# Forum > Gaming > Roleplaying Games > D&D 5e/Next >  Suspending concentration: better balanced than concentrating on more than one thing?

## Segev

Concentration is a dangerous mechanic to mess with. Anything that allows more than one thing at a time is a risk of opening the door to another and another until the mechanic all but loses meanings and even two things at once could be overpowered, depending on what those two things are.

What, however, about being able to suspend concentration on one thing in order to invoke another for a short time, then drop the new thing and resume the first?

Thus came up to my mind when I was contemplating the at-will _detect magic_ from Drow High Magic. Making it not take ten minutes to have it whenever you want is something that, while not playstype-defining, changes things in interesting ways. However, it is still a concentration spell, and thus breaks concentration on any other active spell that uses it. 

But what if you could suspend concentration on that "other"  spell, without losing it and requiring another casting to recover its effects? Say you're maintaining a _fly_ spell you used to fly across a chasm to take a look at a set of doors, and you want to determine if the doors have any magic on them. If you could suspend the _fly_ spell, cast _detect magic_, and then drop _detect magic_ and resume the _fly_ spell. As-is, you would have to drop the _fly_ spell, leaving you stuck if you couldn't cast another one.

Now, I am not proposing this as a freebie, blanket rule. But rather as some sort of thing to buy. Maybe a metamagic? Certainly would be play-altering for sorcerers who choose it. Maybe a feat or class feature? I am open to suggestions. 

But would it be broken to have it exist at all?

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## Samayu

I assume your intention is that the spell duration not count the turns it was suspended. A ten-round spell can be up for five rounds, suspended for ten, the back up for five more rounds. If so, how long can you suspend it? Sounds like it would be best for the spell to end at its normal duration regardless of whether it has been suspended.

Separate concentration rolls for the sustained and suspended spells? Can you suspend more than one spell at a time? Can you suspend a spell that you had readied in wait for a trigger?

What kind of action should be required to suspend or resume a spell? I can picture all kinds of shenanigans dropping walls or various sorts of shields, or darkness, momentarily. 
Wizard: "I use a bonus action to suspend my Darkness spell."
Ranger, fighter and rogue, simultaneously: "I use my readied action to shoot the now-visible target."
Wizard: "I use my action to resume the Darkness spell."

What happens when Charm is suspended? Does the target then realize they were charmed? And what happens when the charm resumes?

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## KorvinStarmast

> Concentration is a dangerous mechanic to mess with.


 Standard response is "don't mess with what isn't broken"  Concentration is a good constraint. 

Are there some things (barkskin, shield of faith) that do not need to be concentration? Yes.

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## BaronCorvo

D&D forums are full of complaints about caster-martial power imbalance, so I don't understand why you'd want to buff casters. Concentration is a great way to keep spellcasting in check, even if there are a few spells where people debate the need for concentration.

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## Segev

> I assume your intention is that the spell duration not count the turns it was suspended. A ten-round spell can be up for five rounds, suspended for ten, the back up for five more rounds. If so, how long can you suspend it? Sounds like it would be best for the spell to end at its normal duration regardless of whether it has been suspended.
> 
> Separate concentration rolls for the sustained and suspended spells? Can you suspend more than one spell at a time? Can you suspend a spell that you had readied in wait for a trigger?
> 
> What kind of action should be required to suspend or resume a spell? I can picture all kinds of shenanigans dropping walls or various sorts of shields, or darkness, momentarily. 
> Wizard: "I use a bonus action to suspend my Darkness spell."
> Ranger, fighter and rogue, simultaneously: "I use my readied action to shoot the now-visible target."
> Wizard: "I use my action to resume the Darkness spell."
> 
> What happens when Charm is suspended? Does the target then realize they were charmed? And what happens when the charm resumes?


Good questions.

I think what I'm thinking is that the duration ticks down even while you're suspending concentration, but you're _not_ concentrating on it, so if your concentration on something else breaks, the suspended thing is still "fine." 
I think it should probably be an action to suspend the spell, and another action to resume it. This isn't intended to be a combat thing, except possibly if you're ambushed and want to suspect a utility buff for a combat effect or few. Maybe even a rule about not being able to resume a thing on the same round you suspend it. Possibly tie it specifically to casting something else that uses concentration. 

Actually, I like that: when you have this capability (feat, class feature, or whatever it winds up being), you may cast a concentration spell while concentrating on something else; the first thing you were concentrating on is suspended for the duration of the new effect, but duration ticks down on both of them. It resumes at the start of your next turn after the  new effect ends.

So, for instance, if you had _invisibility_ up, and cast _detect magic_, you'd turn visible upon casting _detect magic_, could look at whatever you wanted to detect the magic on, then end the _detect magic_ effect to resume concentration on the _invisibility_ at the start of your next turn. Breaking concentration on the _detect magic_ spell doesn't prevent resuming concentration at the start of your next turn.




