Weapon Damage

[Big Fau]

Now this is an unusual situation. A friend of mine and I were discussing D&D when the subject of Skeletons came up. He made an interesting point: If you hit a Skeleton with a bludgeoning weapon, is the bonus from your Str modifier Bludgeoning or untyped? As far as I've been able to find the Str modifier is just a bonus, but it doesn't share the weapon's damage type for some stupid reason.

Is there any source that corrects this? As written, it can make DR obnoxiously difficult at the lower levels.

[LTwerewolf]

It says you add the str bonus to damage rolls, which means it's all one number.

[eggynack]

I dunno about this whole damage type thing. But the rules for damage reduction seem pretty straightforward in this regard. "The entry indicates the amount of damage ignored... and the type of weapon that negates the ability." That means that you don't really have to worry about damage typing. Your attack is using a bludgeoning weapon, and a bludgeoning weapon bypasses DR/bludgeoning, so that whole attack goes through, including bonus elements. It's not like you're making an attack with two separate weapons here, where one is your strength. It's all happening with this weapon.

[Darrin]

A damage modifier should only modify the existing type. It shouldn't have a type on its own.

[BowStreetRunner]

If you read through the Damage rules on page 134 of the Players Handbook it's quite clear that the weapon does the damage and there are various effects that modify that damage. Strength bonuses are clearly called out here as modifiers, so the strength bonus doesn't do any damage on its own, it just modifies the damage done by the weapon. Hence, if it's a bludgeoning weapon it's all bludgeoning damage, if it's a silver weapon it's all silver damage, etc.

[Necroticplague]

Now this is an unusual situation. A friend of mine and I were discussing D&D when the subject of Skeletons came up. He made an interesting point: If you hit a Skeleton with a bludgeoning weapon, is the bonus from your Str modifier Bludgeoning or untyped? As far as I've been able to find the Str modifier is just a bonus, but it doesn't share the weapon's damage type for some stupid reason.

Is there any source that corrects this? As written, it can make DR obnoxiously difficult at the lower levels.
Mu.

Bonuses to damage are like enhancement bonuses to magic armor. They don't have any type of their own, they simply make a different thing bigger. So if you have a sword that does slashing damage, your STR modifier isn't a type (because it isn't damage in and of itself), it's just making that slashing damage bigger.