too many concentration spells

[Powercrank]

is 5e actually like this? if you only have 1 caster they practically cant do anything fun. i mean, even web is a concentration spell in this game. How does that even make sense? especially considering that grease is not a concentration spell. why do the webs magically disappear after being summoned but grease doesn't?

[fwhite0782]

Concentration is the gate to stacking multiple powerful spell effects. If that rule didn't exist Clerics would be unbeatable. 70 percent of their spell list is concentration for that reason.

[shadejh]

Just write to the creator of DnD rules. The game only apply these rules.

[Jan]

Either this or you have Pathfinder where you precast 30 buffs before each fight :D.

[guppy]

This was introduced with 5e If I remember correctly - mainly to solve the issue of overbuffing, it was quite anoying at first but you get used to it.

[Sentient_Toaster]

*Real* D&D doesn't use surfaces. Grease actually doing anything at all except

Slick grease covers the ground in a 10-foot square centered on a point within range and turns it into difficult terrain for the duration.

When the grease appears, each creature standing in its area must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or fall prone. A creature that enters the area or ends its turn there must also succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or fall prone.

is Larian's Divinity-style game design, not D&D.

That's *all* it's supposed to do: slow down enemies (difficult terrain) and potentially cause victims to fall down. It doesn't coat them in oil and make them vulnerable to fire, etc.

Many strong spells are concentration because if they weren't, then casters would be completely busted.

[Noin Trongaz]

I see this as one of the weakest points, actually. Considering you can only concentrate on one spell at the time, a lot of spells will simply never be used because there are much better alternatives. The paladin has a +1-4 divine damage for three turns, with concentration. Why would you waste your spell slot, your bonus action and risk it being immidiately interrupted, if you can cast something more meaningful?
Also, as you mentioned, the balance is all over the place. Some of the better spells don't require concentration while some of the weakest spells as they are do, like mirror image vs shield of faith.
Summons don't require concentration and don't even disappear if you are down, and these are already some of the strongest spells you have.

[shogunsmurf]

You should get more spell slots on higher levels and there perks that allow you to cast more per turn.

[CloudKira]

5E was meant to be nerfed compared to 3E in order to make all classes more balanced I hear so casters were fairly weakened.

[Hobocop]

It is, and it means you need to decide what spell is best for the situation instead of having forty cakes and eating them, too.

Casters still pop off hard at higher levels, just not as hard as they typically do in older editions.

[Bernkastel]

Or rather you might have too many concentration spells prepared or chosen. Also web is a concentration spell in 5e. Such spells are usually concentration spells for the sake of balance because if they were not chaining them together would be busted

[jk2l]

yea concentrate is part of game balance, as concentration spell normally have strong ongoing effect come with it which introduce two type of balancing:

1) counter play, you can break concentration. e.g. if the BBEG use hold person on your party members, your martial character can break free your party members simply try to attack him few times
2) prevent stacking effect. for example shield of faith +2AC, haste +2AC...etc without concentration to prevent stacking, your character can turn into a god even at like lvl5

[Noin Trongaz]

Originally posted by guppy:

This was introduced with 5e If I remember correctly - mainly to solve the issue of overbuffing, it was quite anoying at first but you get used to it.

The only problem is that if you can chose only one buff, why would you chose a bad one? A lot of spells simply don't find any use as a result.
And some great buff/debuff spells don't require concentration and hence become a no-brainer.

[Makkura]

Originally posted by Sentient_Toaster:

*Real* D&D doesn't use surfaces. Grease actually doing anything at all except

Tbf a DM may use rules as it BG3 uses for surfaces. Having a wet floor and shocking an enemy on that surface having all others on the same surface be shocked is a reasonable resolution. If the group and DM agree on that, it is fine to do so.

[shadejh]

I remember playing a cleric and spend lot of time to cast all the buffs before starting to walk. So perhaps it's a way to avoid hyperbuff character and overcasting spells that can make the game kind of boring.

[Gracey Face]

Originally posted by Powercrank:

is 5e actually like this? if you only have 1 caster they practically cant do anything fun. i mean, even web is a concentration spell in this game. How does that even make sense? especially considering that grease is not a concentration spell. why do the webs magically disappear after being summoned but grease doesn't?

Yeah, 5e was made hypersimplistic to make it "more open to a greater range of players". Part of this was removing all of the buffing involved in 3e (and apparently 4e though I have no experience of that) and introducing the concentration system.

It's also the reason why every class basically plays the same, and why there's so few spells, and why to hit chances are basically the same from lvl 1 to lvl 20 (called "bounded accuracy"). 3e had such a huge variety of potential power levels you could build for characters that it potentially meant one player could be the only one who ever did anything in a campaign, making the other players feel useless and bad. By making every class an identical greyish blob everyone performs identically and so is identically valuable.

This gradual weakening of casters is something that has been going on since 2nd edition. 2nd edition casters were literal gods that could, for example, spawn armies of dragons out of their ass by lvl 8 or so. 3rd edition casters were piss weak compared to martials but still situationally powerful. 5e everything is the same.