Advantages / Disadvantages

[KesselZero]

Small question, in the event I have more than two conditions/circumstances/spells/features granting advantage and disadvantage, am I correct saying that is the DM ruling if the overall result is advantage, disadvantage or neutral?

Thanks guys!

You cannot have advantage or disadvantage more than once on a single roll, so "stacking" advantages isn't any better than just having one, and similarly with disadvantages. Meanwhile, if you have both advantage and disadvantage, they cancel each other out.

So, then, I think the question you're asking is what if I have two things granting advantage and one granting disadvantage? Would that give me advantage (because one advantage and one disadvantage cancel out, leaving me with one advantage) or am I at neutral because two situations granting advantage still only gives me advantage once, and that's canceled out by the disadvantage?

I don't think there's a clear answer yet. As a DM, I personally would rule that you would have advantage in that situation, since you've made the effort to really stack circumstances in your favor.

 

[The Red King]

Agreed. Adding +2 takes less than a second for some of us, but - for others - its a few seconds, and a few seconds adds up when it happens on every turn.

Plus, rolling a second die is a much bigger deal than +2 or -2. It has a greater effect on the outcome and the act of physically grabbing a second d20 adds weight to moment. This is a major improvement. One of the major flaws of 3e and 4e is that there were a huge number of small modifiers that were very important collectively, but few were significant on their own. This system provides fewer modifiers to track and makes the modifiers more important.

There is an excellent general guideline: "If the player has to think about something, it should matter." These advantage/disadvantage rules fit the bill.

-KS

P.S. The one downside of this rule is now all players need to have two d20s at the table. I predict a lot of annoying "can I borrow a d20..." until the casual players get enough dice.

Thats really a problem that is going to trouble us? "Can I borrow a d20?" And be honest, how many of us have like a dozen d20's or more? All you need is one dice hoarder in the group, and you are all good.


OR......


You roll the same die 2x?!?!?!



I think we can handle it.

 

[Bran Mak Morn]

You cannot have advantage or disadvantage more than once on a single roll, so "stacking" advantages isn't any better than just having one, and similarly with disadvantages. Meanwhile, if you have both advantage and disadvantage, they cancel each other out.

So, then, I think the question you're asking is what if I have two things granting advantage and one granting disadvantage? Would that give me advantage (because one advantage and one disadvantage cancel out, leaving me with one advantage) or am I at neutral because two situations granting advantage still only gives me advantage once, and that's canceled out by the disadvantage?

I don't think there's a clear answer yet. As a DM, I personally would rule that you would have advantage in that situation, since you've made the effort to really stack circumstances in your favor.

Thanks, that is exactly what I meant!!

 

[The Shadow]

I don't think there's a clear answer yet. As a DM, I personally would rule that you would have advantage in that situation, since you've made the effort to really stack circumstances in your favor.

I think the answer is very clear: It's a DM call. So your ruling there would hold.

 

[infax]

You cannot have advantage or disadvantage more than once on a single roll, so "stacking" advantages isn't any better than just having one, and similarly with disadvantages. Meanwhile, if you have both advantage and disadvantage, they cancel each other out.

So, then, I think the question you're asking is what if I have two things granting advantage and one granting disadvantage? Would that give me advantage (because one advantage and one disadvantage cancel out, leaving me with one advantage) or am I at neutral because two situations granting advantage still only gives me advantage once, and that's canceled out by the disadvantage?

I don't think there's a clear answer yet. As a DM, I personally would rule that you would have advantage in that situation, since you've made the effort to really stack circumstances in your favor.

That was my first reaction to the situation too. Then, I realized that could quickly become as fiddly as counting +1 bonuses. "Wait! Am I standing on the table? Didn't somebody Bless me last round?"

 

[Viking Bastard]

All it's going to do is introduce question about when you should be using flat penalties/bonuses or advantages/disadvantages. Confusion.

Mike Mearls gave some clarification in a twitter reply:

[MENTION=74153]Igfig[/MENTION] If you are somehow inhibited from using your skill, it's a penalty. If you are fully functional but circumstances against you, disad.​

 

[Harlekin]

Advantage/Disadvantage reads well, but in play I think it is a horrible rule. The effect of advantage/disadvantage is way too big; for most game situations, it amounts to a +5 modifier.

In practice difficult combats will only be about getting advantage. The only classes that have the best tools to get advantage within the rules are of course casters while fighters have nothing.

One might argue that fighter then need to think outside the rules, but with the MMI*-nature of the rules, this means that the GM will have to argue over player ideas every turn.

I seriously hope this rule gets reigned in in playtest.

*MMI="mother, may I"

 

[slobster]

I think it's obvious that the "advantage" meh-chanic (yeah I went there) is just WotC pandering to the RPG-industrial complex to artificially increase the sales of d20s. It's just like FATE mandating that I buy new "Fudge" dice when I already own dozens of perfectly good d6s.

Wake up sheeple!

 

[Agamon]

Love this. Of all the new mechanics, this is brilliant. It needs to be significant because it's an on/off switch, not an additive mod. If it only amounted to a +/-2, it's pointless.

Good mechanic, I'm glad it's well liked.

 

[IronWolf]

One might argue that fighter then need to think outside the rules, but with the MMI*-nature of the rules, this means that the GM will have to argue over player ideas every turn.

MMI is more of a GM issue than a rules issue. It varies from GM to GM as to how big of an issue it is, but you cannot codify everything that is going to happen in an RPG game. Attempting to do so simply results in an overly complex set of rules that ends up with you spending more time looking up esoteric situations in an oversized rulebook than just saying yes and moving on.

Just last night in my weekly game (Pathfinder) we were playing gridless. My character likes to get flanking and several times I asked the GM if I could get into flanking. There was no arguing about it or debating it, he simply said yes and we moved on. Had he said no at some point I would have been fine with that as well as we trust each other.