I am working on ways my bbeg wizard can do interesting things with magic and one idea is to give him a magic item that allows 2 concentration spells to be held at any one time.
The limitation would be that while both spells are held no other spell may be cast by the caster (he gets round this with a wand of magic missiles and a wand of fireballs).
Now as far as an npc enemy goes much of this use of 2 concentration spells will be used to keep illusions going, or control people etc in day to day life around the town. However I am very aware that if he has the item then potentially the party can get it, either by stealing it or killing him, one day.
So how unbalanced would it make the party magic users if they have an item that allows 2 concentration spells to be held at any one time, with the control that no other spell can be cast while doing so. If I tweaked it and allowed only cantrip s to be cast would this make it more unbalanced or fairer on the caster?
Consider how powerful it would be in the party's hand. And for that fight, it really depends on what spells the BBEG's concentrating on, but you could accomplish the same thing by giving the BBEG a simulacrum to cast and concentrate on the other spell if you want the BBEG to have two concentration spells going without giving that to the party after the fight.
I gave ridiculous homebrew magic items to my party early in my campaign, and I've had to significantly increase the difficulty of the encounters just to make them challenging (L13 party, but an encounter has to be (according to the chart) Hard or Deadly for a L15 party to be moderately challenging for my players. Given another shot at it, I'd not give them the OP magic items, but everyone's having fun so I'm not sweating it.
I think its worth considering why this needs to be a magic item at all. If you're concerned about it mechanically making your game more difficult to balance, there are plenty of ways you could allow your BBEG to circumvent the concentration rules without giving your players the ability to do the same. Could be that the BBEG has made a pact with some extraplanar entity, or maybe their just such a powerful archmage that they've figured out a unique way to do that and will not pass that knowledge on, etc... There is nothing that says NPCs have to work the same way that PCs do.
That being said, if you want your players to have the opportunity to do that, I think your cantrip idea sounds fine. I'm guessing your wizard will want to do something like cast Haste and Fly on a front line character, or Dominate Person / Hold Monster on two enemies, or two Polymorphs, etc... while just sitting back and tossing firebolts. There are a ton of combinations to consider here. You could also tweak it as this item allows you to cast _____ spell, and pick one or two spells, without requiring concentration. This might be a good way to have spells that are maybe less directly combat focused or less popular and give your players the opportunity to be creative with it.
I don't know much about spell casters of any kind. I've never played anything other than my 4th level Battle Master. I have looked at Warlocks a lot, but have yet to play one, and I have a friend who plays a Ranger in my game and asks me for advice now and then.
They are playing a Hunter Ranger, they have Colossus slayer, and Favored Foe. If the target is below it's max hit points, and it doesn't matter who cause the damage, they could use Hunter's Mark and Hail of Thorns on top of that.
Arrow - 1d8
Colossus Slayer - 1d8, once per turn
Favored Foe - 1d4
Hunter's Mark - 1d6
Hail of Thorns - 1d10 to the target and any other targets inside of 5 feet from them.
It's only an average of 17 near as I can figure, but that's pretty good for an arrow that starts out with a max of 8, your dex to modify it, and your proficiency modifier on top of that. Let's say that the Ranger we are talking about only had a 17 dex; she gets +3, adds +2 more from being proficient with a bow, +2 from the Archery Fighting style. That's +7 to hit. All that has to happen is for the target to be damaged, and she gets 17 extra points of damage. I don't know if you consider that much of an impact.
The player actually has an 18 dex, and the Alert feat. She can't be surprised, she gets +9 to initiative, and adds one more point to hit and damage. She gets +8 to hit, does 37 points of damage at max, and could crit on a natural 20 for 72 points of damage with an arrow. I've never seen her do more than 39 points of damage with a single arrow, and that may well have been a crit, so she probably should have done more damage than that.
My math is often shaky, my grasp of the rules isn't very good. Go ahead and check it all over and run the calculations. I'm sure I've missed a few things.
The limitation would be that while both spells are held no other spell may be cast by the caster (he gets round this with a wand of magic missiles and a wand of fireballs).
The wands above give you the ability to cast the spell, they don't cast the spell themselves. So your BBEG wouldn't be able to use them while concentrating on two spells.
The limitation would be that while both spells are held no other spell may be cast by the caster (he gets round this with a wand of magic missiles and a wand of fireballs).
The wands above give you the ability to cast the spell, they don't cast the spell themselves. So your BBEG wouldn't be able to use them while concentrating on two spells.
You could also tweak it as this item allows you to cast _____ spell, and pick one or two spells, without requiring concentration. This might be a good way to have spells that are maybe less directly combat focused or less popular and give your players the opportunity to be creative with it.
