D&D 5E Reflecting on advantage and disadvantage.

[Rya.Reisender]

I like the way it is. The cancelling and non-stacking actually creates quite some interesting aspects, because that means depending on the current situation advantage/disadvantage can anything from useless to very useful. That forces you to aim for more versatile builds too. It makes play more fun, because depending on the combat situation, the most viable strategy can be very different.

 

[ExploderWizard]

There's certainly elegance in simplicity. But I'm more of the old school of thought. I don't like too much simplicity. I like detail.

What choo talkin about Willis? Old school is all about keeping things simple. Complexity for its own sake is very much a new school idea.

 

[Ranes]

Funny, 'old school' where I come from means embrace complexity. I liked A/D at first but I've gone off it. I think it's too reductive. In fact, that's my main criticism of 5e as a whole.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Coming from the position where in my games story almost always trumps mechanics... Ad/Disad is the greatest mechanic in the game. It is so simple, so easy to adjudicate, requires so little memory to go back and add it in when a player has forgotten they had it... it has sped and eased up play immensely.

My games are so geared towards the group improvisation of story that I can't even remember the last time any player went about looking for ways to stack Advantage for a single roll... wherein me throwing a single Disadvantage to topple that tower over was ever going to be an issue. So having a single non-additive mechanic that grants one bonus that a player just has to notice that "Oh yeah, I have this!" means the story doesn't slow down almost at all even when the mechanics and dice come out.

I cannot say enough good things that it has given to my particular style of game.

 

[Ristamar]

I like it. A lot.

It's far too tedious to maintain and consistently apply a huge list of situational modifiers, nor do I think stacking modifiers is necessarily more realistic in many situations. I appreciate complex systems, but I think they're better suited to cRPGs where they are quick, predictable, unerring, and invisible. The grind of 3.x made me realize that simple abstraction makes for a smoother, more enjoyable tabletop game.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I've been pointing out the negative quirks of adv/dis since the beginning of the playtest, but most people have been simply too happy for its simplicity, that they refuse to see them.

Yeah, you're not the only one. Perhaps it's because the "honeymoon" isn't over yet, or because people don't run into the issue very often, or they're just too pleased with the overall system, I dunno. But yeah--people (including yours truly) were pointing this out back in the playtest, and not terribly many people even reacted. A lot of those that did gave the Standard 5e Response: "You're the DM, you fix it!" (even when the listener...isn't actually the DM.)

IMO the non-stacking isn't even the biggest deal with advantage, but rather the fact that (dis)advantage is also a condition that triggers a lot of special abilities, unlike the 3e vanilla +2/-2 modifier that you could always apply to represent various circumstances. Now if you over-use (dis)advantage freely, you have to be prepared that the PCs (and the monsters) will too often be allowed or otherwise prevented to use their special abilities and features.

I think they're both significant concerns. Advantage/disadvantage, probably more than anything except maybe Proficiency, is the "core mechanic" that the whole engine is built around...and it's quixotic to the core. Most of the time, both of them are supposed to be relatively rare/unusual things, and it's clear that certain features are balanced around that being the case. But then you have other features that grant it all the time--class features, items, a few spells--on top of it being the default "bennie" handed out for good roleplay, and it being the intended replacement for the old "DM's best friend" aka the +/-2 situational modifier, and clearly some things (e.g. the Barbarian with Reckless Attack) are built expecting you to benefit from it on a regular basis.

So much--too much, I'd argue--rides on a single, non-stacking (and non-extendable), eliminable mechanic.

 

[Greg Benage]

I think it works great and like it a lot in actual play.

 

[billd91]

I'm still a fan. I think advantage/disadvantage works pretty well overall, though I do have some sympathy for the argument that one disadvantage shouldn't completely wipe out all advantages. As DM, I'm willing to toss that on occasion when I think the advantage is overwhelming, even to any imposed disadvantages. That said, I definitely like to see PCs wipe out multiple disadvantages by judicious use of any inspiration advantage.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Sure, it's blunt, but blunt works well. Nuanced modifiers are rarely worth using.

That said, as a DM, there's no reason you can't give a modifier for something, or adjust the DC.

 

[ShadoWWW]

I am big fan of a/d. It has its limitations, but for our style of gaming, which is more RP than numbers-oriented, it's much better than range of cumulative modifiers from previous editions. We also tried to stack a/d, but then returned to the version in the rules.

One more thing. As a DM, it has been always tricky for me to set the situational modifiers right in play. It always affected the pace of the playing. A/d is much more intuitive for me, and I can handle it on the fly with ease. It doesn't hurt the pace of the game.