I've been pondering the viability of a few things, and keep coming across that piercing is the 'worst' weapon damage type. That said, would it be a viable thing for a primary weapon for a martial character? And for a caster as a backup?
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I have not noticed piercing to be any different from slashing.
Bludgeoning is the most useful damage primarily against oozes. It sucks to be using a piercing or slashing weapon, then run into an ooze.
Besides picking up a shifting rune or some secondary bludgeoning weapon for oozes, piercing weapons work fine. Oozes have low AC, so you don't really need a maxed out bludgeoning weapon for oozes. Just a backup weapon for doing some damage.
Picks are pretty nice for damage, even more so now with prone crits from hammers and flails giving a saving throw.
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Piercing is the worst physical damage type in the same way 98 is less than 100. By which I mean it's miniscule and not something you need to actively worry about.
The reasoning being that piercing has more resistances and weird stuff like oozes to restrict it as opposed to the almost wholly unopposed bludgeoning.
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There's a fair amount of creatures where bludgeoning is a better damage type. At low level, skeletons that resist piercing and slashing. At later levels, oozes that don't take damage from piercing or slashing (but instead split, double trouble). And some constructs with various resistances to non-bludgeoning (-non-adamantine) damage.
There's also some creatures that take extra damage from slashing, like zombies and various plant monsters.
There's only one group of monsters where piercing is the best way to handle them (rakshasas, and they're not seen very often).
On the other hand, piercing weapons are better underwater.
Also, piercing weapons seem to do pretty well with base stats. Just look at ranged weapons, most of the serious ones are piercing. Also some choice melee weapons are piercing (rapier, picks). So maybe against standard enemies, piercing is slightly better because it has good weapons, but against some enemies it's a lot worse.
I think it's fine to have a piercing primary weapon, but I would make very sure I also had a secondary weapon.
There's only one group of monsters where piercing is the best way to handle them (rakshasas, and they're not seen very often).
Yeah, that's a big part of what informs the "meta." Adventure authors dip into the skeleton or zombie well a lot more than they use rakshasas.
But I think in the longrun you'll be fine. It's only a major problem at low levels before striking runes, when resistance 5 can shut you down. If you pack a back up weapon for those situations you should be ok. There will be points where your back up weapon drops off due to lack of runes, but by then your base weapon will usually be dealing enough damage to punch through anyway.
You could also use a weapon like a dancer's spear or other weapon that has a versatile B trait.
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For those low levels when skeletons are getting you down, remember two things:
- undead are not automatically immune to nonlethal damage anymore. It seems like only constructs get that by default.
- everyone is proficient with punch
Punching a skeleton for 1d4+STR can be more efficient than stabbing or slicing them for 1d8+STR but running into 5 resistance.
In other words: at low level, you already have your backup weapon. By level 6-7 or so, you can easily afford to get a +1 striking weapon just as backup for damage types. I often combine it with also going for cold iron or silver, in case I need that.
(I tend to rate silver slightly higher - it always feels like devils and such that resist non-silver attacks are more problematic than demons that can be hurt with any weapon but take extra from cold iron.)
For those low levels when skeletons are getting you down, remember two things:
- undead are not automatically immune to nonlethal damage anymore. It seems like only constructs get that by default.
- everyone is proficient with punchPunching a skeleton for 1d4+STR can be more efficient than stabbing or slicing them for 1d8+STR but running into 5 resistance.
In other words: at low level, you already have your backup weapon. By level 6-7 or so, you can easily afford to get a +1 striking weapon just as backup for damage types. I often combine it with also going for cold iron or silver, in case I need that.
(I tend to rate silver slightly higher - it always feels like devils and such that resist non-silver attacks are more problematic than demons that can be hurt with any weapon but take extra from cold iron.)
I agree in principle that bypassing resistance feels slightly more important, but cold iron also hurts fey more, which are a pretty common enemy. Silver works on lycanthropes, too, I guess.
But really you should try to gauge whether either is common enough to make the purchase. Or if you're playing a dual wield melee build, just get both and use doubling rings. Strength based, dual wield melee has the best flexibility for targeting different damage types and material.
If materials worry you, buy cold iron weapons and pack a bunch of silversalve (renamed from silversheen, gm core 251). For whatever reason, cold iron blanch has quality divisions while silversalve is one size fits all. The hour long duration should be enough that you'll only need 1 or 2 a day at the low price of 6gp per dose.
That, or get access to plate in treasure through kineticist archetype or the clad in metal spell.
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Another way to cover multiple damage types and special materials is to get a Thrower's Bandolier. It can carry enough light weapons to cover every damage type/special material combo that you want.
It isn't as cheap as Doubling Rings, but it also doesn't depend upon your primary weapon being a one-handed melee weapon which is currently taking up one of your hands. One set of runes isn't a bad price to have a dozen or so different backup options.
Here's my list of suitable weapons for the Thrower's Bandolier Options.
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If you only run into material-resistant/weak enemies very rarely, you could also go for the alloy orb. It's a new talisman from the GM Core, which you can activate for 1 action to make the weapon count as cold iron/silver for a minute. So it's a bit less juggling held items than the silversalve etc, and it works for both metal types (and adamantine at level 12+).