D&D 5E (2024) A fix for advantage/disadvantage stacking

[Charlaquin]

We’ve never actually tried it at the table, but I’ve always liked the idea of Advantage and Disadvantage stacking. If you can get Advantage from two different sources, let them stack.

I may give it a try next time a GM …

Well, the idea here is supposed to be a house rule that allows multiple instances of Advantage and Disadvantage to be relevant without needing to track stacking instances of them. But, whatever floats your boat.

 

[Charlaquin]

I saw recently a houserule that if you would have stacking advantage/disadvantage, you instead get a +/-1 for every additional source. So you’d get your normal reroll, then add or subtract the hard modifier for every additional source.

That’s an interesting alternative, but more tracking than what I was going for here.

I probably framed this thread incorrectly. My intent was, “Hey, Brennan Lee Mulligan’s Emphasis mechanic seems pretty cool, what if I tried using it when a roll would have both Advantage and Disadvantage instead of just applying it arbitrarily when I personally want the stakes of a roll to be more dramatic?” and in thinking about that I realized it also fixes the weirdness of invisible and/or blind creatures all attacking each other with flat d20 rolls and could allow for a form of Advantage/Disadvantage stacking without having to count how many sources of each a roll has. I framed this as the primary benefit of the proposed house rule, but to me it was actually more of an incidental perk.

 

[Marc Radle]

Well, the idea here is supposed to be a house rule that allows multiple instances of Advantage and Disadvantage to be relevant without needing to track stacking instances of them. But, whatever floats your boat.

Completely understood!

For me though, your proposed idea just feels more complicated than it’s worth.

Just allowing Advantage and Disadvantage to stack feels much easier and seems like it would be pretty simple to keep track of …

As you say though - whatever floats your boat!

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

By… doing it? I’m sorry, I don’t know how else to answer. How do I know if I have both socks and shoes without counting the number of garments on my feet? They’re different things, so I don’t need to check the total number to know if I have both.

This is where you're losing me. Here's your original post:

"So, my proposal is simple: when a d20 test would have both advantage and disadvantage, it loses both and has emphasis instead. If a d20 test would have emphasis but gains advantage or disadvantage, it loses emphasis and gains that modifier instead."

You have a test. For whatever reason, X number of advantages and Y number of disadvantages are applied to that test. Since it has both, that gets wiped and you get emphasis instead. But your next sentence says: "If a d20 test would have emphasis but gains advantage or disadvantage, it loses emphasis and gains that modifier instead." By definition, the test had both of these applied... how does the second clause get applied? Aren't all the advantages/disadvantages calculated ahead of the test being rolled against? How can you have a test that has emphasis but then gains advantage/disadvantage? I'm sure I'm missing something simple here. Bear in mind I haven't played an RPG in over 30 years... maybe that's what contributing to my misunderstanding.