Area and close attacks

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, I see no evidence that the game assumes you will only do vulnerability extra damage once per power. I think that assertion is simply unsupportable. Any common garden variety zone will potentially do an arbitrary amount of extra damage both by hitting multiple targets and repeated damage for instance. Ongoing damage is really no different in that respect.

 

[sfedi]

Let me put it another way:

A power that deals 10 fire damage is not assumed to be less powerful than a power that deals 6 fire damage and then 4 fire damage.

Yet, against a creature that is vulnerable against fire, one is clearly more powerful than the other, for no apparent reason.

 

[abyssaldeath]

Let me put it another way:

A power that deals 10 fire damage is not assumed to be less powerful than a power that deals 6 fire damage and then 4 fire damage.

Yet, against a creature that is vulnerable against fire, one is clearly more powerful than the other, for no apparent reason.

If you are going to a comparison, please use real powers because as it is powers that do ongoing damage are more powerful then powers that do damage once in an attack, with or without vulnerability. The comparison you put forth doesn't exist, as far as I know.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, ongoing damage basically can just be factored as being 2x its per-turn value discounting any vulnerability on average. Then of course you have to figure that there could be resistance too. On top of that damage that may happen next turn is worth less than damage done NOW when it might kill the target outright.

On the whole its pretty fair to consider 5 ongoing typed damage (save ends) to be worth about as much as 10 typed damage happening right away.

Honestly both resistance and vulnerability are rare enough that except in the case of radiant it is not much of a factor. Ongoing radiant CAN be extra nasty and I would consider that to be a valid reason to rate a power a bit higher. Ongoing fire say? Nah, its rare that it would add anything and more likely it would be nerfed by resistance.

 

[john112364]

Let me put it another way:

A power that deals 10 fire damage is not assumed to be less powerful than a power that deals 6 fire damage and then 4 fire damage.

Yet, against a creature that is vulnerable against fire, one is clearly more powerful than the other, for no apparent reason.

Let's look at this another way. If instead of vulnerable to area and close attacks, the swarm had vulnerable to fire instead and the swarm was in a zone of fire would you only apply it once? No because the whole swarm is still affected by the zone of fire. This is the reasoning behind the vulnerability to area attacks. And, in this case at least, it is balanced because of the swarm's resistance to melee and ranged attacks crippling the defenders and martial strikers as well as a lot of other powers.

 

[DracoSuave]

Let me put it another way:

A power that deals 10 fire damage is not assumed to be less powerful than a power that deals 6 fire damage and then 4 fire damage.

Fallacious.

This is your logic:

'If the rule does not work the way it does, then things are balanced around the rule being the way it isn't. Therefore, the rule cannot work the way it does.'

Here's a better way of looking at it.

Let's say you're mildly allergic to peanut oil.

Now, if you get stung by a large needle filled with peanut oil, this is going to be bad for you, once.

If you decide, on the other hand, to dive into a tank full of peanut oil, and remain in there for a longer period of time, it is going to do far more damage in the long term. Continued exposure is considerably worse than that one shot.

Shoot Superman with a kryptonite bullet, and he's inconvenienced. Toss Superman in a kryptonite gas chamber, and he's as good as dead.


That said, monsters know that 'FIRE BAD' or 'AVOID THING OF SUPERDEATHPAIN' enough even on an instinctual level to avoid being caught in such things for very long without some help from the party, so it takes a lot more effort to take advantage of than 'Cloud of Daggers = win'.