Dumb Questions.

[Boci]

For the first two, it's been laboriously pointed out time and again in visibility discussions that casting the other illumination cantrip or lighting a torch or holding a lantern in darkness just makes you a better target. Being able to hold it dozens of feet in away from you and in multiple locations mitigates that aspect considerably; things might be alerted to the party's presence - light still carries - but they can't just fire arrows from outside the radius of light into your party with advantage, either. You get to avoid the ambush. Huzzah! And if you're clever, you can set one up by using that illumination to draw things in where you'd like them to be, or illuminate the battlefield in such a way as to not give away your numbers or location. It's a big tactical step up of from torches and continually burning rocks that way.

A cantrip that would reward clever use of it? The horror!

You're also overlooking that intelligent enemies will see the dancing light before they are revealed by them and know someone is approaching. This "tactical powerhouse" will often allow enemies to prepare and make fights harder. It is not the super awesome thing you are presenting it as.

Dancing lights goes from being something that should be a cantrip to being something that should be a leveled spell once you drop the concentration component.

Yeah no, I don't bye that. Its great in white room scenarios, but in actual play you'll run into other factor that limit its use. And given the also exhaustively discussed problem with darkvision availability in 5e, giving a cantrip way for a party to mitigate not having all darkvision seems like a positive.

[loki_ragnarock]

A cantrip that would reward clever use of it? The horror!

The obviously intended use? No problem at all!

Mitigating it so you don't obviate the rest of the party by having it available? Splendid!

Letting one character paint targets in such a way as it allows them to follow up with their highest quality encounter nukers... in the same turn? Why have the rest of the party in that scenario? Without concentration, that's what Dancing Lights brings to the table.

You're also overlooking that intelligent enemies will see the dancing light before they are revealed by them and know someone is approaching. This "tactical powerhouse" will often allow enemies to prepare and make fights harder. It is not the super awesome thing you are presenting it as.

As compared to what? Torches? Lanterns? Continual Flame? The casual fall of mailed footsteps? The clink of plate?

I never made the claim that it allows for perfect stealth. It doesn't. Anymore than the darkness spell does when an area of impenetrable darkness appears at high noon in an open field.

Yeah no, I don't bye that. Its great in white room scenarios, but in actual play you'll run into other factor that limit its use. And given the also exhaustively discussed problem with darkvision availability in 5e, giving a cantrip way for a party to mitigate not having all darkvision seems like a positive.

Dark room scenarios. White room scenarios you probably want to go with Darkness.

That said, the extremely narrow pitch you initially put forward is far from the only applicable scenario; sans concentration, it's better in a wider gamut than, oh, Thunderwave or Skywrite.

[Boci]

That said, the extremely narrow pitch you initially put forward is far from the only applicable scenario; sans concentration, it's better in a wider gamut than, oh, Thunderwave or Skywrite.

You realise this epic use of the cantrip you describe...still largely works with concentration? Most fights won't start with the caster concentrating on something, so they have no reason not to be using dancing light if its as great as you claim it is, and they can still cast a concentration spell, they'll just drop the cantrip, its of literal no opportunity cost beyond a cantrip known slot. So if its as good as you claim it in, casters would already be auto learning it.

[DocVal]

Maybe I just don't understand the reason why certain spells are concentration and others not, Shield of Faith vs Mage Armor for example. does magic weapon really need to be concentration? so I fight something that is resistant to non magic attacks ( much more a problem in 5e it seems)I need a magic sword...cast magic weapon, and cant do anything else like hunters mark, compelled duel, or protection from evil? I get certain combos can be a problem...but it seems over applied. why not make some spells ritual spells? my wizard has a ton of them.I like the idea of not always having to keep a slot for identify or what have you.




So when I was shown 5e, a friend sent me to RPGbots optimization page, and I got the impression regular Divine Smite was trash lol and needed to use the spell smites, so maybe I am misinformed. Anyone have an opinion on this?

