[5E 2024] Any way to replace a damage type with an effect?

[Lo Zeno]

A bit of context:

We're playing D&D with the 2024 ruleset; one character is a Monk (way of Mercy), and has the ability Empowered Strikes (Whenever you deal damage with your Unarmed Strike, it can deal your choice of Force damage or its normal damage type). The party is fighting a group of monsters that include a Clay Golem, which has Resistance to Slashing, Piercing and Bludgeoning. The monk's unarmed strikes deal normally Bludgeoning damage, so the player decided to make use of its Empowered Strikes as soon as it noticed its punches were not fully effective - great, when we created the character using the Character Wizard, it added an action to the Actions tab with an Effect button that adds "DMGTYPE: force [SELF]", so the player uses that then attacks again.
Except, the damage is still resisted. Because the new damage type does not replace Bludgeoning, but it adds to it (damage type is now "bludgeoning,force") so the Resistance to Bludgeoning of the Clay golem still kicks in.
Which is NOT what the Empowered Strikes ability does (the character can deal their choice of Force damage OR normal damage type, one or the other), and it's definitely not the intent of the ability - which is to allow the Monk to bypass standard resistances by using Force-empowered blows.

So, other than changing the damage type of the Unarmed Strike weapon each time the character swaps in or out of Empowered Strikes, is there a way to obtain this functionality that works better than adding a DMGTYPE effect?
Or is the fact that adding a DMGTYPE effect does not overcome the resistance a bug?

63781

[Lo Zeno]

Btw, the same issue happens if the enemy has Immunity to Bludgeoning, not just Resistance. It seems that the DMGTYPE: effect has, effectively, no use in 5E, since adding a damage type does nothing to overcome Resistances or Immunities, so... why does it even exist?

[claedawg]

Change the Empowered Strike to a damage dealing power instead of an effect. Use that damage dealer instead of the damage for Unarmed Strike. Not sure why they even made a separate section for weapons on the Actions tab. The Actions work much better for cases like this and other class/feat features. Wish they would add Skills to the Actions too, would be able to do so much more with skills. The Skills tab is absolutely wasted space if they could be used from the Actions tab instead.

[Lo Zeno]

Change the Empowered Strike to a damage dealing power instead of an effect. Use that damage dealer instead of the damage for Unarmed Strike. Not sure why they even made a separate section for weapons on the Actions tab. The Actions work much better for cases like this and other class/feat features. Wish they would add Skills to the Actions too, would be able to do so much more with skills. The Skills tab is absolutely wasted space if they could be used from the Actions tab instead.

That's very unintuitive, not saying that it's not a viable solution but it goes against the pattern of having the details of the weapons all together. It's also ok as an ad-hoc solution for this specific case, but there are several other abilities, items and spells that change the damage type of a weapon, in D&D 5e, and it's not sustainable to create a damage dealing effect for each and every possible combination of those abilities/spells/items to a character.

[rhagelstrom]

That's very unintuitive, not saying that it's not a viable solution but it goes against the pattern of having the details of the weapons all together. It's also ok as an ad-hoc solution for this specific case, but there are several other abilities, items and spells that change the damage type of a weapon, in D&D 5e, and it's not sustainable to create a damage dealing effect for each and every possible combination of those abilities/spells/items to a character.

For this case, why wouldn't you always have the unarmed strike deal force?

For the general case you can do this with the Resistance is Futile extension

[Zacchaeus]

The easiest thing to do in a case such as this is to create a new weapon line for the force damage. Doing this will automatically increase any attack and damage bonuses when the character's stats or proficiency bonuses change.

[Zacchaeus]

Change the Empowered Strike to a damage dealing power instead of an effect. Use that damage dealer instead of the damage for Unarmed Strike. Not sure why they even made a separate section for weapons on the Actions tab. The Actions work much better for cases like this and other class/feat features. Wish they would add Skills to the Actions too, would be able to do so much more with skills. The Skills tab is absolutely wasted space if they could be used from the Actions tab instead.

The actions tab is pretty crowded as it is without adding more to it. What's the use case in adding skills to the action tab?

[Lo Zeno]

For this case, why wouldn't you always have the unarmed strike deal force?
For this very specific case it might work for a while. However, the fact that the Character Wizard translates the Empowered Strike as "DMGTYPE: force" made me question if it was a bug, intended, or simply no one actually plays a Monk created with the Character Wizard.
Good shout about Resistance is Futile though, I'll test that.


The easiest thing to do in a case such as this is to create a new weapon line for the force damage. Doing this will automatically increase any attack and damage bonuses when the character's stats or proficiency bonuses change.
Which is probably what we will end up doing if the extension that rhagelstrom mentioned doesn't satisfy us already.
Still, I think DMGTYPE's behaviour should be changed because it doesn't seem to reflect the rules of the game system.

