D&D 5E Abandoning attunement and scaling back concentration

[werecorpse]

Thanks.

I agree hypnotic pattern is a potent spell - more potent than most players realise, I’ll make it +2 level to remove concentration and if the bard goes nuts I’ll revisit it.

I also agree that haste lasting 10 rounds is a whole combat and will see how it goes. I don’t mind one 5th level spell being a big buff for 1 combat but I am aware of this issue.

FWIW the games I will use this in that I am currently running are a weekly 6 player 10th level game (heavily altered Out of the Abyss) and a tri-annual weekend 8 player 7th level game (homebrew world very very slow levelling because we are all long term gamers who cut our teeth on 1e games) and I am also a player in a 4 player weekly online 14th level game - which doesn’t use any of my rules .

I didn’t change darkness because I am concerned about the devil sight issue. I’m not 100% sure but I think I didn’t changed hex or hunters mark because I don’t currently have any rangers or warlock’s PC’s in my games and I am mulling over the Warlock automatic upcast and the ranger limited upcast ability issues. I was going to treat them the same as they have quite similar mechanics otherwise but am unsure.

I also haven’t made it removable from bless or shield of faith because I think these spells screw around with bounded accuracy and the resource cost of a 3rd level spell will potentially become prosaic.

 

[Krachek]

Yep I thought of this but I quite like the “upcasting to make the spell better” mechanic. And one way to make it better is through losing concentration, it adds a cost to ridding onseself of the concentration requirement.

(OT: I think I first saw this mechanic used extensively in Monte Cooks Arcana Unearthed back in the 3e era)

You seem pretty aware of the impacts of multiple concentration. So let it be.

 

[Maxperson]

Thanks for the reply.
I had hypnotic pattern only at +1 level to make it non concentration because in my experience creatures snap out of it through damage pretty quickly but I see the issue given that you can’t save to break it. Maybe I’ll make it +2.
Haste I have as +2 levels already (and I’ve changed the +2 AC to make it disadvantage on opportunity attacks due to bounded accuracy issues). I agree it’s a good spell and the twinning is a powerful way to nova it but it’s only a 10 round buff so I’ll wait and see. I like that a hit to the hasting sorcerer doesn’t also rebuff the fighter and if it’s saved for a final fight in high tier 2+ adventure a DM expects a bit of spell buffing shenanigans.
Darkness, hex and hunters mark I haven’t allowed casters to remove the concentration requirement as part of upcast. But by the way when a spell already gains a benefit from upcast (like say invisibility which I allow to be non concentration at +2) you still need to upcast extra levels to gain the non concentration benefit. So casting invisibility with a 6th level slot you can make 5 people invisible and concentrate OR 3 and not concentrate.

You could always tweak the spells themselves to balance things out.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I remember Concentration from 1e. Casters could have their concentration interrupted, spoiling casting of any spell or ending certain spells, like Conjure Elemental, prematurely.

3e made Concentration into a skill, so it could be optimized into irrelevance, but it still applied to all casting, in theory.

4e removed concentration from casting, entirely, but kept OAs for casting range/area spells, so casting in melee was not without risk, just without an extra check. It introduced Sustain actions, every round, instead of checks only when damaged, limiting duration & stacking substantially, in particular, it was no longer practical to hold a buff across multiple encounters.

So, it's not like the limitation 5e concentration represents is new nor all that onerous.

OTOH, the analogous limitations in past eds were often worked around (especially in 3e) by players, or nodded or ignored by DMs. It's not like taking casters up another notch or two be would anything new, either.

Besides, removing attunement, as well, could help keep any non-casters in the game, anyway.

 

[Campbell]

Fifth Edition's spells are balanced with Concentration in mind. It is not my favorite mechanic in the world, but if you are going to remove it I think you will need to significantly curate the spell list to bring the spells more in line with what their effect should be. This is major game design work.

 

[ssvegeta555]

The fact spells don't auto-scale with caster level like they did in 3.5 and spellcasters get far less spell slots than in previous editions, allowing more concentration spells active at once or removing the limitation altogether won't blow up the game. You'll be fine. I like concentration (I even backported it in some fashion to my 3.5 games) but it's too restrictive, and attunement is worthless. That can go wholesale IMO.

