Concentration?

[sweetlikesplenda]

Is Concentration skill a necessity for a FS that will rarely be casting in combat? Should I be investing the points into tumble/UMD/or social skills? The most he might cast, in combat, would be a healing spell to help an ally; the rest would be buffs for himself and others, but not in the heat of battle. Is a full investment of 30 points going to typically stop interruptions from combat or will he still likely fail, even with a full 33 points investment? Is it of any use in PvP?

Any help or thoughts are appreciated!

-Cheers

[Deathgrowl]

If you will never cast in combat, it's not important, no. But you won't be able to cast Heal, Regen, Mass Heal, and so on without it.

[Tsidkenu]

Concentration is to stop a spell being disrupted if you take damage while casting in combat. The damage output of the monsters you are fighting will be the sole determiner of the possible DC check for this. The DC itself is something like 10+spell level+damage taken. So fighting say Ulgoth Beard cave pirates and taking damage while casting Heal will be something like 10+6+ (1d6+3). Against hill giants or other higher damage critters you're gunna have way more difficulty: 10+6+(2d12+16).

If you don't have the Combat Casting feat then you're supposed to take a -4 penalty to your check but I think it's bugged cuz I've never seen it on concentration rolls.

Also consider there's Defensive Casting mode. For that you need 15+spell level concentration check to avoid Attacks of Opportunity against you. For the 9th level mass heal spell that would be DC 24, meaning you theoretically only need 23 ranks in concentration (including CON modifiers) to always pass the check (no auto-fail on 1 for skill checks as long as your total mod can pass the DC). This amount of concentration may or may not help you avoid damage-based checks as explained above, though.

[Thorsson]

If you don't have the Combat Casting feat then you're supposed to take a -4 penalty to your check but I think it's bugged cuz I've never seen it on concentration rolls.

That's arsey-versey. You get a +4 bonus if you have Combat Casting. There's no bug.

[Tsidkenu]

I'm sure I read it in one of the descriptions that if you are within 5ft or 10ft of an enemy then you take a -4 penalty on all concentration checks unless you have the Combat Casting Feat.

Mind you, this may well be another case of NWN2's sloppy 'cut-and-paste' job from NWN 1 (many skill and feat descriptions were simply copied over from NWN1, even if the mechanics were slightly changed in NWN2. Eg. The disable device skill states that you can flag a trap for -7 on your disable check, but NWN2 has removed the flag trap option entirely...)

[edit]:

[Thorsson]

The ingame descriptions are wrong all over the place. I'm going by the Wiki, which is pretty accurate these days thanks first to work by Mith and more recently by GFallen. The description is different to the NWN Wiki, which shows the -4 penalty.

The clincher is that it's also stated as a +4 bonus in the 3.5 PHB.

[Tsidkenu]

Yeah that is what I suspected. Such a hotch-potch job they did, a real shame it is!

[Aelcar]

Is Concentration skill a necessity for a FS that will rarely be casting in combat? Should I be investing the points into tumble/UMD/or social skills? The most he might cast, in combat, would be a healing spell to help an ally; the rest would be buffs for himself and others, but not in the heat of battle. Is a full investment of 30 points going to typically stop interruptions from combat or will he still likely fail, even with a full 33 points investment? Is it of any use in PvP?

Any help or thoughts are appreciated!

-Cheers

10 UMD is important, but it's a count that includes your CHA bonus, and since you are an EDM FS that's fairly easy to achieve.

10 Tumble is important for AoO avoidance and +1 AC, but for instance, my paladin does not even have it and I never had a problem. It's nice, but not nearly essential.

MAX Concentration is a must on every caster. A Heal spell disrupted is the difference from winning and being dead. A Stone Body that does not get renewed, same thing. Even a strong FS often needs to cast in combat, when the enemies are many or when ONE enemy is particularly strong and needs to be ground down.

Spells getting rupted is the worst thing that can happen to a caster bar none.

[LISA100595]

I agree with Aelcar +1

[Archaos]

It shouldn't even be questioned.

Yes, you might buff before battle but you can be dispelled, your buffs can run out, you might need an emergency spell to heal or Divine Power for example.

If you could only pick one skill for any caster, that should be Concentration. Spellcraft comes second and even that is not really necessary unless you need Practiced Spellcaster and Epic Spells.

Nevermind that when you gain some levels, you should have Defensive Casting always on so you don't provoke attacks of opportunity. Even a lucky critical from a random monster could ruin your spell if you give them free Attacks of Opportunity.