Piercing damage instead of blunt for monk unarmed

[Spacehamster]

Curious if you as a DM would allow a monk to use spiked gloves to transform their unarmed strikes to piercing damage?

[Chronos]

Sure, why not? It doesn't break anything.

I'm not even sure why you'd want to do this, unless it's just for flavor. The only effect that I know of that distinguishes between piercing and bludgeoning is skeletons, and they're vulnerable to bludgeoning.

[Dualight]

It would make Crusher less and Piercer more interesting for Monks, but that is not a concern, especially since Crusher has a larger impact on play style that Piercer.
Unless the gloves have a lot of other effects, it should be basically a ribbon. BPS usually only matters in the context of "is it magical or not", enemies and effects that distinguish between the two are really rare, and favour bludgeoning more often than piercing, so as DM I would ask the monk-player if they are realy sure they want to do that, but I would have no reason to reject it, unless I have a setting where the relative value of bludgeoning versus piercing is a narrative/balancing factor, which it usually is not.

[Spacehamster]

Sure, why not? It doesn't break anything.

I'm not even sure why you'd want to do this, unless it's just for flavor. The only effect that I know of that distinguishes between piercing and bludgeoning is skeletons, and they're vulnerable to bludgeoning.

Mostly looking at it for a 1 fighter(dueling + rapier) 19 monk with weapon familiarity rapier half orc with flexible ability scores 2 DEX 1 WIS, take piercer feat at first ASI to get 18 DEX, with piercing unarmed strikes from martial arts & flurry all of his crits would be 4 dice. Sounded like a fun experiment if nothing else. :)

[nickl_2000]

Verify with your DM, IIRC your DM is pretty liberal in allowing things so it should be fine.

From a balance perspective there shouldn't be much of a difference, as said above.

[rel]

I'd flat out give the monk the ability deal players choice of slashing / piercing / bludgeoning with an unarmed strike from ~3rd level.

I always thought that was an oversight.

[Segev]

With the exception of the crusher, pierser, and slasher feats, is there a functional different between bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage? I know in 3e, some creatures were resistant or vulnerable to individual types of those, but is that true in 5e?

Well, looking around, I was able to find skeletons are vulnerable to bludgeoning and black puddings are immune to slashing (and also split into two if subjected to slashing), so some monsters do care. I ha found any where bludgeoning was a bad type, though.

[Mastikator]

With the exception of the crusher, pierser, and slasher feats, is there a functional different between bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage? I know in 3e, some creatures were resistant or vulnerable to individual types of those, but is that true in 5e?

Well, looking around, I was able to find skeletons are vulnerable to bludgeoning and black puddings are immune to slashing (and also split into two if subjected to slashing), so some monsters do care. I ha found any where bludgeoning was a bad type, though.

Skeletons are vulnerable to bludgeoning, so against them it's a downgrade.

Rakshasas are vulnerable to piercing damage from a magic weapon dealt by a good aligned creature. A 6th level monk's hand are magic weapons so a monk may yell "YUDO CHOP" and deal double damage to the fiend.

[SpikeFightwicky]

Skeletons are vulnerable to bludgeoning, so against them it's a downgrade.

Rakshasas are vulnerable to piercing damage from a magic weapon dealt by a good aligned creature. A 6th level monk's hand are magic weapons so a monk may yell "YUDO CHOP" and deal double damage to the fiend.

