D&D 5E Adv/Disadv - how often do you use?

[Tony Vargas]

I haven't played 5e yet and didn't read the rules fully so...

How do you who are reluctant to grant advantage play? Do you grant bonuses instead?

I'd guess that Adv/Dis will get used for at least one roll every round - if not virtually ever turn. There's virtually no other situational modifiers, and there's a lot of things that can trigger one or the other. In the playtest, for just one instance, the barbarian was constantly attacking with advantage.

Adv/Dis is great as a thing to hand out because it doesn't stack, and it doesn't expand the range of what a PC can do, just makes it more likely he'll do something he can already hope to accomplish. You can be quite profligate with it, if you like.

 

[Jeph]

Here's another great source of advantage: henchmen!

Even if all they've got is a 11 Strength score and a spear, they can still take the Help action to give you advantage on your presumably much beefier attack roll.

 

[drjones]

- Really super clever tactics. I have a hard time thinking of an example that doesn't already fit into the "spend and action" or "encounter feature" guideline. I guess if you're facing a soaking-wet troll, maybe he gets disadvantage on his save against lightning bolt but advantage against fireball, encouraging players to pick the right one.

I have been giving inspiration for 'awesome' in addition to attention to role playing. In an encounter the cleric used her turn to preach at the bandits about ending their wicked ways. One of them crit failed his opposition check so I guess it worked! In the same fight the thief took disadvantage to make a called shot on a bandit, who had insulted him, in the jibblies. Both won inspiration for being fun.

Also, it sounds like you have been playing Divinity: Original Sin! I also worked it in a bit, adding more damage type weakness/resistance to monsters and setting up environmental effects that players can take advantage of, or run afoul of.

 

[transtemporal]

I think it was Mearls that suggested that as a rule of thumb, anything like that should only give Advantage if you spent an action doing it.

Roger, but he would've been talking about granting advantage in the NEXT round via the Help action right? This particular maneuver was granting advantage in the same round.

 

[jadrax]

Roger, but he would've been talking about granting advantage in the NEXT round via the Help action right? This particular maneuver was granting advantage in the same round.

I cant find the Mearls quote because Twitter is a nightmare to search, but I don't believe he was talking about the Help action, no.

I personally would not let you get Advantage with the Acrobatics skill without spending an action to do so, which probably means its not going to kick in until next round unless you have some way of getting an extra action you can use on Acrobatics checks (in this case I would probably allow a rogue to use Cunning Action for example, as that allows a Dash/Disengage which seems close enough). I think if you are just allowing a free Acrobatics check every round to get Advantage, that is quickly going to get our of hand, no matter how much description goes into it.

 

[KarinsDad]

Here's another great source of advantage: henchmen!

Even if all they've got is a 11 Strength score and a spear, they can still take the Help action to give you advantage on your presumably much beefier attack roll.

Henchmen might not survive long in 5E. For one thing, NPCs should attack them if they are giving the Help action. Although this will protect the PCs a bit for the first few encounters, coming back to town without Henchmen might eventually lead to a bad reputation.

Also, NPCs could do the same thing: invite mooks to the battle in order to have them give Help. Front line PCs are harder to hit than most NPCs. Giving the NPCs Help via weaker mooks would be advantageous for the NPCs.

 

[Werebat]

If he made a roll for it, he presumably risked something, and should get something extra for his effort. After the first time,it should not take a roll, but it also should not give anything, because it's no longer cool.

Hmm... Allowing a cool thing to work once, eh? I can dig it, but I'm afraid that could lead to players "hoarding" cool ideas to pull out of their bag of tricks whenever things get rough.


Which may be what you're aiming for, but...

Hi, by the way. Fancy meeting you here.