D&D 5E Is Concentration Bugging You?

[KarinsDad]

As long as both PCs and casters are limited to not tons of buffs, how would this be NPCs working differently? Concentration is actually a really good thing for limiting one of the biggest problems with NPC casters in 3rd edition.

Namely that they were _far_ more effective than non-casters. Not only because they had spells at all, which 3e overfavors a bit, but also because they could blow their entire pyramid on one fight.

The problem is not that they do not currently play by the same rules, the problem is that one of the reason I want to change the concentration rules is because of NPC casters that can't defend themselves adequately with spells. They need minions or helpers or what not. I want them to be capable of relying more on themselves. I like the idea of solos, but solo casters in 5E are probably just toast due to action economy.

So, 5e casters will have their whole pyramid available to them which is still a serious balance issue - having just done an entire mod of fights each with several scary guys and one caster where every fight was "who cares if it has a deadly poison super smash trample flying breath whatever. kill the caster first cause he can fireball _every round_".

It's already that way. If a PC (or NPC) pulls out Fireball, everyone is going to gang up on him today.

Which I guess suggests another thing you could do, which is have Concentration spells limit the casting of other Concentration spells to some extent. Perhaps you can cast a total spell level equal to your highest spell level. So you can cast 5th level spells? Great, one 5th, or a 3rd and a 2nd, or a 4th and a 1st, or 5 1st. Of course, a certain amount of madness lies that way too, but it's worth investigating.

That's one possibility. Thanks.

You could also charge extra spell slots for Concentration spells while you're concentrating already.

I suspect that this would be more of a detriment to PCs who tend to have multiple encounters per day than NPCs who tend to have one encounter, the one with the PCs.

 

[KarinsDad]

And to those suggesting ways to concentrate on multiple spells: that's something the devs have called out as being explicitly broken.

It didn't seem broken in 3E. You have an actual link to such a statement by the devs?

 

[keterys]

I suspect that this would be more of a detriment to PCs who tend to have multiple encounters per day than NPCs who tend to have one encounter, the one with the PCs.

And it addresses one of your complaints about them needing more buff spells. I mean, do you really want the PC Archmage to be able to take out the party on his own with multiple buffs _AND_ for the NPC caster to do the same?

 

[Roger]

Hmmm. If I were going to houserule this, I might go with "If you're wearing heavy armour, you automatically pass Concentration checks caused by taking damage." That should make the paladins and some clerics feel better about their lives.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[Eric V]

Honestly, I'm most okay with the concentration limiting # of spells part. I do think they might have gone slightly overboard (so I can't have multiple of Hex, Spider Climb, or Web active? Really?), but I'd be averse to letting people go over 1 without significant investment (ex: a feat)

It's the having to constantly make DC 10+ Con saves because I happen to be in melee range that bugs me. That and how I like to roll 3s and 4s for saves (I'm legendary with saves in my home groups).

I sort of feel an alternate solution is to re-examine spells that have a duration of concentration: In the example above, my game-intuition says only Spider Climb should be a concentration spell.

 

[KarinsDad]

And it addresses one of your complaints about them needing more buff spells. I mean, do you really want the PC Archmage to be able to take out the party on his own with multiple buffs _AND_ for the NPC caster to do the same?

Yeah, but it brings up the 5 minute day issue even more so than the original house rule that I suggest in this thread.

 

[Staffan]

It didn't seem broken in 3E. You have an actual link to such a statement by the devs?

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/art...the-New-Dungeons-Dragons-With-Designer-Mike.4 (just above the "next page" link)

"I'll use the magic as an example - we want the audience to be informed and know that if anyone does anything that lets you have two concentration spells at once they've broken the game. You can't have cloudkill and hold person at the same time. Now, in your home game, you can do whatever you want. We just want everyone to know how the game works and want everyone to know what's out there in the system and what we learned from playtests before we turn everything loose."

And ultra-buffing was certainly one of the things that made 3e casters broken, and a pain in the bleep to run. Classic examples would be fly and invisibility, or invisibility + summon monster (summoning monsters wasn't an attack in 3e, so you could just hide and pump them out). Or for that matter 3.0 haste + anything.

 

[KarinsDad]

I sort of feel an alternate solution is to re-examine spells that have a duration of concentration: In the example above, my game-intuition says only Spider Climb should be a concentration spell.

I kind of agree with you. The whole "concentrate on a Web spell" when a Web spell barely lasts a round or two for most foes seemed a bit much. I find it amusing that a Web spell lasts for an entire hour, but it's effective duration is about 2 rounds if that.

I also find it amusing that a creature caught in a Web spell (or pushed into a Web) is not restrained until the start of its next turn. That's the problem with new style of game mechanics. They do not have years of play testing behind them, so they can have little gotchas in them.


But, I'm just too lazy of a DM to put in all of the work to figure out which spells to remove concentration from.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

The Smite spells follow this pattern:
* Bonus action to cast.
* Duration Concentration, up to 1 minute.
* The next time you hit with a weapon attack before the spell ends (so it's a one-time thing, but you don't lose it on a miss, you just delay it a bit), deal X extra damage and inflict some kind of status effect.
* The status effect lasts for as long as the spell does. In some cases, the target also gets additional saves.

I think these are fine concentration spells. To those saying "But then I can't use them with bless or divine favor!", I say "Working as intended." And to those suggesting ways to concentrate on multiple spells: that's something the devs have called out as being explicitly broken.

Pretty much this. Paladins are in no way hurting. At most, I'd consider changing a few of their concentration smites to save ends. Certainly that over throwing out the time saving, balance enhancing limitation of one concentration spell per caster. It helps not totally break the bounded accuracy system and prevents it from being a ridiculous casterfest.

I think I threw up a little bit just thinking about adjudicating another mass dispel magic from 3rd edition...

 

[Prism]

Personally I find the concentration DC to be far too low and my wizards/sorcs/etc... who tend to stand away from the front and are adept at avoiding damage can IMO, maintain powerful spells while at the same time, firing off other powerful spells, basically doubling their output per turn. I would prefer if all spells just had a fixed time or number of rounds until they expired.

Hmm, I find it a hard DC to make. My cleric gets +1 CON save so fails pretty much half of the time. Lucky to keep a spell going more than two rounds. To be honest so far I have found bless and the like pretty average