You might want to keep in mind that advantage is equivalent to a +5 on the die roll on average so a "1" result in your table is better than a 2 or 3 which doesn't make much sense.
Why doesn't the help action have more limits and down sides?
You might want to keep in mind that advantage is equivalent to a +5 on the die roll on average so a "1" result in your table is better than a 2 or 3 which doesn't make much sense.
CapnZapp
Legend
No, what the help action allows, is one character mediocre at something, effectively giving his or her d20 to someone better at doing said thing.
It is NOT merely advantage (+1 to +5), it is more than that.
Instead of maybe making a 1d20+0 roll, you give your ally a second chance at making, say, a 1d20+9 roll.
This is because you have the ability to choose who is helping whom. If you were great at the task, your ally would instead have helped you.
It is much too good. Not in combat, where it costs your own action (and all characters are able in combat thanks to 5e).
But outside of combat it is entirely inappropriate and I encourage you all to ban it's use.
It is NOT merely advantage (+1 to +5), it is more than that.
Instead of maybe making a 1d20+0 roll, you give your ally a second chance at making, say, a 1d20+9 roll.
This is because you have the ability to choose who is helping whom. If you were great at the task, your ally would instead have helped you.
It is much too good. Not in combat, where it costs your own action (and all characters are able in combat thanks to 5e).
But outside of combat it is entirely inappropriate and I encourage you all to ban it's use.
Ralif Redhammer
Legend
As a player, I love using the Help action in combat when my dice go cold. As a DM, outside of combat, the rule I live by is that the helper has to be able to help in the first place. In large groups, particularly, I resort to requiring someone to also be proficient in the skill being used. An adjacent skill might count – if the player can explain how it applies, that is. Otherwise, you’ll end up with almost everyone having advantage for every check, as someone’s going to assist.
Pathfinder has an exponential-ish help mechanic, though it’s not a sure thing (I believe each helper has to get above a 10 to count). But even with that, there’ve been times where I’ve had something like a +25 to make a roll, including my own bonuses; that gets a little absurd.
Pathfinder has an exponential-ish help mechanic, though it’s not a sure thing (I believe each helper has to get above a 10 to count). But even with that, there’ve been times where I’ve had something like a +25 to make a roll, including my own bonuses; that gets a little absurd.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
I'll be running Sunless Citadel shortly from Yawning Portal. In that adventure, I'm taking a page from the past and doing a formal exploration phase in the dungeon. Exploration has rounds, somewhat like combat but a bit looser in terms of order of resolution. These rounds represent 10 minutes of activity on the part of the PCs in a given area (about 1000 square feet). At the end of the 10 minutes, the DM makes a wandering monster check (18+ on a d20 means some monster(s) show up).
A PC can generally do a single task in that 10 minute round: Cast a Ritual, Check for Traps & Hazards, Figure Out a Trap or Hazard, Disable a Trap, Draw a Map, Forage or Loot, Keep Watch, Pick a Lock, Search for Clues, Search for Secret Doors, Figure Out a Secret Door, or Track. These are common tasks, but the PCs aren't limited to them. They're just examples of what takes about 10 minutes and come as a trade-off against each other. If you want to Search for Clues, for example, you're not Keeping Watch. If that wandering monster turns up and happens to be a lurker (it's random), then you're automatically surprised.
Now, the PCs can choose to Work Together instead of performing a task. Working Together in this case either grants advantage to the ability check of the character leading the effort OR allows the character you're helping perform another task in that round. The standard requirements for Working Together apply in either situation.
What this means is that Working Together now comes with a trade-off - you're not doing some other useful task in that 10-minute window. If a given area requires a good amount of poking around, Working Together may improve chances of success, but may draw out the amount of time to complete the exploration phase which means more wandering monster checks. It also means that the person trying to help is at risk of surprise if the wandering monster check produces a lurker.
