Disadvantages of Advantage

[Fauchard1520]

I've got a short post over here running a compare / contrast on the 5e D&D advantage / disadvantage system versus the more granular modifiers found in older editions like Pathfinder. It seems to me that there's a question of elegance on the one hand versus depth on the other. As such, I'm curious about the community opinion. When it comes situational modifiers do you prefer simple and user friendly, or do you appreciate a little more depth?

 

[hawkeyefan]

I prefer the simpler and more elegant option, myself. I want combat to move as quickly as it can. I don't want the game to grind to a halt every time someone has to take a condition or some other modifier trigger into account. Especially if many may apply. Advantage or Disadvantage is quick, and easy to determine, and then things can proceed.

I also don't know if I agree that having more modifiers is the same as having more "depth", it's more complex, and it takes more factors into account, yes, but is that what makes it deeper?

 

[Umbran]

We have umpteen different types of players. We have different types of games for differnt types of players.

If your players have fun with the strategizing around all the numbers, then the detailed accounting is better. If your players really aren't into tactical math, and lean more to the dramatic, then advantage is probably a better bet.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I vastly prefer the simpler Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic. Just one or two situational modifiers isn’t so bad, but when they start stacking up, it can really slow a game down. Not to mention when you only realize after the fact that with that +2 you forgot about, you totally would’ve succeeded/hit with that roll after all. Then you either have to backtrack the whole game or just catch it next time.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The Advantage system works well with the d20 mechanic in the context of Fifth Edition. Usually. It's not perfect, and if you change anything else about the game, then it may work even less well.

To see where it breaks down, consider a Fighter with Charisma 8 which is required to make a Charisma save against DC 20. It will never happen, regardless of any theoretical Advantage, or the Fighter ability to re-roll failed saves. The Advantage mechanic works well when you need to roll something in the middle range of the d20, and stops functioning entirely when you need to roll something outside of that range. The benefit of fiddly accounting of static bonuses is that it keeps working regardless of whether something would otherwise be impossible (as long as you're also okay with circumstances that turn possibilities into impossibilities).

If you look at other games which have tried to simplify the implementation of circumstantial modifiers, you might notice some percentile-based games where the equivalent of Disadvantage is simply that you need to roll under half of your normal percentile value. And that mostly works, in that your chance of success is proportional to the base chance and you never fall off the bottom end of the scale such that something becomes entirely impossible... but it can be a pain to re-calculate those values whenever the base value changes. (BRP famously uses one-fifth of your skill rating for determining critical success, and also lets you make multiple attacks with an increasing flat penalty on each iterative attack.)

As a general guideline, fast adjudication is worth something that balances the reduced granularity, and whether that trade-off is considered worth-while is going to be a matter of opinion that also varies by the specifics. I'm absolutely certain that someone out there thinks that simple Advantage is preferable to the fiddly accounting of Pathfinder, but that the marginally less-fiddly accounting of AD&D is even better.

 

[Blue]

I've got a short post over here running a compare / contrast on the 5e D&D advantage / disadvantage system versus the more granular modifiers found in older editions like Pathfinder. It seems to me that there's a question of elegance on the one hand versus depth on the other. As such, I'm curious about the community opinion. When it comes situational modifiers do you prefer simple and user friendly, or do you appreciate a little more depth?

Long combat turns are one of the things I like least about combat-focused game systems. If +/-N is the absolute right number but it takes me 20 second each action to determine that, and +/-4 is the "immediate approximation" which could be off by 50% but only takes me 5 seconds, well ...

15 seconds longer, times four other PCs and five monsters, that's 2.25 minutes added between every action for every player. With 5 round combats (so four waits between turns) that's 9 minutes per person, or 54 man-minutes wasted on figuring out the exact bonus (5 players + 1 DM). Per combat it would waste near a man-hour. How could that be worth it?

And that doesn't even consider if that enough to push it to the point where people start losing focus? Daydreaming or checking their phone and they need a recap? Which then slows it down more for everyone else in a nasty downward spiral.

 

[Blue]

To see where it breaks down, consider a Fighter with Charisma 8 which is required to make a Charisma save against DC 20. It will never happen, regardless of any theoretical Advantage, or the Fighter ability to re-roll failed saves.

Ah, I see this as an feature of Advantage - it changes the distribution but doesn't change the top or bottom. It's a temporary situational boost, making you more likely to succeed on something you can, not making you able to do things you couldn't do before. You can't lift a boulder heavier than you can lift because you're inspired to do so, but one which would give you trouble you are more likely to succeed. Same with disadvantage - if you can't fail a DC 10 Concentration save, you still can't fail it with disadvantage. But you are much more likely to fail that DC 20 Concentration save then you were before.

I accept you see it otherwise - it's a matter of opinion not an absolute so we can only judge it for ourselves.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You can't lift a boulder heavier than you can lift because you're inspired to do so, but one which would give you trouble you are more likely to succeed.

The problem is that the game uses Advantage for anything that could possibly help you, such that none of it will let you surpass the limit of what you could have done alone. If you can't lift that boulder with your bare hands, then you won't be able to lift it with any number of levers or pulleys, either. And that's not a good representation of how levers work. I'm fine with it as a representation for Inspiration, although that's not something which I've ever seen come up in any game.

(It's similar to the issue with HP and healing. Overnight healing makes sense when you're talking about HP as fatigue, but it doesn't make sense when you're talking about being stabbed, and HP are supposed to represent both. By using one game mechanic to cover two different categories of phenomena, the rules end up looking really silly about half of the time.)

Besides, one of the selling points of 5E was supposed to be Bounded Accuracy, by which anyone could attempt any task without needing special auto-success-on-a-20 rules. That was the agenda which Advantage was intended to serve. Unfortunately, because of flaws in the underlying math, it turned out to be not-the-case - there are still times when a natural 20 will fail, and in those cases, Advantage does not work as intended. (Of course, whether or not it was a good design ideal to pursue such a goal is very much a matter of preference.)

 

[TheSword]

@Saelorn The block and tackle equipment allows you to lift four times your weight rather than give advantage on rolls. I get your point though.

[Edit: We could easily replace the analogy with two people trying to break down a door though]

What I like about advantage/disadvantage is that unlike +/- stacking it reduces the chances of autosuccess. Many builds in PF and 3rd ed were about stacking modifiers to skills, CMD, Saves, save DCs and attack rolls dramatically higher than the DCs expected. Pathfinder in particular allowed this to be taken to crazy degrees. The advantage mechanic is like a breath of fresh air after all this. People call it granularity but it wasn’t used to reflect choice and realism it was used to build powerhouses.

 

[CubicsRube]

One way to logically integrate it might be to add a flat +2 or +5 for equipment such as block and tackle, crowbars etc and then use advantage for psychological effects such as encouragement from allies, focus etc.

The equipment benefit keeps it consistent with the treatment for cover and it enables you to do things you couldnt do baee handed. (A crowbar really does help you open doors you couldn't). But focus or assistance from a comrad granting advantage would increase your chances of hitting a dc within your normal range, but not help you in achieving something you couldn't otherwise do alone and unequipped.