Just how does Resurgence work?

[cowsay]

We're having some disagreement in our group about how the Resurgence spell works. We're not sure exactly what it covers. We know it allows an additional saving throws to address an "ongoing spell, spell-like ability, or supernatural ability" and that it won't address ability damage or hit points. But we're having some debates about what is meant by "ongoing" and which spells Resurgence is likely to effect. How do you know what is meant by ongoing. Is "ongoing" about the spell or about the effect of the spell? That is, is it about the duration of the spell or is it about the duration of the spell effect that Resurgence addresses? Would the spell give a new saving throw to a spell cast years ago, like, say, Baleful Polymorph? Does it address only the listed conditions, e.g., sickened, or does it apply to essentially any condition including blindness and deafness? Would it affect anything other than "conditions" as they're listed in the SRD/PH or can it affect other states or effects?

It's just not a very well written spell and we're struggling with it..

[TuggyNE]

Baleful polymorph is Permanent, not Instantaneous, so there's no reason you shouldn't get a new save for that. (I.e., the spell magic is still around.)

Conditions aren't well-defined (this is also problematic for IHS) so you should probably houserule that first.

[Psyren]

The intent appears to be that it refers to the effect of the spell. Your own example of Baleful Polymorph, for instance, is actually explicitly mentioned as being affected by the mass version of the spell, so it stands to reason that the single-target version would work against baleful polymorph too.

"Ongoing" means that the effect of the spell is one that is still being magically enforced. So a dominate spell would be ongoing, whereas something like a fireball that damaged your party and then ended would not be, even if the effects (hp loss or even death) are extant after the fact; your allies would not get a new reflex save or regain hitpoints retroactively.

Also, blind and deaf are both conditions.