 

[Harzel]

Attunement is meant to act to control the amount of magic items a character can have

Not really. It controls how many attuneable items a character can use at the same time. That is a much weaker restriction.

but whether they are attunable or not is largely irrelevant to the impact the magic items will have in the game. +3 plate doesn’t require attunement, boots of levitation do (and using them requires concentration btw). In practice the attunement limit is only relevant if the GM gives out sufficient magic items that it comes into effect (if they don’t it is irrelevant) at which point it’s effect is to stop the players from getting to use some of the magic items they have found unless they aren’t using others they have found. I largely believe the obligation to balance items given out is on the GM- this is how it worked from1e-3e and still should be the case.

Ok, this is where things get a little confusing. So you're saying that the GM should restrict magic items found to achieve sort of the same effect - some sort of limit on magic items - as attunement. But at the same time, you seem to want more flexibility for the players. (??) Attunement puts the choice with the players rather than the GM, so how is that a worse solution? Now if you think 3 is the wrong limit, ok, make it something else. But that's an issue with that parameter, not the mechanism.

Also getting to use the treasure and the magic items you find in the game is one of the fun parts of the game.

Ok, attunement requirements do not stop you from using items absolutely; they just restrict you circumstantially. On the other hand if the GM never includes the items as loot in the first place, it's going to be really hard to find and use them.

As for concentration; in the game of Bushido They limited spell stacking by saying that certain spells couldn’t be active on the same person at the same time ie no stoneskin and resist elements. This wasn’t a bad way to limit spell stacking.

Depends on what you mean by 'bad'. The number of combinations is exponential in the number of spells; that's a lot of potential rules. There are certainly ways to shorten the description, but that's still a lot of things to consider and, potentially, a lot to remember.

In 5e they’ve gone the other way by saying that your limit is based in the number of casters you have. Like attunement I see this as not a big deal at low level but at higher level begins to suck the fun out of the game. The fighter needs stoneskin because we are fighting giants so the Mage can’t fly or be invisible or cast a wall spell ok I guess I’ll just cantrip or lightning bolt each round. Having played earlier editions I’m aware of the problem where the caster starts each combat with 7+ spells up. This meant that the difference between the characters who had a minute to prepare and when they didn’t was vast making balancing encounters very difficult. Ie In 1e - 3e If the party is ready to fight the 4 chimera and their fire giant beastmaster it’s a tough fight, if not they will get smashed. This is less so in 5e because you can’t overprepare. However in 5e characters have very few high level spell slots, and not an over abundance of low level ones they already have a massive limitation built in. So what I have done is go through the phb and for most concentration spells I’ve allowed a caster to rid themselves of the concentration requirement by upcasting the spell 1-2 levels. So web cast as a 3rd level spell doesn’t need concentration, same with blur cast as a 4th level spell, greater invisibility when cast as a 6th level spell. I’ve kept concentration as unremoveable for some spells (spirit guardians for example it lasts a long time otherwise ).

Knee-jerk reaction was "oh, lord, another person whining about concentration because they think casters need moar powerz." However, this really is more like resource substitution. This seems more reasonable than just ditching concentration altogether. But the thing that I would worry more about than buff stacking is, as others have mentioned, multiple castings of particularly good buffs like Haste, and, even more than that, removal of a way to break save-or-suck spells that can radically alter the course of an encounter. Others have mentioned Hypnotic Pattern; at lower levels, Heat Metal (which doesn't even give a save) is worth mentioning and at 4th level several come in, notably Banishment and Otiluke's Resilient Sphere. So I'm curious about how you decided to treat those.

With both of these I acknowledge they empower players a bit more

With respect to attunement, I'm not so sure I'd characterize replacing player choices with DM machinations as 'empowering players'.

but I’m not worried about game balance issues - it’s a home campaign and I can handle that side of it.

I'm sure you can - once you learn how these changes actually play out, since we can surmise, but it's hard to say for sure. I'm just surprised anyone would see the work (particularly with respect to the concentration stuff) and increased rules complexity and increased (even if temporary) uncertainty about encounter difficulty as worth it . Have you polled your players to see if they are really going to value the changes - especially if you remind them that you have infinite dragons and so the world will probably just adjust to their increased capabilities? (Although I have to admit that I have done things as a DM just because I thought that I would want them as a player. )

 

[werecorpse]

Not really. It controls how many attuneable items a character can use at the same time. That is a much weaker restriction.



