Rules FAQ How Does Concentration Work in D&D 5E?

Some spells (and, more rarely, abilities) require active concentration in order to maintain their magic effects. If you lose concentration, the effect ends. The rules outlining concentration appear in the Player’s Handbook on page 203.

If a spell or ability requires concentration, it tells you. Spells have a Duration entry which specifies “Concentration, up to [a certain amount of time]”. Of the 361 spells in the Player’s Handbook, 154 require concentration. A concentration spell's duration is the maximum time you can concentrate on its effect.

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This is the part of a weekly series of articles by a team of designers answering D&D questions for beginners. Feel free to discuss the article and add your insights or comments!

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While most concentration spells end once their maximum duration is reached, some have permanent effects if you maintain concentration for the full duration, such as banishment, modify memory, and true polymorph.

Abilities that require you to concentrate specify it within the ability’s text. For example the cleric’s Trickery Domain illusory duplicate created by Channel Divinity: Invoke Duplicity specifies that it “lasts 1 minute, or until you lose your concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell).”

Maintaining Concentration
You can maintain concentration as you perform normal activity, which includes:

• Moving and attacking
• Casting a spell (so long as it only takes 1 action, bonus action, or reaction, and doesn't require concentration) (added thanks to Nikosandros and John R Davis)
• Taking a short rest
• Taking a long rest using Trance as an elf, or Sentry’s Rest as a warforged
• Transforming into another creature using the Wild Shape ability as a druid, or the spell polymorph

Once you’re concentrating on a spell or ability, you maintain its effect regardless of the distance between yourself and the target or area of the effect. For example, if you cast hunter’s mark on a creature, which then leaves the material plane (without dying), the effect persists until you lose concentration.

Losing Concentration
You always lose concentration when:

• You choose to stop concentrating. You can end concentration at any time (no action required).
• You enter a barbarian rage. No spells, only RAGE!
• You’re incapacitated or killed. Concentration is lost if you gain the incapacitated condition (although the condition itself doesn’t tell you this) or if you die.
• You are concentrating and start to concentrate on something else. You can only concentrate on one thing at a time! (Unless you’re the dragon Niv-Mizzet from Ravnica.) If you are concentrating, and start to cast another spell (or use an ability) that requires concentration, the first effect ends immediately.
• Spells with a casting time longer than a single action or reaction, including rituals, require concentration while they are cast, even if they don’t require concentration according to their Duration entry.
• When you ready a spell, holding the spell to release as a triggered reaction requires concentration, even if according to their Duration entry they don’t.

You might lose concentration when:

• You take damage. It’s hard to concentrate when you’re getting a beating! Whenever you take damage while you’re concentrating, you must succeed on a Constitution saving throw to maintain it. The DC equals 10 or half the damage you take, whichever number is higher.
  • If 21 damage or less, the Con save is DC 10
  • If 22 damage and higher, the Con save is equal to half the damage DC 11+
  • Damage from multiple sources triggers a separate saving throw for each source of damage.
  • Each magic missile is a separate source of damage, making it an excellent way to trigger several concentration checks!
• You’re distracted by your environment. It’s hard to concentrate during a storm at sea! Your DM might decide that certain environmental phenomena, such as a wave crashing over you on a storm-tossed ship, require you to succeed a DC 10 Constitution saving throw to maintain your concentration.
  • The spell sleet storm is the only spell in the Player’s Handbook that specifically calls for a Constitution saving throw to maintain concentration by modifying the environment. It also uniquely sets the Con saving throw to the character's spell save DC.

Saves Not Checks
It's important to note that in 5e D&D, concentration is tested using Constitution saving throws, rather than concentration skill checks. In previous editions, namely 3rd and 3.5, concentration was a skill used you took damage while casting a spell in combat (at the time spell casting triggered an opportunity attack, and damage triggered a concentration check to avoid losing the spell). It's not uncommon for old edition terminology to creep into new editions, and so you might have heard the phrase "make a concentration check," but in 5e D&D, the roll required will always be a "Constitution saving throw to maintain concentration."

Improving your ability to concentrate
The best way to maintain concentration is to avoid taking damage and to stay off wave-struck ships during storms, but given that sometimes these are unavoidable, here are the next best strategies to avoid losing your focus:

• Boost your Constitution. Use your Ability Score Increases, or magic items such as the amulet of health or belt of Dwarvenkind to increase your Constitution score and Constitution saving throws.
• Be proficient with Constitution saving throws. If you’re not an artificer, barbarian, fighter or sorcerer, you can take the feat Resilient (Constitution), to gain proficiency. Or you can borrow a Transmuter’s Stone from a very kindly Wizard.
• Gain advantage on Constitution saving throws. The feat Warcaster grants advantage on Constitution saving throws to maintain concentration when you take damage. Alternatively, the warlock invocation Eldritch Mind (from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything) gives advantage of Constitution saving throws to maintain concentration (for any reason, not just from taking damage), and is available to all via the feat Eldritch Adept.
• Get buffed. Spells such as bless, and abilities like bardic inspiration can really help you maintain concentration in a pinch, so remember to ask your friends to help you out.

