KarinsDad said:
Yes, I was on the fence concerning the DC.
But, the issue I ran into was, what if someone doesn't min-max their character, just to accomplish this?
If you only have poeple who don't do any min-maxing/powergaming at all, and had not much fighting, it may work with your rules. But these things are quite easily accomplished.
Paladins and Clerics get very few skill points. So, if they beef up their concentration to a very high level, they can rarely do much else.
Clerics are very well advised to up their Concentration anyway. Especially the combat spellcaster type (which is probably the most common cleric since 3e - the walking band-aids are past, or should be). So they don't have to change anything
Paladins don't have so much spells that it makes a big difference either way
Wizards, Rangers, and Druids get more skill points, but I had no problem with Rangers and Druids effectively getting the ability to swap in Cure spells with a low failure chance (I've always thought Clerics had an unneccessary major advantage this way).
For rangers and druids, see my considerations on paladins and clerics, respectively. And it's not the cure spells I'm concerned about. It's that the druids get everything. If you limited the possibility to just a couple of spells (maybe cure spells), it would be ok. (Maybe use some kind of paths where you get one spell of each level that you can change your spells to. I've made a spontaneous druid with paths. see the link)
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=64192
The real issue becomes Wizards vs. Sorcerers.
Exactly. You'll basicly destroy the sorcerer class. Never mind this one or two extra spells per day the sorcerer gets, when you can have all the spells you want AND cast them spontaneously.
I like your idea of an additional standard action to switch the spell. I think I'll add this to my house rule. This makes this a little less effective in combat and allows the Sorcerer to shine more. And on those occasions where it does not work, the spell caster uses up two rounds to accomplish nothing (except maybe movement).
He actually uses only one round: If your shift spell standard action fails, you don't have to try and cast the spell. You just lose the spell slot.
If you succeed, the spell slot is now changed, and you use another action to cast.
But raising the DC to 20 forces spell casters to focus so much on concentration that it totally waters down the rule (75% failure at low level) for characters that do not min max so much.
It's a decision to make: Either you make it easy for the roleplayers and almost auto-success for the min-maxers, or you make it more difficult for min-maxers and really difficult for roleplayers.
I'd go for the latter, for several reasons:
- There is almost always at least a bit of min-maxing involved (at least in the games I play in), and it's not that hard to min-max concentration out.
- Switching spells should be difficult, not something you can accomplish all the time without any inconveniences
- The main spellcasters (Druids, Clerics, Wizards) will usually have high concentration, anyway, and the others (rangers, paladins) don't focus on magic enough to figure largely in the equation
