Quick poll about concentration

[TwoSix]

For my sorcerer, easily 3-4 a battle, unless I got some lucky positioning. Twin buffing was kind of my schtick, so I almost always had something running to get knocked off.

Edit: Oh, failed the check? Probably about once per session. 14 Con and Con save proficiency means I only failed about 15-20% of the time on low damage checks.

 

[Blue]

Responding for a front-line paladin who might have Shield of Faith up, but much less then every battle per day. On the other hand - front-liner.

The sorcerer would be zero, but most of the time it's twinned Greater Invis which makes them hard to damage in the first place. Though there's a very memorable time when he lost the twinned haste and two people in the middle of combat suddenly were lethargic and couldn't move or attack for a round.

 

[Darkcloud]

So, as of May 19, I have 63 responses to the poll. (Percentages were rounded to whole numbers.)
17 (27%) I haven’t had to make any, so zero
15 (24%) zero failures
11 (17%) one failure
6 (10%) two failures
14 (22%) three or more failures
One of the big mistakes I made was allowing the real question to be cut off of the top of the poll. Consequently, some people originally thought I was asking about the total number of checks, rather than how many were failed. That skews the results high.

Another big mistake I made was only stopping at “3 or more” concentration failures. It would have been easy to add more options for more failures, but I didn’t. If I count “3 or more” as 3, then it skews the results low. Hopefully these two mistakes cancel each other out to some extent.

The reason why I started the poll is that I suspected that many of the character creation guides placed too much emphasis on concentration checks. With about 50% of people not failing a check in three game sessions, it seems that concentration isn’t that big of a problem. There were only 65 failures for 62 people taking the poll; that makes only about one failure per three game sessions.

Although I’m sure some of the people took feats (Warcaster and Resilient Constitution) to improve their odds against concentration checks. That could have caused them no not fail as many checks, and those people could, justifiably, say that concentration was not a big problem because they made choices to mitigate the threat it would normally be.

I found this interesting. I wish I would have crafted the poll better, but it seems like a good starting place.

 

[cmad1977]

In my life experience it isn’t about ‘how many’ checks I or my players have failed it’s ‘when’ it happens and what spells are active when it does.
Bless fails: not the worst
Twinned haste fails: big problems.

 

[Hussar]

As a player of a Forge Priest, I failed two last session. It happens and it happens pretty frequently. It's not like clerics are proficient in Con saves and a 14 Con means that I fail any concentration check at least 40% of the time.

And, watching the other PC's in our games, I've noticed that our wizard types (whether sorc or wizard) tend to be pretty blaster heavy, so, concentration checks just don't come up that often for them, but, the cleric types (and I'm including paladins in here) have quite a few more concentration spells up, so, they tend to lose them more often.

 

[Mercule]

I GM, but I can't remember the last time a concentration check came into play. It does a pretty good job of limiting multi-buff scenarios, but the party is also pretty good about keeping their support well defended.

 

[FrogReaver]

So, as of May 19, I have 63 responses to the poll. (Percentages were rounded to whole numbers.)
17 (27%) I haven’t had to make any, so zero
15 (24%) zero failures
11 (17%) one failure
6 (10%) two failures
14 (22%) three or more failures
One of the big mistakes I made was allowing the real question to be cut off of the top of the poll. Consequently, some people originally thought I was asking about the total number of checks, rather than how many were failed. That skews the results high.

Another big mistake I made was only stopping at “3 or more” concentration failures. It would have been easy to add more options for more failures, but I didn’t. If I count “3 or more” as 3, then it skews the results low. Hopefully these two mistakes cancel each other out to some extent.

The reason why I started the poll is that I suspected that many of the character creation guides placed too much emphasis on concentration checks. With about 50% of people not failing a check in three game sessions, it seems that concentration isn’t that big of a problem. There were only 65 failures for 62 people taking the poll; that makes only about one failure per three game sessions.

Although I’m sure some of the people took feats (Warcaster and Resilient Constitution) to improve their odds against concentration checks. That could have caused them no not fail as many checks, and those people could, justifiably, say that concentration was not a big problem because they made choices to mitigate the threat it would normally be.

I found this interesting. I wish I would have crafted the poll better, but it seems like a good starting place.

So you are saying on average a player can expect to lose concentration on at least 1 spell every 3 sessions. However you have no information on what that average PC looks like. Is it a barbarian? An Eldritch Knight Fighter? A Sorcerer? Does the PC have Warcaster? Does the PC have proficiency in con saves? How often does the PC use concentration spells? Does the PC try to stay away from enemies or get near them?

Losing concentration on 1 spell every 3 sessions doesn't sound bad but what if the average PC we are looking at for that is an eldritch knight fighter that uses a bow and has the warcaster feat and only casts about 1 concentration spell per sessions? If this is the PC the poll best represents then what about a lore bard that doesn't use feats or multiclassing. How much more often does he fail concentration checks? What about a War Cleric that uses a two handed weapon and melees and uses all his slots concentration spells? How much more often does he fail concentration checks?

The fact is we don't know what the average PC looks like that fails 1 concentration save every 3 sessions and so any conclusion we try to draw from this data is basically meaningless.

 

[FrogReaver]

As a player of a Forge Priest, I failed two last session. It happens and it happens pretty frequently. It's not like clerics are proficient in Con saves and a 14 Con means that I fail any concentration check at least 40% of the time.

And, watching the other PC's in our games, I've noticed that our wizard types (whether sorc or wizard) tend to be pretty blaster heavy, so, concentration checks just don't come up that often for them, but, the cleric types (and I'm including paladins in here) have quite a few more concentration spells up, so, they tend to lose them more often.

Add in that clerics are generally melee and many of their best spells eventually are concentration spells and they should be losing concentration a lot more than a wizard standing in the back trying to stay away and using the shield spell when it will turn a hit into a miss.

 

[Darkcloud]

So you are saying on average a player can expect to lose concentration on at least 1 spell every 3 sessions. However you have no information on what that average PC looks like. Is it a barbarian? An Eldritch Knight Fighter? A Sorcerer? Does the PC have Warcaster?

The fact is we don't know what the average PC looks like that fails 1 concentration save every 3 sessions and so any conclusion we try to draw from this data is basically meaningless.

The poll specifies "caster character". I didn't think there would be enough information if the poll tried and separate by class and level.

 

[FrogReaver]

The poll specifies "caster character". I didn't think there would be enough information if the poll tried and separate by class and level.

So everything I mentioned except a barbarian would count as a caster character right?