[Christew]

You realise this epic use of the cantrip you describe...still largely works with concentration? Most fights won't start with the caster concentrating on something, so they have no reason not to be using dancing light if its as great as you claim it is, and they can still cast a concentration spell, they'll just drop the cantrip, its of literal no opportunity cost beyond a cantrip known slot. So if its as good as you claim it in, casters would already be auto learning it.

It is objectively better and more versatile than Light. So why does Light exist? Because Dancing Lights requires concentration. You have to choose whether the better effect or keeping your concentration slot free is more valuable. Create Bonfire is in a similar space. It is very strong for a cantrip EXCEPT that it requires concentration. Once you have the spell slots to devote your concentration to levelled spells, these "overpowered" at tier 1 cantrips drop off aggresively. That is by design.

I do not find this a compelling indictment of the concentration mechanic.

[Boci]

It is objectively better and more versatile than Light. So why does Light exist? Because Dancing Lights requires concentration. You have to choose whether the better effect or keeping your concentration slot free is more valuable. Create Bonfire is in a similar space. It is very strong for a cantrip EXCEPT that it requires concentration. Once you have the spell slots to devote your concentration to levelled spells, these "overpowered" at tier 1 cantrips drop off aggresively. That is by design.

I do not find this a compelling indictment of the concentration mechanic.

Not a good comparison, bonfire deals damage, dancing light doesn't. The problem with bonefire is it could be spammed if it didn't have concentration, a concern that is unlikely to matter for dancing light. As for the light argument, I would counter with, why is it so important that light be a viable cantrip? Plenty of spells don't see play because spells of equal or lower level outperform them, why is it apparently bad if light is one of them?

Also, dancing light is not objectively better than light, light affects an object that can be manipulated in ways dancing light can be, and can also be given to a party member, which dancing light can't. Previously it was mentioned that dancing light is "only" a bonus action,. Well funnily enough, by the time concentration starts to matter, so do bonus actions.

I do not find this the slamdunk argument you seem to think it is for why dancing light needs concentration.

[EggKookoo]

According to Crawford, wall of force counts as total cover and the interior space can't be selected as a spell target. Assuming you buy that interpretation, that seems like that would rule out shenanigans with stinking cloud or sickening radiance and so forth. Or at least make them less effective as you'd have to cast the damaging AoE first, then wait a round before you could cast the force barrier (giving targets time to move away).

[Xihirli]

Well, you can't have both Wall of Force and Sickening Radiance active at the same time anyway, you'd need someone else to concentrate on one of them.

But in general that is a bit of a waste of a stinking cloud or sickening radiance anyhow: If the person you Wall of Force isn't able to escape, you have plenty of time to mop up their allies, get everyone healed/buffed, and surround the walled off enemy before the barrier leaves.

[Twelvetrees]

Maybe I just don't understand the reason why certain spells are concentration and others not, Shield of Faith vs Mage Armor for example.

Spells tend to require concentration when they create a powerful, long lasting effect. This is only a tendancy, however, and some spells don't follow the pattern. When they don't, they usually are considered quite good or quite bad. There's not many in between.

To address shield of faith versus mage armor, in particular, the former requires concentration because it is a flat bonus to AC in a system with bounded accuracy, which makes its benefit powerful. The latter merely establishes a new baseline AC, which isn't anywhere near as strong.

does magic weapon really need to be concentration? so I fight something that is resistant to non magic attacks ( much more a problem in 5e it seems)I need a magic sword...cast magic weapon, and cant do anything else like hunters mark, compelled duel, or protection from evil?

In practice, magic weapon is rarely needed, especially for a paladin. This is anecdotal, but finding a magic weapon of some sort usually happens within the first few levels.

why not make some spells ritual spells? my wizard has a ton of them.I like the idea of not always having to keep a slot for identify or what have you.

Identify is a ritual spell, so a wizard who knows it shouldn't have to keep a slot for it.

So when I was shown 5e, a friend sent me to RPGbots optimization page, and I got the impression regular Divine Smite was trash lol and needed to use the spell smites, so maybe I am misinformed. Anyone have an opinion on this?

Regular Divine Smite is good. I had a paladin player who never cast a single spell and only used their slots to power Divine Smite. They were considered one of the more powerful characters in that group.

