Persistent damage and the dying condition


Rules Discussion


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

I was hoping somebody would have a quick and simple answer to this question: Does persistent damage continue even when you drop to 0 hit points? From my understanding going unconscious with any type of damage over time would limit your survival dramatically. I would like to be clear that I have no issue with this, but if it's the case then I want to be noticably more aware if a teammate is about to go down while taking persistent damage.

As a second question (that might be nullified by an answer to the first): if you have multiple instances of persistent damage, do those instances of damage happen at the same time for the purposes of dying, or does each one pop off and move the dying track independently?


The answer to the second question is definitely yes. That's covered somewhere in the persistent damage rules. Probably the sidebar about having multiple types of persistent damage.

Found it:

CRB p. 621 wrote:
The damage you take from persistent damage occurs all at once, so if something triggers when you take damage, it triggers only once; for example, if you’re dying with several types of persistent damage, the persistent damage increases your dying condition only once.

As for the first question, I can't remember reading anything about persistent damage stopping when you drop to 0 HP. And why would it?

So I'd say it keeps its effect, making going down with active persistent damage qutie dangerous indeed. At least your initiative is moved so your party has a whole round to do something about it :)

Edit: Just realized that the quote answers both of your questions so ignore my opinion and take my RAW answer instead, I guess?


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Blave wrote:

The answer to the second question is definitely yes. That's covered somewhere in the persistent damage rules. Probably the sidebar about having multiple types of persistent damage.

Found it:

CRB p. 621 wrote:
The damage you take from persistent damage occurs all at once, so if something triggers when you take damage, it triggers only once; for example, if you’re dying with several types of persistent damage, the persistent damage increases your dying condition only once.

As for the first question, I can't remember reading anything about persistent damage stopping when you drop to 0 HP. And why would it?

So I'd say it keeps its effect, making going down with active persistent damage qutie dangerous indeed. At least your initiative is moved so your party has a whole round to do something about it :)

Edit: Just realized that the quote answers both of your questions so ignore my opinion and take my RAW answer instead, I guess?

Thank you for the thorough answer (with citations nonetheless)! The ruling makes sense and I'm very glad they compartmentalize the persistent damages. With this in mind I'm going to make sure to always try and keep an eye out for persistent damage on an ally that has low health.

Cheers


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Persistent damage worsens the dying state and can effectively counteract a successful recovery check. Persistent damage is *very* dangerous to a dying character!


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

It also means you can't just hero point your way out of dying. You can at best delay it.


Yeah, it keeps persistenting even in dying state. and no matter how many only knocks you one state down.

PersiDam is rough and tasty. Main way my alch does it.
As a hilarious sidenote. The boss monster died to persistent damage about 10mins AFTER killing the entire party. So we technically won. but also lost.
Love it.


Zwordsman wrote:

Yeah, it keeps persistenting even in dying state. and no matter how many only knocks you one state down.

PersiDam is rough and tasty. Main way my alch does it.
As a hilarious sidenote. The boss monster died to persistent damage about 10mins AFTER killing the entire party. So we technically won. but also lost.
Love it.

Persistent damage generally ends after 1 minute btw. It doesn't keep going forever. Blood generally clots and people stop bleeding on their own for example.

Edit: rules source

page 621

Quote:

Persistent damage runs its course and automatically

ends after a certain amount of time as fire burns out,
blood clots, and the like. The GM determines when this
occurs, but it usually takes 1 minute.


Whups missed that detail~ (though I think that was mostly GM Fiat at that point for the boss to die and the NPC we worked for to retrieve us)


I had an strange situation the other day with the persistent damage and the dying condition.

A player got reduced to 0 Hit Points and got some persistent damage. So he fell unconscious to the ground and gained the dying 1 condition.

At the start of his turn, he recovered from dying, so he got to 0 HP (still unconscious and dying 0), so he got wounded 1. At the end of the turn, he got the persistent damage, so I made him take dying 2 (1 form the damge, 1 from the wounded 1).

Is that right? I haven´t finded a place were it´s said what happen when you take damage and you are at 0 HP but don´t have the dying condition. I have aplied the rule that specifies when you are dying and take damage, because I think something has to happen.

Core Book, page 459, under Taking Damage While Dying:

"If you take damage while you already have the dying
condition, increase your dying condition value by 1..."

Sovereign Court

Aswaarg wrote:

I had an strange situation the other day with the persistent damage and the dying condition.

A player got reduced to 0 Hit Points and got some persistent damage. So he fell unconscious to the ground and gained the dying 1 condition.

At the start of his turn, he recovered from dying, so he got to 0 HP (still unconscious and dying 0), so he got wounded 1. At the end of the turn, he got the persistent damage, so I made him take dying 2 (1 form the damge, 1 from the wounded 1).

Is that right? I haven´t finded a place were it´s said what happen when you take damage and you are at 0 HP but don´t have the dying condition. I have aplied the rule that specifies when you are dying and take damage, because I think something has to happen.

Core Book, page 459, under Taking Damage While Dying:

"If you take damage while you already have the dying
condition, increase your dying condition value by 1..."

I think your numbers are right:

* He was at 0HP and Wounded 1.
* He took (persistent) damage that brought him to 0HP or less (easy, since he was already at 0) so he got Dying 1.
* He went to Dying while already Wounded, so he ups his Dying value by his Wounded value, so he drops to Dying 2.

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