Concentration - bug or feature?

[wizard1200]

If you get hit while casting a spell you SHOULD make a Concentration check against a DC of (10 + spell level + damage taken), but this is currently not the case and makes spellcasters very powerful.

[Tiltowait]

Yep. I found that out after my entire party hit the enemy caster for about 100 points or so and the caster made every single check. Something that is *impossible* at low to mid levels unless you have say a primary casting stat of 30+

[wizard1200]

Yep, it reduces the tactical options during a fight, because you should always be able to interrupt an enemy spellcaster.

The DC could be reduced to (10 + spell level x 2 + damage taken / 2) if some encounters would be too easy with this mechanic. This was our house rule, because the damage increases faster than the Concentration bonus.

[Eonwe]

You can definitely interrupt a spellcaster by hitting him in the face. I'm not sure of the exact roll you have to make in P:K, but you can fail it.

[wizard1200]

A spellcaster tries to cast defensively if you attack him and he can fail this check, but the DC does not increase with the inflicted damage in my opinion.

[Eonwe]

Originally posted by wizard1200:

A spellcaster tries to cast defensively if you attack him and he can fail this check, but the DC does not increase with the inflicted damage in my opinion.

Oh ok that sounds consistent with what's i've seen, and i agree the DC should increase with the damages received.

[Jeysie]

I'm curious about this because my experience has been similar to Eonwe's; I've both managed to cause enemy casters to miss their spells and sometimes had my own casters have their spells get tripped up. (Otherwise known as "Dangit Harrim...")

[Tiltowait]

RAW. If hit in combat: check is 10+spell level+damage taken.
Bonuses to check: caster level+primary casting stat+(maybe) feats.
So say I am fighting a level 7 druid casting spike stones (4th) and raging Amiri gets lucky and crits her for 38 damage.
The DC of the check is 10+4+38 or 52.
Even with a nat 20 this druid has to have a wisdom of oh...60 to get that other +25.

Oh let’s say she was a 10th level druid...that means a wisdom of only 54...

And we had 4 other folks hit for anywhere averaging about 20 each.

Well she made every single check.

She was not casting defensively (15+ 2x spell level)

[GainGround]

As far as I understand it, the game uses a liberalised, automatic defensive casting rule. If you would provoke an attack of opportunity for casting a spell, then you make a standard defensive casting roll: succeed, and you get the spell off without a hitch; fail, and you get the spell off anyway but you also take an attack of opportunity in the process. That's more generous than pen and paper, but at the same time, there's no five foot step rule here so a lot of casts that would be totally safe in pen and paper (because you can escape being threatened without disturbing your other actions) carry a measure of risk under this system.

There's no scaling for damage received because that's a very rare edge case in tabletop where everyone acts in turn order and most casting is begun and completed as part of a single character's turn. You'd only be forced to make rolls like that if someone readied an action to shoot at you when you cast instead of taking their own turn normally, or if you were taking damage on your own turn from being on fire or something. Letting people's normal attacks break spells because everyone's actions are being processed simultaneously would be a relatively oppressive interpretation of the game.

[Tiltowait]

Originally posted by GainGround:

As far as I understand it, the game uses a liberalised, automatic defensive casting rule. If you would provoke an attack of opportunity for casting a spell, then you make a standard defensive casting roll: succeed, and you get the spell off without a hitch; fail, and you get the spell off anyway but you also take an attack of opportunity in the process. That's more generous than pen and paper, but at the same time, there's no five foot step rule here so a lot of casts that would be totally safe in pen and paper (because you can escape being threatened without disturbing your other actions) carry a measure of risk under this system.

There's no scaling for damage received because that's a very rare edge case in tabletop where everyone acts in turn order and most casting is begun and completed as part of a single character's turn. You'd only be forced to make rolls like that if someone readied an action to shoot at you when you cast instead of taking their own turn normally, or if you were taking damage on your own turn from being on fire or something. Letting people's normal attacks break spells because everyone's actions are being processed simultaneously would be a relatively oppressive interpretation of the game.

Actually per the combat dialog, made a DC38 concentration check, and then 3 more with the DC being the damage done after she was hit each time, the DC <>the pnp formula. Next round it stated she cast defensvely...and she only made one check.

[wizard1200]

Originally posted by GainGround:

As far as I understand it, the game uses a liberalised, automatic defensive casting rule. If you would provoke an attack of opportunity for casting a spell, then you make a standard defensive casting roll: succeed, and you get the spell off without a hitch; fail, and you get the spell off anyway but you also take an attack of opportunity in the process. That's more generous than pen and paper, but at the same time, there's no five foot step rule here so a lot of casts that would be totally safe in pen and paper (because you can escape being threatened without disturbing your other actions) carry a measure of risk under this system.

There's no scaling for damage received because that's a very rare edge case in tabletop where everyone acts in turn order and most casting is begun and completed as part of a single character's turn. You'd only be forced to make rolls like that if someone readied an action to shoot at you when you cast instead of taking their own turn normally, or if you were taking damage on your own turn from being on fire or something. Letting people's normal attacks break spells because everyone's actions are being processed simultaneously would be a relatively oppressive interpretation of the game.

Reach weapons or ranged weapons would enable a character to interrupt a spellcaster if he uses a five foot step.

Yep, that was another reason why we changed the Concentration DC to (10 + spell level x 2 + damage taken / 2):

Caster level 10 + casting ability bonus 6 = 16
Damage = 20
Regular DC for a level 3 spell = 10 + 3 + 20 = 33 (A roll of 17+ would be required)
Regular DC for a level 5 spell = 10 + 5 + 20 = 35 (A roll of 19+ would be required)
Modified DC for a level 3 spell = 10 + 3 x 2 + 20 / 2 = 26 (A roll of 10+ would be required)
Modified DC for a level 5 spell = 10 + 5 x 2 + 20 / 2 = 30 (A roll of 14+ would be required)

Originally posted by Tiltowait:

Actually per the combat dialog, made a DC38 concentration check, and then 3 more with the DC being the damage done after she was hit each time, the DC <>the pnp formula. Next round it stated she cast defensvely...and she only made one check.

It could be a bug or it was perhaps the first turn of the caster and he was not able to cast defensively, because his initiative was lower.

[wizard1200]

The bonus of the Combat Casting feat could be applied to the Concentration check to make it easier. This was another house rule, because the regular bonus of the Combat Casting feat applies only to Concentration checks when casting defensively.

[Tiltowait]

Yep. Bottom line, don’t use pnp tactics in Kingmaker and expect them to work :). If only they published these Kingmaker rules...

[Lminith]

This is really weird in Pathfinder: Kingmaker because you can play it as real time or turn based, but TB isn't like older CRPG's on RTwP which had all rounds simultaneous and could be defined to auto pause after each round.

If you play TB you can use 5 steps and cast freely without any concentration check (unless u're surrounded).
If you play RT you can be interrupted mid casting by getting hit and fail concentration check.

So the value of Combat Casting feat for instance depends a lot on how you're playing.