Tom Donovan
First Post
Now that we've had a few years playing & play testing 5e, I want to revisit the question of concentrating on multiple spells at once. I understand that there are probably a good lot of you that are cool with the RAW, and think that there is no possible way to concentrate on more than one spell at a time without breaking the game. If this is you, I respectfully suggest that this isn't the thread for you. This thread is for people open to considering how it could be done.
That being said, I agree that straight up allowing this sort of thing would break the game. However, I think that only invites inquiry into how it could be balanced. For the purpose of this discussion, I'll use "MSC" as an abbreviation for Multiple Spell Concentration. I'll start with some questions. I'm sure there are other good questions that will help flesh out the concept as time goes on.
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Anyway, those are most of my thoughts on the topic. What other tweaks would be useful? I've looked into the UA Mystic. I can see some features there that might work.
That being said, I agree that straight up allowing this sort of thing would break the game. However, I think that only invites inquiry into how it could be balanced. For the purpose of this discussion, I'll use "MSC" as an abbreviation for Multiple Spell Concentration. I'll start with some questions. I'm sure there are other good questions that will help flesh out the concept as time goes on.
- Should it be a Class Feature, Spellcasting Rule, or Feat?
- Is MSC something you can do all the time (like normal concentration), or would it be better to require the caster spend his action to concentrate on the additional spell(s)?
- What are the side effects of MSC?
- How would attributes and levels affect MSC?
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- I could see MSC getting rather cumbersome with additional conditions, so I'd rather keep the answer to the first question simple. I think it would be useful to try to make it an amendment to the Spellcasting Rules for concentration in the PHB. That way, all casters could have access to trying out their various unique builds. Making it a Class Feature is my second choice as I don't think that anyone who can cast spells should be able to. But, I think that adding side effects would provide enough drawbacks to dissuade certain builds.
- By RAW, concentration is something you can do while going about your business. In order to balance the mental effort required to concentrate on two things at once, a pc could choose to give up their action on their turn in order to focus on more than one spell. Or, perhaps he must even forego any action, bonus action, reaction, or movement depending on the complexity of the spells on which he's attempting to concentrate. In my mind, it would be simpler to give the pc penalties to various mental abilities, AC, and/ or movement.
- As for side effects, that would depend on the answer to the previous question.
- If the we look at giving up an action, then, factors that would affect how many phases of the turn are given up would be spell level and how many spells are taking up your concentration. Again, for simplicity's sake, the pc should give up his action for each round he maintains concentration on the additional spell. Perhaps even require a saving throw at the beginning of each turn to determine whether the pc maintains concentration.
- If we consider allowing the pc to concentrate and not give up any of his actions, we might look adapt the penalty structure for Cover/ Concealment. For a second low level spell or cantrip, the pc suffers a -2 to all mental skills and ac. For a second spell of equal level, -5 penalty. That sort of rule would be more useful for out of combat situations. Yeah, your human wizard can concentrate on Mage Armour and Darkvision. But, while his mind is occupied with that, he misses the kobold hidden in the crevice to the right.
- I think that the attribute and proficiency bonuses should offset the penalties without any additional calculations. It would be cool to come up with some progression table. But, again simplicity.
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Anyway, those are most of my thoughts on the topic. What other tweaks would be useful? I've looked into the UA Mystic. I can see some features there that might work.
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