Area Persistent Damage and Weakness

[siegfriedliner]

So you use divine immolation on a swarm and they catch fire.

The inital damage definatly triggers the swarms area weakness but does the persistent damage ?

Does persistent damage from an area effect inherit the area trait or is now the persistent damage just persistent damage.

[NorrKnekten]

Hard to say as it seems like we havent yet found a concensus on how Area is treated. The initial damage is for sure area-damage but does that just mean "damage from an area effect". My guess is that it is intended to apply as described below.

Player Core pg. 445 2.0: Persistent Damage/Sidebar wrote:

Immunities, resistances, and weaknesses all apply to persistent damage. If an effect deals initial damage in addition to persistent damage, apply immunities, resistances, and weaknesses separately to the initial damage and to the persistent damage.

[shroudb]

Given what the Area Weakness signifies, I'd say yes.

You aren't doing more damage because swarms are magically vulnerable to the area aspect, you're just doing more damage because you are hitting a whole lot of tiny individual things.

Similarly, your persistent would be burning an equally large number of them, hence the weakness should apply.

[Errenor]

shroudb wrote:

Given what the Area Weakness signifies, I'd say yes.

You aren't doing more damage because swarms are magically vulnerable to the area aspect, you're just doing more damage because you are hitting a whole lot of tiny individual things.

Similarly, your persistent would be burning an equally large number of them, hence the weakness should apply.

I don't think I agree with this argument. When you throw a Force Barrage at a swarm it also hits a large number of individual things, with several bolts even. But it has no area trait and triggers no weakness. And persistent damage doesn't have to be area by default.

Should it inherit the trait from the parent spell? I don't know yet. Would holy be inherited, for example?

[shroudb]

Errenor wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Given what the Area Weakness signifies, I'd say yes.

You aren't doing more damage because swarms are magically vulnerable to the area aspect, you're just doing more damage because you are hitting a whole lot of tiny individual things.

Similarly, your persistent would be burning an equally large number of them, hence the weakness should apply.

I don't think I agree with this argument. When you throw a Force Barrage at a swarm it also hits a large number of individual things, with several bolts even. But it has no area trait and triggers no weakness. And persistent damage doesn't have to be area by default.

Should it inherit the trait from the parent spell? I don't know yet. Would holy be inherited, for example?

I'd argue that "a dozen" is not a large amount of units when we're talking about swarms.

[NorrKnekten]

I would agree with Shroud here,
A Force Barrage may target and hit several individual creatures with effects that are individually resolved, but its not doing it in an area.

Area additionally is not a trait, nor a weakness on its own. Weakness to Area-Damage exists and is typically described as area effects doing more since they are able to affect every creature within the Swarm/Troop.

For example as to why area and Holy ought to be treated differently, I don't think anyone would argue that Swarms/Troops would take damage from their weakness whenever they are affected by an area-effect. Even beneficial ones such as Bless. But creatures weak to holy absolutely do take damage just from being affected by anything with the holy trait.

[The Raven Black]

The persistent damage comes from an area effect. I would say the weakness applies.

[QuidEst]

They have a higher surface-area-to-volume ratio, so they burn more, have more of themselves coated, lose a larger proportion of their blood, or whatever the persistent damage is. Seems reasonable enough, but I'm not going to fault any GM who decides to only apply it on initial damage.

[Tridus]

RAW no. Persistent damage is a condition and it lacks the area trait.

Narratively? It absolutely makes sense that if you set them on fire with an area/splash effect, that trait should carry over to the persistent damage.

GMs should feel encouraged to say "that makes narrative sense so I'm going to give it to you."

[Errenor]

shroudb wrote:

Errenor wrote:

I don't think I agree with this argument. When you throw a Force Barrage at a swarm it also hits a large number of individual things, with several bolts even. But it has no area trait and triggers no weakness. And persistent damage doesn't have to be area by default.

Should it inherit the trait from the parent spell? I don't know yet. Would holy be inherited, for example?

I'd argue that "a dozen" is not a large amount of units when we're talking about swarms.

Why dozen? A number of force bolts? No, I meant narratively. When any attack strikes a swarm it hits a lot of creatures. So you can't easily judge just by an image, especially for a bit vague effects like magic.

Tridus wrote:

RAW no. Persistent damage is a condition and it lacks the area trait.

Narratively? It absolutely makes sense that if you set them on fire with an area/splash effect, that trait should carry over to the persistent damage.

GMs should feel encouraged to say "that makes narrative sense so I'm going to give it to you."

But that's exactly the snag for me! What's the difference narratively between a swarm (persistently) burning from an area effect and from a common non-area effect? They look the same to me.

[The Raven Black]

Tridus wrote:

RAW no. Persistent damage is a condition and it lacks the area trait.

