Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Concentration spells seem to be useless in BG3

I've been getting a lot of mileage out of Hungry Hungry Hadar (Hunger of Hadar) using Wyll; it creates difficult terrain with damage but crucially blocks vision so enemies can't just jump or teleport out of it, unlike Spike Growth which is basically useless in BG3. Combined with Devil's Sight Wyll can then just take up cover and pop out to eldritch blast anything trapped in the area.

But yeah, there's a definite problem with maintaining concentration given the quantity of enemies, and number of enemies even in early areas that have multiple attacks, spells and/or AoE items like arrows or bombs; with War Caster I managed to make eight concentration saves in a row on a character, but that was the exception not the rule, mostly my spells were wasted on the round I cast them, especially if I spent a higher level slot on them.

Because Larian want us to us DOS mechanics for the fights (Potions, explovisv barrels, molotow cocktails ...) they are unwilling to implement D&D battle mechanics and spells properly because they are unable to break with their beloved DOS.

I think it really depends on the spell. Some really useful spells suffer from it and it's not worth the spellpoint cost, haste for example. On the other side some really powerfull spells can be countered by trying to concentrait on the caster. Downside the AI has the same idea which is especially a problem when they outnumber you. But I learned to take it and make the best out of it. Very often because they want to focus your spellcaster I try to position him in a way the rest of my team have an easier way to target the enemies instead. If the area allows it I also tend to hit and run with the spellcaster and buff his defences with abilities from others.

That's what a Warcaster feat (partially) is for.

I picked warcaster. Still get my concentration broken more often than not

Tried it on all difficulties and concentration spells are still useless. Larian was unable to change the AI for the new combat mechanic so they just nerfed concentration spells. As long as all enemies can throw molotowcocktails, jump or fly over the battlefield and have Rambos explosive arrows, concentration spells will be useless. Even if they knock you over you will lose concentration.

Concentration spells have problems, but are not (entirely) useless. It depends on the circumstances and the surroundings. If you can get the caster out of immediate access of the enemy, concentration spells can be great still. For example in buildings where you can block doors and hide behind walls.

Pity they chose this system to avoid stacking buffs. They should at least allow castersy to concentrate on more than one spell. Maybe 1/2 of the casting ability. And to avoid stacking buff just make the highest take effect. Problem solved .

But playing my second time with a caster i looked especially for concentration breaks. For some reaso NPCs have it easier to maintain it.

All in all most enemy NPCs are not true to the rules anyway. Just look at the stats of the lvl 2 npcs in the first crypt. Most have 18 on the main ability...which should not be possible with the rules we PCs have to use.

In all other DnD games concentration spells are working everywhere.

Use invisibility potions, run to safe locations, things like that. Concentration spells are great, I have won several battle using hunger of Hadar and cantrips as my only spells. You just have to play smarter

Add to this the notion that the casters most inclined to use concentration spells in the first place are Pact of Blade Warlocks, and it seems at least a little more annoying I suppose.
Their whole thing is being a melee combatant while having some suped up Warlock concentration spell active (or just hex), which means you aren't doing any of the things others casters might do to avoid being hit.

Ur doing it wrong then. You want to cast something like darkness, invisibillity, Blurr or Mirror Image on yourself before going into concentration. Once your Concentration Spell is up, your only job is basically to maintain it with this character.

In the beginning of the fight you can cast Darkness on your entire Group with another character. Then with your turn, you can move out of darkness, cast your concentration spell, and move back in. Also throwing a couple of summons into the enemies face can help. They usually stick to it, like a dog to bone, even on Tactician.

So i have to have two caster? One for concentration and one for protecting the concentration one with darkness etc.? I am glad that we can have six companions in the party. Oh we can't. Only four.

This is why potions are more powerful than spells.

Hopefully there will be a mod at some point that simply removes concentration from all spells.

Also potions are not more powerful, most of them say they will replace other potion buffs.

Larian for whatever reason are anti buffs, anti crowd control, anti everything that isnt evocation damage pew pew pew fireballs.

I don't get what problem people have with concentration spells at all. It's a key component of balance in 5e and as far as I can tell it's been rather faithfully implemented. If it wasn't casters would be bonkers OP. Yes, that means you have to take steps to defend the casters with stuff like Sentinel, enviromentals, layered spell defense, etc, but that's part of the tactical play. The only thing missing compared to 5e is cover. Not being able to cover for another +2 or +5 to AC, along with high ground archers getting +2 on attack, can mean anywhere from +2 to +9 increased chance to hit. Which is pretty massive tbh.

Given that cover isn't it, ranged attacks REALLY shouldn't get +2 to attack from higher ground, as it isn't part of the rules and skews the likelihood to hit. Archers sniping casters is a pain (melee you should manage) so when a 5e core mod comes around I trust it takes away the silly +2 to ranged attacks from higher ground and allow me to drop prone to impose disadvantage on ranged attack. See, if they just stuck to the 5e rules it would actually just have been MUCH better for the casters defensively speaking. The issue isn't concentration, the issue is deviating from other rules.

I don't agree that concentration was faithfully implemented.

Damage is applied by increment rather than total, so I regularly have to do 2-3 con saves on a single attack. You lose concentration on being prone, on any hard cc (paralysis for example) and also, constitution modifiers are not always applied to the save (this may be a bug, but i've seen it a few times).

I see I haven't payed sufficient attention to the combat log in my 50 hours of play. Rolling for each damage type/instance is indeed pretty bad. I realise it's necessary to account for damage reduction and such, but I find it hard to believe they can't then summarize the damage dealt and roll against that once.

I generally avoid Concentration spells because of the issues with the rules. I think a corresponding change to Concentration is merited.

For example, I think you could make Concentrate a Skill instead of a CON save, making it take a little more work to optimize but with bigger payoff. You could then take an Action to "Focus Concentration" to gain Advantage on saves to Maintain Concentration. War Caster could give you Expertise in Concentrate, plus the Shocking Grasp benefit, and you can use Maintain Concentration as a Bonus Action (but you'd still be pretty good without the Concentrate Action because of Expertise). You could do the same thing without making Concentrate a Skill, but it seems like a Proficiency Slot is about what the upgrade is worth (not a whole additional feat). And you could perhaps impose Disadvantage (canceled if you Focus Concentration) if you try to maintain two spells.

Pardon me for saying so, but this seems like a very convoluted way to fix something that is much more easily fixed by staying true to the rules. It should be one check when hit, always add con, allow me to drop prone to hide from arrows. A fighter with defensive style, a spear and sentinel + polearm master would then be all the defense a wizard needs. We don't need to invent something new, Larian just needs to do 5e rules justice.