 

[clearstream]

You're playing at semantics now. Do the rules very specifically state that magic missile creates multiple orbs of force each of which deals 1d4+1 damage? Yes they do.
Do rules state that the falling damage is broken down by the segments of your body hitting a hard surface? No, it is a singular instance of damage.

I think it isn't semantics, but perhaps my examples are not very good. The rules specify that the darts hit simultaneously. So we know that they are hitting - at the same time. When they are hitting one individual, a series of events is ruled out. It therefore satisfies the RAW of simultaneously to interpret that it is one event. When darts hit me in my foot and my hand simultaneously, as a perceiver I can experience only one concentration break. It seems really strange to suppose that I experience two breaks.

What I would rather is different wording - that the darts hit a split-second apart. That is what the spell should say to relieve ambiguity.

Now if the GM wants to say: your body smashes into a crevace taking x damage then bounces off, raking through the underbrush causing another X damage before landing on the rocks below with a nauseating splat, inflicting another X damage - that is entirely up to them.

Here you have described a series of events, which is not what magic missile does per RAW.

 

[gelf]

the trickery cleric's ability is called "Invoke Duplicity".

Thanks for picking this up. I've corrected the article.

 

[tetrasodium]

I feel like a project to renovate spells needn't be constrained to their current slot level, rather that seems to me like one lever for achieving better balance. Which means broadening valid strategies (more spells matter), mitigating trap picks and overshadowing (a player who enjoys some given spells isn't mechanically overshadowed to an egregious extent by one who optimises), and avoiding warping encounters around them (if players have this spell, almost every encounter has to consider it).


Weapons too, then! I'm with you in wanting more weapons to matter.

One step is to make sure spells explain themselves well. I believe some buffs and debuffs aren't used because it's not clear what the impact will be. For example, blur is super-efficient for high-AC characters, but in my experience hardly ever cast because in the end it competes with spells like haste and greater invisibility which both have far clearer consequences in play.

Then both weapons and spells need to do more within existing design space. A minor tweak like extended duration might be all that is needed, or an up-cast option (which many buffs lack altogether). Battleaxe, longsword and warhammer are differentiated on cost, weight, damage type and XGE feat they play into. It seems nearly enough - perhaps if those feats were fighting styles? Pathing into differentiated mechanics is easier to learn (and often very satisfying). Were blur an abjuration spell it might sometimes see play for similar reasons.

Additional mechanical features to open up design space come with the cost of more to learn and remember to apply in play. A more nuanced concentration mechanic for example, could be tied to spell schools so that blur being illusion can stack with haste but not greater invisibility. That is too strong, but just by way of example.

On the whole, might you agree that 5e is feature rich enough, and the work lies more in using what is there rather than adding complexity?

Thsts all well and good but you started with the stated exclusive goals of nerfing good spells by giving good spells higher spell slots. The cruddy and unused by design spells with a wide range of reasons why they are not used wont suddenly become not cruddy and not unused by design because you nerf the rest.. in order for those cruddy and unused by design spells to change a fix needs to target those spells not the spells that are good.

As to 5e's design space and complexity... no it's absurdly shortsighted and filled with too much simplicity at any cost for the sheer sake of simplicity at any cost. far too often wotc used that sort of shortsighted "x can be an issue so make it not" while ignoring everything one step from x & the repercussions of the change. Far too many of 5e's most glaring issues can be traced back to that MBA style tree over forest design priority that failed to consider the forest.

 

[dalisprime]

I think it isn't semantics, but perhaps my examples are not very good. The rules specify that the darts hit simultaneously. So we know that they are hitting - at the same time. When they are hitting one individual, a series of events is ruled out. It therefore satisfies the RAW of simultaneously to interpret that it is one event. When darts hit me in my foot and my hand simultaneously, as a perceiver I can experience only one concentration break. It seems really strange to suppose that I experience two breaks.

What I would rather is different wording - that the darts hit a split-second apart. That is what the spell should say to relieve ambiguity.


Here you have described a series of events, which is not what magic missile does per RAW.

Three equal dexterity archers using a short bow ready an action to shoot the wizard when he enters the room they're in. All three are equidistant from the entry point. Does the wizard make three con saves or one?

Going back to the Shield spell and how it's too powerful. Let's look back at its 3e predecessor: provides 3/4 cover (+7 to AC and reflex saving throws) from one direction, immunity to magic missile, lasts 1 minute/caster level.
Even further back: it improved your AC by 8 against thrown weapons, 7 against missiles and 6 against everything else on top of immunity to magic missile and granting a +1 bonus to saving throws. Lasted 5 rounds per level.
5e shield on the other hand: provides 3/4 cover equivalent bonus to AC from all directions, immunity to magic missile, lasts until the end of your next turn.
Long story short, it has already been toned down quite a lot from its predecessors.

