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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 9436938" data-attributes="member: 6677017">Concentration serves an important purpose in 5e. It prevents a major power imbalance between parties that have casters who can stack multiple buffs before a battle and throw around multiple save or sucks during a battle, and those who do not. It means the game doesn't have to be built to account for that. And the most important benefit for me is that it eliminates the hassle of maintain lots and lots and lots and lots (ever play high level 3e?) of buffs on the party.However, after playing 5e for 10 years, we've developed some dissatisfaction with it. It seems like its restrictiveness eliminates too many options.There are interesting spells no one ever takes because they aren't worth the concentration cost. Since you can only ever concentrate on one spell at a time, you are likely going to pick a very small number of them to learn or prepare. There's little point walking around with an arsenal of known/prepared concentration spells for situations that will rarely come up, when you can just pick your favorite concentration buff and maybe a concentration debuff that is situationally awesome, and prepare other spells you know you will actually be able to use because they don't require concentration.The game is never going to be so balanced that all spells are equally interesting and desirable, but when there are lots of spells that are both too underwhelming to be worth choosing because of their concentration, but would be too powerful to be balanced without concentration, we have a problem.While I don't have a solution yet, I do have some observations, and I'm interested in hearing other people's experiences (especially those who have played a lot) with how the concentration rules have worked for you, if you've noticed the same sorts of undesirable consequences we have, and any solutions you may have tried.First observation: Debuffs that both require concentration and allow the target a save to end every turn feel undesirable, because the likelihood of getting them to stick long enough to be worth their slot is rather low. It seems like it might just not be necessary for both of those things to be in play at the same time, since they individually accomplish the same goal anyway.Second observation: With the typical combat assumed to be 3 rounds, and most combat buffs lasting 1 minute, unless you regularly surprise your foes and are able to stay hidden while casting verbal components, you aren't going to be able to cast many buffs in a particular combat anyway. Most of the time, casters probably aren't going to want to cast more than one of these 1 minute buffs, maybe 2 if they are a dedicated support caster or had the chance to prepare. It seems like the 1 minute duration might have already mostly solved the problem, making concentration a redundant solution that limits other possibilities (like casting a buff and then still being able to cast a debuff).Third observation: Concentration really handles two different issues. The first is the issue of having too many spells maintained at once. Concentration limits you to only having one concentration spell. The second is the issue of not wanting to have a character (whether a PC or the BBEG) failing one save and it being game over because now they are stuck while the other side pummels them to death. Concentration allows you to end a spell by attacking its caster. The problem is that it is not necessarily true that spells that need one of these solutions also need the other. By making a single concentration mechanic, both limitations are being forced on any spell that could benefit from having one of them.I could go on and on (and will if I do not stop myself) so I'm going to try leave it there for the first post.How has concentration worked for you? Have you noticed these issues? Do you think some manner of softening concentration (perhaps breaking it into it's two components so spells don't necessarily have to have both limitations) would mess up more than it fixed? Have you tried any adjustments to the mechanic, and if so, how did they work out?Thanks in advance for any thoughts!</blockquote>

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