Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Concentration

Honestly so much about how D&D does magic just doesn't work for me. It never has. Vancian casting is, and has always been, awful to me. Now they've added this concentration limit thing on top of that, for officially the worst magic since basic D&D. Ugh.

The edition that did magic the way *I* would personally like it was 4th (I know, boo hiss). It was very well balanced with all the other classes; it had built-in limits to how much it could alter reality to prevent casters from breaking the game (with more powerful effects available through ritual casting); it could be used often and with less reliance on resting all the time (30-minute workday instead of 5-minute workday, at least); it gave casters (multiple) legitimately useful things to do with their magic every round, no matter how long fights went on (no more being a bad dart-thrower instead of a wizard); it was less complicated and let new players jump right in and just play a spellcaster and be effective without having to comb through 100 pages of spells first, trying to figure out what they all did and then remember all of that besides. People like having attack cantrips that they can cast all the time in 5e? Yeah, 4e gave us that. They were called at-wills, and they made casters 9999 times more fun to play (especially at low levels, which let's face it is the vast majority of where most D&D groups play at any given time).

As for video games, you know which one had an awesome magic system? Tyranny. Check out the magic in that game, it's so cool. You could design your own spells, you didn't have to rest to get magic back, it was just fun.

Honestly I am not a fan of casting in any of the D&D editions, but spellcasting the way I would do spellcasting is way too finicky for a tabletop game, where it would involve tracking lots of minor changes in order to maintain its immersion. Video games don't have this restriction, they can do all of that busywork, but unfortunately if you are making a D&D game you can't exactly go and completely rewrite spellcasters from the ground up to fix them, you need to stick to the rules. On the other hand, sadly it seems that in most cases, when a developer is not tied down to the D&D system, they opt for a more simple ruleset without as much depth as D&D, when this should not be the case.

Mana systems are something video games hold over tabletop, which are criminally misused. You can make very interesting mana systems for spellcasters which would heavily impact gameplay, for example, a modified version of the spirit eater curse in NWN 2 MotB, where the more mana you use, the more addicted you become to it and the more downsides there are. Or you could have a world where the main currency is the casting resource and so using magic always burns your money, which adds an interesting element to resource management where you must consider buying items or burning money.


I absolutely agree here, Tyranny's system was great and had a lot of potential.

I liked magic in Shadowrun, actually. At least the old editions, I dunno how it is now. Speaking of Shadowun 2nd edition, which is the one I played the most, you could cast any of your spells as often as you wished, and you could choose each time how powerful the spell would be, but then you had to resist Drain, which would fatigue your character (or even knock them unconscious, or in rare cases kill them if you tried to do too much). If you were careful and judicious with the power level of your spells, you could effectively cast forever, but if you tried to push it then you could mess yourself up. It was a lot of fun to play a mage in that game.

That's my position as well. Even if you find fault with 5th ed it should be implemented as WotC intended.

I think when the game moved to 2nd edition there was a backlash against powerful magic items and the conversations about "too many magic items" is an artifact of that move. The 3.75 ideal is "just as powerful naked".

But well designed magic items allow players break the rules without breaking the entire ruleset. If you want to concentrate on two spells at time then find the bracers of the divided mind. Think missing is boring? Let the players get their hands on +2 sword and you will be able to hit something without instituting something like AC reduction / HP bloat.

I mean if we can make reference to the 4th edition heresy we can also pull things from 1st and 2nd

If I was making a high magic fantasy setting, instead of trying to worry about balancing casters against non casters I would just make everyone a caster and then build society around that. I consider that to be one of D&D's greatest flaws. You are making a tabletop ruleset - which is supposed to be played by people, which means it needs to be balanced - and then you are trying to tell me that someone who can manipulate time and bend reality is supposed to be balanced in comparison to someone who can't? I almost feel like its a bad joke. From my PoV, if you want to keep immersion, you either need to have a world where everyone is a caster and then a "fighter" is just a caster who uses melee spells, then you can make a balanced world, or you throw balance out of the window and tell people, "if you want to play a fighter, just know you will suck."

This.

In the 2nd ed games I DM ed the fighters were the strongest class at the end. Especially the Paladins. At the point that the mage can stop time your fighter should have equally power items like a ring of 3 wishes and an artifact that has a number of spell like abilities.

Powerful magic items serve the same function that feats do but you aren't locked into them for the rest of your build. For me immersion comes from "adventurers are just rare birds"

I mean who really want to devote their life to crawling around in sewers hoping to find treasure in the guts of a carrion crawler?

