Simple question about secondary damage

[amysrevenge]

OK, I don't know how to frame the search for this, or where to look in the rules for the answer.

What, if any, bonuses get applied to secondary damage effects from powers? By secondary effects I mean things like the following, many of which are described slightly differently:

- starting your turn next to a flaming sphere (Wizard Daily 1) and taking "1d4 + Intelligence modifier fire damage", listed under Effect

- leaving the zone of visions of ruin (Wizard Daily 9) and taking "2d8 + Intelligence modifier psychic damage", listed under Effect

- hitting a dragon Sorcerer after he's used burning spray (Sorcerer At-will 1) which does "fire damage equal to your Strength modifier", listed under Hit

- starting your turn next to the target of explosive pyre (Sorcerer Encounter 1) and taking "1d6 fire damage", listed under Hit

- hitting a dragon Sorcerer after he's used lightning breath (Sorcerer Daily 1) which does "5 lightning damage", listed under Hit


So, there are secondary effects that do <dice>, <modifier>, <dice + modifier>, and <fixed value> damage. All of the powers have the Implement keyword. Which, if any of these, would get to add the enhancement value of the implement used?

What brings this up is that I've always taken it for granted that the secondary effect of flaming sphere could add the implement's enhancement bonus to its damage. However, it doesn't look right when applied to the fixed damage of lightning breath, even though if it applies to one it should really apply to the other.

Any reference I can turn to here?

 

[im_robertb]

I believe most of these bonuses apply to damage rolls. So the way I'd rule it is that if the damage involves a roll, the bonus applies.

 

[Trevelyan]

As a rule, only add enhancement (or other) modifiers if the damage is rolled, and only add ability modifiers is specifically told to do so.

Flaming Sphere does 1d4 + Int + enhancement
Leaving Visions of Ruin does 2d8 + Int + enhancement
Hitting the sorcerer using Burning Spray does Str mod
Starting next to Explosive Pyre does 1d6 + enhancement (no Cha bonus)
Hitting the Lightning Breath sorcerer does 5 damage

 

[IanB]

As a rule, only add enhancement (or other) modifiers if the damage is rolled, and only add ability modifiers is specifically told to do so.

Flaming Sphere does 1d4 + Int + enhancement
Leaving Visions of Ruin does 2d8 + Int + enhancement
Hitting the sorcerer using Burning Spray does Str mod
Starting next to Explosive Pyre does 1d6 + enhancement (no Cha bonus)
Hitting the Lightning Breath sorcerer does 5 damage

This is more or less the conclusion I came to as well, but I don't really like the effect it has on a few of the powers in PHB2 - there's that invoker at-will that does flat damage for its *initial* effect, for example.

 

[keterys]

That's part of the balance of Grasping Shards. Or Knockdown Assault or Furious Smash.

No enhancement, no weapon focus, no armbands of power. Oh well.

 

[NMcCoy]

Also, pay attention to keywords: Dragonflame Mantle isn't an Implement power, so it doesn't get an enhancement bonus, but it is a damage roll on an Arcane power so it gets the sorcerer's Power Source bonus damage.

 

[amysrevenge]

Thanks for the input.

The breakdown in post #3 is the one that feels best to me also, and is what I would use unless an actual rule with an actual page number were to contradict it.

 

[Eric Finley]

This is actually an area of ongoing, if intermittent, contention.

There are really only two credible interpretations. Which one seems more valid basically depends on your value system - neither one is unambiguously more "proper" than the other. (As support for this last point, the number of supporters of each side does appear to reach rough parity, each time it comes up, though the personality types on each side seem to cluster.)

Interpretation one: What matters is that the damage is rolled, rather than a nonrandom number. (I'm avoiding "static" because that's got a specific meaning.) This tends to be favored by rules literalists, and character optimizers. Tends to be disfavored by field-levellers and mathy types. Interpretation one is currently supported by a Customer Service ruling which is slightly less ambiguous than those in support of interpretation two.

Interpretation two: What matters is whether the damage is the immediate result of an attack roll, or whether it's due to some other (usually lasting and/or conditional) effect. Interpretation two is generally supported and opposed by the opposite people from the broad lists above. Interpretation two is also supported by an interview, I believe at GenCon a while back, with one of the designers (possibly Johnathan Tweet, I don't recall). I'd have to go back to those argument threads to find the specific sourcing.

I am personally of the opinion that interpretation two is the correct one. This is based on some excellent analysis work both here and over on the WotC forums, where it was demonstrated for a number of powers that the powers which include secondary damage are indisputably stronger than other powers of their class and level, if you include the bonuses... but are essentially comparable if you don't. (For example, Flaming Sphere breaks even with other powers of its level after the first one or two sustain actions; it's inferior right off the bat, but superior if you keep it up awhile, which is the whole point of it being the sustained one in the bunch.)

This goes for several otherwise-very-powerful things like the fighter's Rain of Steel stance; when the rule of thumb is "you didn't have to roll to hit, you don't get the bonus damage" then they tend to come out quite neatly versus the other powers of their class and level.

There's also the Invoker's Grasping Shards at-will, which suffers from a huge discontinuity under interpretation 1: at 20th level, it's distinctly unimpressive, because unlike every other available power it has not gained the benefit of damage bonuses (because there is no die roll). Then at level 21 it has a relatively trivial die roll added, and jumps tremendously due to this ruling. Whereas if it had added comparable bonuses all along, then the damage die simply adds its value to the power, for a precisely equivalent upgrade to every other At-Will as you hit level 21.

The interview basically said that the whole thing should revolve around the phrasing that damage bonuses accrue "when you use" a power. With the point being that you are only "using" the power during the actual action you used to do so. Almost always this involves an attack roll. All of your examples occur outside of the action taken to use the power, and do not involve an attack roll, so they would not (under interpretation II) gain the bonus damage.

Note that the sustain:standard on Flaming Sphere does require an attack roll and take an action to perform, so it clearly gains the bonus. Even powers which roll an attack and "consume" only a free action still occur during the context of an action you are taking; the type of action doesn't matter.

Without having seen someone run the stats on it, I would be leaning toward the one in post #3 as well. But since I am interested in making sure that there are as few "hidden suck" and "hidden super" powers as possible, so that players' decision spaces are maximized, and since I'm equipped to check the math and have done so... I'm sold on interpretation two.

 

[keterys]

Wow... I've never seen any basis for any argument other than the 'on damage roll' interpretation, and I do tend to notice such things.

That said, nice job making the first sound distasteful by associating it with character optimizers and rules literalists, though

Personally, I almost wish you got damage bonuses under much more rigorously controlled circumstances... like Twin Strike or Rain of Blows only getting it once, no matter how many times you hit would suit me well. Totally not RAW, though.

 

[NMcCoy]

Huh. I might be inclined to go with Eric Finley's "interpretation two" (though I'd never heard such an argument articulated clearly before)... But there doesn't seem to be anything in the text itself that would support that claim - and it requires making the unintuitive judgment that sometimes rolling for damage doesn't count as a damage roll. I'd really like to see some unambiguous and definitive official word on this, as it hugely affects quite a few powers.

(I just did a test in the character builder, and it clearly follows Interpretation 1 (at least for primary damage, which is the only thing it calculates out for you). I made a Level 20 invoker, gave him a +5 implement, and the damage is only Wis mod for Grasping Shards. Bump him up to 21 and he suddenly gets enhancement to damage as well.)