D&D 5E Concentration mechanic can ruin plots in adventures

[Ovinomancer]

Oh, gimmie a break. It wasn't a freakin' nightmare. It was just different and a little more complicated and time consuming. It wasn't a Sisyphean task or anything.

NEITHER is bad design. They're just different and follow different goals. I like a bit of both, frankly, depending on my goals for particular encounters.

Heh, you didn't play in my group, where there were spreadsheets (required by 12th) to track everything.

 

[billd91]

Heh, you didn't play in my group, where there were spreadsheets (required by 12th) to track everything.

And some of the spreadsheets out there made generating NPCs pretty fast and easy. I did a lot of conversions of 1e and 2e adventures into the 3e family using some of those spreadsheets. I could do a major NPC in just a few minutes. Some were particularly fun to contemplate and thus took longer, but those cases became a labor of fun and not a nightmare. When I did the 9 Slavelords, I tried a couple of iterations at Eanwulf the corsair (the 3.0 and 3.5 versions were notably different thanks to changes in crit range stacking) and probably spent more time on Stalman Klim than the others - but then, he did have at least one additional encounter with the PCs, so it made sense.

 

[Ovinomancer]

And some of the spreadsheets out there made generating NPCs pretty fast and easy. I did a lot of conversions of 1e and 2e adventures into the 3e family using some of those spreadsheets. I could do a major NPC in just a few minutes. Some were particularly fun to contemplate and thus took longer, but those cases became a labor of fun and not a nightmare. When I did the 9 Slavelords, I tried a couple of iterations at Eanwulf the corsair (the 3.0 and 3.5 versions were notably different thanks to changes in crit range stacking) and probably spent more time on Stalman Klim than the others - but then, he did have at least one additional encounter with the PCs, so it made sense.

Maybe I have the conversation wrong, but I thought we were talking about concentration and how it's lack in 3.x led to the stacking spreadsheet nightmare.

If we're instead talking about NPCs, sure, having a tool that does the heavy lifting made it easier, but I don't think you get to say the system wasn't hard because there was a 3rd party tool you used to make it easier. The actual system, done without the tool, was nightmarish after, say, 8th or so level. The magic item econ alone was a pain in the arse. I burned out hard on 3.x because of the NPC/monster math prep effort that would get destroyed in moments due to the multi-brain player spreadsheet optimization game. Glad to see the backside of both of those problems.

 

[billd91]

Maybe I have the conversation wrong, but I thought we were talking about concentration and how it's lack in 3.x led to the stacking spreadsheet nightmare.

If we're instead talking about NPCs, sure, having a tool that does the heavy lifting made it easier, but I don't think you get to say the system wasn't hard because there was a 3rd party tool you used to make it easier. The actual system, done without the tool, was nightmarish after, say, 8th or so level. The magic item econ alone was a pain in the arse. I burned out hard on 3.x because of the NPC/monster math prep effort that would get destroyed in moments due to the multi-brain player spreadsheet optimization game. Glad to see the backside of both of those problems.

Labor-saving tools exist for a reason. If I wasn't using the spreadsheet, I was using the 18 pages of tables in the DMG for generating NPCs. It isn't my fault some people feel they have to painstakingly craft their NPCs and then complain about how much effort it costs them.

 

[Li Shenron]

Then you're going to run into problems with 5E, because it's not designed around that assumption.

Well... at the same time 5e isn't either designed around the assumption that you HAVE to break the rules. You can choose to run the game with NPCs built as PCs, you just have to accept the limitations if you do so.

Yep, always was a grip I've had with 5ed. I prefer the NPC to follow the same rules as the players.

It is fine to choose so. Unfortunately in this case you can't run this particular adventure without other modifications, if you rule out mechanical modifications then they will have to be narrative modifications.

For example, mass suggestion was a good suggestion (sic!), except that it requires the Wizard to be 11th level, while charm person is only a 1st level spell. What is the level of this NPC in the adventure? I cannot tell from the fact that he knows charm person, and obviously if you had to bump the villain's level by more than a couple of levels it's going to seriously alter the adventure difficulty.

Perhaps the wizard could have had a scroll of mass suggestion instead? This might be a much more acceptable narrative change. But technically, are you willing to handwave his roll to successfully activate the scroll?

Another thing that came to my mind was for the wizard to have friends or 1st-level minions which could cast one charm person each, but IMO this is a bigger alteration to the story.