> D&D forums are full of complaints about caster-martial power imbalance, so I don't understand why you'd want to buff casters. Concentration is a great way to keep spellcasting in check, even if there are a few spells where people debate the need for concentration.


Mainly as a means of saving spell slots, rather than as a means of stacking buffs.

It is an increase to their power, but not in a way that, I think, steps in any way on martial toes. Other than possibly speaking from envy, which means you're never allowed to come up with a new spell because that, too, is empowering casters.

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## PhoenixPhyre

> Mainly as a means of saving spell slots, rather than as a means of stacking buffs.
> 
> It is an increase to their power, but not in a way that, I think, steps in any way on martial toes. Other than possibly speaking from envy, which means you're never allowed to come up with a new spell because that, too, is empowering casters.


Saving spell slots directly increases power because it removes (even more) the operational resource cost. Which is just about the only cost left. It makes them get closer to the "all day" part of martials, which _does_ step on their toes. Because now it's "I'm all day too...with stuff calibrated for limited use!".

And no, casters don't need any new spells for a good long time. In fact, they need to have a bunch of the dead and broken crap pruned first. Piling more crap on top of a mess just makes things worse. And I'd say that even if everyone were a caster (so no disparity). Spellcasting is a hot mess that's the source of 99.98% of all the problems in D&D.

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## Psyren

> It is an increase to their power, but not in a way that, I think, steps in any way on martial toes. Other than possibly speaking from envy, which means you're never allowed to come up with a new spell because that, too, is empowering casters.


I don't think it's at all fair to equate messing with the concentration rules and designing new spells. Putting aside that the most powerful spells in the game are core anyway, new spells are a lot easier to evaluate at a glance (or ignore) than a fundamental spellcasting rule change, and they're easier to balance too as you can adjust their slot level, list, and other parameters.

In short - I'm with KorvinStarmast on this one.

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## Segev

Just to be clear, I am not proposing a fundamental rules change. This isn't something I am saying should be inherently part of spellcasting and concentration spells.

I am looking at whether it's viable as a class feature, feat, or something else.

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## stoutstien

I think it could work  for a half caster or slower spell slot progression

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## PhoenixPhyre

> Just to be clear, I am not proposing a fundamental rules change. This isn't something I am saying should be inherently part of spellcasting and concentration spells.
> 
> I am looking at whether it's viable as a class feature, feat, or something else.


If I were going to do this, it'd be for a specific class, referencing specific spells. So you might have an Invocation (or similar) that says "you can cast Detect Magic at will and suspend concentration." But it only works for that one spell, from that one class.

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## Chronos

OK, so first off, the design intent seems to be most relevant for spells with an hour or longer duration, that you can cast in one combat and plausibly still have up in the next combat.  And a large chunk of those are summons.  Does the summoned creature blink out when you suspend, and then blink back in when you unsuspend?  Where?  If it's at the spot where it blinked out, then it's not much use, but if it's at your current location, then it enables things like taking gargantuan monsters through medium-scale doors.

And then there are also some summons that don't go away immediately when concentration ends, but which stick around uncontrolled.  That's another can of worms.

But then, let's also look at spells that are usually only used in combat.  Some spells are things that you'd ideally only want up sometimes (like on the enemies' turns), but not at other times (like on your party's turns).  A spell that creates a wall, or difficult terrain, or a damaging area, or the like, becomes _much_ more powerful if you can turn it off and back on again, even if it takes an action or the like.

Or for spells which only effect enemies, when you turn it back on, do they get a new save?  What if something happens while it's suspended that _would_ have given them a new save, or ended the effect outright?  Could you, say, Hypnotic Pattern a group of enemies, then suspend it so an ally can Fireball them, and then un-suspend it for any who survived?

Overall, I think this idea has way too many moving parts and edge cases, all of which needed to addressed, resulting in a big jumbled mess of ruley-wuley stuff.

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## Psyren

> Just to be clear, I am not proposing a fundamental rules change. This isn't something I am saying should be inherently part of spellcasting and concentration spells.
> 
> I am looking at whether it's viable as a class feature, feat, or something else.


Noted. With that in mind:

Class features that mess with concentration broadly, I'm not in favor of. (I think Chronurgist is badly designed and unlike to see play at our tables.) Waiving concentration limitations on specific spells (e.g. Fey Wanderer) or loosening them for specific schools (e.g. Conjurer) is a different matter.

As a feat it could potentially be more palatable, the problem is that it's too powerful if it can do things like suspend a spells countdown or Action Surge-suspend-salvo from party-resume. And that's just one of the myriad use cases you'd have to devote a lot of development (and playtest!) time to, for seemingly very little benefit to the game as a whole. As others have said, it gives casters even more options that martials can't access, for a function that nobody really needs or has been clamoring for.

