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When a monster has resistance to a physical damage type (or physical damage in general), how does this interact with magical weapons?
For example, a Skeletal Soldier has resistance 5 against piercing and slashing damage. Will a magical longsword suffer a penalty of 5 to its slashing damage?
Magical weapons only bypass resistance when explicitly stated. The example from the rules on resistances explicitly addresses your case:
If you have resistance to a type of damage, each time you take that type of damage, you reduce the amount of damage you take by the listed amount (to a minimum of 0 damage). Resistance can specify combinations of damage types or other traits. For instance, you might encounter a monster that’s resistant to non-magical bludgeoning damage, meaning it would take less damage from bludgeoning attacks that weren’t magical, but would take normal damage from your +1 mace (since it’s magical) or a non-magical spear (since it deals piercing damage).