[EggKookoo]

Well, you can't have both Wall of Force and Sickening Radiance active at the same time anyway, you'd need someone else to concentrate on one of them.

Right, the context was if concentration wasn't being used via a houserule. One cited issue was with wall of force and various DoT effects.

[Boci]

According to Crawford, wall of force counts as total cover and the interior space can't be selected as a spell target. Assuming you buy that interpretation, that seems like that would rule out shenanigans with stinking cloud or sickening radiance and so forth. Or at least make them less effective as you'd have to cast the damaging AoE first, then wait a round before you could cast the force barrier (giving targets time to move away).

Yeah its possible the "two concentration spells is bad" is the result of white room theory crafting, especially if you go with that interpretation, and as Xihirl notes below, wall of force on its own could be enough. I would look at 1 hour+ duration concentration spells, like conjure (x creature) line, that might be a buff to allow them to be up whilst also freely casting other concentration spells. Ditto on any buff spells that last long enough to be reliable pre-cast, if there are any.

Well, you can't have both Wall of Force and Sickening Radiance active at the same time anyway, you'd need someone else to concentrate on one of them.

But in general that is a bit of a waste of a stinking cloud or sickening radiance anyhow: If the person you Wall of Force isn't able to escape, you have plenty of time to mop up their allies, get everyone healed/buffed, and surround the walled off enemy before the barrier leaves.

This is coming from a discussion of proposing dropping the rule you can only maintain one concentration spell at a time.

In practice, magic weapon is rarely needed, especially for a paladin. This is anecdotal, but finding a magic weapon of some sort usually happens within the first few levels.

Depends on the game. I'm running one where a 9th level ranger is yet to find a magical weapon (they have 2 magical items, just no weapon or armour). They will next session, assuming they choose to follow that plot lead.

[Twelvetrees]

Depends on the game. I'm running one where a 9th level ranger is yet to find a magical weapon (they have 2 magical items, just no weapon or armour). They will next session, assuming they choose to follow that plot lead.

That's a valid counterpoint.

Out of curiosity, what have they done when they've run into enemies with resistance or immunity to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage?

[Boci]

That's a valid counterpoint.

Out of curiosity, what have they done when they've run into enemies with resistance or immunity to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage?

They haven't faced anyone with immunity yet, they had a chance when they had to fight one of 3 monsters but they had a poem about each to help them decide, and they all realized what "Lesser spell I turn aside, mundane iron won't cut my hide" meant and decided to skip that one.

They have faced several enemies who were resistance and the ranger just rolls with it. I let them know, "the arrow doesn't penetrate as deep as it should have", but they're still dealing damage. They're in a party with a monk and a warlock, so the monk can't do much at range, and the warlocks damage is lower, between higher base damage and better accuracy I think the ranger might have equal damage output to the warlock against a magic resistance foe, haven't crushed the numbers exactly but +7/+7 1d10+4 vs. +10/+10 1d8+5 with collosus slayer and hunters mark, plus the ranger can transition to melee if cornered, the warlock has to take disadvantage on their attack or provoke from moving away.

So yeah, its a weakness, but it feels like a weakness of the class, the other characters have their own shortcomings, it doesn't appear to have made the experience bad for them.

[DocVal]

Identify is a ritual spell, so a wizard who knows it shouldn't have to keep a slot for it.


Regular Divine Smite is good. I had a paladin player who never cast a single spell and only used their slots to power Divine Smite. They were considered one of the more powerful characters in that group.[/QUOTE]

I was saying i like the ritual aspect of identify.

I guess ill see how I progress with my Pally, hopefully my hang ups are not founded. I just thumbed trough the MM and saw a lot of undead seem to need radiant damage or magic weapons to destroy them.


however I feel like the mage armor giving basically +3 AC is better than the +2 for shield but perhaps there is a nuance here i have not considered.

I really appreciate the input from everyone. good to see a cross section of experiences here

[PhoenixPhyre]

however I feel like the mage armor giving basically +3 AC is better than the +2 for shield but perhaps there is a nuance here i have not considered.

I really appreciate the input from everyone. good to see a cross section of experiences here

Context is critical.