I think this is the most elegant solution to the problem... the magic item can only be used to cast one specific spell. It might force you to rethink some of your planning for the character, but it makes it much harder to completely bork the system by having the players recover an item that lets them make crazy combinations you hadn't considered when designing the item.
You could also just make it a Cursed magical item. That's pretty much the easiest way to introduce a magic item that's probably a bit too powerful so your enemies can have a cool ability. That or make recharging the magic item challenging or morally dubious... like, you need to soak it in the blood of a child to recharge it or something like that.
Just imagine that the NPC has along a minion who can cast the second concentration spell for him, but who then can't cast any other spells. That's essentially the same thing.
Is it overpowered, broken, unbeatable etc? No, of course not. It's just the same as having two enemies casting spells that they concentrate on, only less powerful because every hit on them will require a concentration check on both spells. A minion is actually better, as that means the BBEG can have 2 concentration spells up in one turn rather than taking 2 turns to cast them.
You could also just make it a Cursed magical item. That's pretty much the easiest way to introduce a magic item that's probably a bit too powerful so your enemies can have a cool ability. That or make recharging the magic item challenging or morally dubious... like, you need to soak it in the blood of a child to recharge it or something like that.
Yeah, this. Give it a nasty side that your NPC won't care about, but your PCs will.
I recently had a poacher mini-boss with a magic pouch he could pull arrows out of, with various enchantments or extra damage attached. The ranger in the party would have been all over keeping it, except the pouch wasn't just creating the items out of thin air, it was turning teeth into arrows. Humanoid canine teeth. And it demanded to be full of teeth at all times.
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I messed around with a ring that gave this effect. I added the following restrictions:
combined level of the two spells couldn't be higher than 10
movement is restricted while double-concentrating
when you start your turn double-concentrating, you take force damage that escalates with each turn. this damage cannot be reduced or mitigated in any way
can only do it once a day
I do like the idea of restricting it to specific spells though. That would be way easier to keep under control and also feels very personalized.
Just pointing out, Niv Mizzet (dragon npc from Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica) actually has the ability to concentrate on two spells at once(with no limitations), so that ability is not without precedent. If you wanna see what power level that puts you in, maybe check out his stat block (though bear in mind he is also an ancient dragon so a good deal of his CR is gonna come from that).
You could also just make it a Cursed magical item. That's pretty much the easiest way to introduce a magic item that's probably a bit too powerful so your enemies can have a cool ability. That or make recharging the magic item challenging or morally dubious... like, you need to soak it in the blood of a child to recharge it or something like that.
Yeah, this. Give it a nasty side that your NPC won't care about, but your PCs will.
I recently had a poacher mini-boss with a magic pouch he could pull arrows out of, with various enchantments or extra damage attached. The ranger in the party would have been all over keeping it, except the pouch wasn't just creating the items out of thin air, it was turning teeth into arrows. Humanoid canine teeth. And it demanded to be full of teeth at all times.
So, find a bunch of undead skeletons and go to town, then fill up the bag...
You could also just make it a Cursed magical item. That's pretty much the easiest way to introduce a magic item that's probably a bit too powerful so your enemies can have a cool ability. That or make recharging the magic item challenging or morally dubious... like, you need to soak it in the blood of a child to recharge it or something like that.
Yeah, this. Give it a nasty side that your NPC won't care about, but your PCs will.
I recently had a poacher mini-boss with a magic pouch he could pull arrows out of, with various enchantments or extra damage attached. The ranger in the party would have been all over keeping it, except the pouch wasn't just creating the items out of thin air, it was turning teeth into arrows. Humanoid canine teeth. And it demanded to be full of teeth at all times.
So, find a bunch of undead skeletons and go to town, then fill up the bag...
Did I mention that necromancy is outlawed
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
You could also just make it a Cursed magical item. That's pretty much the easiest way to introduce a magic item that's probably a bit too powerful so your enemies can have a cool ability. That or make recharging the magic item challenging or morally dubious... like, you need to soak it in the blood of a child to recharge it or something like that.
Yeah, this. Give it a nasty side that your NPC won't care about, but your PCs will.
I recently had a poacher mini-boss with a magic pouch he could pull arrows out of, with various enchantments or extra damage attached. The ranger in the party would have been all over keeping it, except the pouch wasn't just creating the items out of thin air, it was turning teeth into arrows. Humanoid canine teeth. And it demanded to be full of teeth at all times.
So, find a bunch of undead skeletons and go to town, then fill up the bag...
Welcome to being a DM, where the best laid plans of mice and men go astray... This is where knowing your general intentions for the party/plot are good, and being able to improvise is even better...
I remember one game a friend was DMing. Her husband was playing a rogue and I had a halfling fighter. Rogue veers off down a side tunnel. Fighter sighs and goes after him. we get halfway down, doors open up and kobolds come pouring out. So many kobolds... Rogue hides and kobolds see fighter. Game on. I couldn't run as they would catch me, so I went to work. Killed all of them as the dice were kind. That was the big fight for the adventure and we hit it right away. DM didn't really know what to do, as she was new...
