What is Concentration in BG3 and How Does It Work?

Welcome to our BG3 Concentration Guide. In this guide, we will explain what Concentration is, how it works and how you can make your spellcaster better at succeeding on Concentration Saving Throws.

Concentration is one of the most important game mechanics in Baldur’s Gate 3. All spellcasting classes in BG3 utilize Concentration to some extent, so understanding what it is and how it works will help you to get the most out of your party.

Table of Contents:

• What is Concentration in BG3?
• How Does Concentration Break?
  • Concentration Saving Throws Explained
• How to Maintain Concentration in BG3
  • Method 1 – Reduce or Avoid Incoming Damage
  • Method 2 – Boost your Constitution
  • Method 3 – Specific Boosts to Saving Throws

What Is Concentration in BG3?

Concentration is a feature used by many spells in Baldur’s Gate 3. You can check a spell’s tooltip to see if it uses Concentration.

Spells with Concentration normally have an ongoing effect that can persist across several turns. For example, the  Hold Person spell can stun the target for up to 10 turns, but the effects will end early if your Concentration is broken.

How Does Concentration Break?

When your Concentration on an ongoing spell is broken, the spell’s effects will immediately end.

There are five ways that Concentration typically gets broken:

1. Casting a new Concentration Spell – A character can only concentrate on one spell at a time, so casting another one will replace your concentration on the previous spell. However, you can cast a spell that doesn’t use Concentration (such as Burning Hands) without breaking it. If unsure, check the spell’s tooltip before casting.
2. Manually ending Concentration – If you click the ‘X’ on the icon on the bottom left of your screen, you will manually end your Concentration. This is useful if an ongoing spell’s effects become problematic, such as an AoE that is now obstructing your party.
3. Getting stunned, incapacitated or downed – Most conditions that leave your character unable to act will also end any ongoing Concentration spells. Some of the most common ones are Downed, Sleeping and Prone. The Barbarian‘s  Rage will also end Concentration when you activate it.
4. Long Rests – These will end any ongoing Concentration spells, along with all non-permanent conditions.
5. Taking Damage – When you take damage, there is a chance for your Concentration to be broken. You must roll a Concentration Saving Throw to keep the spell going. The Difficulty Class of the throw depends on how much damage you took. This is a little more complex than the other three points, so we’ll explain it properly in the subsection below.

Concentration Saving Throws Explained

If a Concentrating character takes damage from any source, they must roll a Concentration Saving Throw with a 1d20 die. If they succeed the throw, the spell will continue. If they fail, their Concentration is broken and the spell ends immediately.

The Difficulty Class (roll required to succeed on the Throw) is equal to either 10 or half of the damage taken, whichever is higher. This means that even stepping on a puddle of poison and taking 1 damage will impose a Difficulty Class of 10, which is why small sources of damage will often break your Concentration. It also means that taking very heavy hits will impose very difficult Concentration Saving Throws.

Luckily there are some ways to manipulate this mechanic in your favour, although it will always be a thorn in your side. We’ll discuss this in the next section of the guide.

How to Maintain Concentration in BG3

As mentioned above, the most common way for Concentration to be broken in BG3 is to fail a Concentration Saving Throw. So fighting back against this mechanic requires us to find some ways to manipulate the dice rolls in our favour, or avoid them entirely.

Below are all of the ways to improve your chance of maintaining Concentration in BG3.

Method 1 – Reduce or Avoid Incoming Damage

The easiest way to maintain Concentration is to avoid Concentration Saving Throws entirely by not taking damage. This is not always possible, but you can play more cautiously when Concentrating, using distance and sight obstructions to prevent enemies from hitting you. You can reduce the likelihood of being hit by improving your Armour Class with better armour (if your character has armour Proficiency), items like the Cloak of Protection or spell effects like Mage Armour and Mirror Image. Turning Invisible or sneaking is also valid.

Also consider these tips:

• Have a tanky Cleric or Crown Paladin cast Warding Bond on your spellcaster. They will intercept half of the damage you take, making some Concentration Rolls easier.
• If you know what damage types are likely to appear in the upcoming fight, use other spells or potions to give you resistance to those damage types. Blade Ward gives resistance to all physical damage, and Protection from Energy allows you to resist elemental damage types. The caveat is that some of these spells also use Concentration to maintain, so you can wind up with a “Concentration chain” being used to protect your primary spellcaster.
• Blocking line of sight to ranged enemies with Fog Cloud or Darkness can protect Concentration, but this method is a bit unreliable, obscures your own vision and won’t help against large AoEs or melee attackers.
• Debuff enemies to reduce their hit chance, for example by Blinding or Disarming them.

Method 2 – Boost your Constitution

Concentration Saving Throws are rolled using your Constitution. This means that buffs to Constitution Saving Throws will also work here. For example:

• Increasing your Constitution score in character creation, with Feats or with equipment will boost your Concentration Saving Throws. Remember that this only works for every 2 points you have in Constitution (12 CON gives a +1 bonus, 14 CON gives a +2 bonus, 16 gives +3, etc).
• Boost Constitution Saving Throws. Some classes, for example Fighter and Sorcerer, have Proficiency in Constitution Saving Throws, adding your Proficiency Bonus to all Constitution Saves. Otherwise, you can use the Resilient: Constitution feat to gain +1 point in Constitution and Proficiency in Constitution Saving Throws.

Method 3 – Specific Boosts to Saving Throws

While boosting your Constitution also helps with Concentration Saving Throws, there are some bonuses that only buff your Concentration Saves. For example:

• The War Caster Feat gives you Advantage on Concentration Saving Throws, allowing you to roll two dice and automatically choose the one that rolled highest.
  • You can also use the Elixir of Peerless Focus to get the same effect until your next Long Rest (craft with Sublimate of Belladonna and any Ashes). Remember that you can only have one Elixir active at a time. You can’t stack two Advantages together for the same roll, so don’t use the Elixir if you already have War Caster.
•  Bardic Inspiration can be used to empower a dice roll, including Concentration Saves.
•  Bless adds a 1d4 bonus to Saving Throws. The usual way to get this buff is via the Bless spell, which is also a Concentration spell. But you can get the buff in other ways, for example the Whispering Promise ring.
•  Aura of Protection – From Level 6 onwards, Paladins can defend nearby characters by adding their Proficiency Bonus to all Saving Throws.
• Equipment – There are many equippable items in BG3 that boost your Saving Throws, such as the Cloak of Protection, Ring of Protection, and the   Robe of Supreme Defences.

While it doesn’t really fit into any of the above categories, I have to also mention the Druid’s Circle of Stars subclass. This subclass comes with  Starry Form: Dragon which, when active, guarantees a minimum roll of 10 on your Concentration Saving Throws. This will protect you from losing Concentration against weak attacks and accidental ticks of damage from carelessly stepping onto AoEs, and can be a massive help.

While BG3’s Concentration mechanic can initially be confusing (especially for players who have no experience with DnD or other DnD-inspired games), hopefully this guide gave you a much better understanding of how it works and how you can turn the odds in your favour.

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