D&D 5E (2024) Does your table use concentration with Ready a Spell?

[Mort]

Yeah and a GM thinking this is a minor consequence or in any way fun leads to the minor consequences that a player being harassed in this way will leave.

The player left, per the OP, because the DM refused to implement a house rule midgame.

That's a pretty thin reason. But we don't know the full story, backstory or context, so all we can do is go by what we have

Having to use a crossbow is already a plan B (which you kinda get for free at character creation). Being forced by the GM to have to use plan B (removing player agency) is already not fun. There is no choice in what you do because thats the only thing you can do to have any effect.


But this is not enough, this forced plan B with no player choice was made even more miserable by reducing the damage by 1/2 and by decreasing the hit chance by -20% which is almost 45% less hits. So your DPR outbut was reduced to almost 1/4th. So you are forced to do action X, which also really sucks.

How do you know that's plan B? If this was a typical warlock, we'd be seeing Eldritch Blast, but the player CHOSE true strike instead. Presumably because he's better in melee with it? Player CHOSE the crossbow for range, presumably as a tradeoff of some kind.

This would not have been different without the phasing wrinkle. This is the way the PC does range, their CHOICE.

Also this removes in addition any options for bonus actions or reactions because you need both for this sad plan B. Also with a GM enforcing rules strictly, this maybe forces the player to use plan B on the other turns because "actually you can't draw your weapon for free for preparing an attack since thats not the attack action" or something like this.


At this point, why not just preroll the attacks for the player before and subtract the HP from the enemy, this saves at least time, if the players choice doesn't matter anyway.

This is an edge case, normally the PC just shoots the crossbow but with his to hit and damage being his casting stat, not quite as good as Eldridge blast at range, but close and the players choice. Presumably, he has other options somewhere else that he focused on instead.

And that's the real point. The player made some choices that made this edge case less than optimal for him (but presumably he rocks somewhere else).

When it came up, he didn't choose to discuss it after game - which the OP stated would have likely been fruitful. Instead he demanded immediate house ruling and quite when refused. That's what I'm focusing on.

 

[Zardnaar]

The player left, per the OP, because the DM refused to implement a house rule midgame.

That's a pretty thin reason. But we don't know the full story, backstory or context, so all we can do is go by what we have

How do you know that's plan B? If this was a typical warlock, we'd be seeing Eldritch Blast, but the player CHOSE true strike instead. Presumably because he's better in melee with it? Player CHOSE the crossbow for range, presumably as a tradeoff of some kind.

This would not have been different without the phasing wrinkle. This is the way the PC does range, their CHOICE.



This is an edge case, normally the PC just shoots the crossbow but with his to hit and damage being his casting stat, not quite as good as Eldridge blast at range, but close and the players choice. Presumably, he has other options somewhere else that he focused on instead.

And that's the real point. The player made some choices that made this edge case less than optimal for him (but presumably he rocks somewhere else).

When it came up, he didn't choose to discuss it after game - which the OP stated would have likely been fruitful. Instead he demanded immediate house ruling and quite when refused. That's what I'm focusing on.

This.

Caster stat can be an issue vs dexterity or whatever.

 

[ECMO3]

Honestly that's kind of a BS encounter at what I'm guessing is a low level, based on only one Hex cast, so I really wouldn't blame him walking out, especially as that is not a promising sign for the rest of the game if you're starting at low levels with that type of nonsense. Pulling that once the party has more tools in their toolkit? Bit fairer, but at low level? What's he supposed to do? What's his intended answer to the fight?

They are 7th level. The player in question is a Champion Fighter with Hex through Fey Touched and Truestrike, Light and Protection from Evil and Good through Magic Initiate.

You painted him into a bad position. He couldn't ready an attack because, why the hell would he, so effectively you made his only choice is to ready what he thought would have been the best option (a non concentration spell) and then screwed him over with the surprise 'oh that's concentration now due to this not as well known part of the rule'.

Not really. You are acting like the only action available to him is attack. Based on this thread I think it is fairly well known.

Its not like he could just cast the spell there or then. Genuinely as written it'd be better for him to just not be paying attention and scrolling on his mobile phone.

Or perhaps being a bit more creative. The whole reason enemies like this exist is to have meaningful, flavorful, unique combats.

How about this as an easy example - he could hide and with Tactical Mind he has a pretty good chance of succeeding even with an 8 Dexterity.

 

[Tessarael]

That's even weirder to me then, as a Champion Fighter should not be a one trick pony stuck on True Strike. So many other ways to be effective, unless it is a really funky build.

 

[Mecheon]

They are 7th level. The player in question is a Champion Fighter with Hex through Fey Touched and Truestrike, Light and Protection from Evil and Good through Magic Initiate.

So he's just playing incredibly sub optimally, then? The fact that, as described, this came off as a level 1 warlock moreso than any other class says something

Not really. You are acting like the only action available to him is attack. Based on this thread I think it is fairly well known.

