My response to that article after the jump.
For those of you who don't understand weapon types, and I assume that's few of you, here is a quick rundown. Weapon used to have damage types, so a spear did piercing damage, an axe/sword did slashing damage, and a mace did bludgeoning damage. Much the same as a fireball does fire damage and a lightning bolt does lightning damage.
Then certain monsters would have damage resistances to these damage types, like "DR 5/slashing" or "immune to Piercing". Again, just like monsters having "DR 5/fire" or in 4e "Resist fire 5".
So in a way, it was giving the non-magical types a little taste of the selection process that a magical type went through when they picked their spells.
Where this falls down is that a spell caster has only a specific number of spells per day and so their selection of damage types was (theoretically) limited. On the other hand, the fighter could just get a big ol' dufflebag and shove a bunch of different weapon types into it so he'd be assured to have the right kind of damage at the right time.
This leads to what many called your "golf-bag fighters" or your "dungeon caddy" were the fighter just selects the right club to bash the monster in with.
I don't know why this is a problem really. If a Wizard's player spends time putting together his spell/power list to allow him for maximum coverage of damage types, and then gets "rewarded" for it by not finding himself nullified by a monster's resistances, why should it be any different for the Fighter?
Some people say the reason there should only be a single physical damage type is that it doesn't make in game sense for a weapon to deal just one kind of damage. A sword could be used to "pommel smash" or "broadside" an enemy, thus it can deal bludgeoning damage right? You could also skewer an enemy with your sword, so you know... piercing damage.
That line of reasoning is crap, sorry.
Damage types are an expression of "expected" functionality within the strictures of the game rules - not realistic ways of using an attack.
For instance, lets take some of the "accepted" damage types: fire, lightning, cold etc. and apply the same logic to them. They are simplifications of what would "actually" happen if you used a specific ability right?
So why aren't there people jumping up and down screaming for spells to loose their damage types? I mean think about it, a spell that hits someone with "thunder damage" really should be doing physical damage because "thunder" isn't a type of energy right? It's just a concussive force pressing rapidly against the object, thus causing bruising and breaking right?
If you ask any gamer what type of damage a fireball would deal, I can bet most of them would answer "Fire damage" right? But really, we now understand that most of the damage done from an explosive force isn't from "fire" specifically, it's actually the concussive force of displaced particles in the air that usually kills people next to the blast. And even still, with the fireball spell, couldn't you technically aim it at the ground so that it blasts your foes with shards of earth? Then, using the reasoning that a weapon should be able to deal any damage type depending on how it's used, a fireball should really have the "thunder", "fire" and "physical" damage types right? But when it really comes to it, isn't the sun just a big ball of fire? So lets also tack on the radiant damage type too, because it does also emit a big blast of light too.
I think my example went on long enough for you to get the picture. If it's okay to categorize spell damage type into a simple, easy to understand type, it should be okay to do the same for weapons.
The real issue here isn't about damage types. The real issue is about resistances, accessibility of the different damage types and class differentiation.
In older editions when weapon damage types were used the resistance system that was attached to them were either overly restrictive, or else wasn't used, and so the damage types always felt like a vestigial rule.
For instance, in 3e many fighters carried a boat load of different weapons with them and for the most part, they never got used. This is because most monsters you would come up against didn't have weapon based damage resistances - so you'd just keep hacking away with the weapon you liked to use and never thought about it's damage type.
But then the DM would throw out a skeleton, or an ooze or something that is just immune to the damage type you're dealing and the character would do one of two things - happily switch out his weapon and continue hacking away with a slightly smaller bonus and again never think about his damage type -OR- if he didn't have the right damage type, he'd just sit around waiting for the Wizard to mop up so he can fight things that aren't specifically made to negate him.
So obviously that scenario isn't really ideal, right? Here you've got a corner case rule, that if you didn't catch it when reading your class (if the designers were nice enough to even tell you) you could find yourself up the creek without a paddle (or axe as it may be). And even if you did catch it, all you've got to do is flop out for a different weapon and forget it ever happened.
That's not fun or compelling right?
So is the issue there with the damage types, or is it with the way those resistances work? Perhaps we could make the damage types matter more (like energy types) and having more monsters resistant or vulnerable to the types of damage would alleviate this symptom. Because if you're fighting both a skeleton, a zombie and a wraith all of which have different resistances, vulnerabilities and special little rules regarding weapon damage types the fighter would have to be pulling weapons left and right and paying attention to what weapon he has in hand at that point.
Then if you give different effects that key off the damage type you're using (just like a Wizard can get) your fighter becomes a lot more interesting to play, and your weapon damage types don't just become a vestigial rule, it becomes one of the center focuses and a reason to wield different types of weapons.
Which brings up the next point - but you can just plunk down a chunk of gold and have every weapon type so, unlike the Wizard, the Fighter can just have all the damage types at his fingertips.
My answer to this is two-fold. Firstly, is that so bad? I mean it showcases that the fighter is more versatile in his area of expertise (combat) then the Wizard is, plus he isn't really stepping on the Wizards toes at all right?
But if that bugs you, give characters a set number of "weapon slots" that they can have. The explanation here could be that if you're trudging though muck, hellfire, and magical snowstorms all the time, your weapons (and armor) is really going to take a beating. You've got to upkeep those things, and the knowledge of how to upkeep, and the extensive amount of time it takes to upkeep your weapons limits how many you can carry and keep balanced and useful in combat. As you level you get better/faster at this task and can reliably upkeep more weapons.
That system also brings along the idea that magical weapons must have small tweaks to their auras on a daily basis, by prayer or small rituals or whatever, which explains away the whole "But magic items don't break!" argument.
So boom, your Fighter/Rogue/Ranger has a number of up-kept weapons they can fall back on and an in-game reason for having the cap. And they could even let one fall to disrepair, and begin working on anther one after a rest... you get the idea.
So the last thing is really class differentiation. The Fighter shouldn't be as cool as the Wizard right? They shouldn't be getting to pick what kind of damage they do -- they get their one damage type and they had better be happy we gave them that! If they want to dabble into the world of alternate damage types, and cool mechanics they'll have to rely on magic!
Really? I'm not even going to dignify that thought with a response because I think you all know where I'll go with it.
So what's your reason for disliking physical damage types? Are you sure your reason for disliking it isn't due to some other deficient game mechanic or some other reason?
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