the entire fantasy world, or something else entirely?
I really don't know what to do with the entire concept. WOTC devoted a lot of type to a lot of monsters for a feature that is pretty much meaningless for the vast majority of encounters.
It's a legacy thing in the D&D universe, but monsters that are impervious to ordinary weapons are perfectly traditional. Usually that means there's a side quest to get the weapon that can hurt it, of course. In practice, the main effect of resistance to ordinary weapons is that it means the monster isn't terribly vulnerable to a squad of guards or Conjure Animals.
You still need a way to harm a monster, which is why damage immunities are overridden by magic weapons.
You could give immunity to magic weapons, however I would keep it restricted to an immunity to a particular damage type, or immunity to magic weapons of a certain level (+1, or rarity type). Some monsters have immunity to magic spells under a certain level, after all.
An interesting reverse to this, would have a magical creature immune to magic weapons, but vulnerable or at least taking normal damage from non-magical weapons.
However, I wouldn't give resistance to ALL weapons, because that effectively doubles their health pool unless your players are caster-heavy.
OK thanks guys. This gives me food for thought.
Love this idea.
Stealing!
Why do I love it? Above a certain level, most PCs will have ditched their mundane stuff for magical stuff. So now they have these awesome +2 and so forth items, every item is magical, and all of a sudden, they are facing resistance - much like at level 5 when their regular weapons started not working on monsters. I love the reversal... and I want to see the expression on the faces of players with level 11 characters whose +2 swords and +1 hand axes suddenly are doing half damage. MUH-HAHAHAHA.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Unarmed damage is 1+STR non-magical damage (except for the Monk!).
I suspect most archers will have some non-magical arrows kicking around even at high level, as using magic arrows is an expense that can add up easily even at high level Ithis is also a case for resistance to normal weapons being relevant).
I am sure it would not take most higher level parties long to figure out a way around it... mostly it would be a fun little surprise for a battle or two.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Except that RAW normal arrows fired from a magic bow count as "magic weapon damage" for the purposes of overcoming resistances.
From the DMG (Chapter 7: Magic Item Categories) "If a magic weapon has the ammunition property, ammunition fired from it is considered magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage."
I like the idea of "not resistant to non-magical weapons", but as Biohazard pointed out, it becomes something the players clue into fairly quickly. I think it becomes more of a gimmick. A cool idea, and one I will definitely incorporate into my game, but in the long run, something that runs thin.
I am contemplating something else. It will be an additional level of complexity, and could also be considered a gimmick, but I believe it has legs.
There are two variations:
1. I decide certain monsters have Resistance to All Slashing. Piercing, and Bludgeoning damage. That would push those specific creatures' CR up, and I would have to keep track of what creatures I give that to.
2. I decide all creatures have the above mentioned Resistance. But I introduce a new set of Magical Weapons, that bypass that Resistance. So in some cases a +3 weapon is worse than some +1 Weapon (Ignores the creature's Resistance).
The second method is also gimmicky, and once again, adds a lot more complexity.
If you're going to add resistance to magic weapons, make sure you also add a lot more monsters with resistance to magical damage types -- almost nothing resists force or radiant.
Keep in mind this is basically "resistance to martial classes." If you truly want to expand resistances in order to create interesting combat, consider adding blanket "screw spellcaster" effects to some monsters as well. Maybe resistance to all spells below level X or something. Because I can tell you as someone who has experienced this, it's extremely demoralizing at high levels to run into things that resist your magic sword but take full damage from a piddly level 1 magic missile.
There is still plenty of sources of non-magical damage at high levels. Most of it is just environmental or from NPCs that are supposed to be weaker than PCs. The colossal titan at the castle gates shrugs off waves of arrows from the battlements, but the hero with the golden shining sword can pierce his hide. That's cool. That's D&D.
But ultimately I'm not sure what your complexity is bringing to the game unless you're just expressly trying to make martial classes feel weaker, which is not at all necessary beyond level 5 or so when Fireball comes into play.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Good points about making it tougher for casters, and Force Damage definitely should have more resists.
