D&D 5E How well can your players and NPCs maintain concentration for spells?

[Sword of Spirit]

My group's PCs are 3rd level and I think the only one who cast any concentration spells was the arcane trickster (and that was in a single fight). He wasn't in melee range, and his opponents were stuck in melee with other party members, so he had no problems.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Our Cleric is usually throwing Bless out and tends to get a little too close to the front lines at times...

 

[Cernor]

I'm currently playing a 4th level moon druid, and I've never had my concentration broken, but that's mostly due to luck: I've only ever taken a few hits while concentrating and have always gotten high rolls on my saves.

 

[Croesus]

It's one of those rules that I frequently forget until 2 rounds later.

I'm still training myself to ask for checks.

My group uses some small chips (like those in an Axis and Allies game) to mark when someone is concentrating, has a boon (like Bless), is making death saves and the like. Works well to keep us from forgetting.

As for concentration checks, the cleric has blown a couple checks, but at our levels (the PC's just got to 4th level), the damage taken is rarely high enough to make the check over 10, which isn't too hard to make. As they go up levels, I expect the checks to get tougher.

 

[trentonjoe]

Our PC's are pretty good at it. The save is a 10 and almost everyone has a + from con so it's more like a 8 or so. The front line battle cleric/warlock types fail every now and then. Only one guy took war caster and he has literally never failed (5 or so rolls) in two games. With that being said, we are now up to 5th level so the saves might get above 10, that may change things.

NPC's tend to lose it quickly. Between focus fire, tricked out damage and no advantage they lose it reasonably frequentlyy.

 

[DaveDash]

13th level current, running City of the Spider Queen: Lots of NPC spell casters and the party is spell caster heavy. Concentration isn't broken that often. Big AoE attacks like dragon's breath are the main source of concentration breaking. NPC's don't break concentration that often either because generally they don't live long enough.

Due to the concentration mechanic in general, spells like Blink and Mirror Image become invaluable. It's a big limitation really on NPC spell casters. They can either attack or stay alive. Now that I have the DMG however I've completely changed the way I build NPC spell casters (giving them way more hit points, like a monster) and that generally keeps them alive long enough to actually get use of some concentration spells.

 

[DaveDash]

Our PC's are pretty good at it. The save is a 10 and almost everyone has a + from con so it's more like a 8 or so. The front line battle cleric/warlock types fail every now and then. Only one guy took war caster and he has literally never failed (5 or so rolls) in two games. With that being said, we are now up to 5th level so the saves might get above 10, that may change things.

NPC's tend to lose it quickly. Between focus fire, tricked out damage and no advantage they lose it reasonably frequentlyy.

Focus fire should give them multiple saves don't forget if it's from different sources.

 

[TarionzCousin]

. NPC's don't break concentration that often either because generally they don't live long enough.

That reminded me of this, from the original DMG (I think).

Oh no. There goes what's-his-name....

 

[pedro2112]

Now that I am thinking about it, I've rarely seen concentration broken by failed Con saves in our games. More frequently it is broken when another concentration spell is cast.

 

[Starfox]

Isn't this a 5E thread? In 5E concentration seems to be an important issue. I never found concentration (as is spell duration) to be very important in Pathfinder.

If we're talking Concentration Checks, like casting defensively, they are generally very avoidable at lower levels by taking a simple step, and at higher levels they are very easy to pass. Not really an issue. To be honest I might just rule-zero concentration checks at some point in the future, as they take more time than they add to the game.

Edit: I now see this IS a 5E thread. How did it end up in my Pathfinder flow? Well, no matter.