Mage armor is on the wizard and sorcerer list, neither of whom get armor proficiencies by default. Furthermore, it doesn't stack with regular (non-shield) armor at all--it sets your AC to 13 + DEX. It's also an action to cast and lasts 8 hours. It's specifically an armor-replacement spell. And you may notice that races and subclasses often get "unarmored defenses" that look similar--the Draconic Origin Sorcerer gets his AC permanently set to 13 + Dex. Etc. Intended use is cast on self at beginning of day, adventure.

Shield of Faith is a bonus action to cast, ranged, provides a STACKING +2 to AC for 10 minutes. And is on the Cleric/Paladin list, who have shield proficiency and (at least) medium armor proficiency. It's an armor-augmentation spell. Intended use is protect the weak/squishy/offensive character[1] or enhance the strongly armored one.

Mage armor does nothing for the cleric. Shield of faith is fairly useless for the (default) wizard, since +2 AC isn't all that much at low AC. Going from 15 -> 17 is a boost, to be sure, but much less of a boost than going from 19 -> 21 or 20 -> 22.

They're very different spells, with very different uses. If you're coming from 3.5e, make sure to read the spells extra thoroughly. Despite having much the same names, the contents and how they apply has radically changed in many cases.

[1] A 2-handed paladin with a heavy offensive loadout (ie PAM/GWM feats) may choose to SoF himself, making up for the fact that he's not wearing a shield. Or a heavy front-liner "tank" type might even buff themselves, raising their AC from "high" to "really obnoxious".

[Bobthewizard]

Main point - While there are a lot of spells that individually could be considered fine if they dropped concentration, you need to look at the effect if someone stacked all of the spells you are proposing to drop concentration on.

So far, shield of faith and magic weapon have both been proposed as not needing concentration. So if we drop concentration on just those two, now someone goes into battle against a devil with magic weapon, shield of faith and protection against evil (as a concentration spell) all cast on them. I think that breaks bounded accuracy. If you drop concentration altogether, every big fight is going to be the players trying to buff themselves as much as possible before the fight.

I think once you get used to it, concentration is a great mechanic. It lets the developers create a lot of diverse, powerful spells without worrying about someone stacking them all at once. Having more powerful spells to choose from is fun and lets me make my spell casters different from each other.

Minor Point 1 - I wish they had a few more non-concentration control spells like grease and blindness/deafness so we could have more diversity in non-concentration spells that aren't damage spells. I'd love to see some at spell levels 3-4. But that's a minor complaint compared to the good that concentration does for the game.

Minor point 2 - For dancing lights, I think you could remove concentration if you made it an action to move the lights instead of a bonus action.

[EggKookoo]

The plethora of concentration spells really underscores that 5e was balanced around many small fights during the adventuring day. If you're mostly fighting mooks and such, having access to one spell at a time (within the concentration subset) feels less punishing. But it sucks when the party comes up against a real BBEG and wants to pull out all the stops. Maybe what spellcasters need is some kind of once-per-day ability to either ignore concentration or partially stack concentration spells for a short time. That would allow me as a DM to throw a really powerful enemy at them and let them take all the safeties off of their spells, but not allow them to nova through everything else.

[Bobthewizard]

The plethora of concentration spells really underscores that 5e was balanced around many small fights during the adventuring day. If you're mostly fighting mooks and such, having access to one spell at a time (within the concentration subset) feels less punishing. But it sucks when the party comes up against a real BBEG and wants to pull out all the stops. Maybe what spellcasters need is some kind of once-per-day ability to either ignore concentration or partially stack concentration spells for a short time. That would allow me as a DM to throw a really powerful enemy at them and let them take all the safeties off of their spells, but not allow them to nova through everything else.

You could potentially allow casters to ignore concentration on a spell by casting it 3 levels higher. That's the difference between web and transmute rock, or the level for major image to be cast without concentration. Bestow curse lets you do it 2 levels higher but to make it a blanket rule, I'd use 3.

It's costly so won't be used often, but would allow them to nova more in boss fights.