Sure, as a DM you can do whatever you like and balance encounters that way. My issue isn't that they are unbalanced, my issue is trying to make them balanced in the first place. Just look at the real world for example, in the real world, there are very minor differences between people. Now look at the level of inequality that exists. D&D is proposing a system where the differences that exist between people are not minor, in fact, in some cases they are huge, but then its also going along and saying that the inequality which exists is not significantly worse than the real world. A system that has some people who use magic and others who do not should be, if it had any realism at all, a tyranny. There should be mage/cleric/druid/caster of choice rule, depending on which power holds sway in each region, over the entire of the forgotten realms. Thay should be the norm, not the exception. There shouldn't be a "fighter" in the first place, because in a system which allows for such power, those who have it would kill anyone who could potentially pose a threat long before they get around to actually posing a threat.

The forgotten realms is, in my opinion, far too naive about these things. In my opinion in such a universe, the only way for such an outcome to not happen is if magic is nowhere near as rare as it supposedly is in the forgotten realms - if essentially everyone has it. That way there are plenty of people who can act as a check against the power hungry, because power is essentially democratized.

As a writer and someone who dabbles a lot in designing my own roleplay systems as a hobby this is more or less the conclusion I came to as well. There are three ways to make a believable magic system in which all players are able to work on the same playing field without getting too gamey.

1. Everyone uses magic. This is the easiest option and the one I am most inclined to. Melee characters operate more like Shadowrun's Adept. Enhancing themselves with magic to superhuman levels so they can perform Herculean feats that rival the ability to shoot lightning from your fingers. There may be non-magical people in the world but they'd be commoners and foot soldiers, not the heroic adventurer sorts.

2. Make magic take a really, really long time to pull off. No cantrips. No instant fire balls. If a mage wants to summon a lightning bolt it is going to need a few minutes to prepare beforehand, leaving them vulnerable to a skilled warrior with a sword if they don't have some protections prepared. This, however, works very badly for an RPG. "I'll stand here and do nothing for ten rounds!" is not very satisfying even if it makes for great dramatic tension in a story.

3. Technology closes the gap. Another option I really like but one that isn't compatible with sword and sorcery style settings. This is another strength of Shadowrun as a setting. Guns equalize things. Even if you're a mage with incredible power you can still get shot in the head and die. A normal person with no magic can enhance their physicals were cybernetic upgrades and wield explosives and firearms if they intend to go up against someone powering themselves with magic. I'd say a cyborg with a plasma cannon for a right hand is a pretty even fight for a wizard that can shoot lightning from his fingertips.

Hmm. Okay first let's agree that the realms is a silly place that probably wouldn't operate as written with the rules as written. But let me make a defense lawyer's case for the realms:

If you did make a magical tyranny you would then become the subject of Bane. And that's a pretty awful thing to be as the Zents found out. There are consequences to forming tyrannies in the realms.

Once you establish yourself as a tyrant you become the target of the chaotic forces -- both good and evil. Use you fireball to hold the village council ransom and yourself targeted by harpers or the clergy of some church.

The idea that inequality would lead to tyranny assumes a certain theory or human nature that doesn't apply in the realms. Alignment determines actions and only certain people are drawn to dominate. Elminster -- like Gandalf -- could dominate but isn't interested in doing so.

And you've got the lessons from Nethril -- Nethril operated as set of tyrannical city states just as you described. But their form of organization led to their downfall. So the lessons of history also serve as check.

In the case of Shield of Faith, the only reason that I can think of for it to be concentration is because SOF paired with Bless would be a bit rigged.
You become less likely to get hit from spells and attacks, give an attack bonus to you and your allies, and get a bonus to keep concentration if you do get hit.

I get what you're saying about inconsistency with concentration across spells, but my gripe is more with the power imbalance between the spells themselves. If there's a concentration tag on it, it has to and should be able to compete with all the other conc. spells of that level.

If for instance, SOF applied to as many targets as Bless, there would be different scenarios where one spell would be better than another. You would have to make a choice between better defense against attacks vs more accuracy and spell defense. As is though, Bless gives 3 or more targets an accuracy and spell defense boost, to SOF's 1 target gets a defense boost.

I never prepare SOF because 9 times out of 10, Bless is just a better choice.

Was playing around in the Underdark tonight, and I wanted to say I am annoyed that going Prone always 100% breaks Concentration, without a Concentration check.

I once slipped on something, without taking a single point of damage, and lost Concentration on a spell I had cast a few seconds before. I had a Quicksave and some things deserve save scumming. :P

The reason SoF is concentration and Mage Armour is not is because SoF stacks with anything and everything - it's a flat bonus. Mage armour is not. It dispels if you wear armour, and it doesn't stack with other class features that give you alternate methods of calculating your AC. A monk with 16 Dex and 16 Wis would gain no benefit at all from mage armour... but they'd get +2 ac from Shield of faith. The application of concentration and non concentration effects is better balanced that you think. You just have to really examine the why of it sometimes.

For those curious, I'm hoping to make a more in depth post about it soon, but the reason that slipping prone auto-breaks you concentration with no save is because 'Prone' in Larian world also inflicts 'Unconscious' as part of itself... which in turn inflicts 'Incapacitated' as part of itself. Yes, it's completely ridiculous.