I am thinking about homebrewing a feature for one of my players who plays a Chosen cleric of Mystra. The feature would give her the ability to call upon Mystra's Blueflame/Silverfire.
My question is this: For damage purposes, would Blueflame be considered Force damage, Radiant damage, or both?
The DMG describes the two damage types in the following way:
Force. Force is pure magical energy focused into a damaging form. Most effects that deal force damage are spells, including magic missile andspiritual weapon.
Radiant. Radiant damage, dealt by a cleric's flame strike spell or an angel's smiting weapon, sears the flesh like fire and overloads the spirit with power.
Various different sources (books/wikis etc.) describe Blueflame as the pure magical energy of the Weave. This make me think that Force damage is the appropriate damage type. However, many spells dealing Radiant damage have the same flavor I would ascribe to Blueflame being fire-like (Sacred Flame, Flame Strike etc.) without really being fire. Which do you think is most appropriate, and where do you draw the line between Force and Radiant damage?
I like using Radiant damage as spiritual damage or damage from short wavelengths of light. AE, blasting a gama ray in someone's face. Force damage is in a complete tier of its own because of how little it is actually resisted. In terms of magic, force is as raw and primal as it gets. I think Force is very much more appropriate. However, what type of domain is your player using?
I'd say that Blueflame, being the deity's signature magic, can be considered being sort of spiritual/divine magic. However, the angle on Radiant damage being related to light had for some reason never crossed by mind. Looking at the spells dealing Radiant damage, most of them do mention emitting some sort of light. It wouldn't be hard to argue that the Blueflame could/would likewise radiate a divine light. That being said, I am leaning most towards Force damage for this feature, due to the raw nature of the magic.
For context the player is playing a Air Genasi Tempest Cleric. As the deity and subclass don't really add up, we're focusing on her Air Genasi heritage as a bearing factor for her class features.
Also, interesting to see the resistances/vulnerabilities broken down like that. Thought there'd be way more monsters vulnerable to Radiant damage.
Yeah, straight-up vulnerabilities are pretty rare. It's more common for particular damage types to overcome death-defying monster traits, like Radiant against Undead Fortitude or Fire/Acid against a Troll's Regeneration.
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I am thinking about homebrewing a feature for one of my players who plays a Chosen cleric of Mystra.
The feature would give her the ability to call upon Mystra's Blueflame/Silverfire.
My question is this: For damage purposes, would Blueflame be considered Force damage, Radiant damage, or both?
The DMG describes the two damage types in the following way:
Various different sources (books/wikis etc.) describe Blueflame as the pure magical energy of the Weave. This make me think that Force damage is the appropriate damage type.
However, many spells dealing Radiant damage have the same flavor I would ascribe to Blueflame being fire-like (Sacred Flame, Flame Strike etc.) without really being fire.
Which do you think is most appropriate, and where do you draw the line between Force and Radiant damage?
There are four tiers of damage:
I like using Radiant damage as spiritual damage or damage from short wavelengths of light. AE, blasting a gama ray in someone's face. Force damage is in a complete tier of its own because of how little it is actually resisted. In terms of magic, force is as raw and primal as it gets. I think Force is very much more appropriate. However, what type of domain is your player using?
My only good homebrews: Races, Subclasses.
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I'd say force damage if it's the pure weave.
I use radiant for damage from light as well as sometimes divine power.
I'd also see Mystra being more force damage than radiant due to her being the goddess of magic not light.
I once did a survey of the vulnerabilities, resistances, and immunities of all monsters in MM, VGtM, and MToF. Here are my results as a tier list:
Didn't do weapon damage types because of so many variations of it (silvered, adamant, non-magic, any).
I'd say that Blueflame, being the deity's signature magic, can be considered being sort of spiritual/divine magic. However, the angle on Radiant damage being related to light had for some reason never crossed by mind. Looking at the spells dealing Radiant damage, most of them do mention emitting some sort of light. It wouldn't be hard to argue that the Blueflame could/would likewise radiate a divine light. That being said, I am leaning most towards Force damage for this feature, due to the raw nature of the magic.
For context the player is playing a Air Genasi Tempest Cleric. As the deity and subclass don't really add up, we're focusing on her Air Genasi heritage as a bearing factor for her class features.
Also, interesting to see the resistances/vulnerabilities broken down like that. Thought there'd be way more monsters vulnerable to Radiant damage.
Yeah, straight-up vulnerabilities are pretty rare. It's more common for particular damage types to overcome death-defying monster traits, like Radiant against Undead Fortitude or Fire/Acid against a Troll's Regeneration.
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)