Concentration on Wis

[B4cchus]

hi Folks,

I was discussing the concentration skill with one of my players and we concluded that concentration might be better off based on WIS instead of CON.
The thought behind this is that, for starters, we believe that concentratingn is a mental action.
The main part of concentrating is not allowing yourself to get distracted which sounds like a act of willpower(=wis) rather than a physical action(con).

Are there any people who already treid this? Any thoughts on this?

Regards,
B4cchus.

 

[lottrbacchus]

We believe concentration is naturally a wis based skill, as wis is supposed to reflect willpower. Since it is con based in the raw, I have the character choose when s/he takes the skill which it will be based on, and note it on their character sheet (my npcs/baddies do the same).

 

[Li Shenron]

It make sense, it was CON in 3ed perhaps because they wanted at least one skill tied to it, or maybe just to give some minor benefit to spellcasting characters that put some ability points to it. You know, if you base it on WIS you're just doing another small favor to the clerics...

 

[GreatLemur]

Yeah, moving Concentration over to Wisdom always seemed like an eminantly logical change, to me, but Clerics and Druids really do not need to get any better. Certainly, it hurts my sturdy-but-foolish Wizard quite a bit.

You know, the more I think about it, though, the more I wonder why we even need a Concentration skill. I mean, is it really used for anything that couldn't (with appropriate DC-rebalancing) be replaced with a Will save? Unless you're going to interpret "concentration" as "attention span", it seems to be perfectly logical, and I believe all the classes that ought to have a high Concentration check already have good Will saves...

 

[Li Shenron]

Well there are few things we really "need"... but the whole game is a balance between grouping things together and separate them apart, to get a nice level of choices without making it too hard to choose.

You could remove all skills and just use ability rolls, with fixed bonuses from level.

But you could also split each skill into subskill, used for different things.

It all boils down to what is your favourite "amount of differentiation". From there you get DMs who use just one type of saving throw for everything, and DMs who split Will rolls between perception/willpower/insight/ecc.

So do you "need" Concentration? Better to ask if you like it or not, and of course you're always entitled to change the game to suit what you like most (but beware of the hidden consequence... ).

 

[Arkhandus]

.......Keep in mind that Concentration usually applies to maintaining focus on a spell when you're wounded in the process of attempting to cast (or when attempting to maintain a spell). That is why it is Constitution-based, because you are literally using it (at least the majority of the time) to ignore physical injury and pain. Which is a significant part of why Constitution adds to HP and Fortitude saves; while another part of it is stamina, and another part is actualy meatyness to the critter's body, I suppose, pain resistance is definitely a significant part of Constitution.