So at level 14, the Circle of Spores druid from the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica gets the Fungal Body feature, which gives them immunity to the blinded, deafened, stunned and poisoned conditions and ignores the extra damage on a crit.
A player I have thinks that "the poisoned condition = poison damage" and that the Circle of Spores should be immune to poison damage. I disagree. Is there an official ruling? It seems cut and dry to me, but he continues to disagree.
From Circle of Spores:
Fungal Body
At 14th level, the fungal spores in your body alter you: you can’t be blinded, deafened, frightened, or poisoned, and if an attack is a critical hit against you, it doesn’t deal its extra damage to you.
From Poisoned:
A poisoned creature has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks.
The druid cannot be poisoned: check.
From Damage Types:
Different attacks, damaging spells, and other harmful effects deal different types of damage. Damage types have no rules of their own, but other rules, such as damage resistance, rely on the types.
Does the ability give damage resistance or immunity to poison damage: no.
Contrast this with Dwarven Resilience:
You have advantage on saving throws against poison, and you have resistance against poison damage.
This is nice and clear compared to the UA stuff - but UA is often poorly drafted: maybe deliberately, maybe not.
The poisoned condition and poison damage are not the same thing. It may make thematic sense that someone who cannot be poisoned should not take damage from poison but if it doesn't say it it doesn't happen.
The Fungal Body feature states:
At 14th level, the fungal spores in your body alter you: you can’t be blinded, deafened, frightened, or poisoned, and any critical hit against you counts as a normal hit instead, unless you’re incapacitated.
Your player's confusion may be based on the fact that the ability does not specify that you "gain immunity to the poisoned condition" it merely says "you can't be poisoned" which is somewhat vague. However poisoned is a condition which states:
A poisoned creature has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks.
This is what the character is immune too. Immunity to the condition does not mean immunity to the damage type.
An examples of this is that condition and damage immunities are listed separately in monster stat blocks. I have been unable to find a creature with immunity to the damage type that does not also have immunity to the condition but the fact that they are listed separately is enough to know they are not the same thing.
