D&D 5E 5 Years in: Concentration

[Ashrym]

3 attacks over 2 rounds in me example leaves about one out of two concentration spells dropped by failed checks after taking AC into consideration. 3 attackes each round would almost guarantee it.

In both cases I would say it's a lot. The issue is lising slots to maintain or refresh those spells. My main point was it depends how iften those characters get attacked.

Ah, I thought you were the person who I was responding to. I really enjoy the new ENworld software, but losing threaded messages sometimes makes it confusing. My apologies, I should have double checked.

I get a different final view when I use your numbers. Let's take your each attack has a 2/3 chance of hitting and a 1/3 chance of breaking Concentration when hit, that means each attack has a 2/9 chance to break concentration.

(Losing it 1/3 of the time to a DC 10 is basically the worst case - characters with CON save proficiency will be doing better. I use it as a lower bound.)

Three attacks means that there's a (7/9)^3 = 47% chance to keep concentration. Close to half isn't near "very easily lose concentration". And even if lost, that's still it up for a while.

And in a real combat, hopefully the front liners are keeping attackers off those squishies, and those Concentration spells are helping kill foes so less total attacks, doing crowd control so less can act, debuffing so they aren't as good as that, or otherwise having an effect. Especially if you have a party with two casters, like a cleric and a wizard or bard, even the smartest of foes can't focus fire on both at the same time to generate a lot of save attempts.

 

[NotAYakk]

Invisibilty needing concentration prevents spamming casting it to make everyone invisible.

A 5th level slot is 4 targets invisible; a 3rd is 2, but 2 3rd doesn't match a 5th.

 

[werecorpse]

Invisibilty needing concentration prevents spamming casting it to make everyone invisible.

A 5th level slot is 4 targets invisible; a 3rd is 2, but 2 3rd doesn't match a 5th.

Hence my homebrew rule is that invisible becomes non concentration if upcast by 2 levels, so using a 4th level slot makes one person invisible without using concentration, a 5th works on 2 without concentration. If a caster wants to use a couple of 5th level spells to make 4 people invisible without using up their concentration I’m ok with that. To be fair I haven’t playtested this with characters above 13th level so I may encounter issues at high level but as most high level casters get so few high level spell slots I think that’s a built in limiting factor to upcasting benefits

 

[Krachek]

If some players refrain using concentration spell because of slight chance of loosing it, I think the rule miss the global intent of the game.

concentration limit to one spell encourage cooperation and smart utilisation of spell which is in line with the global intent.

 

[Blue]

3 attacks over 2 rounds in me example leaves about one out of two concentration spells dropped by failed checks after taking AC into consideration. 3 attackes each round would almost guarantee it.

Three attacks each round for multiple rounds that is. 3 attacks is still only have a little more than half, using the lower limit for what CON and AC will be.

Once you start with 3 attacks per round for multiple round in a row in Tier 1, what you are really saying is: "I want half+ of the attacks from the foes to focus fire on the single caster, and assume there's only one caster because otherwise there's not enough attacks to go around, and most foes can reach the caster with attacks regardless of terrain, front line PCs, having to fire at ranged out of melee, ability to realize the caster is the source of the effect, or any other detail."

Yes, if there is an encounters where multiple opponents focus fire on the caster, the caster will eventually lose concentration. However, not every encounter is with intelligent opponents, or ones who will recognize the effects of spells, or having ranged attacks. Sometimes they will get focus fired and lose it. Other times they won't have a single attack at them as the dire wolves are stuck fighting the front line at the mouth of the cave. That does not average out to "very easy" you have been claiming.

 

[guachi]

I play by the rules largely because no change I've thought of satisfied me enough to institute it at my table. The biggest issue isn't the existence of the Concentration save it's that some concentration spells are weaker than others and would get cast less often or the caster is likely to take damage (melee Ranger using Hunter's Mark) and so won't cast it.

Maybe having two tiers of concentration spells - one doesn't require a save and one does. That way, a caster might be inclined to cast a weaker spell knowing it can't be disrupted.

 

[ccs]

Question 1, when playing with it by the book, did you find casters underpowered compared to non casters? Just want to establish a baseline if you thing casters need a boost.

No, not particularly.

Question 2 (rhetorical), did you find that there was ever cases where casters wanted more than one spell with Concentration. I think this should be pretty self explanitory the answer is yes. So we can assume that this increased the power of the casters.

Obviously.
What we found was a bunch of annoyance as a lot of utility spells like Dancing Lights got tarred with with the concentration tag.

Sure, here in the white room you can argue it was a power lv increase if you like.
But that wasn't the point & it's not really been what has happened during play. What's happened is that players are free to (and do) use assorted utility & buff spells. Fun has been increased for all at the table.
The players don't mind when the casters have multiple utility spells running. Nor do they mind when the casters can provide several buffs/de-buffs/useful effects during encounters.
As the DM? I don't have any problem with this either.

Question 3, if you found casters on-par or better than non-casters (question #1), did you in some way nerf casters / buff non-casters, or are have you just increased the power of one class of characters that were already of good balance, making them more powerful?

Nope. Nope. And nope.
Just tweaked the game a bit to better satisfy the people at my table. We liked the general idea of concentration/loss of concentration, just not exactly how it was implemented by WoTC. So we fixed it.

 

[Li Shenron]

Sadly, I had to vote that I keep forgetting to call for a concentration check on damage...

I have my theory on why it is more difficult to remember than in previous editions. For example in 3rd edition concentration was not about preventing stacking spells but only about losing the spell if you got damaged (or similar) either while casting or also during the spell's effect, if the spell had a duration = concentration. However, those spells with duration = concentration actually required the caster to keep using a standard action to concentrate, and this meant you could not cast another spell (except corner cases such as 3.0 haste). The mere fact that on your turn you had to "waste" your standard action to keep concentrating was a strong reminder that you were, in fact, concentrating all the time!

In 5e when you cast a concentration spell you can move on to casting another spell on each of your subsequent turns, and this makes it easier to forget you are concentrating on a previous one.

All in all, I am VERY glad that 5e concentration rules prevent stacking buffs, but I almost wish it required to use your main action to keep concentrating, even if that would be very harsh.

And I will point out for those who don't know (and I didn't for a long time) when you READY a spell, it counts as concentrating, even if it is not a concentration spell.

Is anyone actually using ready with spells in 5e? It almost always leads to losing the spell.

 

[Immoralkickass]

I have removed concentration on all smite spells. When i asked my paladin player if he would now consider using them, his answer was a straight 'No'. That made me sad. Smite spells sucks. Why do they suck? Without concentration, their effect is still weak, unreliable and takes up Bonus Action.

I have also removed concentration on Barkskin, Stoneskin, Flaming Arrows, Ensnaring strike and Hail of Thorns. At least i saw the Ranger use the last 2 spells, but the others, no chance. Some spells are just beyond saving.

 

[Horwath]

Concentration is great but it might be too limiting to the casters.

Low level spells with concetration trait rarely get used because of that.

Also I would remove check from Con and just do with Spellcasting stat+proficiency.

Now for low level spells;

One solution would be that you can have 2nd spell with concentration if it is 3 levels or more lower than your highest possible spell level slot. And 3rd spell if it is 6 levels lower.
Cantrips are counted as 1st level spells.

2nd solution is that you can concentrate on number of spell levels equal to your max spell level slot.
So 17th level caster can concentrate on a single 9th level, one 7th and one 2nd level spell, 3 3rd level spells or any other combination.