Attacking to kill the problem is sort of the expected one, though. That's what the expectation of the game is

Or perhaps being a bit more creative. The whole reason enemies like this exist is to have meaningful, flavorful, unique combats.

How about this as an easy example - he could hide and with Tactical Mind he has a pretty good chance of succeeding even with an 8 Dexterity.

I mean, unique, yeah, but they're not exactly fun for players. The most be-loathed creature from 3E was the ethereal filcher after all, you can 'meaningful flavourful' all you want on that one, but the thing that pops out of nowhere, steals your stuff, then leaves where you can't hit it isn't fun, its annoying. They've always been annoying

The hiding would accomplish nothing so I don't know why that's your. Most players treat hiding as a pre-combat thing anyway, and given said thing is hopping to the ethereal which, y'know, border ethereal looks onto the Material so he'd just see the fighter run off to hide, so that's just as much of a waste of a turn as taking a whizz.

 

[Mort]

So he's just playing incredibly sub optimally, then? The fact that, as described, this came off as a level 1 warlock moreso than any other class says something


Attacking to kill the problem is sort of the expected one, though. That's what the expectation of the game is


I mean, unique, yeah, but they're not exactly fun for players. The most be-loathed creature from 3E was the ethereal filcher after all, you can 'meaningful flavourful' all you want on that one, but the thing that pops out of nowhere, steals your stuff, then leaves where you can't hit it isn't fun, its annoying. They've always been annoying

The hiding would accomplish nothing so I don't know why that's your. Most players treat hiding as a pre-combat thing anyway, and given said thing is hopping to the ethereal which, y'know, border ethereal looks onto the Material so he'd just see the fighter run off to hide, so that's just as much of a waste of a turn as taking a whizz.

The player CHOSE to have this character, weird option interactions and all.

As such, it's their responsibility to have the character be effective or not - and not by throwing down with the DM by demanding a house rule.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I probably wouldn't use concentration on Readying a spell, because I barely bother keeping track of concentration as it is. Concentration as a mechanic was originally meant just to cut down on the number of buffs and debuffs any character had going on all at once, but my players never really bother going in for all that stuff so I never think about it.

 

[Clint_L]

I had a player quit over this today.

RAW if you use ready action to cast a spell you need to hold concentration until the trigger event:

When you Ready a spell, you cast it as normal (expending any resources used to cast it) but hold its energy, which you release with your Reaction when the trigger occurs. To be readied, a spell must have a casting time of an action, and holding on to the spell’s magic requires Concentration, which you can maintain up to the start of your next turn. If your Concentration is broken, the spell dissipates without taking effect.

The player in question wanted to ready Truestrike while concentrating on Hex. I told him he had to drop concentration. The PC said that is unreasonable and I should houserule it. I would have been open to that discussion on making it a houserule during session 0, but not in the middle of a combat. He said no one plays that way and actually left the game over it.

What do you think?

I think good riddance.

I actually don’t require the player to use concentration to ready a spell and agree that this rule is typically ignored.

But that’s not the point. The point is that you made a ruling. That’s it. This is a game, DMing is vastly more effort and difficult than playing, and players need to move on once a ruling is made. Period.

If you want to have a private conversation after the game, and the DM does also, then fine. But I’m not arguing about rules mid-game, and if a player wants to “win” that badly then I don’t want them.

You’re better off without them. So is your game.

 

[Clint_L]

The is complicated by the fact he can only cast Hex once a day so losing it is kind of a big deal for the PC.

Oh, waaaahh for them. It’s a fricken game. Get over it. What a child.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

As much as I am not particularly looking to coddle 5e PCs more, I feel like this is an obscure, counterintuitive, "gotcha" rule that primarily just serves to make the rules more needlessly complicated and byzantine, and to let a few of us rules professors impress everyone with our erudition (and everyone is not actually particularly impressed). I get what the designers are going for with it, but I just don't think it justifies the additional wrinkle of complexity.

Also a readied action is already a time when the player has sacrificed definitely attempting something with their action in favor of maybe attempting something with their action and reaction if a predicted circumstance arises, and often the readied action is only made necessary because of the artificial construct of the turn system (not so much the situation in question, where the nature of the enemies tactics require acting in a narrow window, but often you're just holding an action because your turn came up before the target of your action's). The player has already made an action economy sacrifice, so making them also lose any spell they are concentrating on seems needlessly punitive. But once again, even if it is a fair and balanced cost for the awesome opportunity to cast a spell out of turn order, I think it's just a needless complication of having an additional obscure rule that doesn't really add much to the experience.

So yeah, I wouldn't play with and effectively haven't played with this rule. I think it's poor game design, I wouldn't impose it as a DM, and nobody I play with is likely to know it or be thankful to hear my rattle it off at them when I'm a player.

Quitting a campaign over a rule that comes up that rarely is pretty wild though.