Swarm resistance/vulnerability and ongoing damage

[gnfnrf]

Does the resistance to melee and ranged attacks or the vulnerability to close and area attacks of a swarm affect ongoing damage started by those attacks? How does this interact with the ongoing damage stacking rules?

The example that almost came up in play is Fire Shroud vs. a swarm of zombies. As an area attack, the Fire Shroud itself clearly does extra damage. But what about the ongoing 5? Similarly, if the ongoing 5 were from a melee attack, would it be halved as well?

Now for the complicated part, which only applies if you said "yes" above. If the same swarm is subject to ongoing 5 fire from an area attack, and ongoing 10 fire from a ranged attack, and is vulnerable 10 to area attacks, how much damage does the swarm take? 5 (because 10 > 5, then take half of 10), or 15 (because 5+10 > 10/2)?

Come to think of it, this last bit applies to type vulnerability as well.

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gnfnrf

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The type of ongoing damage is not automatically 'the same' as the type of some other attack's damage which may have initiated the ongoing damage, although it is generally stated to be so explicitly. Resistance works normally with ongoing damage. I see nothing in the PHB on pp276 and 278 which deal with resistances and ongoing that indicates otherwise. Ongoing damage is never 'from a melee attack', it is its own category of damage, which may be untyped or typed and the keywords simply apply in the normal way.

If fire shroud doesn't state a type for its ongoing damage then it is untyped. If swarm of zombies has resist ALL (there is no resist untyped) then it would resist the untyped damage, otherwise not.

As for your last question, the same thing applies, ongoing damage is not 'area damage', it is just damage. So there is no case where a swarm would take extra damage from ongoing damage just because it was initiated by an area attack (unless specific rules text says otherwise someplace).

As long as you don't try to treat 'area' and 'melee' as damage types, which they are not, then there should be no rules problems. Granted they are a BIT like a damage type when interacting with swarms special R/V clauses, but that only factors into the initial attack.

 

[mlangsdorf]

I would argue (for simplicity's sake, if nothing else), that ongoing damage is neither damage from a melee or ranged attack nor damage from a close or area attack. Thus, a swarm neither takes half damage from it, nor is it vulnerable to it. It just takes the ongoing damage.

In your example, the swarm takes 10 ongoing fire damage each turn.

 

[NMcCoy]

In my games, I've ruled that the attack type keywords only apply to damage resulting from an attack roll - so a Cloud of Daggers does extra damage to a swarm on a hit, but the entering/start of turn damage is unmodified. Similarly, the Hit damage of a Flaming Sphere is resisted, but the proximity damage is unaffected.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

In my games, I've ruled that the attack type keywords only apply to damage resulting from an attack roll - so a Cloud of Daggers does extra damage to a swarm on a hit, but the entering/start of turn damage is unmodified. Similarly, the Hit damage of a Flaming Sphere is resisted, but the proximity damage is unaffected.

Like I said, that is just RAW. Ongoing damage IS neither 'melee' nor 'area'. It is just 'damage' (usually with a type). There is another question here, which is 'is the damage of an AoE always area damage?' That is not described as 'ongoing damage' and it is damage applied via an area effect, and thus it would seem IMHO to be 'area' damage. So I would rule that if a swarm is in a wall of fire, then the vulnerability would kick in, just like it would for the instantaneous damage of a fireball. AFAIK there are no melee (weapon keyword) attacks that would fall into that category, they are all described as ongoing damage, so neither the vulnerability nor the resistance applies in those cases.

As an aside on swarms, they are already NASTY and thus I think it would be scary bad if they didn't have a vulnerability to all AoE damage, even on later turns. Otherwise swarms are just lethal. They are already super effective and usually a considerable challenge even at level-3 or so.

 

[KlassyReborn]

Ok Ongoing damage is neither melee or ranged attack. It is ONGOING damage. It is a separate damage. Therefore it does not half the damage, nor is vunerable to the damage, it just takes full damage as normal.