Within the players handbook page 193 under Ready: "To be readied, a spell must have a casting time of 1 action, and holding onto the spell's magic requires concentration. (explained in chapter 10)"
So, my question is How does one hold concentration on a instantaneous spell?
The root of my question comes from if my player wants to wait around a corner and ready a ray of frost instantaneous cantrip for when the enemy moves into sight, what would he roll to concentrate or does the instantaneous cantrip overrule "holding onto the spell's magic requires concentration." Chapter 10 wasn't of much help only suggesting saving throws against taking damage and ready action happens before the damage. Any help would be great here as Ill most likely need to make a DM ruling to resolve this with my understanding of the book.
Ray of frost has a casting time of 1 action. The spell is instantaneous, meaning that once the spell has been finished casted, the spell effects occur instantaneously. The ready action is a special situation where a spell of casting time of 1 action becomes a spell that is being held within your mind (thus concentrated on). You can view this as you have one final word to say to complete the spell, but you must maintain concentration on the spell energies until you say that final word (or gesture, etc.). You have basically put the spell into limbo when you ready it, and must concentrate to keep those magical energies active until that final moment when you unleash the spell. Only once the spell is unleashed does the duration come into play.
So how does one hold concentration on a instantaneous spell? It is the amount of time that it takes the spell to be cast that is being held by concentration, not the duration of the spell. In other words, Casting time is extended when you ready a spell, not the spells duration. The duration will come into play only once the spell is fully cast.
Your problem is essentially that you are looking at the spells duration when you should be looking at its casting time.
Concentration therefore would be the same for any other purpose.
Casting another spell that requires concentration. You lose concentration on a spell if you cast another spell that requires concentration. You can't concentrate on two spells at once.
Taking damage. Whenever you take damage while you are concentrating on a spell, you must make a Constitution saving throw to maintain your concentration. The DC equals 10 or half the damage you take, whichever number is higher. If you take damage from multiple sources, such as an arrow and a dragon's breath, you make a separate saving throw for each source of damage.
Being incapacitated or killed. You lose concentration on a spell if you are incapacitated or if you die.
Should you lose concentration, the magical energies that you have held in limbo until your action is taken is lost and the spell slot used, even though the spell itself fizzles out and doesn't do anything.
With the Ready action, a spell is not cast until the trigger. So it is not effective until the trigger. you just hold the magic and this requires concentration.
None. Concentration, on its own, does not require any kind of roll. It does require a roll when you take damage. Therefore, when you want to ready a spell, you are concentrating and only if you take damage, you roll a CON saving throw to see if the spell is broken or not.
Also I believe taking a reaction would technically cause the spell to fail. If I remember correctly a ready action uses your reaction to do something and you can only have one reaction per round.
The other thing to note - if you ready an action to cast a spell of 1st level or higher, the spell slot is used even if you lose concentration before the trigger occurs. Jeremy Crawford clarified this via Twitter.
So for a cantrips, we don't lose a spell slot right? (My GM making us lose a spell slot even with cantrips, I wonder how it works.)
You lose the spell slot you were using to cast the spell. Unless for some reason your ability to use the cantrip is limited (some items do that), this isn't relevant to cantrips.
With the Ready action, a spell is not cast until the trigger. So it is not effective until the trigger. you just hold the magic and this requires concentration.
The spell is cast when you ready an action. This is important because it means counterspell triggers when you ready the action not when you release the spell and it also means any resources or other actions that trigger on cast such as meta magic activate when you take the ready action.
It's also important to note that ready only lasts until that start of your next turn. So if you don't use the spell by then then you cannot as a reaction release it. Now technically it doesn't say you lose concentration at the start of your next turn or that the concentration depends on ready so you could theoretically ready releasing the spell again to try on the next round but this would take another action. Now if you as a Dm allow that then basically players can hold a spell outside of combat to release in combat as the concentration on the readied spel would no longer have a time limit.
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Ray of frost has a casting time of 1 action. The spell is instantaneous, meaning that once the spell has been finished casted, the spell effects occur instantaneously. The ready action is a special situation where a spell of casting time of 1 action becomes a spell that is being held within your mind (thus concentrated on). You can view this as you have one final word to say to complete the spell, but you must maintain concentration on the spell energies until you say that final word (or gesture, etc.). You have basically put the spell into limbo when you ready it, and must concentrate to keep those magical energies active until that final moment when you unleash the spell. Only once the spell is unleashed does the duration come into play.
So how does one hold concentration on a instantaneous spell? It is the amount of time that it takes the spell to be cast that is being held by concentration, not the duration of the spell. In other words, Casting time is extended when you ready a spell, not the spells duration. The duration will come into play only once the spell is fully cast.
Your problem is essentially that you are looking at the spells duration when you should be looking at its casting time.
Concentration therefore would be the same for any other purpose.
Should you lose concentration, the magical energies that you have held in limbo until your action is taken is lost and the spell slot used, even though the spell itself fizzles out and doesn't do anything.
With the Ready action, a spell is not cast until the trigger. So it is not effective until the trigger. you just hold the magic and this requires concentration.
Just to help me understand what kind of roll would you make to preform this concentration?
None. Concentration, on its own, does not require any kind of roll. It does require a roll when you take damage. Therefore, when you want to ready a spell, you are concentrating and only if you take damage, you roll a CON saving throw to see if the spell is broken or not.
Thank you, one of my players will be happy that I know what to do now. :)
Techncially getting killed or casting another spell requiring concentration would end the spell as well.
Not sure how much the other spell would apply in game, but it could especially if you use third party sources.
Also I believe taking a reaction would technically cause the spell to fail. If I remember correctly a ready action uses your reaction to do something and you can only have one reaction per round.
The other thing to note - if you ready an action to cast a spell of 1st level or higher, the spell slot is used even if you lose concentration before the trigger occurs. Jeremy Crawford clarified this via Twitter.
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So for a cantrips, we don't lose a spell slot right? (My GM making us lose a spell slot even with cantrips, I wonder how it works.)
You lose the spell slot you were using to cast the spell. Unless for some reason your ability to use the cantrip is limited (some items do that), this isn't relevant to cantrips.
The spell is cast when you ready an action. This is important because it means counterspell triggers when you ready the action not when you release the spell and it also means any resources or other actions that trigger on cast such as meta magic activate when you take the ready action.
It's also important to note that ready only lasts until that start of your next turn. So if you don't use the spell by then then you cannot as a reaction release it. Now technically it doesn't say you lose concentration at the start of your next turn or that the concentration depends on ready so you could theoretically ready releasing the spell again to try on the next round but this would take another action. Now if you as a Dm allow that then basically players can hold a spell outside of combat to release in combat as the concentration on the readied spel would no longer have a time limit.