Does a player lose Concentration on a Spell if it fails its save against Frightening Presence and is Frightened?
Situation: Tempest Cleric has Called Lightning and is concentrating to keep the spell up for continued use. Adult White Dragon casts Frightening Presence and Cleric fails its save and, as a consequence, is Frightened. Will the Cleric lose its Concentration or must the dragon still need to make a hit on the Cleric to cause it to throw a Concentration saving throw?
I don't think there's anything that says the cleric loses concentration on his spell. A no save, loss of concentration is pretty powerful punishment, and if my DM didn't have official published rules on that, I'd be /very/ unhappy.
EDIT: I looked it up.
Concentration
Some spells require you to maintain concentration in order to keep their magic active. If you lose concentration, such a spell ends.
If a spell must be maintained with concentration, that fact appears in its Duration entry, and the spell specifies how long you can concentrate on it. You can end concentration at any time (no action required).
Normal activity, such as moving and attacking, doesn't interfere with concentration. The following factors can break concentration:
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.
The DM might also decide that certain environmental phenomena, such as a wave crashing over you while you're on a storm-tossed ship, require you to succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw to maintain concentration on a spell.
So, frightened does /not/ natively cause a character to lose concentration. You can houserule that it does, but if my DM did that, I'd give him my thoughts on his adjucation right then and there because that's a pretty powerful punishment. He had no problem yesterday telling me his thoughts when I used Dissonant Whispers to force-provoke 2 OAs from our party, so that's a two way street.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Much obliged. This resolves it and it is the way we played it - leaving the Cleric's concentration intact.
Very sad for the dragon. ... 5 of 6 players saved and the one that did not effectively took ZERO penalty for it. It worked out exactly as if he had saved other than he could not come any closer to the dragon, which he was not doing anyway.
A complete non-event with that action that would have evened the odds considerably. Given that he only got one round of Cold Breath as well....did not recharge the remainder of the encounter....it was an incredibly easy encounter for the party, as it turned out. Two of them still went down, but the took the dragon much more easily than I had envisioned.
sounds like you got some unlucky rolls. I just went back and looked at the spell in particular, I thought maybe if he lost sight of the dragon that would break things, but no. Sounds to me like you played it straight. I might have considered fudging a roll on the recharge if things were a bit too easy.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
There is some leeway for the DM to call an impromptu concentration check for environmental effects (wave crashing over a ship, etc), but I would not extend that suggestion to printed monster abilities, which should only do what they say they do. I think you ruled correctly to not end concentration against the frightful presence ability, even if it was a disappointment to the dragon encounter
Lots of things don't provoke concentration checks that logically should, if the PC is doing what we call, in the real world, concentration.
My way of reconciling this was to stop thinking of D&D concentration as "concentration." It's a misnomer. What they've really got you doing here is what in CRPGs or MMOs would be more akin to a "stance." In CRPGs, a stance is a "toggle" you can turn on. Stances are mutually exclusive, so if you turn on one stance, and then switch to another, the first one drops. And if you get KOed, the stance will drop. Damage usually doesn't cause a stance to drop, but other than this one condition, which triggers a check that most of the time is fairly easy to overcome, concentration behaves far more like a stance than it behaves like actual "concentration" in the sense that we mean that word using everyday speech.
Once I started to view concentration as a stance rather than actual concentration, then I stopped wondering so much about why things that would normally have a chance of disrupting a real person's concentration, like being frightened, don't require a roll in D&D.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
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Does a player lose Concentration on a Spell if it fails its save against Frightening Presence and is Frightened?
Situation: Tempest Cleric has Called Lightning and is concentrating to keep the spell up for continued use. Adult White Dragon casts Frightening Presence and Cleric fails its save and, as a consequence, is Frightened. Will the Cleric lose its Concentration or must the dragon still need to make a hit on the Cleric to cause it to throw a Concentration saving throw?
Gray Mouser
I don't think there's anything that says the cleric loses concentration on his spell. A no save, loss of concentration is pretty powerful punishment, and if my DM didn't have official published rules on that, I'd be /very/ unhappy.
EDIT: I looked it up.
Concentration
Some spells require you to maintain concentration in order to keep their magic active. If you lose concentration, such a spell ends.
If a spell must be maintained with concentration, that fact appears in its Duration entry, and the spell specifies how long you can concentrate on it. You can end concentration at any time (no action required).
Normal activity, such as moving and attacking, doesn't interfere with concentration. The following factors can break concentration:
The DM might also decide that certain environmental phenomena, such as a wave crashing over you while you're on a storm-tossed ship, require you to succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw to maintain concentration on a spell.
So, frightened does /not/ natively cause a character to lose concentration. You can houserule that it does, but if my DM did that, I'd give him my thoughts on his adjucation right then and there because that's a pretty powerful punishment. He had no problem yesterday telling me his thoughts when I used Dissonant Whispers to force-provoke 2 OAs from our party, so that's a two way street.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Much obliged. This resolves it and it is the way we played it - leaving the Cleric's concentration intact.
Very sad for the dragon. ... 5 of 6 players saved and the one that did not effectively took ZERO penalty for it. It worked out exactly as if he had saved other than he could not come any closer to the dragon, which he was not doing anyway.
A complete non-event with that action that would have evened the odds considerably. Given that he only got one round of Cold Breath as well....did not recharge the remainder of the encounter....it was an incredibly easy encounter for the party, as it turned out. Two of them still went down, but the took the dragon much more easily than I had envisioned.
Gray Mouser
sounds like you got some unlucky rolls. I just went back and looked at the spell in particular, I thought maybe if he lost sight of the dragon that would break things, but no. Sounds to me like you played it straight. I might have considered fudging a roll on the recharge if things were a bit too easy.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Concentration is an odd thing, I wouldn't mind so much if statuses proc'd a concentration check but I've never ruled it like that.
There is some leeway for the DM to call an impromptu concentration check for environmental effects (wave crashing over a ship, etc), but I would not extend that suggestion to printed monster abilities, which should only do what they say they do. I think you ruled correctly to not end concentration against the frightful presence ability, even if it was a disappointment to the dragon encounter
Lots of things don't provoke concentration checks that logically should, if the PC is doing what we call, in the real world, concentration.
My way of reconciling this was to stop thinking of D&D concentration as "concentration." It's a misnomer. What they've really got you doing here is what in CRPGs or MMOs would be more akin to a "stance." In CRPGs, a stance is a "toggle" you can turn on. Stances are mutually exclusive, so if you turn on one stance, and then switch to another, the first one drops. And if you get KOed, the stance will drop. Damage usually doesn't cause a stance to drop, but other than this one condition, which triggers a check that most of the time is fairly easy to overcome, concentration behaves far more like a stance than it behaves like actual "concentration" in the sense that we mean that word using everyday speech.
Once I started to view concentration as a stance rather than actual concentration, then I stopped wondering so much about why things that would normally have a chance of disrupting a real person's concentration, like being frightened, don't require a roll in D&D.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.