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<blockquote data-quote="Shiroiken" data-source="post: 6580183" data-attributes="member: 6775477">It's totally the DMs call. Sage Advice has (using other examples) given the indication that damage is dealt all at once. This is because of various spells and effects that they made and didn't consider the potential consequences of. Personally, as a DM I ignore Sage Advice and go with what makes sense on a case by case example.In the spider case, the person takes piercing damage from the bite, which causes them to go to 0 HP (dying). Then they take damage from the poison, which causes a failed death saving throw if it deals damage (assuming the poison deals damage). This is because the poison would be injected after the bite, and is a consequence of the bite. Also, if someone was immune to the piercing damage, for whatever reason, I would also have them be immune to the poison, as the bite didn't actually break the skin.In the flaming sword case, both damages are actually independent and simultaneous to each other. You could choose to lay the flat of the blade on someone, causing them to take the fire damage, even if they don't take the weapon's damage. Additionally, such a weapon could not be used to subdue, as the fire damage would put them to dying.tl;dr: it's the DM's call. Realism would dictate you are closer to correct. Gamism (for lack of a better term) would dictate that they are simultaneous and that you were wrong.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Shiroiken, post: 6580183, member: 6775477"] It's totally the DMs call. Sage Advice has (using other examples) given the indication that damage is dealt all at once. This is because of various spells and effects that they made and didn't consider the potential consequences of. Personally, as a DM I ignore Sage Advice and go with what makes sense on a case by case example. In the spider case, the person takes piercing damage from the bite, which causes them to go to 0 HP (dying). Then they take damage from the poison, which causes a failed death saving throw if it deals damage (assuming the poison deals damage). This is because the poison would be injected after the bite, and is a consequence of the bite. Also, if someone was immune to the piercing damage, for whatever reason, I would also have them be immune to the poison, as the bite didn't actually break the skin. In the flaming sword case, both damages are actually independent and simultaneous to each other. You could choose to lay the flat of the blade on someone, causing them to take the fire damage, even if they don't take the weapon's damage. Additionally, such a weapon could not be used to subdue, as the fire damage would put them to dying. tl;dr: it's the DM's call. Realism would dictate you are closer to correct. Gamism (for lack of a better term) would dictate that they are simultaneous and that you were wrong. [/QUOTE]

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