Ok, this is where things get a little confusing. So you're saying that the GM should restrict magic items found to achieve sort of the same effect - some sort of limit on magic items - as attunement. But at the same time, you seem to want more flexibility for the players. (??) Attunement puts the choice with the players rather than the GM, so how is that a worse solution? Now if you think 3 is the wrong limit, ok, make it something else. But that's an issue with that parameter, not the mechanism.



Ok, attunement requirements do not stop you from using items absolutely; they just restrict you circumstantially. On the other hand if the GM never includes the items as loot in the first place, it's going to be really hard to find and use them.



Depends on what you mean by 'bad'. The number of combinations is exponential in the number of spells; that's a lot of potential rules. There are certainly ways to shorten the description, but that's still a lot of things to consider and, potentially, a lot to remember.



Knee-jerk reaction was "oh, lord, another person whining about concentration because they think casters need moar powerz." However, this really is more like resource substitution. This seems more reasonable than just ditching concentration altogether. But the thing that I would worry more about than buff stacking is, as others have mentioned, multiple castings of particularly good buffs like Haste, and, even more than that, removal of a way to break save-or-suck spells that can radically alter the course of an encounter. Others have mentioned Hypnotic Pattern; at lower levels, Heat Metal (which doesn't even give a save) is worth mentioning and at 4th level several come in, notably Banishment and Otiluke's Resilient Sphere. So I'm curious about how you decided to treat those.



With respect to attunement, I'm not so sure I'd characterize replacing player choices with DM machinations as 'empowering players'.



I'm sure you can - once you learn how these changes actually play out, since we can surmise, but it's hard to say for sure. I'm just surprised anyone would see the work (particularly with respect to the concentration stuff) and increased rules complexity and increased (even if temporary) uncertainty about encounter difficulty as worth it . Have you polled your players to see if they are really going to value the changes - especially if you remind them that you have infinite dragons and so the world will probably just adjust to their increased capabilities? (Although I have to admit that I have done things as a DM just because I thought that I would want them as a player. )

Re attunement, I figure whether the attunement mechanic exists or not the GM will still be making a decision to place items into the campaign (less so if the GM allows magic marketplace style game but that too is a decision) so that “GM decision” chokepoint of magic items exists in all games. The attunement slot chokepoint also exists in standard 5e so my thought was that removing that would empower the players more as to how they used an allocated the magic items.

I am sure that the 3 attunement slot mechanic works in some style games - maybe a 5 attunement slot in other or a 2 in other. I play in one game that I would call a high magic treasure game at 14th level where the attainment of attunable items below legendary status (and some legendary) is often met with initial interest followed by a “maybe it will be useful later” shrug and it’s tossed in the bag of holding. They are not good enough for us to care about them. This seems to be a similar attitude issue to the Christmas tree attitude in 3e - items weren’t special. Once magic item treasure becomes not good enough to equip the fun of finding cool loot is diminished.

I have presented my rule changes to my players and asked for feedback, they have been positively received.

I have not allowed the removal of concentration for heat metal or banishment. For otilukes Resilient sphere I’ve made it as +1 level. I admit I haven’t come across players using otilukes so haven’t seen its game impact & I may have underestimated it’s in game power but given forcecage at 7th isn’t concentration I figured a 5th level spell slot was enough resource cost.

 

[Harzel]

I have not allowed the removal of concentration for heat metal or banishment. For otilukes Resilient sphere I’ve made it as +1 level. I admit I haven’t come across players using otilukes so haven’t seen its game impact & I may have underestimated it’s in game power but given forcecage at 7th isn’t concentration I figured a 5th level spell slot was enough resource cost.

That's an interesting point about Forcecage. Would certainly suck to be on the receiving end of that.

 

[CapnZapp]

To anyone thinking of removing Concentration: don't.

It's surprising how fast it's benefits disappear as more spells don't require it. The designers of 5E really did a great job of ensuring just enough spells required concentration, for the mechanism to actually have a real impact.

I believe if you remove concentration from as little as half a dozen spells, this vastly transforms spellcasters into much more powerful characters.

Here are more balanced workable suggestions:

Let a spellcaster who casts two spells, only one of which requires Concentration, decide which one requires Concentration.

At high to very high levels, let a caster, an Archmage if you will, select one signature spell of low level and be allowed to cast it without using Concentration.

Or maybe even only to combine two select low-level spells and cast both as a package requiring "only one" Concentration.

But don't be fooled: remove Concentration from many spells and your houserules will be ripped to shreds by a good minmaxer.