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The Blood Channeling feature of the Blood Magic Wizard from Tal’dorei Campaign Setting: Reborn says:

When casting a wizard spell that requires a costly material component, you can forego the component by taking 1d10 necrotic damage per 50 gp of the cost of the component (minimum 1d10). This damage can't be reduced in any way. If this damage reduces you to 0 hit points, the spell fails but the spell slot is not expended.

The Player's Handbook, Ch. 10, says:

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.

If you are not concentrating on anything before you use this feature to cast a spell, and you use this feature to forego the component cost of a spell that requires concentration, does the necrotic damage taken from doing so cause you to make a Constitution saving throw to maintain your concentration? (Put another way, are you already concentrating by the time you take the Blood Channeling damage?)

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You do not have to make a Constitution saving throw to maintain your concentration.

The following sentence implies that the damage is taken before the spell is fully cast:

If this damage reduces you to 0 hit points, the spell fails but the spell slot is not expended.

Because the spell has not yet been fully cast, you are not yet concentrating on the spell when you take the damage.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I think raw you start concentrating immediately when you start casting, but I can see this being that you cut yourself to create the material components and then start casting. So this is likely correct, but in a rai way. I doubt anything in this book actually matches raw. \$\endgroup\$
    – SeriousBri
    Nov 4 at 20:36
  • \$\begingroup\$ @SeriousBri I think this can work even RAW as the rules never state that the concentration to cast a spell and the one to maintain one are necessarily one, continuous span of concentration. You could arrange the casting chronologically as 1. Casting time, concentration required to finish casting 2. An instantaneous moment where the spell slot and consumed components are used up (and thus the damage taken) requiring no concentration 3. The spell effect begins, after which concentration is required to maintain it. I don't believe the rules say anything that'd conflict with this interpretation. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kryomaani
    Nov 6 at 23:38

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