D&D 5E concentration in 5th edition, whats your fix?

[Dausuul]

Concentration *is* the fix.

 

[OpticalShadow]

Sure they can do this all at once, but that's three spell slots gone at once. They can be really cool and dominate this encounter, but what about the next?

WIth just level 1 spells without concentration a illusionist with alter reality would break the game.

 

[Arilyn]

WIth just level 1 spells without concentration a illusionist with alter reality would break the game.

Really? Game's not that fragile! How could this "break the game?"

 

[Olive]

I do think the designers of 5E went a little overboard applying the concentration mechanic. Some spells are pretty much never going to be taken because they use up your concentration slot. Other spells require you to get into melee, and that's rough because then you get hit and stop concentrating. Then there are completely awesome spells like spiritual weapon that for some bizarre reason don't require concentration. It totally doesn't make any sense to me.

I think if you just look at a list of spells regardless of class and which ones have concentration and which don't, you'll get a misleading impression of how the mechanic works. Having played in games with a few different spell casters now, it seems that some classes have concentration heavy spell lists by design as a way of balancing them.

 

[jonathonhawke]

How about instead of the Constitution save being triggered by (and the DC based on) damage, add a new special attack option called Disrupt Spell?
It would require a standard attack roll, and (instead of the attack doing damage) the target must make a Con save with a DC equal to 8 + the attack modifier. If the attack roll is a crit, the save is made with Disadvantage.

 

[ad_hoc]

My table finds rolling concentration checks for damage too fiddly for us. So we changed that part, we only make concentration checks when the attack exceeds ac by 5 or more or if the blow bloodied the PC (we kept the concept, I throw a slight penalty on them when they are bloodied, this encourages the players to avoid playing whack a mole, they are less effective if they are low on hp)
It might be more things to track for other tables, but we already do magnitude of success even with attacks, right on ac = half dmg, beat ac by 5 = max dmg, beat ac by 10 = crit, so we are just tying another thing to the magnitude of success

I'm not sure what your definition of 'fiddly' is, but your houserules are what I would describe as fiddly, not the concentration rules.

 

[JasonZZ]

I don't understand the problem. Concentration *is* a fix; the problem was the stacking buffs/debuffs that trivialized the contributions that non-casters made.

 

[alienux]

Concentration is fine and works as intended. If you don't like it, you can of course change it, but I think the 5e version is just right.

 

[dwayne]

Funny I just so happen to have had an encounter like that with me playing a sorcerer and the wizard was as you said. Many ways to overcome, one do not stand in the open, draw him into an enclosed area, fog cloud or obscuring mist he can not see or darkness to level the playing feild. Hold an action with the archer concelled to hit the area the person is casting from because he can not be seen but the spell can be onced cast shoot the area or web it with a readyed spell. But this may require a bit more grery matter than the kids have now days.

 

[dwayne]

I don't understand the problem. Concentration *is* a fix; the problem was the stacking buffs/debuffs that trivialized the contributions that non-casters made.

Never had too many issues with it in my games really with the stacking. Unless the GM at high level was preparing an evil lich or wizard. Even then all the buffing in the world could not stand up to a dispell magic or antimagic field, or mordenkainen's disjunction spell.