Narratively? It absolutely makes sense that if you set them on fire with an area/splash effect, that trait should carry over to the persistent damage.

GMs should feel encouraged to say "that makes narrative sense so I'm going to give it to you."

There is no area trait.

I see zero reason why the initial damage and the damage inflicted by the persistent damage condition, both coming from the same source, should be treated differently.

For example, the Archons mode of the Holy host spell inflicts slashing damage and persistent fire damage.
The spell has the Holy trait. I believe it applies to both the immediate slashing damage and the persistent fire damage.

[shroudb]

Errenor wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Errenor wrote:

I don't think I agree with this argument. When you throw a Force Barrage at a swarm it also hits a large number of individual things, with several bolts even. But it has no area trait and triggers no weakness. And persistent damage doesn't have to be area by default.

Should it inherit the trait from the parent spell? I don't know yet. Would holy be inherited, for example?

I'd argue that "a dozen" is not a large amount of units when we're talking about swarms.

Why dozen? A number of force bolts? No, I meant narratively. When any attack strikes a swarm it hits a lot of creatures. So you can't easily judge just by an image, especially for a bit vague effects like magic.

Tridus wrote:

RAW no. Persistent damage is a condition and it lacks the area trait.

Narratively? It absolutely makes sense that if you set them on fire with an area/splash effect, that trait should carry over to the persistent damage.

GMs should feel encouraged to say "that makes narrative sense so I'm going to give it to you."

But that's exactly the snag for me! What's the difference narratively between a swarm (persistently) burning from an area effect and from a common non-area effect? They look the same to me.

Because narratively, 9 force bolts are the size of nine arrows. Even if your say each one hits multiple, it still seems very low amount.

In a swarm, again my opinion, that's narratively nowhere near "large amount of targets".

On there flipside, even a 5x5 square of acid dropping on a swarm of rats, would hit several dozens of them,let alone anything bigger likes a 15ft diameter splash from a bomb and etc.

[Kelseus]

I think Tridus has it right here. RAW persistent damage does not have an area of effect.

From a narrative standpoint, area weakness makes sense right? You hit with a weapon, it hits the specific individual members of the swarm, but there are hundreds if not thousands of individuals in the 10 ft square. But an area of effect, like a burst or splash, hits the entire area thus hitting a much larger percentage of the individual members of the swarm.

Persistent damage, on the other hand, is usually something that effects an individual target, not an area. I think it is fair to argue either way for persistent damage from a narrative sense.

BUT!! A narrative argument is not RAW. It is RAI.

[Ravingdork]

For the example given, I'd say no. Only the initial damage procs the weakness.

[The Raven Black]

Ravingdork wrote:

For the example given, I'd say no. Only the initial damage procs the weakness.

I saw neither area nor persistent damage in the example they gave for the clarification.

Would persistent damage from a holy source not trigger weakness to holy each time the target takes damage ?

[The Raven Black]

Kelseus wrote:

I think Tridus has it right here. RAW persistent damage does not have an area of effect.

From a narrative standpoint, area weakness makes sense right? You hit with a weapon, it hits the specific individual members of the swarm, but there are hundreds if not thousands of individuals in the 10 ft square. But an area of effect, like a burst or splash, hits the entire area thus hitting a much larger percentage of the individual members of the swarm.

Persistent damage, on the other hand, is usually something that effects an individual target, not an area. I think it is fair to argue either way for persistent damage from a narrative sense.

BUT!! A narrative argument is not RAW. It is RAI.

I do not get how a burst that hits "a much larger percentage of the individual members of the swarm" and that deals persistent damage is not dealing it to the same much larger percentage of the individual members of the swarm that makes it qualify as "area of effect".

We have nothing in the RAW saying this persistent damage is not area damage too.

And it is not persistent damage that has an area of effect. It is the source of the effect. Same as for the initial damage.

If the source makes the initial damage "area", then it should do so for the persistent damage too.

[ScooterScoots]

shroudb wrote:

Errenor wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Given what the Area Weakness signifies, I'd say yes.

You aren't doing more damage because swarms are magically vulnerable to the area aspect, you're just doing more damage because you are hitting a whole lot of tiny individual things.

Similarly, your persistent would be burning an equally large number of them, hence the weakness should apply.

I don't think I agree with this argument. When you throw a Force Barrage at a swarm it also hits a large number of individual things, with several bolts even. But it has no area trait and triggers no weakness. And persistent damage doesn't have to be area by default.

Should it inherit the trait from the parent spell? I don't know yet. Would holy be inherited, for example?

I'd argue that "a dozen" is not a large amount of units when we're talking about swarms.

