In this post, DnD 5e Force Damage Explained, we’ll be taking a look at Force Damage and how it may show up in your games as well as some ideas on how to describe it for both DMs and Players.

Crit Damage Dnd 5e
Crit Dmg Dnd 5e Map
Crit Dmg Dnd 5e Background

In our previous post, DnD 5e Damage Types Explained, we discussed the different types of damage that show up in a typical D&D world. We also mentioned sources of the different types of damage, be it either from spells or from creatures.

So let’s have our quick dive into how Force Damage could show up in your game.

What causes Force Damage?

Force Damage is almost like the building block of damaging spells, at least that’s how I envision it. It is pure magical energy before any of the elemental damage types are added to the spell.

For example, if you score a critical hit with a Dagger, roll 2d4 for the damage, rather than 1d4, and then add your relevant ability modifier. If the Attack involves other damage dice, such as from the rogue’s Sneak Attack feature, you roll those dice twice as well. Also, for reference, critical hits in DnD 5e is that all damage dice are doubled. You do not double modifiers to damage. Simply, you double all dice on a crit. I want to know if there is a way to auto-determine what critical damage should be, using a template in a macro.

Due to it being more of a building block, it’s actually rare to see force damage, in fact, there are only a few places you would actually see it.

Force Damage Monster Examples

Any creature with incorporeal movement, meaning they can phase through creatures and objects are all capable of inflicting Force Damage.

When a Ghosts, Specter, or Will-o’-wisp phases through another creature, they actually inflict Force Damage on that creature due to that creature’s magical essence passing through the targets body.

Think along the lines of a wave of magical radiation whooshing through the target creature’s body.

There are also creatures that are able to fire beams of pure magical energy which also inflict Force Damage.

Beholders, Beholder Zombies, or Death Tyrants are capable of shooting those beams of pure magical energy. They use one of their eyestalks to fire a beam called a Disintegration Beam, which does pure force damage to the target.

If it drops the target to 0 HP using this eye beam, it also causes the creature to turn to dust instantly, bypassing the unconscious condition

Force damage isn’t very naturally occurring; it is however a little more frequent in spell casting. Like previously stated, Force Damage is pure magical energy given physical form. Let’s have a look at some of these spells.

Force Damage Spell Examples

One of the early Force Damage spells is

Eldritch Blast, taken pretty often by Warlocks everywhere. It shoots a simple beam of pure magical force at its target. Which impacts on them causing the target to take force damage.

Now imagine a more concentrated version of Eldritch Blast, one with more power and skill behind it, that would be our next spell

Disintegrate. It too fires a beam of pure force energy but hits a lot harder. It also has the benefit of having the same effect as the beholder ray, if it drops the target to 0HP it turns them to dust.

There is also the very iconic spell to DnD and other RPGs, both video game and tabletop

Magic Missile is another rather simple spell, but it is also a very iconic DnD spell, the image of the Wizard firing these unmissing bolts of pure magical energy when hit their target(s) they inflict force damage.

An interesting case is with certain magic that can move the caster, such as

Dimension Door. If the caster uses this spell and the target location they pick, it occupied with either another creature or an object, like a crate or a wall then the caster of the spell will be shunted to the nearest unoccupied space next to their target location but the caster would also take some force damage for momentarily being entwined with another physical object.

There are of course other spells that cause Force Damage because it is the “purest” form of magical damage, but those spells cover most of the use cases in the game.

What Does Force Damage Look Like?

In my games, I’ve described Force Damage in countless ways. Usually, it depends on the source, similar to how we spoke about Radiant Damage in our Radiant Damage explained.

If a creature is passing through another creature, the damage isn’t really even seen, it just kind of happens. Usually, I describe this as a cold feeling, that chills the very soul of the target creature.

If it comes from a beam, then that really depends on the creature casting the beam. If someone was a Fey warlock they may have a more vibrant color of beam, reflecting their fey nature.

A Beholder casting it? Then I’d describe it as a beam of pure inky blackness, reflecting the evil nature of most Beholders.

A Wizard casing Magic Missile I’d describe as having pink/purple color and being like small crystal darts or spears. I do this as in my head cannon, pure magical energy without some kind of influence from the castors nature is pink, purple, or colorless.

Wrap Up

So that’s our quick dive into Force Damage. Hopefully, it’s helped you understand how this kind of damage will show up in your game and how you can get a little creative with the descriptions.

Thanks for taking the time to have a read through this post and until next time, may your day be a critical success!

TheGM

There is one mechanic that stands above all others I have added to my D&D campaigns. Everyone I have run a game for, who then later has DM-ed a game has adopted this mechanic and used it themselves, and that mechanic is critical effects.

If you look at D&D forums or subreddits, this is not a new idea. Many, many people think critical hits should be more impactful. Unless you’re a rogue or a paladin, often times critical hits barely do more damage than normal hits. If you’re unlucky, they can even do less! That’s a really bad feeling after the excitement of rolling a natural 20.

These custom rules often use tables and crit confirming and a bunch of other mechanics that seem great on the surface. But if you’re consulting a table and rolling more every time a 20 is rolled, the game starts to slow down, wayyyyy down. My critical effects are not like those.

Consider the following magic item

This is a common item from Xanathar’s guide to everything. It’s common, and so it’s not meant to be super flashy. However, it’s still a pretty cool weapon. You could add a +1 to it, and now its a good treasure reward for a 5th level character. However, it lacks flavor. Yeah the light shedding is neat, but doesn’t really feel like a moon sword, not as much as it could. Now consider this magic item.

A critical effect is an additional effect when you roll a natural 20 on an attack. You still roll double damage as normal, but you get something new, something that shows the character’s mastery with the weapon. Already you can see that this is going to feel much more like a moon-sword than before. The player is going to see the critical effects and be super excited to use them. And yet, we didn’t really change the balance of the game, due to how rare critical hits are, and we didn’t slow combat down much. All the player has to do is look at their item card and choose one of two effects when they score a critical.

Who is this for?

Honestly, I think this one is for everyone. If you as a DM have enough time to make item cards for your players, and like to give weapons a bit more flair, I fully believe you should use this mechanic. It’s been used and tested across multiple campaigns and has been a rousing success. Apple internal apps manager. If you’re worried about the effects, especially about creating new effects for all the basic weapon types, don’t fret! I’ve already done that for you, and added some examples of more complex critical effects. I’ve also added a guide below to creating your own!

Also if you need a template for creating and printing cards, you can use the one I used above, http://crobi.github.io/rpg-cards/. It’s an amazing resource and i

Crit Dmg Dnd 5e