I had a discussion the other day with Kreynolds outside of the message boards. It got a little heated as to the meaing and spirit of the rule. Mainly he argued the spirit of the rule/game, and I handled the rule aspect. I know we should have left the conversation for everyone to hear, but we could not help ourselves. If this bothers anybody then I appologize because I know that a lot will be left out by my interpretation of the conversation.
His example to debunk my arguement basically ran down like this:
He stated that the lump sum of damage didn't quite work because it upset the balance of play. His example was of a 10th level fighter hitting a 10th level wizard. By just doing minimum damage (With an 18 STR) from the fighter using two weapons, and wielding one +1 longsword and a short sword. (Damage came to 16, and the fighter only has two weapon fighting. No, improved two weapon fighting, and no specialization or weapon fucos.) He pleaded that the wizard would not be able to make the concentration check due to the max ranks that a wizard could have in concentration at that level, without feats of course. (Which is 13, 17 with combat casting) Oh, and the wizard was casting a 3rd level spell. That would make the total DC a 26. The wizard would have to roll a 13 or higher to make the check. That would give the wizard a 65% chance of spell failure at minimum damage dealt by this fighter. At maximum damage, with out crits, the wizard would have a 100% chance of spell failure. The DC for maximum damage ended up being 47, and the wizards maximum check possibility is a 33 or 37 with combat casting. That is if you lump everything together.
My arguement was that the rule just states "When you take damage." It does not say in what part of the round do you take damage. Just "when" you take damage! Because, I feel that the smallest time increment that the rules presents is 6 seconds (ie: a round). So, hence, you could not break that round up to specify when each attack landed upon you. Because it does not state "when you take damage from an action," or something similar. So, from my understanding of the rule I interpret it meaning that you figure the amount of damage taken the entier round, and then figure your DC. Challenging yes, but not impossible. More spell failures, but what is a magic user doing that close to combat?
Distance is where the power of the spell caster lies. A spell casteer getting into, or even close, to melee only spells disaster. That it not thier specialty, and they know that. A spell caster of descent intlligence will stay the heck away from the melee damage dealer (the fighter). End of story.
The fighters strength is in his ability to get close to you, and crush you. Yes, they can use ranged attacks, but that is not where the fighters strength lies. They must get close to hurt you, and that is thier soul purpose in combat. He knows to destroy the spell caster, but if he can not get to him. Oh, well!
With these tactics alone I thought Kreynolds would realize that these tactics are also a determining factor in the balance issue, but he didn't see it that way. I still think he doesn't see it that way. I kept arguing that a wizard would try his darnedest to keep away from the fighter, but things don't alway work out that way.
The arguement is still going, but those are the major elements of it. He has got me leaning towards the seperate checks, but that is only due to lumping things together making it too tough for the spell caster. Will let you know what comes of it.
Thaks for your time.
). I'd consider Harm a damaging spell, but if you don't the DC for the concentration check would be: Save DC vs the Harm (as if it allowed a save) + Spell Lvl of the spell being cast. See under Concentration in the PHB (pg.65).