It is for troop units though, that’s way more troops than are in a single square (which is enough to trigger area weakness)

[Unicore]

The area weakness on swarms exists because if the GM were to run the 100s to 1000s of critters as individual creatures, they would all instantly die from an area of effect spell (well, I guess that depends on whether nat 20s are good enough to be a success, so it might be all but 5%), but that doesn't quite feel right as certainly the number of bodies between the source of the effect and some of the creatures in the swarm would result in a fair number living. It is a concession of convenience in making swarms work like swarms, rather than something about any of the creatures in the swarm.

As a GM, I think you probably have to approach it narratively and subjectively. If the whole area isn't still in some kind of damaging effect, I might be inclined to only use the initial instance. It seems likely the swarm creatures that are still on fire are probably dead, and the living creatures would move around them, rather than every creature still being on fire. But if it is described as an area that could still be the source of the damage, I would treat it as an area effect.

[Tridus]

The Raven Black wrote:

I do not get how a burst that hits "a much larger percentage of the individual members of the swarm" and that deals persistent damage is not dealing it to the same much larger percentage of the individual members of the swarm that makes it qualify as "area of effect".

We have nothing in the RAW saying this persistent damage is not area damage too.

Nothing in RAW says persistent damage is area damage. Persistent damage is a condition and that governs how it works. Noting in there says that it behaves differently if the source is a burst or a single target attack.

Since nothing says it changes based on the source, RAW it doesn't.

Quote:

And it is not persistent damage that has an area of effect. It is the source of the effect. Same as for the initial damage.

If the source makes the initial damage "area", then it should do so for the persistent damage too.

RAW? No. Because it's just applying the condition and from there it's the condition doing the damage.

Narratively? I'd 100% run it so that it does.

The Raven Black wrote:

Would persistent damage from a holy source not trigger weakness to holy each time the target takes damage ?

If the persistent damage still has the Holy trait, it would. But if it's fire damage from a flaming rune crit? Probably not, depending on how it became holy. Champions add Holy to their strikes, but the Persistent Damage condition is not a strike and Flaming rune is not Sanctified. So it wouldn't carry over there.

[Errenor]

The Raven Black wrote:

I do not get how a burst that hits "a much larger percentage of the individual members of the swarm" and that deals persistent damage is not dealing it to the same much larger percentage of the individual members of the swarm that makes it qualify as "area of effect".

This is convincing as a narrative argument I suppose.

___
There's one more thing: common damage from different sources not only stacks, but also is different instances of damage, as the errata says. But persistent damage from different sources (same type of course) very much definitely doesn't stack. So... What if one persistent damage condition is from a source with area/holy/<another none damage type quality> and another one from a source without such thing? What happens?

[shroudb]

Errenor wrote:

But persistent damage from different sources (same type of course) very much definitely doesn't stack. So... What if one persistent damage condition is from a source with area/holy/<another none damage type quality> and another one from a source without such thing? What happens?

the rules say to use the highest persistent if they are of the same type.

so, while one CAN argue that a 1d6 persistent that would proc a 20 point weakness is indeed lower than 2d6 that wouldn't... no one can guaranteee the safety of the GM's face if he does that^^ :P

edit: reading my comment I realize that one may read it as implied violence. my orginal purpose was implied "pizza on the gm's face" :D.

[NorrKnekten]

Tridus wrote:

Nothing in RAW says persistent damage is area damage. Persistent damage is a condition and that governs how it works. Noting in there says that it behaves differently if the source is a burst or a single target attack.

Since nothing says it changes based on the source, RAW it doesn't.

There is also nothing that defines or govern what area damage is or how regular/initial damage changes behavior when it comes from an area effect either, unlike Splash Damage which is both its own trait and carries its own behavior. The only real mention of what area damage is would be the few mentions of "abilities that deal damage in an area" and the creatures who have weakness to such abilities (swarms/troops)

So even when arguing rules as written you inevitably run into the idea of what area damage is, and that you typically treat Persistent damage as if it was normal damage for both IWR and damage rolls from what we recieved in the CRB 3rd print errata, probably one of my least favorite erratas since it still refers to "see more information at CRB FAQ" .. on the FAQ.

[The Raven Black]

Tridus wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

I do not get how a burst that hits "a much larger percentage of the individual members of the swarm" and that deals persistent damage is not dealing it to the same much larger percentage of the individual members of the swarm that makes it qualify as "area of effect".

We have nothing in the RAW saying this persistent damage is not area damage too.

Nothing in RAW says persistent damage is area damage. Persistent damage is a condition and that governs how it works. Noting in there says that it behaves differently if the source is a burst or a single target attack.

Since nothing says it changes based on the source, RAW it doesn't.

Well, RAW the same could be said for the initial damage AFAICT.