Are magic weapons and weapons considered magic for the purpose of overcoming resistances different?

Question

After reading an interesting comment in another question, I realized there are some rare cases when the difference between a magic weapon and a weapon considered magical for the purposes of overcoming resistances (WCMFTPOOR) actually becomes mechanically relevant.

An example is the Magic Weapon spell, which explicitly requires nonmagical weapons in its casting. Another is the Animate Objects spell. A third one is the Elemental Weapon spell. Likely, there are other effects that require nonmagical weapons.

Meanwhile, there are effects that create a WCMFTPOOR. One example is the Warlock's Pact of the Blade.

So, as the title states: are magic weapons different from WCMFTPOOR?

Answer 1

The rules say precisely what they mean

The phrase "...considered magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage" means precisely that, nothing more and nothing less. If the weapon were magical, the text would say so. If it were magical for any other purposes, the text would say so (and it would've been far simpler to state it that way).

Granted, there are places where the rules rely on the everyday English and some ambiguity sneaks in, but this isn't one of those cases.

Here's an example of a related rule that's defined in a similarly pedantic way: immunity or resistance to "bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks not made with silvered weapons." If you hit a werewolf with a torch, it'll take fire damage; swinging the torch was a nonmagical attack, but it didn't deal bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage. If you push a werewolf off a cliff, it takes falling damage; falling isn't an attack. And of course if you attack a werewolf with a nonmagical silvered weapon, it takes damage.

The text behind the rule is a mouthful, but it's written that way because the authors want it to work that way (1, 2, 3). They could've written "nonmagical damage" to cover things like torches and falling but they didn't.

Monks do not become magical creatures at level 6

Monks gain a class feature called Ki-Empowered Strikes that lets them treat their unarmed strikes as MFTPOOR.

Starting at 6th level, your unarmed strikes count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.

There's a few things worth pointing out here:

• This is essentially the same text that's in Pact Weapon.
• Unarmed strikes are not weapons.
• Ki is not magical for rule purposes. (1, 2, 3)
• Even if Ki were magical, it would be a huge stretch to say the Monk's entire body becomes magical.

That third point requires more explanation. Sage Advice addresses this in the question "Is the breath weapon of a dragon magical?". The answer is a bit long, so I'll quote the most relevant part:

But our game makes a distinction between two types of magic:

• the background magic that is part of the D&D multiverse’s physics and the physiology of many D&D creatures
• the concentrated magical energy that is contained in a magic item or channeled to create a spell or other focused magical effect

In D&D, the first type of magic is part of nature. It is no more dispellable than the wind. A monster like a dragon exists because of that magic-enhanced nature. The second type of magic is what the rules are concerned about. When a rule refers to something being magical, it’s referring to that second type. Determining whether a game feature is magical is straightforward. Ask yourself these questions about the feature

• Is it a magic item?
• Is it a spell? Or does it let you create the effects of a spell that’s mentioned in its description?
• Is it a spell attack?
• Does its description say it’s magical?

If your answer to any of those questions is yes, the feature is magical.

It doesn't break anything

In terms of Rules As Fun, without any Unearthed Arcana material, a melee Warlock is generally less effective than an Eldritch Blast Warlock. The Eldritch Blast invocations are so powerful that it's almost difficult to justify using anything else. Anything that encourages diversity and lets players play how they want is a good thing. Let Blade Warlocks have their +1 weapons.

Answer 2

Fifth edition uses natural language, and these phrases are certainly different when viewed through that lens. A weapon that counts as magical for the purposes of overcoming resistances is not magical.

First let's just look over what the two phrases even are:

a magical weapon

That would be, a weapon which is magical. If anything requires a magical (or non-magical) weapon, it will count as a magical weapon. Compare this to the following wording:

a weapon that counts as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to non-magical attacks and damage

This weapon is non-magical, but when it is being used to overcome resistances it counts as magical (A small thing that is unclear and matters more later is whether the weapon actually briefly becomes magical). If anything else requires a magical (or non-magical) weapon, it will count as a non-magical weapon.

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This pretty clearly showcases that these are different things and for further evidence that these phrases mean different things: they both exist. Why would both phrases exist if they were equivalent; the books could simply have used one phrase every time, but instead both phrases occur regularly.

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Now let's look at how this distinction ends up mattering throughout the game, first let's look at things which only work on non-magical weapons such as the animate objects spell:

[...] Choose up to ten non-magical objects within range that are not being worn or carried [...]

This spell would not work on magical weapons, but it would work on weapons that count as magical only for overcoming resistances.¹

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Now let's look at the Warlock's Pact of the Blade which has a feature that only works on magical weapons:

[...] You can transform one magic weapon into your pact weapon by performing a special ritual while you hold the weapon [...]

This would not work with a weapon which merely counts as magical for the purposes of overcoming resistances, but will work with any weapon that is actually magical.

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There are ways to make a weapon flatly magical, for example the shillelagh spell which states:

[...] The weapon also becomes magical, if it isn't already [...]

This would work perfectly on either type of weapon here, especially since it includes the phrase "if it isn't already".

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There are also ways to make a weapon that merely counts as magical for overcoming resistances such as the Warlock's Pact of the Blade feature which states:

[...] This weapon counts as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to non-magical attacks and damage [...]

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1 Note, this creates a problem/question: Do non-magical weapons of this sort actually become magical when overcoming relevant resistances or merely count as magical? Imagine that such a weapon is animated and attacks something resistant to non-magical damage: If the weapon actually becomes magical then it would no longer be a valid target of the animate objects spell, which is a bit of a problem. This is a separate question for sure.

Answer 3

WCMFTPOOR are not magic, they just count as magic for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage

In plain English, "counts as X" means to treat it as X.

Examples:

• I count this as a win.
• Did you count that one as a fair ball?
• Does a hamburger count as healthy if it has lettuce?

What's more, "counts as magical for the purpose of" clearly says there is only 1 situation where they "count as magical".

Answer 4

Weapons considered magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance(s) do not give any magic bonus to attack or damage, whereas magical weapons do.

It seems I am again being chided a bit for providing an answer without an explainer and perhaps without enough substance. Although I am of the opinion my answer doesn't require an explainer, and substance may not always be relevant or even helpful, I'll add more information/explanation for context.

Conjured weapons should generally only be considered magical in the sense they are magic constructs, not that they are true "magic weapons". Unless the text of the spell/ability specifically states otherwise, any conjured weapon should be treated as a normal weapon of it's type, has no bonus to attack and/or damage and is not treated as a WCMFTPOOR.

Magic items that allow spells (or spell-like abilities) to be cast whereby the spells overcome resistances/reductions/etc are not themselves considered WCMFTPOOR - again, unless the text describing that magic item specifically states so.

Forgive me if this causes any offence, but from some of the answers I have read so far I can see a tendency to over-analyse and over-complicate interpretation of some rules. For the sake of enjoyment of the game Occam's Razor should be liberally applied to simplify any rule interpretation.

Final add (I hope) to my answer. In the responses to the OP's post he is directly asked to clarify a specific point, whereby his reply is "I am only asking if they (magic weapons vs WCMFTPOOR) are different" and that his supplying of examples is only support for the general question. The difference the OP is inquiring of is further clarified as being "a difference that is mechanically relevant" - which I took as meaning "relevant to the game mechanics". The only difference I can see between a magic weapon and a WCMFTPOOR that is "mechanically relevant" in the sense the OP suggests is the bonus to hit/damage of a magic weapon vs the WCMFTPOOR. Can anyone suggest another difference that is "mechanically relevant", or whether my interpretation of the OP's words are incorrect/too limited?