Multiple Persistent Damage Stacking

[Unicore]

I am also curious whether it is players or GMs advocating for roll multiple times and choose the highest. This really feels like one of those situations where it is going to come back and bite the player badly when they are the one on fire, or in acid.

Coming from the GM side to begin with, it feels a little player hostile if you are headed into a campaign like plaguestone.

[beowulf99]

Unicore wrote:

I am also curious whether it is players or GMs advocating for roll multiple times and choose the highest. This really feels like one of those situations where it is going to come back and bite the player badly when they are the one on fire, or in acid.

Coming from the GM side to begin with, it feels a little player hostile if you are headed into a campaign like plaguestone.

Yeah, I would tend to agree there, though I haven't run/played through Plaguestone personally. I've read through a bunch of it as I was planning on running it until I settled on a homebrew campaign a while back.

As a GM, I can say that I have definitely had Persistent Damage land on my players far more than I have had them inflict it. I've also found that usually Persistent damage on monsters my party face doesn't end up mattering altogether too much, as the monster typically dies not long after taking whatever would have inflicted the persistent damage on it.

Characters however tend to stick around much longer, so their persistent damage does as well. Especially effects like a Barbazu's Infernal Wound bleed with it's impeded recovery chances. Imagine a Barbazu, or several, striking the same party member more than a handful of times, and rolling each instance of damage each round. Sure the most damage you will ever have done is 6, but that becomes more and more certain the more instances there are.

[Jared Walter 356]

egindar wrote:

edit: Beowulf, I think your mistake here is assuming that others are arguing from a point of balance. The "roll twice take highest" proponents seem to be basing it more on the text, which is fine in forums such as these, but separate from arguments about fairness or practicality, which are also fine (but still separate).

I disagree with this assertion. The roll twice is not more based on the text, as it directly contradicts the first rule in the text:

1) You decide when the second condition would be applied which to keep.
2) You do not roll for damage until the conditions would deal damage.
3) You keep the higher amount.

The roll twice argument boils down to the assertion that "you can't decide which is higher without rolling." I don't believe this assertion is valid, and definitely not strong enough to violate the more clear portions of the rules about only keeping one.

I assert that most people would agree 1d2 < 1d4 < 1d6 <1d8 < 1d0, etc. Will a d4 always roll higher than a d8, obviously not, but you make the decision which to keep when the second would be applied, not when the damage is rolled.

I believe that Paizo left the definition of "highest damage" intentionally vague. There will be a myriad of corner cases that the GM will need to arbitrate. The GM decides is plentiful in PF2.

Personally, I am of the opinion that the higher potential damage should be kept, in the case of a tie I would move highest average damage. I would also factor in resistance into this consideration. d4 ignore resistance 5 is better than d8 - 5.

[Amaya/Polaris]

beowulf99 wrote:

The only quibble is with things like the Greater Flaming Rune that ignores resistance or certain abilities that cause bleed that may mess with the recovery DC. In those corner cases, you should make the call as the GM which version of the condition would be "worse" and apply that.

By "worse" you mean for the target, right? It would be pretty mean to remove little benefits like that when the original rule is to take the higher damage.

Claxon wrote:

GM OfAnything wrote:

Would you do that if a character had two instances of 1d6 persistent fire damage? No.

You should not be rolling twice and taking the highest, that increases the damage you are taking by a significant amount.

If I am the GM that's exactly what I'd do (as this doesn't have a clear correct answer) and I don't think it's a "significant" amount.

In your comparison of rolling 1d6 twice your still bounded to a maximum of 6. Is it better for the players? Sure. Is the average damage increasing slightly going to be a significant power increase? No.

It seems trivial, and might be, until you get to things like Bleeding Finisher which deal patently absurd amounts of persistent damage. (3d6, 4d6 a level later, scaling up to 6d6.) Rolling twice, or several times, and taking the highest result is a pretty big power boost (and more of a hassle) with that many dice and its relative ease of application.

To that end, I'm for "higher damage" being taking the bigger die sizes or amount of average damage, being mindful of any resistance to the damage type, and asking players what they want if there's a trade-off. Sure, it's messy, but the alternative seems that way too.

[GM OfAnything]

Filthy Lucre wrote:

This is how I have run persistent damage at my table - you let me know whether you agree/disagree and why.

1d6 Persistent Fire Damage
1d6 Persistent Fire Damage
-> Roll 1d6 once

1d6 Persistent Fire Damage
1d10 Persistent Fire Damage
-> Roll 1d10

2d6 + 5 Persistent Fire Damage
1d12 + 5 Persistent Fire Damage
-> Roll 2d6 + 5

1d6 Persistent Fire Damage
1d6 Persistent Acid Damage
-> Roll 1d6 twice, applying their results separately

Seems pretty easy and intuitive to me.

This is clear and correct, thank you.