My Experience with changing Ongoing Damage over rounds to an immediate effect

There's been some talk lately for those trying to reduce tracking, of trying this idea:

Changing ongoing damage from a once per round save to an immediate effect. When you are hit with the effect, you immediately take the damage, roll a save, and continue to take damage and saving until you pass the effect.


I tried it out on a custom level 20 solo that my party faced in an epic battle, so I thought I'd share my thoughts.

The creature had escalating (which is our word for this new concept) damage 10, 15, and 20 damage attacks (the damage increased as the monster was damaged).


From a tracking standpoint, the combat went very smoothly. The immediate saves were easy to take care of and I believe the combat went faster because of it.

From a power standpoint, escalating damage is A LOT stronger than ongoing damage. Both from its potential ability to stack (multiple attacks dealing escalating damage can stack with each other the way we I played with it) and from it potential swinginess factor.

The big highlight tonight was a time one of my players took 60 damage from one escalating attack and went right to unconsciousness.



If I try out the concept again, I would probably try one of the following tweaks:

1) Add a +2 to the saving throw for each additional save required. So saving throw, saving throw +2, saving throw +4, etc. Unlike with a saving made every round, its very easy to add custom saving throw modifiers to immediate saves.

2) Require a save before any damage is taken, instead of taking the first bout of damage than forcing a save.

3) Reduce the damage by 5. So ongoing 10 = escalating 5, etc.

Of these 3, right now I like option 1 the best simply because it puts a maximum limit on this damage and puts the damage more in the realm of the original ongoing damage.

However, the escalating damage felt very appropriate for this climatic battle and overall I think made it a better experience. I think I will try it again in a appropriate situation, though again likely with one of the changes I mentioned above.

Just to clairfy, cause I had to read over this a 3 or 4 times before I realized what he was doing. It's a string of saves on the round where the affect was applied.

I'm not sure if I like the trade off. Though I loathe book keeping, and try to simplify wherever I can, I think that the increase in power, and the loss of the damage "feeling" ongoing is too much for me.

Nytmare said:

Just to clairfy, cause I had to read over this a 3 or 4 times before I realized what he was doing. It's a string of saves on the round where the affect was applied.

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You are correct, it is a string of saves that you make immediately.

I can see what you are trying to do and why, but I don't think I like it. Primarily because it doesn't take into account the multitude of powers that grant bonus saves, including the desperate heal check to grant a bonus save.

A lot of the tension in epic fights is down to trying to shake off ongoing effects, from what I can tell your escalating damage system is for ongoing damage only but for me it is one of the things that 4e models really well so I wouldn't want to lose it.

Mesh Hong said:

A lot of the tension in epic fights is down to trying to shake off ongoing effects, from what I can tell your escalating damage system is for ongoing damage only but for me it is one of the things that 4e models really well so I wouldn't want to lose it.

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Ongoing damage is not something you have to lose by trying out this mechanic. Its just an additional mechanic you can add to your game when its appropriate or useful for certain custom effects and items.

As for tension, to be honest ongoing damage has never been a source of big tension in my games. The damage is too low, and healing too high.

The only exception was in facing a razor hydra, when one player had 50 ongoing damage.

However, I can say with this escalating damage I saw more tension on my players faces then I had seen in a while. Knowing that a string of bad saves could drop them down quickly created a very excited atmosphere.

You know, one of these days I'll see you come up with a bad idea Stalker0 =)

You're right, thats a fantastic new damage mechanic and I'm totally going to yoink it =) Like others, I am concerned how such a mechanic would affect existing abilities/features that apply to saving throws. But I also think you're right, the excitement factor may very well outweigh the minor balancing issues. The player was going to take that much damage from the ability anyway, just not in one big chunk. Adding bonuses to additional saving throws is a brilliant way to counter the effect of the damage coming all-at-once as opposed to over-time.

The only other thing I would be concerned about is stacking. What happens when three monsters hit you with an ongoing 20 fire damage effect? Per RAW, you would only take 20 fire damage...with your changes though, that easily become a KO.

knightofround said:

You know, one of these days I'll see you come up with a bad idea Stalker0 =)

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While I appreciate the confidence, this was not my idea

Several people in the houserules forum had this idea when they were working on reducing condition tracking. I tried it out myself on some custom monsters.

As I mentioned, from a power standpoint you can't just swap an ongoing effect with an escalating one and expect the power to be about the same. That is simply not true. If you wish the power to be about the same you have to lower the escalating damage, apply bonuses to the saves, etc.

I know that it's only a different kind of book keeping, but how would things suss out if you combined the two into something like:

• You get hit with a power that engulfs you in flame.
• Roll a bunch of saves to see how many rounds you will be on fire.
• Stick a bunch of "ongoing damage" counters somewhere important to show how bad it's going to be.
• Every round, remove a counter and take the damage.
• If someone grants you a save, and you make it, remove the stack of counters.

You'd get the die rolls out of the way at the forefront, which is always one of my least favorite things about ongoing damage, especially on rounds that "matter." You could implement a "stacked" ongoing damage rule, where the new counters get added to the existing stack of counters.