D&D 5E Starting to dislike concentration - possible twist?

[dndthrowaway1]

I've been playing a mostly support-ish character in Adventurer's league (cleric/sorcerer) and have had a pretty good time. I generally found things to do, but towards the end of the campaign (Rise of Tiamat) I was really wanting to be able to burn support-type spell slots a little more effectively.

While I can understand why concentration is a thing, would it be very imbalanced to allow a second concentration spell to be cast if the duration of the 2nd concentration spell is always "until the beginning of your next turn"?

The idea being that you could get a little further into the fun support role, but

• you still couldn't stack more than 2 conc spells
• you'd be burning through spell slots pretty quickly
• due to it ending on the start of your next turn, any benefits you cast on yourself would be reduced compared to including yourself in a full round's effect of the conc spell.

This would obviously be a strict increase in power, not saying it wouldn't be, but I'd think that the increase in power might be OK?

 

[Mistwell]

Can you provide some examples of what you'd use it on? What's the most abusive situation you can think of where this would be used?

 

[I'm A Banana]

While I can understand why concentration is a thing, would it be very imbalanced to allow a second concentration spell to be cast if the duration of the 2nd concentration spell is always "until the beginning of your next turn"?

As a house rule, it'll likely give you what you want without HUGE disruptions.

Were I you, I'd look for what experience you're actually trying to get at and what might be a good way to do that without futzing with Concentration.

But doing this is unlikely to have major negative consequences and will only slightly power up spellcasters.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Can you provide some examples of what you'd use it on? What's the most abusive situation you can think of where this would be used?

It might make True Strike marginally useful for some combos with other concentration spells like paladin smites.

I think it would be easier to just fix True Strike though.

 

[dndthrowaway1]

Can you provide some examples of what you'd use it on? What's the most abusive situation you can think of where this would be used?

Hm, interesting questions. I was usually running 1 of the big four big conc buffs: Fly/Invis/Haste/Polymorph on my teammates, often twinned when possible. It would have been nice to be able to give someone else (or one of the already-buffed party members) an additional boost from one of them for a round even if I had to burn spell slots to do so. Or maybe just cast bless to last for a round (again, cleric/sorc multiclass), or wall of stone, or enlarge/reduce, or... I don't know what, but when my prep'd/known spells were arranged around being able to buff for multiple scenarios, and so many buffs are conc-based, I really didn't feel so hot when it came to participating in combat. Maybe I should have just done my spell-list differently? It felt nice being able to provide a lot of buffing, however.

As far as over-powered combos? Hm... maybe something that restrains enemies while not restraining allies? (fly a party member while entangling roots the enemy?). Or layering area-debuff AoEs with movement-reducing AoEs? (Entangle + Faerie Fire?).

I'm not feeling too successful at predicting broken combos here. Not to say they don't exist - I'm just being creative enough to find them I think if they end after a round. Being able to run dual conc-buff spells indefinitely would make it easy to make broken combos, of course, but that's why I was thinking 1-round time limits to shake things up a bit without being overpowered.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Hm, interesting questions. I was usually running 1 of the big four big conc buffs: Fly/Invis/Haste/Polymorph on my teammates, often twinned when possible. It would have been nice to be able to give someone else (or one of the already-buffed party members) an additional boost from one of them for a round even if I had to burn spell slots to do so. Or maybe just cast bless to last for a round (again, cleric/sorc multiclass), or wall of stone, or enlarge/reduce, or... I don't know what, but when my prep'd/known spells were arranged around being able to buff for multiple scenarios, and so many buffs are conc-based, I really didn't feel so hot when it came to participating in combat. Maybe I should have just done my spell-list differently? It felt nice being able to provide a lot of buffing, however.

Yeah, probably.

5E is designed for casual gaming, so paranoid crazy-prepared wizard schenanigans aren't really a thing. Look at the Shield spell in 5E, for example. Instead of something which you cast before kicking down the door, it's designed to be a capability which exists on you all the time but is mutually exclusive with other reflexive capabilities like Counterspell. Spells in 5E are mostly designed not to outlast a short conversation. 5E tries its best to make your wizard good at being reactive, not proactive, or at least not very proactive about more than one thing at a time.

Apropos, the 5E caster paradigm for powergamers is very concerned with managing your concentration efficiently. Spells like Blindness/Deafness, Grease, Longstrider, and Death Ward are a little bit weaker than other spells of their level, but in exchange you get to use them without breaking Concentration. When you're managing your spell list you should be thinking in terms not just of "do I have all saves covered" but also "which of my spells are usable in combination with the others?" Ideally you want to still have a good action economy even when your concentration is busy with Greater Invisibility or something.

(Side note: Animate Dead III and Planar Binding V are pretty weak for their level, but they make up for it by being long-duration and no-concentration, and they both scale really well at higher levels and also stack with themselves. Both spells are arguably overpowered for that reason--they break the concentration economy and allow the wizard to be proactive. Ponder those spells when you're proposing house rules to further break concentration economy.)

Final point: as you're planning how to use your Concentration, pay special attention to spells which scale up their number of targets as you scale up spell slots. Hold Person, Fly, Banishment and Blindness/Deafness come to mind. Hold Person V is kind of like getting to concentrate on four different Hold Person spells simultaneously.

 

[Mistwell]

It kinda sounds like you were trying to use a Wizard as a Bard? Maybe just play a Bard, which is built for buffing?

 

[dndthrowaway1]

Hey - thanks all - this has been really helpful, especially the last couple 'o posts on altering my play-style/class-choice to fit the rule-set instead of altering the rule-set to accommodate a play-style.