[Moon Wizard]

There is actually a monk in the party in my personal game; and we just changed his Unarmed Strike damage in the Weapons area to "force", instead of bludgeoning.

DMGTYPE is the closest option currently in the ruleset; there is no effect to replace damage types.

Regards,
JPG

[Lo Zeno]

There is actually a monk in the party in my personal game; and we just changed his Unarmed Strike damage in the Weapons area to "force", instead of bludgeoning.

DMGTYPE is the closest option currently in the ruleset; there is no effect to replace damage types.

Regards,
JPG

Ok so what would be the solution for, for example, the Transmuted Spell metamagic option of the Sorcerer? (other than unlocking and editing the spells damage type each time, or creating multiple copies of each damage-causing spell one for every damage type that the Transmuted Spell allows)

[Trenloe]

DMGTYPE is the closest option currently in the ruleset; there is no effect to replace damage types.
If you're curious/interested, PFRPG2 has a DMGBASETYPE effect to handle situations like this:

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=63783

[Lo Zeno]

If you're curious/interested, PFRPG2 has a DMGBASETYPE effect to handle situations like this
Yeah something like this would be perfect.
I suppose it could be possible to create an extension for it if this can't be added to the 5E ruleset?

[Zacchaeus]

Yeah something like this would be perfect.
I suppose it could be possible to create an extension for it if this can't be added to the 5E ruleset?

There is already an extension available as pointed out in post #5 above.

This one https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/2092/view

[claedawg]

The actions tab is pretty crowded as it is without adding more to it. What's the use case in adding skills to the action tab?

For when you are using expanded skill rules from 3rd party products (or homebrew rules). One specific instance would be if you want to use the skill rules from Advanced 5E but not use that whole extension. A homebrew instance would be if you like to use the old 3E skill proficiency development or something similar (I, and others, don't like the way proficiency bonuses are handled in 4E & 5E).

Basically, makes it easier to customize without having to create an extension.

[Zacchaeus]

For when you are using expanded skill rules from 3rd party products (or homebrew rules). One specific instance would be if you want to use the skill rules from Advanced 5E but not use that whole extension. A homebrew instance would be if you like to use the old 3E skill proficiency development or something similar (I, and others, don't like the way proficiency bonuses are handled in 4E & 5E).

Basically, makes it easier to customize without having to create an extension.

Can’t you do all of that using the current skills page using the misc box? Or with effects? (Sorry I can’t remember how skills worked in previous versions except I think you got skill points at level up or something like that).

[claedawg]

Can’t you do all of that using the current skills page using the misc box? Or with effects? (Sorry I can’t remember how skills worked in previous versions except I think you got skill points at level up or something like that).

You can't track skill points on the Skill tab and it also auto applies the Prof Bonus. If you could do the entries from the Actions Tab (separate from the skill tab) you could handle all of that. In this specific case, the point is to get rid of the generic "everything gets the same prof bonus" mechanic, but lets you keep all of the other stuff (which you would not be able to do in the 3E ruleset, without some heavy lifting).

EDIT: I have a feature request for this (from over a year ago?) that has 31 votes. Not a lot, but pretty good for the number of people that actually vote on the Feature Request page. My most voted request is to add an Action Tab to NPCs, at 124 votes. The action Tab for NPCs I believe is the most important thing that should be added, lol. That, and allowing players full access to NPCs without having Shared Vision and what-not activated.

[Zacchaeus]

You could apply an effect of SKILL: [-PRF] to remove the proficiency bonus from all skills (or list the ones you want to remove the bonus from i.e SKILL: [-PRF] perception, persuasion etc). Then just add the skill points into the MISC box on the skills tab. It would still be a manual process to keep track of skill points.

[claedawg]

You could apply an effect of SKILL: [-PRF] to remove the proficiency bonus from all skills (or list the ones you want to remove the bonus from i.e SKILL: [-PRF] perception, persuasion etc). Then just add the skill points into the MISC box on the skills tab. It would still be a manual process to keep track of skill points.

That's a good idea. Thanks!

One of these days I might actually finish making my own system and not have to worry about homebrewing another ruleset. But, been trying to make my own games since elementary school back in the 80s and have yet to finish one, lol. Then I'll need to learn how to actually make a ruleset for FG.

[Trenloe]

If you're curious/interested, PFRPG2 has a DMGBASETYPE effect to handle situations like this:

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=63783

DMGBASETYPE has been added to some rulesets in the current test version: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?84610-Beta-Release-Ruleset-Updates-2025-04&p=740470&viewfull=1#post740470

[Lo Zeno]

DMGBASETYPE has been added to some rulesets in the current test version: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?84610-Beta-Release-Ruleset-Updates-2025-04&p=740470&viewfull=1#post740470

Fantastic! I started using Resistance Is Futile with its DMGTYPENEW in my last session, but since I don't need the rest of the extension this is perfect