D&D 5E Concentration while Short Resting

[Gardens & Goblins]

Let me get this right. My wizard is in battle with an ancient red dragon and it's legion of rampaging cohorts. Fire and death is raining all around. During this time the wizard never has to make a Concentration check unless they take damage or an extraordinary environmental effect (PHB mentions a storm-tossed ship) makes them do so. However smoking a pipe while listening to the bard murder a tune on their new zither for an hour would?

Violin. It's a world of difference from that cute little zither. A world filled with screeching, horrible, tormented pain......

So, yeah - sure, maybe? Maybe not.

..and really, fire and death all around - and not one concentration check? You bribing the DM again?!

 

[Ganymede81]

Can a bard Concentrate on maintaining an entertaining Major Image spell while drinking ale in a tavern without rolling a Concentration check? Of course they can. The Concentration mechanic is there principally to prevent casters from having multiple buffs running at once and provide an exterior method to drop those spells in combat.

However there is enough flexibility in the rules to have table variability. That's okay, too.

No one is claiming that drinking an ale ruins concentration. The issue is wheher concentrating on a spell ruins a short rest.

 

[Yunru]

No one is claiming that drinking an ale ruins concentration. The issue is wheher concentrating on a spell ruins a short rest.

No, the issue is you keep ignoring every case presented for "No, concentration doesn't prevent a short rest" with "Yeah, but I'm not asking if a short rest breaks concentration."

 

[Ganymede81]

Of course not, but you knew that already.

If you can't short rest while maintaining concentration, then taking a short rest would require you to lose concentration, and would thus be listed as one of the things that causes you to lose concentration.

Since it doesn't, then starting a short rest doesn't cause you to lose concentration. Thusly it must be possible to both short rest and maintain concentration.

I already told you that the absence of a rule is not a rule.

What are you going to tell the OP? "You can concentrate during a short rest, as indicated on Pg. Make-believe in the PHB."

Anyways, this is a red herring. This would fall under voluntarily ending a concentration spell, which is accounted for in the concentration section.

 

[Yunru]

I already told you that the absence of a rule is not a rule.

What are you going to tell the OP? "You can concentrate during a short rest, as indicated on Pg. Make-believe in the PHB."

Anyways, this is a red herring. This would fall under voluntarily ending a concentration spell, which is accounted for in the concentration section.

And we're done here. You're not looking for a discussion, you're looking for an argument. I guess I should have twigged already with the amount of willful ignorancw, but whatever.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I already told you that the absence of a rule is not a rule. ...

Look, by it's very nature an RPG is a permissive rule set. That means that you typically allow anything that isn't specifically prohibited by the rules (subject to house rule or DM judgement). You can't have a restricted rule set in 5e, like say a board game, because you are trying to emulate behavior in a living, breathing world and no set of rules would ever encapsulate that.

So, yes, the absence of a rule is implied to allow the permissive case, or at least make it subject to house rule, DM decision, etc, in 5e.

 

[rollingForInit]

I dunno about that. It certainly seems like it represents that you are concentrating. I mean, you have a chance to lose the spell if you are distracted, and that wouldn't make as much sense if it was just a limit on active spells that didn't correspond to actual concentration.

In general, the name of a mechanic is our best indication of what that mechanic represents. When you Hit someone, that means you hit them. Damage is damage. Your Armor Class is based on your armor. Concentration is concentration.

Yes, but concentration obviously implies much more than they intended, right? Concentration in general is very easily broken. The Concentration mechanic in the game is meant to be very difficult to break, it's meant to last through rests (but not sleep). It requires damage or extreme environmental factors.

It would've caused much less confusion if they had just named it something else, because both from the PHB and their tweets, they obviously never intended requiring rolls to keep concentration outside of combat, even during rests. But that's what people are taking away from it, just because it's named "Concentration".

 

[Caliban]

Yes, but concentration obviously implies much more than they intended, right? Concentration in general is very easily broken. The Concentration mechanic in the game is meant to be very difficult to break, it's meant to last through rests (but not sleep). It requires damage or extreme environmental factors.

It would've caused much less confusion if they had just named it something else, because both from the PHB and their tweets, they obviously never intended requiring rolls to keep concentration outside of combat, even during rests. But that's what people are taking away from it, just because it's named "Concentration".

Yeah, it might have worked out better if they'd called it the "Active Spell Slot", of which everyone has one. Just like everyone has three "Attuned Magic Item" slots. Instead of a Concentration Save, it could be a "Disruption Save" - a roll to keep your active spell from being disrupted.

But they didn't.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Yes, but concentration obviously implies much more than they intended, right? Concentration in general is very easily broken. The Concentration mechanic in the game is meant to be very difficult to break, it's meant to last through rests (but not sleep). It requires damage or extreme environmental factors.

The concentration of a professional wizard is not necessarily that easy to break. I mean, for all I know, concentrating on a spell for eight hours is part of your final exam at wizard school. The Concentration game mechanic has roughly as much in common with what we normally think of as concentration as being Hit by a sword has to do with actually being hit by a sword. It's basically the same thing, but there are minor caveats that make it slightly different from the real world.

Most importantly, these are fantastic individuals who routinely perform better at such tasks than real people. Just as Conan could probably take an axe to the hauberk without flinching, so could Dumbledore probably maintain focus on a spell for eight hours.

Although I'm sure you could describe it differently, if you really wanted to. I know that some people don't like the idea of taking a bunch of bloody hits and still going, so they say that a weapon attack which Hits-but-doesn't-drop is not-actually-a-hit. You could do the same thing with Concentration, and say that it's not-actually-concentration, if it bothered you that much.

 

[Ganymede81]

Look, by it's very nature an RPG is a permissive rule set. That means that you typically allow anything that isn't specifically prohibited by the rules (subject to house rule or DM judgement). You can't have a restricted rule set in 5e, like say a board game, because you are trying to emulate behavior in a living, breathing world and no set of rules would ever encapsulate that.

So, yes, the absence of a rule is implied to allow the permissive case, or at least make it subject to house rule, DM decision, etc, in 5e.

Yeah, the affirmative rule here is that you can''t benefit from a short rest if you do anything more strenuous than "eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds."

Others are trying to argue that a lack of a limitation in the concentration section somehow creates an affirmative rule about what spoils a short rest, but that simply isn't the case.

This is an important distinction because that which breaks concentration is a completely different test from that which spoils a short rest. You can chill by a campfire for an hour while sipping a beer, and it won't break your concentration. But that's not the issue. The issue is whether that hour by the campfire was sufficiently restful to get you the benefits of a short rest.