What damage types are most common?

[Fralex]

Anybody know of any resources for finding out how often each kind of damage is used? Would be useful in any number of situations. I'm aware of a few trends, like fire damage seems to be the most common "elemental" damage, but I'd really like to get a better understanding of this.

[Kryx]

MM Resistances, Immunities, Vulnerabilities, and Damage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?379165-MM-Resistances-Immunities-Vulnerabilities-and-Damage)

[calebrus]

What damage types are most common?
On these boards, psychic.

[MrStabby]

What damage types are most common?
On these boards, psychic.

Open thread, take 10 points of stupidity damage?

It isn't that bad here.

[Shining Wrath]

What damage types are most common?
On these boards, psychic.

I think neurotic.

[Safety Sword]

What damage types are most common?
On these boards, psychic.

It's the stupid interpretations of the rules that really do the damage around here.

I take mostly bludgeoning damage from banging my head on the desk in frustration.

[Easy_Lee]

MM Resistances, Immunities, Vulnerabilities, and Damage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?379165-MM-Resistances-Immunities-Vulnerabilities-and-Damage)

I always look over that thing and wonder why there are so many more resistances and immunities than vulnerabilities. WoTC couldn't balance a Pokemon game to save their life.

Fire and poison damage are more common than anything besides mundane. That said, OP, for what purpose do you want to know?

[Safety Sword]

I always look over that thing and wonder why there are so many more resistances and immunities than vulnerabilities. WoTC couldn't balance a Pokemon game to save their life.

Fire and poison damage are more common than anything besides mundane. That said, OP, for what purpose do you want to know?

No one is asking to balance D&D like Pokemon... it's actually not all that much of a problem that some immunities or vulnerabilities are more common or less common because not everyone is basing their characters on the mathematics of being the "best" character. Thankfully there is a lot more to D&D than the munchkin powergamers.

"If you judge a fish game by its ability to climb be balanced in another tree game, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid a bad game." - No longer Albert Einstein.

[Fralex]

Fire and poison damage are more common than anything besides mundane. That said, OP, for what purpose do you want to know?

I just wanted to get a feel for which damage types are valuable on their own, and which ones might need something more than just the damage to be as useful. i.e. a spell that does force damage is far stronger than one that does that same amount of bludgeoning damage. I like to homebrew things, and wanted to find out what other damage types tend to have less downsides.

Specifically, I thought it would be neat for potion of fire breath to have variants for cold, lightning, and thunder, and wanted to figure out if it was balanced that they would all do the same amount of damage.

Fire: 108
Cold: 82
Lightning: 55
Thunder: 17

Scores calculated by subtracting vulnerabilities from resistances, then adding double the amount of immunities.

Damage resistance doesn't really come up frequently enough to justify lowering the damage on the better types, but I think I'll reduce the range of cold to 25 feet, lightning to 20, and thunder to 15. Maybe I can nerf them in more interesting ways, though...

[Fralex]

What damage types are most common?
On these boards, psychic.

Hmm, I don't know about that. I've never read anything so stupid it felt like it was damaging my mind. Let's see... what would work...

Flame wars are extremely rare, and usually get stopped right away, so I wouldn't say it's fire damage.
The people are fairly friendly, so there's not a lot of cold damage being felt.
It's definitely not toxic or caustic anywhere that I've seen, so poison and acid are both out.
I don't remember finding any threads unbelievably stunning or shocking, so I don't think it's lightning damage.
I've never read a thread that crushed my soul and made me give up on the human race, so it's not necrotic damage.
And, although a few threads have overwhelmed me with sheer awesomeness, I wouldn't say it's common enough for radiant damage to be a concern.
It's not even physically possible to make a post in all caps, so no thunder damage.
I guess people make remarks that might be considered cutting, barbed, or just plain blunt, but that happens in pretty much any forum.
Sometimes people seem a little too determined to prove they've been right all along, and push their own views too hard, though. I think the most common kind of damage here would be force damage.

[Knaight]

No one is asking to balance D&D like Pokemon... it's actually not all that much of a problem that some immunities or vulnerabilities are more common or less common because not everyone is basing their characters on the mathematics of being the "best" character. Thankfully there is a lot more to D&D than the munchkin powergamers.
With that said, the lack of vulnerabilities is odd. A lot of mythical monsters are defined by their vulnerabilities more than anything else - they're generally pretty resilient, until someone thinks up the one thing that works beautifully against them. Pulling from Greek sources alone you've got the lead balls that were melted into the throat of a fire breathing monster, a lion that was nigh invulnerable as long as it was on the ground, a petrifying monster nearly impossible to fight until looking at it was nullified, and even on the heroic side someone with a major distinguishing trait being the vulnerability of their heel.