Can understand your problems. In my opionons the concentration mechaic of D&D 5 makes the games much more challenging because the foes always try to kill my mage and so i am loosing concentration and my spells are useless. So i do not use protection spells anymore (of course i still have counter spell). Instead i am focusing on damage spells. Made a sorcerer who can casts two spells in one round which works great on tactican mode. Protection i get from potions (invisibilty etc.). So in PF:WotR it is much more easy to protect your companions because there is no concentration. On the other hand potions are not that useful than in BG3.