A PC can generally do a single task in that 10 minute round: Cast a Ritual, Check for Traps & Hazards, Figure Out a Trap or Hazard, Disable a Trap, Draw a Map, Forage or Loot, Keep Watch, Pick a Lock, Search for Clues, Search for Secret Doors, Figure Out a Secret Door, or Track. These are common tasks, but the PCs aren't limited to them. They're just examples of what takes about 10 minutes and come as a trade-off against each other. If you want to Search for Clues, for example, you're not Keeping Watch. If that wandering monster turns up and happens to be a lurker (it's random), then you're automatically surprised.
Now, the PCs can choose to Work Together instead of performing a task. Working Together in this case either grants advantage to the ability check of the character leading the effort OR allows the character you're helping perform another task in that round. The standard requirements for Working Together apply in either situation.
What this means is that Working Together now comes with a trade-off - you're not doing some other useful task in that 10-minute window. If a given area requires a good amount of poking around, Working Together may improve chances of success, but may draw out the amount of time to complete the exploration phase which means more wandering monster checks. It also means that the person trying to help is at risk of surprise if the wandering monster check produces a lurker.
Out of combat, it's a way to have the group collaborate on a difficult albeit achievable task, and I'll allow it if the helper can describe how they've done it (I also have a player who will describe a few things they say or do, and then say "And I do that as a way to Help on this check," which I'll approve of if applicable). In combat, I'd say the cost involved is that you're putting yourself out there and not Dodging, but you aren't putting much else on the board yourself (and I wouldn't allow someone to Help on a death save).
Satyrn
First Post
Maybe you could use the additional d20 provided by helping to model this, story-wise, by having the helping player roll that second die, and then narrating the effectiveness based on who rolled what.
Like, if the helper's d20 was the only successful one, then he clearly contributed greatly to the other's success. And when both rolls fail, you could narrate that as the helper getting in the way like you describe.
Tony Vargas
Legend
Yeah, RL is what we play D&D to escape from, so that's fine, really. ;P
Yeah, it's a fairly rational 'gamist' decision. The player declaring the help action is using up his action, prettymuch sitting out his turn, and in return the character he's helping 'automatically' gets Advantage. That is a very steep price to pay, so if you want players to pay it, making it work 'automatically' (and Advantage is 'clever,' in a way, in that it seems to help more often than it actually does - unless you choose to differentiate 'your die' from the 'advantage die' by color or order rolled or something) is a pretty good idea. If there was a meaningful chance of blowing your action to 'help' and not being helpful or even screwing things up, it's that much less likely anyone would ever go for it.
At least he'd be doing something. But it would eliminate that clever illusion (above) of Advantage being better than it actually is. Because the helpee would know that his helper was 'useless' any time his own roll succeeds (which is, in 5e, typically most of the time).
Another trick I've started using is the group check.
Sometimes a player will try something, get a check, obviously fail, and then everyone else will pile on and try to do the same thing with the same check - someone, almost inevitably, will succeed, and off they go, making the whole exercise pointless (just narrate success & be done with it). So, instead, invoke 'Help' or 'Working Together.' Or, as I'd done in the past, if you're going to have everyone try to pile on with something, it turns into a group check, because you're looking for a consensus, and that consensus can be wrong, even if (only) one of you gets it right.
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Swarmkeeper
Hero
To put an abrupt end to the "piling on" effect [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] describes above, we've been employing Angry's rules for Teamwork and Group Checks (http://theangrygm.com/tweaking-the-core-of-dd-5e/). It has worked out quite well in multiple campaigns.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
Assuming you're in a situation where a check is actually warranted (uncertain outcome AND meaningful consequence of failure) and attempting the task again is possible, in many cases I would say that if someone wants to retry, he or she is going to have to come up with a materially different approach to the goal than the character who failed. Further attempts simply fail outright. That stops the pig piling right there.
For any task with an uncertain outcome and a meaningful chance of failure where one could try the same approach to a goal repeatedly, the player can trade time in the amount of 10x the normal amount of time it takes to complete the task for automatic success.
Sometimes the Help Action fails. That's when both dice are low.
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