Capitalization and Damage Types

[Ghoti]

I'm curious if I'm the only one who's noticed (or run into) this, but damage types seem to be case-sensitive and it keeps biting me in the butt when I try to manually add Damage effects to things. Especially with the integration of damage types and the die sets (which is really nifty to see in action), every so often I will add an effect that (for example) does "2d4 Poison" rather than "2d4 poison" damage, and only the latter works automagically; at least for me and I've frequently had to go back and update records.

Has there been any thought as to making the matching for that sort of thing case-insensitive? Or making it more consistent with the other matches (e. g. Abilities such as Perception are always capitalized)?

[Moon Wizard]

That's by design; since there are a lot of damage type lookups and all the text in the official books for weapons, spells and NPC actions when referring to damage types are lowercase.

Regards,
JPG

[cwsoots]

Jumping into this thread for some needed clarification...

In the 5e 2024 books, Damage Types and Conditions are now capitalized. Note that an official 2024 style guide has not yet been released. However, it is evident from the books themselves. See the attached image for an example from the 5e 2024 Monster Manual (emphasis on Resistances, Immunities, and the "Thunder" damage in the Attack action).

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As a result, I have started capitalizing all Damage Types and Conditions for all 5e 2024-compliant PC and custom NPC weapons and effects, their Immunities/Resistances, etc..

Can FGU recognize capitalized Damage Types and Conditions? Please confirm, as I've got a lot of work ahead of me if it can't. :confused:

[Moon Wizard]

Most places automatically adjust the damage types to lower case before checking.

If you have a specific example that is not working, please provide me with a set of steps to check.

Regards,
JPG

[cwsoots]

Thanks for your response, JPG. It sounds like I'm OK to continue using capitalized Damage Types and Conditions. Whew!

If I find somewhere that this is not working, I'll be sure to let you know. Thank you. :)

[cwsoots]

Well that didn't take long...

In our session last night, a raging Barbarian who has "Resistance to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage" was receiving full damage from a foe. The Rage effect included the "RESIST: Bludgeoning, Piercing, Slashing" effect and this did not work. Remembering this thread, I changed it in the CT to "RESIST: bludgeoning, piercing, slashing" and that worked just fine.

I later tested it in a clean campaign (no extensions loaded), and confirmed that capitalized Damage Types are being ignored for the RESIST: effect. This test can be recreated easily by copying/pasting the above effect onto test combatants in the CT and rolling for the respective damage types.

Hopefully, getting FGU to recognize capitalized Damage Types is a 'quick fix'...

[Moon Wizard]

As I'm in the middle of developing significant changes to that system, it's not a quick fix.
The effects system has always required uppercase for the effect tags; and lowercase for the effect modifiers. It's that way in the wiki.

The problem with general case forcing all effect modifiers to lower case is that not all game systems are written with that assumption, which means that other systems could break.

I'll see if I can fix in just those damage adjustment scenarios; but it will be farther in the future.

Regards,
JPG

[cwsoots]

Thanks, JPG, for your consideration. It would be nice to not have to worry about case sensitivity while being consistent with the WotC 5e 2024 styling.

In the meantime, I've got a lot of work ahead of me to review all custom effects, characters, and NPCs and remove any capitalization through all of the six 5e 2024 campaigns I maintain. :(

[Moon Wizard]

It should only be the effects that are impacted; and they would have always been impacted. This requirement of the effects has always been that way.

Regards,
JPG