Too bad the duration itself of charm person is 1 hour only, otherwise depending on the target party composition, you could have tried to have the mad wizard charm the party's wizard, then ask him to charm the party's druid who could charm the party's bard who could charm the party's sorcerer who could charm someone else... but technically this would not have made them friendly towards the mad wizard directly and also perhaps it does nothing to someone who is already a good friend of the caster's.

...With the concentration mechanic, it is now impossible to charm that much people/monsters into working for you.

Yes, it is as simple as that. 5e just doesn't support this specific scenario as-is.

That said, 5e rules also do not support lots of other extremely specific scenarios, while at the same time they support many other specific scenarios which previous editions did not. You can come up with a very specific idea based around the exact details of each spell after all.

It's possible to manipulate good people into doing evil things by careful social manipulation and misinformation, without magic. It just takes a lot more time and effort to set up.

Definitely, this is another option which is only a narrative change and lets the OP keep his word about not allowing an ad-hoc mechanic for this NPC.

Either way, unless there is a magic item in a published book I don't know about, some change is required.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Labor-saving tools exist for a reason. If I wasn't using the spreadsheet, I was using the 18 pages of tables in the DMG for generating NPCs. It isn't my fault some people feel they have to painstakingly craft their NPCs and then complain about how much effort it costs them.

Labor saving tools exist to reduce labor, yeah, which, I think, was the point: making NPCs in 3.x was labor.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

In this example, a PC can't long-term charm a bunch of people and thus explaining how an NPC can do it is going to take some fancy talkin'.

I'll register my qualified agreement with this. Reliable long-term mass mind control is an extremely powerful effect and 5E treats it as such. @Helldritch has described this NPC as, basically, a random schmuck. A random schmuck with this kind of power is going to raise questions for me, not so much as a matter of mechanical consistency, but as a matter of narrative and setting logic: Where the heck did this guy come from? Why has nobody heard of him or had a problem with him before? How come he's using this power to do what he's doing rather than any of the myriad other things he could do with it? And so on. I'm not saying there are no possible answers to these questions. But to present him as actually just a random schmuck doesn't seem like a satisfying one.

The PHB may not have an exhaustive list of all the 1st-level spells in the world, but the alternate 1st-level spells an NPC learns shouldn't look like 7th-level spells.

 

[Henry]

And several have said that building NPCs in 3e was a pain; but why? You could always just assign numbers and abilities and whatever rather than rolling everything up - all that matters is that the end result is something a PC could in theory also achieve.

In this example, a PC can't long-term charm a bunch of people and thus explaining how an NPC can do it is going to take some fancy talkin'.

Because there were no guidelines for assigning those numbers at first, and unless your system mastery was super-strong, you would over or undershoot your target frequently.

Worse, what happens when, while counting those numbers, and your internal consistency requires you to say “they were buffed by magic”, a PC casts a Dispel Magic or Greater dispel on them? Now you must adjust your numbers on the fly, taking time to look up the spells removed from them, sometimes for multiple spells. What about when they get disarmed, and you didn’t take that into account and you have to figure out what their new attack and damage is with bare fists or with a weapon they aren’t trained in? If I’m just fudging numbers, and someone strips a holy aura, and needs to know exactly what it is because they made their spell craft checks, said player is going to get just as miffed if I say it removes 2 points of AC than 4. One person’s “close enough” is another person’s “not close enough.”

If I’m spending more time worried about how large numbers of modifiers figure in, than I am trying to set atmosphere and tone and creating colorful backdrops, to me that’s a loss, and it’s something I tried to justify for years with 3e, 3.5, and PF1 before I gave up.

4e’s pages 183 and 184 in the DMG were a revelation to me at the time, and a semblance of it even made it into PF Unchained, Starfinder, and Pathfinder 2, and 5e.

 

[jasper]

This whole thread boils down to. Help the radiator I pulled from my 2000 Ford does not fit my 2014 Ford. Ford sucks. Never mind it was the oil filter.

 

[Helldritch]

It's great design.
The alternative would be a nightmare. It was one of the worst aspects of 3e.

Agreed

I don't have any other suggestions because it isn't broken. My suggestion is just to use it as intended. Saying the world is only as large as the PCs is needlessly limiting the world.

I respectfuly disagree. The PCs are supposed to be the heroes by which the world's standards and rules are set upon.

Some spells like charm persons were greatly reduced in length. Great for the PCs when they are the target but not so great when they are the ones using it. Concentration was introduced to remove the buffing bloat in previous edition and it is a great thing. The save every round that many spells are now using is also great for the players but less so when they are the ones using it.

Just one example of the last part. Hold person has a reduced duration, the concentration mechanic and a save every round. None of my players are taking it. Never.