the radiant and necrotic damage types

[Brimlock]

My group and I are wondering about whether/how radiant and necrotic damage affect inanimate objects.

All the other damage types (other than psychic)—bludgeoning, slashing, acid, fire, lightning, force, etc—are clearly able to affect mundane objects like doors, windows, furniture, barrels, and so on. In contrast, psychic damage self-evidently ought to have no effect on mindless objects.

But when it comes necrotic and radiant energy/damage, things seem less clear-cut.

In the case of necrotic, it would seem odd if it were able to affect inanimate objects directly. Flavor-wise, it feels like it should only be able to harm animate targets. OTOH, the PHB states:

Necrotic. Necrotic damage, dealt by certain undead and a spell such as chill touch, withers matter and even the soul.

The fact that it says "matter" suggests that all physical things may be subject to it, including bookshelves and tapestries. But neither is it explicit enough to remove all doubt, especially given how counterintuitive it is flavor-wise. Could a necrotic-damage spell really "wither" a brass scale or a jade statue?

And then there's radiant, which is an even weirder case. Radiant seems to be necrotic's inverse-opposite: positive, as opposed to negative, life-energy. As such, if necrotic energy is indeed limited to affecting creatures, radiant energy ought to have the same restriction. Again, from the PHB:

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.

Here we see references to "flesh" and "spirit" but no allusion to inanimate matter. So could a radiant-damage spell be used to blast at, say, a barred door, or a drawbridge-chain, or a ship's hull? It’s not 100% clear from RAW, and again, flavor would seem to tip the scales in the direction of No.

Thoughts?

[Ganymede]

This is an "ask your DM if a particular object is vulnerable to a particular damage type" situation.

That said, objects only generally have blanket immunity to poison and psychic damage.

[Man_Over_Game]

It almost never came up, but when I did have to describe it, I always used the idea that Necrotic Rots and Radiant Overloads.

So Necrotic damage would cause whatever the item is to rot in the most obvious way possible. Some things don't "rot", but that's what the necrotic damage is for. You force the thing to rot. Metals and stones don't usually rot, but now they do with necrotic damage. Blackened, sickly holes, pieces turning into ooze, crumbling into gravel, those kinds of things.

Radiant damage is a little more confusing. I give off whatever appearance may be "too much", like it's exploding from within. Or, if that fails to make sense, it starts to smoothly disintegrate. For example, a door being shot with Radiant damage might not show a hole, but that it's being "ripped open", like the wood is trying to reach out. With enough damage, it'd be frayed out like a maw of sorts. Or, if that concept didn't make sense, it'd be a smooth bore into the object, like a stone that's had a perfect, soft cone bored out of it that has no sharp edges.

They only came up once or twice, though, when my players were investigating some stuff. I kinda had to make stuff up on the fly, but it seemed to work out.

[Sigreid]

It almost never came up, but when I did have to describe it, I always used the idea that Necrotic Rots and Radiant Overloads.

So Necrotic damage would cause whatever the item is to rot in the most obvious way possible. Some things don't "rot", but that's what the necrotic damage is for. You force the thing to rot. Metals and stones don't usually rot, but now they do with necrotic damage. Blackened, sickly holes, pieces turning into ooze, crumbling into gravel, those kinds of things.

Radiant damage is a little more confusing. I give off whatever appearance may be "too much", like it's exploding from within. Or, if that fails to make sense, it starts to smoothly disintegrate. For example, a door being shot with Radiant damage might not show a hole, but that it's being "ripped open", like the wood is trying to reach out. With enough damage, it'd be frayed out like a maw of sorts. Or, if that concept didn't make sense, it'd be a smooth bore into the object, like a stone that's had a perfect, soft cone bored out of it that has no sharp edges.

They only came up once or twice, though, when my players were investigating some stuff. I kinda had to make stuff up on the fly, but it seemed to work out.

Metal may not rot in the vegetable sense, but it can certainly corrode and decay.

[opticalshadow]

Necrotic is easy, it causes matter to wither. it rots, or breaks down, metal might corrode or rust or just weaken and flake. everything matter is made up of can deteriorate in some fashion, imagine necrotic damage doing this, everything crumbles to nothingness eventually.

Radiant i imagine just being like fire, in the same way that force damage was just kinda like pure enerygy. Its still a form of fire but instead of buring in a chemical way or such, its using divine power to do something very similar to fire, its causes matter to combust, under divine weight.

[dejarnjc]

To me, radiant is basically a radiation kind of damage while necrotic is a withering, decaying kind of damage.

[JellyPooga]

I rather like the idea of radiant damage forcing an object to grow to the point of uselessness (in the case of formerly living things) or become more <i>essential</i> to the same point. A door hit by radiant might twist and warp into a pile of useless wood, iron might become fragile as it becomes purer and loses its carbon content and become brittle, shattering under its own weight, stone might melt and flow like magma, but still cool...that sort of thing. Just spitballing an idea.

[Brimlock]

Thanks for all the answers so far, folks. Cheers!

[JackPhoenix]

Antimatter rifle from DMG does necrotic damage, laser guns do radiant. There's your explanation.

[GlenSmash!]

I think of necrotic as entropy. As the object would decay over time, that's how it would look hit with Necrotic damage (just sped up).

Conversely I think of Radiant as the pure white fire of a creation force. The nuclear Fusion and Fission that powers stars. That sparked the Big Bang. It would blow an object apart, showering it's particles into the universe.