Concentration Question

[Roland Delacroix]

Something came up during my last game that i need an official ruling on, or at least a majority. The situation was a character was on the ground, prone, surrounded by three guards. The guards were kicking him because he started a fight with them. He is a tiefling and tried to use Darkness, a Spell Like ability.

According the the DMG spell like abilities are just like spells, so invoke AOO. The tiefling did NOT say he was casting it defensivly so invoked AOO's from all three guards. Two guards hit and I told him to roll 2 Concentration checks at the appropriate DC for the seperate damage dealt. He rolled once and got something like a 24, saying his Darkness went off. I said that he needed to make a second check for the second hit when he and another player claimed that he only makes ONE check for ALL damage dealt in the round. We looked it up and they pointed to the phrase about a swarm of bees.

I ruled that he needed to make a second check anyway, and after about a half hour of arguing he rolled and failed. Looking at the rules it seems clear to me that each attack that does damage requires a Concentration check, but maybe I missed some eratta. Is a player supposed to roll for each attack that hits? Ot one check for the round?

 

[hong]

http://www.enworld.org/messageboards/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8351

 

[AGGEMAM]

To put it simply. IMO you ruled correctly.

One attack = one roll
Two attacks = two rolls
etc.

Two simultaneous attacks, eg from two people having readied against your action = add the damage together and make one roll

 

[Belares]

Two simultaneous attacks, eg from two people having readied against your action = add the damage together and make one roll

To put it simply (your quote not mine) it does not say seperate attacks cause seperate rolls. It just says ANY damage taken during the casting of the spell.

Of course you can play with the rules the way you see fit, but sometimes it isnt so simple as it looks.

 

[Belares]

One more thing, if I am a spell caster I would let the DM know that unless I say otherwise I AM casting defensivley(sic) any time i am in combat. Matter of fact in RPGA tournys I made a sign up that said that so in case I forgot to say it before the game.

 

[IceBear]

To put it simply (your quote not mine) it does not say seperate attacks cause seperate rolls. It just says ANY damage taken during the casting of the spell.

Of course you can play with the rules the way you see fit, but sometimes it isnt so simple as it looks.

Right, but as I've proven taking that literally will get you into trouble with spells with long casting times. Druid casting Call Lightning (10 minute casting time). As you say, it says ANY damage taken during the casting of the spell. So, if the druid on round 1 gets hit would you make them take a Concentration check then or 99 rounds later when the spell is finished. If you say in round 1, what happens if the druid gets hit again in round 2? You said you're supposed to make a check for ALL the damage you take while casting the spell. If you wait until the end of the 10 minutes then you could run into a situation where the spell was disrupted in round 1, but the druid had to wait 99 rounds to realize it. I think you would agree that you should have made the check in round 1.

BUT....if you do that, then you're now not making one check for ALL the damage suffered during the casting of the spell are you. And if you use a different rule for one spell you are now being inconsistent in your ruling.

What I think I'll do is sort of a hybrid of what Artoomis is stating.

If you get hit by multiple damage in the same initiative count then I'll add those up and make the check.

If someone is casting a 1 round spell and gets hit by an attack in Initiative Count 20 and then again in Initiative Count 1 I feel that sufficient time has passed that they wouldn't stack. If, however, both hits came on Initiative Count 20 then I'd probably allow the two damages to stack for one check.

IceBear

 

[twjensen]

In this specific case

One roll against the sum of all damage. There are certainly, as Icebear pointed out, situations where the "one roll to check them all" rule is problematic and unworkable. This, unfortuanately, was not one of those situations.

 

[IceBear]

Yes, but one rule is not supposed to be applied differently just because of the difference in casting time.

I personally believe that the rule was one roll for each different damage source while casting the spell, but I've decided to find the middle ground and use one roll for the damage total done during one initiative count.

IceBear

 

[phillipjp]

I would let the DM know that unless I say otherwise I AM casting defensivley(sic) any time i am in combat

Hehe, I've had players try to use that, and my response is, "If you can't be bothered to remember your character's tactics, then neither should I."

Come on, you can't expect the DM to know and run 12+ NPCs during combat (spells, abilities, tactics, intentions, plots, etc.) as well as YOUR character's tactics too.

As far as the concentration rolls against damage are concerned, since the guards were all taking AOOs against the spellcaster, and AOOs interrupt actions, I would assume they all get piled together as one hefty concentration check.

 

[IceBear]

Just to add fuel to the debate, in the d20 CoC book, they use the word "event". Here is the sentence:

"The interrupting event strikes during spellcasting if it comes between when you start and complete a spell (for a spell with a casting time of 1 full round or more) or if it comes in response to your casting the spell (such as a readied action)."

Now, to me an event is a single thing. Three hits by swords are three seperate things. Now, maybe you want to roll getting hit by three swords at roughly the same time (during the same Iniative count) as one event. I might do that too, but I think the intent of the rule was one roll per damaging event/attack.

IceBear