She recovered, but we could tell it was an improv. Still lots of fun, but definitely an example of how to think on your feet.
From having experienced playing at a table with another player getting one it gets clear quite quick how incredibly strong such an item can be.. Sure the wielder could spend a bunch of time searching for and research what combos are the best.. But just using without doing that it still end up being too impactful being able to concentrate on 2 spells of own choice.
I would change it to: "You are able to split your focus between two concentration spells for a couple of seconds before shifting focus to the newly cast concentration spell. When you cast a spell requiring concentration, while you are currently concentrating on another spell, the old spell will stay active until the start of your next turn, or if you drop concentration before that. While you are concentration on two spell you have a -4 to constitution saving throws trying to hold concentration, If you lose concentration both spells you are concentrating on ends early."
Welcome to being a DM, where the best laid plans of mice and men go astray... This is where knowing your general intentions for the party/plot are good, and being able to improvise is even better...
I remember one game a friend was DMing. Her husband was playing a rogue and I had a halfling fighter. Rogue veers off down a side tunnel. Fighter sighs and goes after him. we get halfway down, doors open up and kobolds come pouring out. So many kobolds... Rogue hides and kobolds see fighter. Game on. I couldn't run as they would catch me, so I went to work. Killed all of them as the dice were kind. That was the big fight for the adventure and we hit it right away. DM didn't really know what to do, as she was new...
She recovered, but we could tell it was an improv. Still lots of fun, but definitely an example of how to think on your feet.
Oh over 20 year of being a GM for many systems my fav moments are the improvised ones :) am at a point now where session prep are bullet points and notes and then everything else is sculptured from my imagination in reaction to the players.
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I am working on ways my bbeg wizard can do interesting things with magic and one idea is to give him a magic item that allows 2 concentration spells to be held at any one time.
The limitation would be that while both spells are held no other spell may be cast by the caster (he gets round this with a wand of magic missiles and a wand of fireballs).
Now as far as an npc enemy goes much of this use of 2 concentration spells will be used to keep illusions going, or control people etc in day to day life around the town. However I am very aware that if he has the item then potentially the party can get it, either by stealing it or killing him, one day.
So how unbalanced would it make the party magic users if they have an item that allows 2 concentration spells to be held at any one time, with the control that no other spell can be cast while doing so. If I tweaked it and allowed only cantrip s to be cast would this make it more unbalanced or fairer on the caster?
Consider how powerful it would be in the party's hand. And for that fight, it really depends on what spells the BBEG's concentrating on, but you could accomplish the same thing by giving the BBEG a simulacrum to cast and concentrate on the other spell if you want the BBEG to have two concentration spells going without giving that to the party after the fight.
I gave ridiculous homebrew magic items to my party early in my campaign, and I've had to significantly increase the difficulty of the encounters just to make them challenging (L13 party, but an encounter has to be (according to the chart) Hard or Deadly for a L15 party to be moderately challenging for my players. Given another shot at it, I'd not give them the OP magic items, but everyone's having fun so I'm not sweating it.
I think its worth considering why this needs to be a magic item at all. If you're concerned about it mechanically making your game more difficult to balance, there are plenty of ways you could allow your BBEG to circumvent the concentration rules without giving your players the ability to do the same. Could be that the BBEG has made a pact with some extraplanar entity, or maybe their just such a powerful archmage that they've figured out a unique way to do that and will not pass that knowledge on, etc... There is nothing that says NPCs have to work the same way that PCs do.
That being said, if you want your players to have the opportunity to do that, I think your cantrip idea sounds fine. I'm guessing your wizard will want to do something like cast Haste and Fly on a front line character, or Dominate Person / Hold Monster on two enemies, or two Polymorphs, etc... while just sitting back and tossing firebolts. There are a ton of combinations to consider here. You could also tweak it as this item allows you to cast _____ spell, and pick one or two spells, without requiring concentration. This might be a good way to have spells that are maybe less directly combat focused or less popular and give your players the opportunity to be creative with it.
I don't know much about spell casters of any kind. I've never played anything other than my 4th level Battle Master. I have looked at Warlocks a lot, but have yet to play one, and I have a friend who plays a Ranger in my game and asks me for advice now and then.
They are playing a Hunter Ranger, they have Colossus slayer, and Favored Foe. If the target is below it's max hit points, and it doesn't matter who cause the damage, they could use Hunter's Mark and Hail of Thorns on top of that.
