ongoing damage and readied action

[despair]

First of all, hi everyone, this is my first post here.
Sorry if this has been asked before.

Reading the rules, i assume that ongoing damage is not applied immediately, e.g. at the same time as the normal attack damage is applied, but rather is first applied at the start of the target's next turn.

If that is the case, how does that work with a readied action?

example
My wizard's party is confronting a white dragon.
The dragon has cover behind a ledge.
My wizard readies an attack, acid arrow, with the dragon's movement as a trigger: as soon as the dragon leaves the cover, the acid arrow is triggered.
The dragon turn starts.
It flies off the ledge. After it has done the first square of movement, the acid arrow triggers.
I roll the attack and hit.
I do 6 damage from the attack, but do not yet apply the ongoing damage since the dragon's turn had already started.
The dragon ends its turn, rolls its save, and thus the ongoing damage ends.

So in effect, it never takes the ongoing damage, something that wouldn't happen had the acid arrow not beed cast as a readied action.

My DM ruled that it effectively wouldn't take the ongoing damage if he saved on the readied action turn, arguing that this would balance the player's advantage of taking an immediate action in its turn. But he reserved to better check the rules later.

To resolve that, is it correct to assume that since the ongoing damage has not yet been applied, he's not yet entitled to a save against it, not until after it would be first applied on his next turn?

 

[Gruns]

Although it will never come up in any of my games, as my players never use such advanced tactics as readying actions(sigh), I'd have ruled exactly the way your DM ruled. In fact, as lame as it is to squeeze a mere 6 damage from a daily that hits(?), the rules are pretty clear.
PHB 279 Saving Throws
End of Turn: At the end of each turn, you make a saving throw against each effect on you that a save can end. Clearly the "Ongoing 5 Acid (Save Ends)" is an effect on the dragon that a save can end.
Later!
Gruns

 

[DracoSuave]

If you save before the beginning of your next turn, you take no ongoing damage. It's no different than if a Leader used a power to give you an extra saving throw. Ongoing damage powers don't make the best readyed actions.

 

[James McMurray]

The GM was right.

I'll take this opportunity to point out a common house rule, one even used by Mike Mearls*: move ongoing damage to the end of the turn just before rolling saves. It removes the situation where a player is sitting at 9 hit points and waiting for his turn to roll around so he can take 10 onoging damage and fall over. It also ensures that the ongoing damage hits once even when caused by a readied action. Since ongoing damage powers are balanced by the idea that the extra hit happens at least once, this keeps them from losing a major chunk of their oomph when used via readying. We've been using it in our games for quite a while and it works great.

* IIRC, it's definitely one of the designers, as I read it in a Dragon spotlight interview. I'm 98% sure it was Mearls, in an article about what he'd have done differently with the PHB.

 

[despair]

but with that house rule the target would actually get to act one extra round before dieing.. e.g. target at 9 hp, hit by 10 ongoing damage, turn ends, next turn, target acts, then damage applies, target dies. As opposed to : 9 hp, hit by 10 ongoing damage, turn ends, next turn, damage applies, target dies.
In my opinion, a much more linear interpretation, on which i'm seeking your opinion, would be this: to roll a saving throw, you need to be under an effect first, otherwise there's no effect to save from (duh). So you can't save from ongoing damage unless it triggers first. And it triggers at the start of the turn. This way, readied or not, the power would trigger at least once, and always in the target's next turn.

 

[James McMurray]

The delayed death was intentional. It avoids the sucky situation of getting hit for less than your max hit points and then standing there waiting to die because the ongoing damage will kill you before you get to act.

With your rule you end up with a situation where someone gets lit on fire but they can't put themselves out because it's not hot enough yet (i.e. they haven't taken damage). If you're covered in acid from a wizard's spell, you should be able to get it off immediately, not have to wait until it's burned you.

 

[wedgeski]

The delayed death was intentional. It avoids the sucky situation of getting hit for less than your max hit points and then standing there waiting to die because the ongoing damage will kill you before you get to act.

Is this situation particularly sucky? It's happened twice at my table recently and it actually made for acute tension and stave-off-the-impending-doom-style teamwork.

 

[James McMurray]

It's sucky for us. If you like it, that's cool. I saw Mearls's house rule, liked it, and mentioned to the group. We started using it in all our games and have enjoyed the results.

 

[despair]

With your rule you end up with a situation where someone gets lit on fire but they can't put themselves out because it's not hot enough yet (i.e. they haven't taken damage). If you're covered in acid from a wizard's spell, you should be able to get it off immediately, not have to wait until it's burned you.

if, as it seems, the first "dose" of ongoing damage is meant to be part of the "minimum" effect, to me it's more like, you can put off the fire sooner or later, but you'll always be at least a little burnt.

Otherwise, that same "wizard's fire" would be possibly colder if the power that originated it was used as a readied action. Which could even make sense, if one thinks that the wizard had to cast it in a quicker way etc. .. except that powers without an ongoing damage component are completely unaffected by being readied.

 

[DracoSuave]

Or you don't ready actions that have a slow over time effect as 'Quick do this now' snap reactions.

That makes a lot of sense to me.

Next time use a good power.