Incidentally, the standard way of making monsters resistant to all weapons is by giving them a high armor class. If you want a monster that's easiest for casters to deal with, give it high armor class and low saves. If you want easier for martial classes, low armor class and high saves.
A few things that I think are worth pointing out for this conversation:
Instances of certain monsters being resistant or immune to conventional injuries is not anywhere near exclusive to D&D. In fact, on all 6 of the populated continents on Earth, there are legends or myths of creatures that cannot be harmed by mundane weapons or other sources of injury dating back the the earliest recorded histories of those peoples. The modern concept of a Vampire/Vampyre may not have developed until the 19th-century, but “vampire” is really more of an umbrella term for a litany of creature dating back to Mesopotamia. The sag of Beowulf may not have been written down until the late 10th-century, but the legend of the hero who’s very might was on parallel to magic, since mundane weapons could not hurt Grendel or his Mother, or did very little damage at most. If you really dig into the IRL lore for the monsters that actually originated from real life mythologies and legends, you’ll see that much of those details have made it into D&D in some way or other.
There is not really any such thing as “magic damage,” or “nonmagical damage” in 5e. There is really only “damage from magical source/attacks.” The “attack” might be magical, such as a class feature or spell, or the “source of the damage” might be magical, such as damage from a magic weapon, but the actual damage itself is not considered “magical.” Note, if something is resistant to “bludgeoning, piercing, and slash damage from nonmagical attacks (that aren’t silvered),” that resistance does not apply to anti that does not require an attack roll, such as falling damage for instance, nor does it protect against any other types of damage than the three listed. So, if you hit a werewolf with a lit torch used as an improvised club, that critter will only take half of the bludgeoning damage, but it will still take that 1 fire damage, even though it is from a “nonmagical attack.”
In older editions of D&D, they even went as far as to say that some monsters could only be harmed by attacks made with a weapon that carried a +1 or better enchantment, and others that could only be hurt by +2 or even +3 weapons. However, 5e has really streamlined the Magic Items so much compared to older editions. So, if I were contemplating something like this I would use “uncommon,” “rare,” and “very rare” as those levels of distinction above simply “magic.” And, in keeping with that scaling, if you really wanna do right, any monster that is immune/resistant to damage from attacks made with a weapon of lower than uncommon rarity, that resistance should also apply to cantrips and 1st-level spells. Monsters that could only be hurt (or fully hurt) by rare or rarer magic weapons should also apply that resistance against 1st & 2nd-level spells too. I Would not apply this resistance against class features other than Spellcasting however.
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Yeah, sloppy wording on my part about "magic damage".
The more I think about it, the tracking of damage by various "Rarity" of weapon becomes a real issue, at least for the DM. Knowing who has what weapons becomes tricky in the heat of managing combat. Same goes for 2nd option I listed in an earlier post. It is far more simple to say "this creature has Resistance to damage from damage types X, Y and Z", and "this one doesn't". Given that my players know most of the monsters backwards and forward, this option also lends to more surprise for the players, more of a challenge, and hopefully more enjoyment.
I see one idea I love and have one of my own I was going to implement in a dungeon crawl.
The notion of a monster suddenly becoming resistant to magical damage is simply marvelous IMO. It would, as Bio mentioned, throw the party for a loop on the first encounter of it. I feel Monks would be best suited for these kinds of shifts, because I feel a Monk could NOT infuse his strike with his Ki if he wished, making his swap from magical to non-magical a verbal note to the DM.
My idea was the party was going to encounter a monster IMMUNE to melee damage (undead ghost-ish creature I made, using existing monster as a base) I had planted a couple weapons that dealt extra damage (one fire and one poison if memory serves) By balancing it's HP, it was going to make for a very challenging encounter that would rely heavily on the Wizard and Cleric to survive. Thought it was an interesting twist.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
The other thing you can do is, rather than giving a monster a slew of resistances, give it high hit points and a vulnerability to whatever you want people to choose to take it out. Very few monsters are assigned vulnerabilities, which seems like unused design space.