D&D 5E (2014) I'm just sayin', the concentration mechanic makes it WAY easier to balance spells

[Astrosicebear]

Instead every time anyone in the party gets hit they have to make a con save. EVERY TIME. Some combats would literally go twice as fast without this mechanic. I'd far rather have buff rounds because you can just say "this is what we do, done" in 5 seconds.

Followed by 2 hours of "wait... does haste stack with blessing of fervor and the archeologists luck bonus.... but what about prayer? Oh and my magic item gives me a morale bonus... and he has cover, does the ogre provide cover? I forgot about the +2 from my boots 2 rounds ago, so I wouldnt have died! DM- Sigh"

 

[jodyjohnson]

Instead every time anyone in the party gets hit they have to make a con save. EVERY TIME. Some combats would literally go twice as fast without this mechanic. I'd far rather have buff rounds because you can just say "this is what we do, done" in 5 seconds.

I like the core of Concentration but I think it played fine in the Open Playtest with no breaking at all.

Or at least I would House Rule it to lower of Half Damage or DC10. There is a lot of room for tweaks here.

3 easy levels of Concentration:

1. Doesn't break (playtest)
2. Con check at half damage or DC 10 which ever is lower (ignore damage below the auto-success threshold - i.e., with Con +2, damage of 7 or less doesn't break concentration).
3. Con check at half damage or DC 10 which ever is higher (Basic rule).

Or some spell by spell ruling (Defenses don't break, area effects and offensive spells do).

 

[Eejit]

Instead every time anyone in the party gets hit they have to make a con save. EVERY TIME. Some combats would literally go twice as fast without this mechanic. I'd far rather have buff rounds because you can just say "this is what we do, done" in 5 seconds.

Are you saying every party will have all party members running concentration spells at all times? That sounds mildly hyperbolic.

 

[the Jester]

Instead every time anyone in the party gets hit they have to make a con save. EVERY TIME. Some combats would literally go twice as fast without this mechanic.

Uh... this is only true if every member of the party is a concentrating spellcaster. Which, you know, maybe in your game, but I would say it's unlikely. And I would be shocked to see the concentration checks "literally" doubling the length of combat. I would imagine they add... a few seconds per round, at most.

I'd far rather have buff rounds because you can just say "this is what we do, done" in 5 seconds.

Until the first targeted dispel magic goes off, and you have to spend five minutes re-working your AC, attack bonuses, save bonuses and so on. And God help you when you're high enough level that Mordenkainen's disjunction comes into play, because then it's the whole party, and each player takes twenty minutes to rework. One spell can bring a 3e table to a halt for almost an hour. No single concentration check will do that in 5e.

 

[Mistwell]

Instead every time anyone in the party gets hit they have to make a con save. EVERY TIME. Some combats would literally go twice as fast without this mechanic. I'd far rather have buff rounds because you can just say "this is what we do, done" in 5 seconds.

Which in game practice doesn't seem to delay things at all, but you admitted on the WOTC boards you have not played the game, nor do you have any intention of playing the game. But, if you ever had the plan to play, I would suggest you try it out first before drawing this conclusion.

 

[CapnZapp]

The notion of adventurers refusing to fight unless they get ample buffing time almost single-handedly broke previous editions for me.

I heartily approve of Wotcs current attempt to do away with that

 

[Sacrosanct]

The notion of adventurers refusing to fight unless they get ample buffing time almost single-handedly broke previous editions for me.

I heartily approve of Wotcs current attempt to do away with that

Can you imagine what movies would be like if they had a training/buffing montage before every single fight?

That's essentially what happened in those previous edition(s) you speak of.



We're not indestructible,
Baby better get that straight.
I think it's unbelieveable,
How you give into the hands of fate.
Some things are worth fighting for,
some feelings never die.
I'm not asking for another chance,
I just wanna know why

 

[Storminator]

Until the first targeted dispel magic goes off, and you have to spend five minutes re-working your AC, attack bonuses, save bonuses and so on. And God help you when you're high enough level that Mordenkainen's disjunction comes into play, because then it's the whole party, and each player takes twenty minutes to rework. One spell can bring a 3e table to a halt for almost an hour. No single concentration check will do that in 5e.

In our case the Disjunction went off at the top of the second round of combat, and ended the session. In addition to the hours of saves and recalculating sheets, my PC lost 1.8 million gp worth of items.

Good times, man, good times!

PS

 

[EroGaki]

Personally, I'm still iffy on the concentration mechanic. While I like it as a balancing factor, I think they went a little too far with it; too many spells require concentration, some of which aren't even that viable as combat option. And I hate that the odds of losing a spell when hit is strong, due to lack of constitution proficiency and low AC. I'm speaking from the perspective of a wizard; I sure clerics, with their medium or heavy armor proficiency, can better weather a storm of blows.

Case in point, my wizard character is 7th level, and I've already either lost concentration because my 14 AC isn't enough to protect me from the raging barbarian who decided to focus all of his attention on me last session, or I've had to give up a spell I was concentrating on to cast a more vital concentration spell to pull another players but out of the fire, thus wasting a spell. It's getting old really fast.

Honestly, i wish they would have deleted the getting damaged clause in concentration and just said "you can only have on spell requiring concentration active at a time." Then at least I wouldn't waste spell slots every time an enemy gets clever and targets me rather than the BSF.

 

[Stalker0]

Personally, I'm still iffy on the concentration mechanic. While I like it as a balancing factor, I think they went a little too far with it; too many spells require concentration, some of which aren't even that viable as combat option. And I hate that the odds of losing a spell when hit is strong, due to lack of constitution proficiency and low AC. I'm speaking from the perspective of a wizard; I sure clerics, with their medium or heavy armor proficiency, can better weather a storm of blows.

Case in point, my wizard character is 7th level, and I've already either lost concentration because my 14 AC isn't enough to protect me from the raging barbarian who decided to focus all of his attention on me last session, or I've had to give up a spell I was concentrating on to cast a more vital concentration spell to pull another players but out of the fire, thus wasting a spell. It's getting old really fast.

Honestly, i wish they would have deleted the getting damaged clause in concentration and just said "you can only have on spell requiring concentration active at a time." Then at least I wouldn't waste spell slots every time an enemy gets clever and targets me rather than the BSF.

I was thinking along this line too.

Effectively WOTC has attempted to solve 2 known issues with 1 mechanic:

1) Too many buffs spells stacking on a character.

2) Allowing for a "disruption mechanic" to negate particularly nasty spells (Dominate Person being one such candidate).


What I wonder is if in trying to use a single simple mechanic to handle both...that they pushed too far. We now have buff spells that are hard to maintain under any kind of direct attack. We also have a lot more rolling in combat, as each hit drives another concentration roll.


I wonder if this would have been a better option:

1) Attunement: A character can not have more than 2 spells attuned to them at one time. This would be your buff spell stacking preventer, and would be applied to most of the buff spells.
2) Concentration: Works as is. Works as your "spell disruption" mechanic, put on things like dominate person, etc.