D&D 5E Is Concentration Bugging You?

[KarinsDad]

My group is three full casters and one half caster. Up to 14th level now.

Lore Bard.
Abjurer Wizard.
Light Cleric.
Paladin.

We don't have issues with concentration.

For one, a lot of really great Wizard self buffs do not require concentration, while at the same time making you harder to hit.
Secondly, maybe next time you should try an Abjurer Wizard. They get an Arcane Ward, and when your Ward takes damage you don't have to roll concentration. In fact, I hardly ever actually damage the Wizard.
Where you popping shield? You should be quite hard to hit with shield.
Do you play grid or ToM? If you use grid you should be able to stay out of enemy Line of Sight often. There's nothing in the rules that state you must have LoS to concentrate, so go around a corner!

Also funnily enough the list of spells that require concentration at higher levels is actually pretty low. Look at Force Cage for example. The spells that require concentration are vastly outnumbered by those that don't at the higher levels.

Concentration is a tactical choice.

It's a shame you retired the Wizard, the Wizard in our party is extremely powerful. He is a massive force multiplier for the group, and concentration doesn't get in his way.

I think a lot of this depends on the type of encounters that the DM throws at a group of players. A DM with a lot of foes, and possibly surrounded or possibly with ranged attacks, and a lot of weaker attacks? Concentration gets broken a lot more often. A DM who has fights with fewer foes and the foes fight toe to toe with the front line melee PCs, concentration gets broken a lot less often.

My experience (and a reason I started this thread) is that concentration is a pita. It seriously hampers which spells can be used and handcuffs players into not being able to use many of their options.

In fact, based on what I have read about how many other groups have casters take the Resilient Con feat or the Warcaster feat, I might remove the penalties in my house rule for multiple concentration spells in the first post of this thread in my game. It just seems like a rule designed to tick players off.

Concentration is just on SO many spells that it leeches the joy out of having cool spell tactics when playing a spell caster.


Player: "Oh yeah, I cannot put Fly on the fighter to get him to the flying creatures and cast Hold Monster on the BBEG."


Spell casting tactics in 5E are extremely simplistic in nature because casters are not allowed to cast any spell at any time. If that is some player's cup of tea, fine. But I think it is lame. It sucks the fun out of playing a caster.

 

[Celtavian]

My group is three full casters and one half caster. Up to 14th level now.

Lore Bard.
Abjurer Wizard.
Light Cleric.
Paladin.

We don't have issues with concentration.

For one, a lot of really great Wizard self buffs do not require concentration, while at the same time making you harder to hit.
Secondly, maybe next time you should try an Abjurer Wizard. They get an Arcane Ward, and when your Ward takes damage you don't have to roll concentration. In fact, I hardly ever actually damage the Wizard.
Where you popping shield? You should be quite hard to hit with shield.
Do you play grid or ToM? If you use grid you should be able to stay out of enemy Line of Sight often. There's nothing in the rules that state you must have LoS to concentrate, so go around a corner!

Also funnily enough the list of spells that require concentration at higher levels is actually pretty low. Look at Force Cage for example. The spells that require concentration are vastly outnumbered by those that don't at the higher levels.

Concentration is a tactical choice.

It's a shame you retired the Wizard, the Wizard in our party is extremely powerful. He is a massive force multiplier for the group, and concentration doesn't get in his way.

How are you having no problems with concentration when being smashed by big AoE hits? Lair actions and legendary actions as well as groups of creatures that hit with advantage and do extra damage in groups.

How is your experience different than ours when getting hit by a 50 plus point damage breath weapon or 30 point fireball and having to make a DC 25 or 15 concentration con save? Or are you just all getting lucky on your saves or did you all take Warcaster or Resilient Con? Or are you low level where you don't notice it as much?

 

[brehobit]

Humm,
I think I've become convinced that there is a bit of a problem. Here's my suggestion for a fix:
#1 All concentration DCs drop by 5 (so minimum is now 5).
#2 A feat which allows you to have an extra 1st level spell being concentrated on. But if you take damage you lose both spells automatically. "Focused caster" or some such.

Thoughts?

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think concentration is badly designed.

...not really trying to convince anyone, just a possible counter-point...

1. One concentration spell for defensive, offensive, and utility spells is too limiting. Once you have an active concentration spell like wall of fire, your spell list loses four or five other options. If you decide to use the other option like fly or protection from energy, you end the wall of fire wasting a 4th level spell slot (maximum 3 per day) and once again shorten your spell list. It makes for a very limiting and frustrating experience as a wizard to cast a defensive or utility concentration spell, then have your offense consist of direct damage cantrips or spells.

I don't agree that it's "wasting a spell slot" to end a concentration spell. Rather, the way I think of it, if you get 1-2 rounds of usefuleness from the spell, it's more than worth the resources spent to cast it. And a "shortened spell list" varies wildly between casters depending on what spells they choose (it only loses 4-5 options if you choose 5-6 concentration spells). I don't see the narrowed selection as limiting, but rather as inspiring creative use of other spells. If I can't protect my allies from my wall of fire, that's not a limitation, that's just a reason to not use it in the thick of melee. Constraints birth creativity, and I've found so far that the Concentration constraint has me looking at old (especially lower-level) spells in a new way.

