Continuous damage on monsters

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Just a quick question: Has anyone figured out a simple, quick-and-dirty formula for how much continuous damage is worth?

For instance, if you have a low-level monster that does 1d10+5 damage with an at-will attack, is 1d6+3 and 5 continuous poison damage (save ends) about right? Too much?

Some monsters I recently designed seem like they do too much damage, even if the victim makes their first save. I'd rather get a quick-and-dirty system ready before I start playtesting, if possible.

 

[FireLance]

In terms of pure expected damage, ongoing damage is "worth" about base damage / (1 - chance of failing the save) = base damage / 0.55 = about 1.8 times the base damage. Hence, ongoing 5 damage would be expected to deal 9 points of damage on average.

However, if you want to take into consideration additional complications such as: the possibility of being granted additional saves or having bonuses to saving throws from allies or feats, plus some "discount factor" since one point of damage in round one is "worth" more than one point of damage in round two (since it might kill your enemy before he gets to act or act again), then ongoing damage would actually be worth less than 1.8 times the base damage.

I don't have a precise mathematical formula if you want to take all these other factors into account, but 1.5 times base damage seems to me to be a simple and plausible rule of thumb.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Okay thanks. That seems reasonable.

 

[Jack99]

IIRC, ongoing damage only counts as *1 if you look at the monsters in MM3. Probably because there are so many ways to get a save even before the damage kicks in the first time, and due to non-stacking issues.


So, for example, 1d10 + 8 (av 13,5) would be equal to 1d6 + 5 + ongoing 5 damage.

 

[Jhaelen]

IIRC, ongoing damage only counts as *1 if you look at the monsters in MM3.

Yup. 1d8+5 and 1d8 + ongoing 5 (save ends) are considered equivalent in terms of average damage.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Weird. But I noticed that too. I didn't think saves came up that often to justify that.

 

[the Jester]

Weird. But I noticed that too. I didn't think saves came up that often to justify that.

Depends on the party's leader. I ran a campaign where the pcs almost always got a save before the end of their turn when it was needed, but they had an extra leader in the group, so that helped. Still, though- between leaders and the warden's extra save at start of turn- I think *1 seems about right to me.