Solasta Solasta II - coming to Early Access in 2025

[scytheavatar]

Sort of related to the earlier discussion of attunement, the system that kills me is concentration. I don't mind some spells getting blown up through damage, etc. but imo fewer spells should be concentration based or the system should be tweaked.

Having to choose between bless or bane or faerie fire or heat metal, for instance, is odd. The advantage/disadvantage system and rules around modifier stacking already removes most abusive mechanics, but being hamstrung on casting choices when the implemented spell list is already fairly thin doesn't feel great.

Even if you could concentrate on a number of spells equal to half your level round up or something like a slot for buffs and a slot for debuffs. Or more simply adjusting how many spells have the concentration tag. I think any of those would be an improvement.

agree. too many spells are concentration, makes the cleric class especially weaker than it should be.

The whole point of concentration is to nerf magic. Magic as it is in 3.5E/Pathfinder 1E is way too strong and the ability to stack 100 spells is the biggest reason for that. In those systems spellcasters run the game and martials are there to pick flowers. Concentration forces spellcasters to be more strategic with which spells to cast while still allowing spells to be strong.

 

[0sacred]

could just have limited resting

oh wait they tried that too

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

The whole point of concentration is to nerf magic. Magic as it is in 3.5E/Pathfinder 1E is way too strong and the ability to stack 100 spells is the biggest reason for that. In those systems spellcasters run the game and martials are there to pick flowers. Concentration forces spellcasters to be more strategic with which spells to cast while still allowing spells to be strong.

The concentration mechanic nerfed magic to such an extent that most spells are mutually exclusive, since they require a character's concentration that can only be maintained for a single spell at a time. If magic was overpowered due to buffing of player-characters with multiple spells prior to combat, there were various other ways of ameliorating this problem while still permitting the player-characters to usefully cast spells during combat. The attunement mechanic is the same bungled approach to a perceived problem, where the designers thought too many magic items were being used by the PCs, so they required most items to be attuned to a specific character with a low limit to the number that could be attuned by each character at any time. It simply results results in an arbitrary waste, where player-characters can't utilize magic items in their possession whatsoever due to the attunement limits and similarly can't cast useful spells in combat because the concentration requirement conflicts with a concentration-dependent spell that has already been cast.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

It simply results results in an arbitrary waste, where player-characters can't utilize magic items in their possession whatsoever due to the attunement limits and similarly can't cast useful spells in combat because the concentration requirement conflicts with a concentration-dependent spell that has already been cast.

Clearly the solution is to run larger teams. You're not thinking big enough dude.

 

[mediocrepoet]

The whole point of concentration is to nerf magic. Magic as it is in 3.5E/Pathfinder 1E is way too strong and the ability to stack 100 spells is the biggest reason for that. In those systems spellcasters run the game and martials are there to pick flowers. Concentration forces spellcasters to be more strategic with which spells to cast while still allowing spells to be strong.

The concentration mechanic nerfed magic to such an extent that most spells are mutually exclusive, since they require a character's concentration that can only be maintained for a single spell at a time. If magic was overpowered due to buffing of player-characters with multiple spells prior to combat, there were various other ways of ameliorating this problem while still permitting the player-characters to usefully cast spells during combat. The attunement mechanic is the same bungled approach to a perceived problem, where the designers thought too many magic items were being used by the PCs, so they required most items to be attuned to a specific character with a low limit to the number that could be attuned by each character at any time. It simply results results in an arbitrary waste, where player-characters can't utilize magic items in their possession whatsoever due to the attunement limits and similarly can't cast useful spells in combat because the concentration requirement conflicts with a concentration-dependent spell that has already been cast.

The main mitigating factor to this is that it incentivizes using potions and items to get some of the concentration effects. In practice though, I agree with you, it just feels bad and "not D&D".

It's weird when you're picking spells basically on whether or not they require concentration (i.e. whether or not they'll actually be useful) and spend most of your caster's turns like a gimped martial.