2. Concentration checks are harsh. You have to take either Warcaster or Resilient Con as a caster to have a decent chance of maintaining concentration. Even with either of those feats, breath weapons or other AoE or large damage attacks make a concentration check nearly impossible. If you get hit for 50 damage with a breath weapon, that is a DC 25 Concentration check. Even with a high Con save, you're looking at +7 con save and an 18 or better to maintain your spell. If you don't have those feats, you're looking at a natural 20 required for concentration. When concentration is broken, you have to spend another action to get the lost spell back up while the creature you're fighting outputs damage that may kill your party off. This can happen multiple times if the creature you're fighting has Lair or Legendary Actions it can hit you with every round.

I find that tactics largely solve this issue. Bunching up has never been smart, and 5e spellcasters are built to be able to take a wallop or two. A powerful hit you take that disrupts Concentration is one less hit the party healer takes. And if you're casting spells in melee with dragons, well, you're kind of asking for trouble...

They concentration mechanic as it is currently designed isn't fun. It gets worse and worse as you level with more creatures hitting harder and harder and having more attacks. You have even fewer high level spell slots, so losing one to a failed concentration check is frustrating to say the least. It makes you not even want to play the character any more. You have an active sunbeam and two level 6 slots, you get hit by a breath weapon. You lost that slot and didn't get much out of it. Makes you not even want to risk using it for spells that can be dispelled by getting hit by a common powerful AoE attack with nearly no chance of succeeding at the concentration check. I hope they look at this mechanic. It is making playing a wizard not particularly fun. Doubt I'll do it again if they don't do something with concentration soon.

See, I'm kind of digging it. I'm not paranoid about a failed check. I'm VERY happy to be able to harass my enemies for a few turns, long enough to get their attention like that. I'm finding it makes my choices more interesting.

Which isn't to discount others' experiences, it's just to point out that there's some disagreement on the issue that points to something other than Concentration itself as the root of the issue.

 

[KarinsDad]

Humm,
I think I've become convinced that there is a bit of a problem. Here's my suggestion for a fix:
#1 All concentration DCs drop by 5 (so minimum is now 5).
#2 A feat which allows you to have an extra 1st level spell being concentrated on. But if you take damage you lose both spells automatically. "Focused caster" or some such.

Thoughts?

This would be ok.

But, I would not limit the second concentration spell to first level spells only. We've had 4 editions of D&D where concentration did not exist at all and the game was only broken with a half dozen buff spells if the DM allowed it (and many of those spells were from 1 minute per level to 1 hour per level, so they had long duration). The problem was not the number of spells, it was that the spells could not be dispelled without magic and/or only had one save total. 5E easily allows most buff (and other spells like Web or Hold Person) to be disrupted or saved against.

Many concentration spells in 5E only last a minute anyway and ones against targets have saves every round, so I don't see the need to limit the number of spells at all. The concentration rule is like the one where people had to take their shoes off at the airport in the US, just because one person tried to smuggle something into his shoes. It's a knee jerk reaction that overall cost US travelers hundreds of millions of hours of wasted time taking shoes off and putting them back on.

In the case of the game, the optional rule should be one concentration spell, not the default rule. IMO. It's so easy to disrupt a concentration spell or save against it if it is offensive, who cares if one player blows 3 or 4 spell slots on 3 or 4 such spells? That's not game breaking.

 

[KarinsDad]

Which isn't to discount others' experiences, it's just to point out that there's some disagreement on the issue that points to something other than Concentration itself as the root of the issue.

Interesting questions that I would like you to think about for a few minutes before answering. Please think about them carefully based on your 5E table experience before answering:

Knowing what you now know about saving every round with most spells and concentration spells being easy to lose via damage, if the 5E rule as written was that a caster could cast as many concentration spells as he wanted to (because spells tend to only last a short time one way or another), would you still have your same opinion? Would you be on the boards here saying that it should be limited to only one spell at a time? In other words, would you take the hypothetical "5E mulit-concentration spells allowed rule" if it were written that way in the rules and be claiming here that it was not strict enough? Or are you taking your position here because that is what the current 5E rule is and that is now what you are currently used to?

Take note that 1E through 4E did not have concentration spells at all and those game systems seemed to work fine for the most part. Only some tables had problems with those spell systems.

 

[Eejit]

Concentration is fine if you plan ahead and pick up the good non-concentration spells too, like Blink, Mirror Image, instant damage spells, Blindness/Deafness, uplevelled Bestow Curse, Contagion, Demiplane and so on.

 

[Celtavian]

Concentration is fine if you plan ahead and pick up the good non-concentration spells too, like Blink, Mirror Image, instant damage spells, Blindness/Deafness, uplevelled Bestow Curse, Contagion, Demiplane and so on.

I haven't found that to be the case. Not sure why you love Blink. It's very random. Mirror Image isn't bad, but useless against AoE attacks. Blindness/Deafness does nothing to creatures with Blindsight. And they get to save every round against it. Usually doesn't last that long. I've haven't found it very useful.

 

[seebs]

A bad bet? I dunno. In some ways readied spells are better than readied missile weapons, due to Extra Attack not working off your turn. It seems to me that "I ready Eldritch Blast to hit the first drow that sticks his head up, and then pull back behind the parapet" is superior to "I ready an arrow to shoot at the first drow...etc." The practical import is that it's easier to hide from archers than from warlocks... which is kind of weird.

But if the drow doesn't stick his head up at all, you wasted a spell slot.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

But if the drow doesn't stick his head up at all, you wasted a spell slot.

Eldritch Blast doesn't cost any spell slots.