Here's a list of creatures that are resistant to any non-magical AND magical bludgeoning, piercing and/or slashing (listed as B, P and/or S) - source in square brackets (I won't go into Vulnerabilities at this juncture. ). Anything with "B" is resistant to the Monk's RAW unarmed strike. Honestly, it's only trees. Does giving Monks access to piercing and Slashing damage unbalance them? Not in my opinion, but your mileage might vary:
CR 17 - Ghost Dragon (B, P, S) [FTD]- Ghosts are resistant to non-magical BPS, but dragons are even resistant to magical BPS
CR 9 - Treant (B, P) [MM] - Slashing works
CR 9 - Skeletal Bloodfin (P, S) [CR:CotN] - Typical skeleton resistances
CR 9 - Animated Tree (B, P) [EGW, MOT] - Note that these are referenced in the MM as being identical to Treants except with Int and Cha of 1
CR 6 - Swarm of Sorrowfish (B, P, S) [CR:CotN] - Typical swarm resistances. All swarms below will have abbreviated entries
CR 6 - Animated Tile Chimera (P) [RoT]
CR 5 - Wood Woad (B, P) [MPMM] - Typical "tree" resistance to B and P
CR 5 - Swarm of Cranium Rats [MPMM]
CR 4 - Kelpie (B, P) [TftYP] - Typical "tree" stats, but resists fire because it's aquatic
CR 4 - Flameskull (P) [MM] - I'll admit, I've run these monsters and never even realized they had resistance to magical and non-magical piercing. Archers beware!
CR 3 - Swarm of Scarabs [VRGR]
CR 3 - Sahuagin Hatchling Swarm [GoS]
CR 3 - Vegepygmy Chief (P) [MPMM]
CR 2 - Treant Sapling (B,P) [WBtW] - "Tree" stats
CR 2 - Swarm of Undead Snakes [EGW]
CR 2 - Swarm of Poisonous Snakes [MM]
CR 2 - Swarm of Maggots [VRGR]
CR 2 - Swarm of Hoard Scarabs [FTD]
CR 2 - Swarm of Gremishkas [VRGR]
CR 2 - Skeletal Swarm [GoS]
CR 2 - Chamberlain of Zuggtmoy (B,P) [OotA]
CR 2 - Awakened Zurkhwood (B,P) [OotA]
CR 2 - Awakened Tree (B,P) [MM]
CR 1 - Thorny Vegepygmy (P) [MPMM]
CR 1 - Swarm of Zombie Limbs [VRGR]
CR 1 - Swarm of Quippers [MM]
CR 1 - Swarm of Campestris [WBtW]
CR 1 - Boneless (B) [VRGR] - Just a side-comment: this is AWESOME art right here.
CR 1/2 - Swarm of Wasps [MM]
CR 1/2 - Swarm of Spiders [MM]
CR 1/2 - Swarm of Rot Grubs [MPMM]
CR 1/2 - Swarm of Mechanical Spiders [W:DH]
CR 1/2 - Swarm of Insects [MM]
CR 1/2 - Swarm of Centipedes [MM]
CR 1/2 - Swarm of Beetles [MM]
CR 1/4 - Vegepygmy (P) [MPMM]
CR 1/4 - Swarm of Ravens [MM]
CR 1/4 - Swarm of Rats [MM]
CR 1/4 - Swarm of Books [W:DH]
CR 1/4 - Swarm of Bats [MM]
CR 1/4 - Skeletal Rats (Swarm) [BGDIA]
CR 1/4 - Paper Whirlwind (Swarm) [RoT]
CR 0 - Awakened Shrub (P) [MM]

[Ganryu]

It technically weakens them, piercing < bludgeoning overall, but I think it's cool as heck and am always for flavor personally. Heck, as a DM, if someone wanted to say they were part succubus, and wanted necrotic damage with every touch, I wouldn't mind. Just as long as they were consistent. Or were held by a mindflayer once, and their attacks are disrupting purely ki and they wanted to do Psychic damage, one of the king damage types.

I loooove reflavoring, and less like the original class it looks, as long as mechanics are more or less the same, then more I like it.

Naturally, up to your DM though. Some DM's prefer to be strict to run their games, and there is nothing wrong with that. Setting expectations is a DM's job. Not all GM's are going to have the MM memorized, or able to make up encounters on the spot, and they don't know balance. Or they don't want to deal with reflavor. They absolutely are fine sticking to RAW {until a munchkin breaks RAW, but that's what the pimp slap is for.}

[Segev]

Here's a list of creatures that are resistant to any non-magical AND magical bludgeoning, piercing and/or slashing (listed as B, P and/or S) - source in square brackets (I won't go into Vulnerabilities at this juncture. ). Anything with "B" is resistant to the Monk's RAW unarmed strike. Honestly, it's only trees. Does giving Monks access to piercing and Slashing damage unbalance them? Not in my opinion, but your mileage might vary:

Great list! Thanks for compiling it!

I do want to point out that, at least for my point, anything that is cluster-resistant/immune to B/P/S (magical or not) is of less interest, because that means that whether you do B or P or S is still irrelevant. My point of interest is when actually changing from B to P, or P to S, or S to B, or B to S, or S to P actually matters. This list has some good examples of when it does, but it's still pretty short compared to the likelihood of encountering anything else.

I think it might be good for D&D to lean into this a bit more.

[SpikeFightwicky]

Great list! Thanks for compiling it!

I do want to point out that, at least for my point, anything that is cluster-resistant/immune to B/P/S (magical or not) is of less interest, because that means that whether you do B or P or S is still irrelevant. My point of interest is when actually changing from B to P, or P to S, or S to B, or B to S, or S to P actually matters. This list has some good examples of when it does, but it's still pretty short compared to the likelihood of encountering anything else.

I think it might be good for D&D to lean into this a bit more.

Thanks! Happy to provide.

Yeah, I agree on this front. I liked when some monsters had conditional resistances, vulnerabilities or immunities beyond the basics. I was hoping VRGR would lean into this (if any settings "should" have monsters with unusual resistances and weaknesses, I feel it's here), though their suggestions in that book are basic enough to apply to any setting or game.