D&D (2024) Concentrating on more than one spell...

[Horwath]

Right now you can you can concentrate on only one spell at a time.

That is a good thing as having more spells active really broke games in previous editions, and you should not have more than one spell with concentration active.

Now, key word here is active.

what if you can cast second spell with concentration tag, but the first spell is not dispelled, simply it's dormant.
Spell is still active, but give no effect. Spell duration is running out as normal for dormant spell.

Then on later turns you could change your "active" concentration spell with Bonus action.
Any spell that required saving throw and that saved failed in original cast must target same target/location if it's in range.

I.E. you cast hypnotic pattern, then you decide to cast invisibility, hypnotic pattern ends it's effect and you are invisible.
then 2 rounds later, you want to focus on hypnotic pattern, you become visible and hypnotic pattern appears in the same place and only affects targets that failed their initial save and are still in that location and they were not shaken out and they failed their new save again.

now this is one of the complicated examples, but this suggestion is mostly on juggling between fly, invisibility, summon spells, some overtime healing spells, ready-an-action-spells and similar.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

you know...i don't hate this. honestly i think it could introduce some interesting decision making in combat. my only concern really is that this seems like a massive hassle to track, even with a VTT.

also i feel i need to ask - what happens when you fail your concentration check with more then one concentration spell? does only your active spell go down, or do all your concentration spells go down?

 

[Horwath]

you know...i don't hate this. honestly i think it could introduce some interesting decision making in combat. my only concern really is that this seems like a massive hassle to track, even with a VTT.

also i feel i need to ask - what happens when you fail your concentration check with more then one concentration spell? does only your active spell go down, or do all your concentration spells go down?

you lose all spells

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Right now you can you can concentrate on only one spell at a time.

That is a good thing as having more spells active really broke games in previous editions, and you should not have more than one spell with concentration active.

Now, key word here is active.

I do not hate the idea but

what if you can cast second spell with concentration tag, but the first spell is not dispelled, simply it's dormant.
Spell is still active, but give no effect. Spell duration is running out as normal for dormant spell.

I have always hated tracking spells with differing durations, though FantasyGrounds (Where I play these days will do the tracking for me)

Then on later turns you could change your "active" concentration spell with Bonus action.
Any spell that required saving throw and that saved failed in original cast must target same target/location if it's in range.

This, though, will be a real pain in the ass to track.

I.E. you cast hypnotic pattern, then you decide to cast invisibility, hypnotic pattern ends it's effect and you are invisible.
then 2 rounds later, you want to focus on hypnotic pattern, you become visible and hypnotic pattern appears in the same place and only affects targets that failed their initial save and are still in that location and they were not shaken out and they failed their new save again.

now this is one of the complicated examples, but this suggestion is mostly on juggling between fly, invisibility, summon spells, some overtime healing spells, ready-an-action-spells and similar.

I think it too much pain to do it myself, but I doubt it would break your game.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I personally let players stack concentration spells at-will. Casters in 5e arent drowning in spell slots and spells in general tend to be weaker than previous editions. Furthermore, concentration spells are more often than not force multipliers for the whole party, so fun for everyone.

I keep the concentration checks though. One hit and you may lose a bunch of your buffs!

 

[Knight_Marshal]

Make spell concentration go up as you level. It could be over all level or bases on the number of spell caster levels you have. That way you can concentrate on one spell from like 1st through 10th. Two from 11 through 16 and three starting at 17.

 

[mellored]

I think it would be too unbalanced to let just any combination of spells be combined.

But you still could make higher level spells do multiple things.

I.e. shield of bless: +2 AC and +1d4 to attacks and saves.

Or give class features for certain spells. Like the new rangers getting hunters mark.

 

[leozg]

I don't like this idea.
I remember my 3e and 4e eras as DM and it was a mess to track everything. Furthermore, spellcasters still have a lot of options and I think it is also a balance tool. As a martial player, if my DM allowed it I would request to remove the multiattack restriction for multiclass and let it stack until 4 attacks/round.
An alternative if you really want to go this way is to change spells whose effects should stack to just not require concentration anymore, then you don't need to handle multiple concentration and concentration checks. But then there will be no stacking limit to these spells, so, be careful.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I remember watching Matt Mercer allowing limited existence of more than one concentration spell on the go in Vox Machina and I felt it was overpowered.

 

[Lojaan]

Maybe for sorcerer