[Chaos Jackal]

I'd say part of the issue with concentration is how binary and inevitable it feels. There's more than a few spells where the matter of whether they are subpar or not hinges almost entirely on whether they are concentration or not. From an efficiency perspective, between any number of spells of the same level that have similar purposes (a personal combat buff, a single-target save-or-suck or a battlefield control effect for example) one or more spells are automatically consigned to uselessness, because if one effect is better and both have a concentration requirement there's no reason to ever use the weaker effect. Worse yet, strong spells with general and effective applications end up warping entire spell levels and even lists around them; look at hunter's mark and to a lesser extent hex, or spirit guardians.

And that assignment of weakness lasts forever, because generally speaking you can never get around concentration; outside of some pseudo-doubling like Twinned Spell and Arcane Abeyance and maybe some items that allow limited concentrationless casting like Blackrazor's personal haste you're never gonna dodge it and it never scales. Even monsters, who often can do things beyond PC ability, can't avoid concentration, except for some specific spells in specific cases. There's only one statblock I can think of that strictly says it can concentrate on any two spells with no limitation as to what those spells are, and that's Niv-Mizzet from Ravnica, a very specific, very powerful being from a book that many tables don't even consider when playing. At the same time, the number of concentration spells available to a character increases rapidly, locking out ever more options because your concentration limit never changes.

Concentration on the whole isn't a bad idea, but how widespread it is combined with how inflexible it is can make it really frustrating.

[PhoenixPhyre]

You could potentially allow casters to ignore concentration on a spell by casting it 3 levels higher. That's the difference between web and transmute rock, or the level for major image to be cast without concentration. Bestow curse lets you do it 2 levels higher but to make it a blanket rule, I'd use 3.

It's costly so won't be used often, but would allow them to nova more in boss fights.

Nova is already a significant issue in imbalance--those who can nova are better in that environment than those who can't. Instead, make boss fights that don't devolve into rocket tag. Those are more interesting for more people anyway.

[EggKookoo]

Concentration on the whole isn't a bad idea, but how widespread it is combined with how inflexible it is can make it really frustrating.

I would be much happier with a "break concentration at a cost."

My only main issue with requiring a higher casting level, especially at 3 higher, is that many builds just don't have slots that high. The artificer in my group is 7th level and has 1st and 2nd level slots. I don't tend to play much past 10th level. A per-day use or something along those lines would work better. I'll have to let it mull.

[Bobthewizard]

My only main issue with requiring a higher casting level, especially at 3 higher, is that many builds just don't have slots that high. The artificer in my group is 7th level and has 1st and 2nd level slots. I don't tend to play much past 10th level. A per-day use or something along those lines would work better. I'll have to let it mull.

The spells are balanced with the existing concentration rules. 1st and 2nd level is easy to make this point. Grease at 1st and blindness at 2nd are decent spells only because they don't require concentration. If you let someone cast Tasha's hideous laughter, suggestion, web, or levitate with no concentration, those are miles ahead of grease or blindness.

I wouldn't do what you are proposing personally, but if you want to, make sure the martial players are on board. It might make them much less relevant. Also, make sure you announce it before people pick their spells. If I had taken grease, blindness, and transmute rock, I'd be upset if you let others cast levitate with no concentration.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'll note that "allowing people to concentrate on more than one thing" is one of the (few) things specifically called out in the DMG as "probably shouldn't mess with this unless you really know what you're doing and are willing to bear the breakage that will likely ensue."

And it's one reason that things like rings of spell storing, Arcane Abeyance, etc are notably more broken than usual.

[Boci]

I'll note that "allowing people to concentrate on more than one thing" is one of the (few) things specifically called out in the DMG as "probably shouldn't mess with this unless you really know what you're doing and are willing to bear the breakage that will likely ensue."

And it's one reason that things like rings of spell storing, Arcane Abeyance, etc are notably more broken than usual.

Eh, that's maybe good advice for game design as a whole but often gets overemphasized when considering individual groups. Plenty of things that would be broken or problematic in the game as a whole can work fine in indevidual groups. I played a high elf rogue that could sneak attack with their cantrips and it worked fine for the group we were in.