It's only an average of 17 near as I can figure, but that's pretty good for an arrow that starts out with a max of 8, your dex to modify it, and your proficiency modifier on top of that. Let's say that the Ranger we are talking about only had a 17 dex; she gets +3, adds +2 more from being proficient with a bow, +2 from the Archery Fighting style. That's +7 to hit. All that has to happen is for the target to be damaged, and she gets 17 extra points of damage. I don't know if you consider that much of an impact.
The player actually has an 18 dex, and the Alert feat. She can't be surprised, she gets +9 to initiative, and adds one more point to hit and damage. She gets +8 to hit, does 37 points of damage at max, and could crit on a natural 20 for 72 points of damage with an arrow. I've never seen her do more than 39 points of damage with a single arrow, and that may well have been a crit, so she probably should have done more damage than that.
My math is often shaky, my grasp of the rules isn't very good. Go ahead and check it all over and run the calculations. I'm sure I've missed a few things.
<Insert clever signature here>
Fly + Greater invisibility + wand of fireballs = win.
The wands above give you the ability to cast the spell, they don't cast the spell themselves. So your BBEG wouldn't be able to use them while concentrating on two spells.
Good point that I completely missed lol thanks
I think this is the most elegant solution to the problem... the magic item can only be used to cast one specific spell. It might force you to rethink some of your planning for the character, but it makes it much harder to completely bork the system by having the players recover an item that lets them make crazy combinations you hadn't considered when designing the item.
You could also just make it a Cursed magical item. That's pretty much the easiest way to introduce a magic item that's probably a bit too powerful so your enemies can have a cool ability. That or make recharging the magic item challenging or morally dubious... like, you need to soak it in the blood of a child to recharge it or something like that.
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Just imagine that the NPC has along a minion who can cast the second concentration spell for him, but who then can't cast any other spells. That's essentially the same thing.
Is it overpowered, broken, unbeatable etc? No, of course not. It's just the same as having two enemies casting spells that they concentrate on, only less powerful because every hit on them will require a concentration check on both spells. A minion is actually better, as that means the BBEG can have 2 concentration spells up in one turn rather than taking 2 turns to cast them.
Yeah, this. Give it a nasty side that your NPC won't care about, but your PCs will.
I recently had a poacher mini-boss with a magic pouch he could pull arrows out of, with various enchantments or extra damage attached. The ranger in the party would have been all over keeping it, except the pouch wasn't just creating the items out of thin air, it was turning teeth into arrows. Humanoid canine teeth. And it demanded to be full of teeth at all times.
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I messed around with a ring that gave this effect. I added the following restrictions:
I do like the idea of restricting it to specific spells though. That would be way easier to keep under control and also feels very personalized.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Just pointing out, Niv Mizzet (dragon npc from Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica) actually has the ability to concentrate on two spells at once(with no limitations), so that ability is not without precedent. If you wanna see what power level that puts you in, maybe check out his stat block (though bear in mind he is also an ancient dragon so a good deal of his CR is gonna come from that).
So, find a bunch of undead skeletons and go to town, then fill up the bag...
Did I mention that necromancy is outlawed
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
A simple solution using the rules as written is give the BEG a Ring of Spell Storing and a minion or familiar who wears the ring.
Professional computer geek
Then rob a graveyard...
Ok after much thought and effort and consideration am going to scrap the magic item idea and go different way :)
Welcome to being a DM, where the best laid plans of mice and men go astray... This is where knowing your general intentions for the party/plot are good, and being able to improvise is even better...
I remember one game a friend was DMing. Her husband was playing a rogue and I had a halfling fighter. Rogue veers off down a side tunnel. Fighter sighs and goes after him. we get halfway down, doors open up and kobolds come pouring out. So many kobolds... Rogue hides and kobolds see fighter. Game on. I couldn't run as they would catch me, so I went to work. Killed all of them as the dice were kind. That was the big fight for the adventure and we hit it right away. DM didn't really know what to do, as she was new...
She recovered, but we could tell it was an improv. Still lots of fun, but definitely an example of how to think on your feet.
From having experienced playing at a table with another player getting one it gets clear quite quick how incredibly strong such an item can be.. Sure the wielder could spend a bunch of time searching for and research what combos are the best.. But just using without doing that it still end up being too impactful being able to concentrate on 2 spells of own choice.
I would change it to:
"You are able to split your focus between two concentration spells for a couple of seconds before shifting focus to the newly cast concentration spell.
When you cast a spell requiring concentration, while you are currently concentrating on another spell, the old spell will stay active until the start of your next turn, or if you drop concentration before that. While you are concentration on two spell you have a -4 to constitution saving throws trying to hold concentration, If you lose concentration both spells you are concentrating on ends early."
Oh over 20 year of being a GM for many systems my fav moments are the improvised ones :) am at a point now where session prep are bullet points and notes and then everything else is sculptured from my imagination in reaction to the players.