 

[tetrasodium]

Three equal dexterity archers using a short bow ready an action to shoot the wizard when he enters the room they're in. All three are equidistant from the entry point. Does the wizard make three con saves or one?

Going back to the Shield spell and how it's too powerful. Let's look back at its 3e predecessor: provides 3/4 cover (+7 to AC and reflex saving throws) from one direction, immunity to magic missile, lasts 1 minute/caster level.
Even further back: it improved your AC by 8 against thrown weapons, 7 against missiles and 6 against everything else on top of immunity to magic missile and granting a +1 bonus to saving throws. Lasted 5 rounds per level.
5e shield on the other hand: provides 3/4 cover equivalent bonus to AC from all directions, immunity to magic missile, lasts until the end of your next turn.
Long story short, it has already been toned down quite a lot from its predecessors.

Spoiler: Depends.

Taking damage. Whenever you take damage while you are concentrating on a spell, you must make a Constitution saving throw to maintain your concentration. The DC equals 10 or half the damage you take, whichever number is higher. If you take damage from multiple sources, such as an arrow and a dragon’s breath, you make a separate saving throw for each source of damage.

If the GM is allowing them to work together as part of a preplanned strategy that gm fiat allows all three to sum their damage into one harder to succeed against check with larger damage it's one check because there is only one instance of damage. If it's just three archers rolling three different instance of damage it's one check for each successful attack that deals damage. doesn't matter if each instance is simultaneous or not just that they have a different attack or save.

• Three archers with three successful attacks is 3 individual checks unlikely to exceed dc10.
• Three archers with flaming arrows each dealing 1d10pierce+dex+1d6 fire is sill three checks unlikely to exceed dc10.
• Three archers working together to deal one attack of 3d10+dex+dex+dex+3d6 under gm fiat is one check actually likely to reach dc11(22 damage) if not dc12(24 damage)...

Magic missile of course has no attack no save and a variable number of bolts each acting as a source of damage sourced from one spell. This is "ask your gm because there is no freaking glossary for these terms and 'natural language' deliberately creates confusion by being deliberately unclear".

 

[billd91]

Three equal dexterity archers using a short bow ready an action to shoot the wizard when he enters the room they're in. All three are equidistant from the entry point. Does the wizard make three con saves or one?

Going back to the Shield spell and how it's too powerful. Let's look back at its 3e predecessor: provides 3/4 cover (+7 to AC and reflex saving throws) from one direction, immunity to magic missile, lasts 1 minute/caster level.
Even further back: it improved your AC by 8 against thrown weapons, 7 against missiles and 6 against everything else on top of immunity to magic missile and granting a +1 bonus to saving throws. Lasted 5 rounds per level.
5e shield on the other hand: provides 3/4 cover equivalent bonus to AC from all directions, immunity to magic missile, lasts until the end of your next turn.
Long story short, it has already been toned down quite a lot from its predecessors.

The major benefit it offers now - it’s a reaction. In all previous cases, you had to cast it ahead of need and hope it paid off. Now, you know exactly how much it will pay off. That’s a big deal.
I don’t have a problem with it being first level, though. Just emphasizing that perspective.

 

[clearstream]

Thsts all well and good but you started with the stated exclusive goals of nerfing good spells by giving good spells higher spell slots.

I did not, no. That was another poster.

 

[clearstream]

Three equal dexterity archers using a short bow ready an action to shoot the wizard when he enters the room they're in. All three are equidistant from the entry point. Does the wizard make three con saves or one?

Per RAW they fire at different moments, so three.

Going back to the Shield spell and how it's too powerful. Let's look back at its 3e predecessor: provides 3/4 cover (+7 to AC and reflex saving throws) from one direction, immunity to magic missile, lasts 1 minute/caster level.
Even further back: it improved your AC by 8 against thrown weapons, 7 against missiles and 6 against everything else on top of immunity to magic missile and granting a +1 bonus to saving throws. Lasted 5 rounds per level.
5e shield on the other hand: provides 3/4 cover equivalent bonus to AC from all directions, immunity to magic missile, lasts until the end of your next turn.
Long story short, it has already been toned down quite a lot from its predecessors.

This argument should be addressed to a different poster.

 

[Bolares]

Comparing raw numbers to see if shield was tonned down or not does not make a lot of sense. +5 in one game may be more impactfull than +7 in other...

 

[Hurin70]

The major benefit it offers now - it’s a reaction. In all previous cases, you had to cast it ahead of need and hope it paid off. Now, you know exactly how much it will pay off. That’s a big deal.

That is the big deal for me, and why Shield is so good. If you had to declare it before the attack were rolled, it might not always be an automatic pick. But having the ability to say, 'I'm hit? Oh, no, I'm not' is extremely strong, especially when you will most likely know specifically how much you're hit by (and thus whether Shield spell will block it).