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## BRC

I wonder if there isn't room for a way to cast a concentration spell, trading the concentration requirement for a one-round duration. 

Like, in the example of Detect Magic and Fly, you get six seconds of detect magic (Still spending the full spell slot). Or, you might be able to cast Hold Person on an orc while keeping up your Invisibility, but you're just robbing them of a single action.

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## Chronos

Paladins would love that.  Keep your concentration on something else, and still get in smiting spells for extra damage.

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## JohnDaBarr

I HATE concentration with a burning passion.
Yes, yes, I know! Martial's are at a disadvantage compared to casters and they should be buffed/fixed/made better or comparable with casters. For starters, stop making spells that are better than class features!

With that said, the reason I hate concentration is because it made casters lot less fun to play and from a game design point it made spellcasting as a whole less balanced. That damn mechanic made comboing spells impossible. And, even worse, forced designers in making spells that have to be strong and powerful because when you can have just one spell active it's use must be justified by its usefulness. Even then... there are like 3-4 concentrations people use 90% of the time and the rest are described as "quaint" and "interesting".

Rant over.



As for you question OP there are couple options.

First, just take the spell list and simply remove the concentration tag from certain spells form your game. Balance it by increasing material components.
Second, apply the ritual casting option. That is, concentration spells cast as ritual take up a spell slot, but no longer have concentration tag. Allows combining spells, but limits use in combat and forces players to think, plan and prepare.
Third, allow concentration spells to lose the concentration tag if people upcast them by one or two levels. Can be fun and if someone complains "how do we end the spell effect?" inform them that Dispel Magic exists (probably the most under utilized utility spell ever).

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## Kane0

> What, however, about being able to suspend concentration on one thing in order to invoke another for a short time, then drop the new thing and resume the first?
> 
> But would it be broken to have it exist at all?


Seems perfectly reasonable. You are after all not getting two concentration spells running at once so its just a neat feature to be able to pause without losing/wasting the cast/slot.

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## Schwann145

There's a feat in one of the Critical Role books (Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting iirc) that allows you to concentrate on two spells at once instead of just one, but at the end of each turn where you're doing so you have to succeed at a role to maintain or you lose both spells.

IMO, that's the way to do it: Make it possible, make it so you're actually interacting with the mechanics instead of just getting a thing or not, and make it failable.

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## nalgarryn

Make it expensive and situational:

Feat:
*Suspended Sorcery*: When you are concentrating on a spell with a range of Self, you may spend X sorcery points to suspend the spell. While the spell is suspended, you are free to cast other spells you would normally be able to cast, and hold concentration on a different spell. While suspended, the duration of the original spell continues to be consumed by the passing of time. Spells have no effect while suspended and may be restored to concentration at any time as a free action.

Spells with a range of Self which require concentration:
*Spoiler*
Show

Friends	Cantrip
Detect Evil and Good	1st
Detect Magic	1st (rit.)
Detect Poison and Disease	1st (rit.)
Divine Favor	1st
Ensnaring Strike	1st
Expeditious Retreat	1st
Hail of Thorns	1st
Searing Smite	1st
Thunderous Smite	1st
Wrathful Smite	1st
Zephyr Strike	1st
Alter Self	2nd
Blur	2nd
Branding Smite	2nd
Detect Thoughts	2nd
Flame Blade	2nd
Kinetic Jaunt	2nd
Locate Object	2nd
Pass without Trace	2nd
Shadow Blade	2nd
Warding Wind	2nd
Wristpocket	2nd (rit.)
Ashardalon's Stride	3rd
Blinding Smite	3rd
Lightning Arrow	3rd
Melf's Minute Meteors	3rd
Spirit Shroud	3rd
Vampiric Touch	3rd
Guardian of Nature	4th
Locate Creature	4th
Shadow of Moil	4th
Staggering Smite	4th
Banishing Smite	5th
Dispel Evil and Good	5th
Far Step	5th
Mislead	5th
Scrying	5th
Tree Stride	5th
Eyebite	6th
Find the Path	6th
Investiture of Flame	6th
Investiture of Ice	6th
Investiture of Stone	6th
Investiture of Wind	6th
Primordial Ward	6th
Tasha's Otherworldly Guise	6th
Tenser's Transformation	6th
Draconic Transformation	7th
Holy Aura	8th
Invulnerability	9th
Shapechange	9th


Alternatively you may want to consider flavour-wise adding it as a sort of crafted thing, like glass balls, that can hold a suspended spell. Make it like ritual spells and make it essentially usable only outside of combat. That would be more on-brand for an Artificer.

Or if you want to get even crazier, make it cost Ki points, which basically guarantees a spellcaster/monk multiclass which is so MAD it can't be OP! :D

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