Probably the most broken aspect of the game in early access is concentration. With dozens of spells that rely on maintaining it in order to be anywhere close to balanced the number of factors that need to be fixed are quite a few!
In no particular order:
Going prone should at most cause a check and absolutely should not end concentration without even a save. In my endevour to make concentration spells function as, hopefully, intended I have I tried to build with items specifically for that aim and finally gave up when I discovered the boots that prevent the prone status while concentrating do not appear work.
Instances of damage should result in one concentration check. Getting hit by a gith sword should not be one for the slashing damage and then a second for the additional psycich. Being shot by a fire arrow should be one check, with an additional one the next turn if you're still burning. The only time an opponent should cause more than one roll is if it is lvl 5 with extra attack and hits you twice. Or possibly on spells such as magic missile, though in 5e rules as written this is questionable and for the sake of game balance (given the large number of opponents neccessairy to make interesting fights in a video game) this should probably not be a thing.
This is more a balance choice than broken mechanic but on the subject of large numbers of opponents, these already push the concentration mechanic to braking point. They should not be combined with numerous elemental arrows etc that guarentee damage on a miss, followed by damage again from burning etc on the next round. I'm not trying to suggest fights be easier, infact I'm hoping for harder difficulty options on release, but rather the balance should be such as to not destroy the value of half of the games spells.
Lastly the two feats to help with concentration need to be added. I can see that warcaster (i believe it is called) would be difficult to impliment because of some of its additional features, though I hope at least some version of it makes it into the game. At least advantage on concentration saves alone can't be hard to add as there is already armour in the game that does this. The feat that grants constitution save proficency and plus 1 con I don't see being difficult at all though. One or other of these feats would be an automatic pick at lvl 4 for any concentration spell caster who wants to be anywhere close to the action.
As a final note I would add that the spells in table top are quite carefully balanced in terms of concentration. Before lvl 4 a spell like Bless gives value while also improving your chance of maintaining it before aquiring one of the feats mentioned, while the clerics bread and butter spell spiritual weapon doesn't require concentration for a reason and it's absence in early access really hits the cleric class hard. Similar to this flaming sphere would be a great spell to allow wizards to compete but again their most important defensive spell- Shield is missing which would, at least if the large number of guarenteed damage sources were removed allow them to function before lvl 4.
I understand why some of these things havn't been added. Shield would of course have been really difficult to impliment before the patch 9 reaction system, but I truly hope these problems are fixed for releae. Untill then these issues make all but the direct damage options, be they martial or magical, the only viable choices and for me have meant that after many hours of experimention I am done with early access as I find it too frustrating trying to make builds work as I hope they are intended to. Another patch before release to address these issues would be nice, but these problems absolutely need to be fixed for full release in my opinion.
Last edited by Rats_in_the_Wall; 30/03/23 11:48 PM.
