D&D 5E Softening Concentration

[NotAYakk]

So I think splitting Concentration into two things might be worthwhile.

Focus is a medium or long-term high-value effect. You get 1 Focus at a time.

Concentration is something that can be disrupted from damage. When you have Focus on an effect, you also are maintaining Concentration: but spells can be Concentration without using Focus.

The point of this split is to break the "counterplay" from the "stacking" problem. I really like counterplay - the wizard is using magic to interfere with the barbarian? Well, knock the wizard down and the barbarian is free. That is concentration.

Focus, on the other hand, exists in order to prevent "I cast Haste and Dragon's Breath and Magic Weapon and Holy Weapon and Tenser's Transformation and Spiritual Guardians, then I step into the room and boom everything dies" and similar issues.

Buff spells, like Haste, are fun if they are impactful - but if they stack and are impactful, then pre-buffing is stupidly optimal. Instead, I want to encourage the use of Haste during combat; this makes its action cost also matter a bunch (as opposed to pre-buffing where it does not).

It is part of the anti-christmas-tree effect of attunement items; too many optimization points breaks D&D.

Concentration could even be assumed. Any time you have cast a spell with a duration, you have to make concentration checks or the spell gets disrupted. Only a few spells would be concentration-free.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Replace concentration with hard to obtain material components! Bring back bat guano!!

 

[Yaarel]

So I think splitting Concentration into two things might be worthwhile.

Focus is a medium or long-term high-value effect. You get 1 Focus at a time.

Concentration is something that can be disrupted from damage. When you have Focus on an effect, you also are maintaining Concentration: but spells can be Concentration without using Focus.

The point of this split is to break the "counterplay" from the "stacking" problem. I really like counterplay - the wizard is using magic to interfere with the barbarian? Well, knock the wizard down and the barbarian is free. That is concentration.

Focus, on the other hand, exists in order to prevent "I cast Haste and Dragon's Breath and Magic Weapon and Holy Weapon and Tenser's Transformation and Spiritual Guardians, then I step into the room and boom everything dies" and similar issues.

Buff spells, like Haste, are fun if they are impactful - but if they stack and are impactful, then pre-buffing is stupidly optimal. Instead, I want to encourage the use of Haste during combat; this makes its action cost also matter a bunch (as opposed to pre-buffing where it does not).

It is part of the anti-christmas-tree effect of attunement items; too many optimization points breaks D&D.

Concentration could even be assumed. Any time you have cast a spell with a duration, you have to make concentration checks or the spell gets disrupted. Only a few spells would be concentration-free.

I have mixed feelings about negating the basic feature of casting classes. I would feel the same way, if the weapons of Fighters could be knocked out of their hands every round − making the Fighter class absolutely worthless.

That said, I dont mind the flavor concentration. Perhaps any spell with a "non-instantaneous" duration is potentially disruptable? So, the spell at least goes off for one round before interruption?

 

[jayoungr]

Eh? Hypnotic Pattern is a concentration spell. Was someone saying it shouldn't be?

My bad, I was thinking of something else.

 

[Shardstone]

Sustain from PF2E is pretty good. Paying a cost to upkeep the spell.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

So I think splitting Concentration into two things might be worthwhile.

Focus is a medium or long-term high-value effect. You get 1 Focus at a time.

Concentration is something that can be disrupted from damage. When you have Focus on an effect, you also are maintaining Concentration: but spells can be Concentration without using Focus.

The point of this split is to break the "counterplay" from the "stacking" problem. I really like counterplay - the wizard is using magic to interfere with the barbarian? Well, knock the wizard down and the barbarian is free. That is concentration.

Focus, on the other hand, exists in order to prevent "I cast Haste and Dragon's Breath and Magic Weapon and Holy Weapon and Tenser's Transformation and Spiritual Guardians, then I step into the room and boom everything dies" and similar issues.

Buff spells, like Haste, are fun if they are impactful - but if they stack and are impactful, then pre-buffing is stupidly optimal. Instead, I want to encourage the use of Haste during combat; this makes its action cost also matter a bunch (as opposed to pre-buffing where it does not).

It is part of the anti-christmas-tree effect of attunement items; too many optimization points breaks D&D.

Concentration could even be assumed. Any time you have cast a spell with a duration, you have to make concentration checks or the spell gets disrupted. Only a few spells would be concentration-free.

Wasn't there a similar mechanic at some point during the 2014 playtest? I was sad when it didn't appear in the final publication.

 

[deadman1204]

I agree that concentration needs to be softened. There are soo many interesting spells that will never be used because they are not an optimal use of your 1 concentration slot. The game could be so much more fun and interesting if all casters had a wider array of spells they could reasonably use. Instead, using many fun or interesting spells is strictly bad numbers wise.

 

[Nebulous]

I only DM, but my issue is that enemy spellcasters can't maintain a spell usually for more than a round without getting hammered and losing the spell. And all the "cool" spells are usually concentration. At least ones that don't just do a damage burst. Couple this with saves are just a Constitution roll, and the mechanic of Concentration as a skill where you can train yourself to focus past pain and distractions is mostly gone. I did like that PCs and NPCs could improve over time and get better at maintaining a spell. Also, as others have mentioned, concentrating on two spells at once and losing both after a failed save wouldn't break anything and might make the game more interesting, but I haven't tried that yet.

 

[Yaarel]

Thinking outloud. What if one can cast a number of Concentration spells whose total slot equals upto the Casting Ability? So a Wizard with +5 Intelligence can cast both Fly and Invisibility at the same time.

High spells such as Forcecage remain singular.