Advantage and Disadvantage stacking

[Ellington]

In a recent Rule of Three it was stated that advantage and disadvantage would be binary; you're either at an advantage/disadvantage or you're not. It doesn't matter how many sources of advantage you have, it's always the same bonus. Likewise, it doesn't matter how many sources of advantage you have, one source of disadvantage will cancel them all out.

Is this for the best? I understand that it makes things very simple, but I like the idea of varying degrees of advantage/disadvantage. Sometimes you're just in a situation that's so overwhelmingly in your favor or so incredibly unlikely that you'll succeed that the odds should reflect that. It wouldn't even have to be complicated. The number of sources of advantage/disadvantage = the number of extra dice you roll, and they'd cancel each other out. If you have several sources of advantage, a single source of disadvantage would reduce the number of advantage d20s by one instead of removing them altogether.

In short: Would you like multiple sources of advantage and disadvantage stacking up, creating major advantages and disadvantages?

I for one, would.

 

[Morrus]

We've had a few threads about this where people have calculated aenpribabilities probabilities and made cool charts. The effect of stacking is that with target rolls in the middle of the scale it makes a massive difference, but a negligible one at the edges.

Hopefully someone can post all the math again! I'm all for it, but the math did look too swingy with mid-target DCs.

 

[Lanefan]

Might an answer be to cap it but at something other than one? Say, no matter how many things are simultaneously granting you (dis)advantage you can only benefit (or be penalized) from three*? And those three must be in excess of the opposite, thus if you've got advantage 5 times and disadvantage only once you've hit the advantage cap and get it three (not four) times; but if you've got advantage 5 times and disadvantage 4 you have advantage once and the rest cancel out.

* - or pick a number, maybe even could be on a dial...

Lan-"and if combat can get messy enough that 9 sets of adv./disadv. can apply to one entity simultaneously there might be a bigger problem"-efan

 

[GX.Sigma]

Could be a cool Rogue feature-- your number of advantage dice increases to 7 by level 20.

For the core game, no dear. Just having advantage is easy to deal with. Having double advantage or triple advantage is just silly.

The real question is, should 1 disadvantage cancel out 2 advantages?

 

[john112364]

I would prefer that it did not stack mainly for simplicity sake.

Trying to figure out how many advantages you have versus your disadvantages and who rolls how many dice and oh wait, the cleric just used his guardian reaction so that's one more advantage.....

That way lies madness and yet another way to slow the game down.

My 2cp.

 

[Agamon]

Tracking all sources of advantage and disadvantage is not nearly enough of a chore. I think you should add them all up, calculate the percentage of (dis)advantage, roll a d100 to see if you have to roll more than 1 die, then roll 1 or 2 dice depending on the results of the d100 roll.

Or, you know, just follow the KISS principle...

 

[john112364]

Could be a cool Rogue feature-- your number of advantage dice increases to 7 by level 20.

For the core game, no dear. Just having advantage is easy to deal with. Having double advantage or triple advantage is just silly.

The real question is, should 1 disadvantage cancel out 2 advantages?

If I'm understanding what you mean correctly, I could get behind advantages and disadvantages canceling each other on a one to one basis. So in your example, you would be left with one advantage (which would still be one extra d20). This makes more sense to me than multiple advantages and/or disadvantages giving multiple dice (which is what I think the OP is asking.)

 

[GX.Sigma]

If I'm understanding what you mean correctly, I could get behind advantages and disadvantages canceling each other on a one to one basis. So in your example, you would be left with one advantage (which would still be one extra d20). This makes more sense to me than multiple advantages and/or disadvantages giving multiple dice (which is what I think the OP is asking.)

I actually think it's a bad idea--the point of using the dice trick over little numerical bonuses is so you don't have to do math or remember things. That gets ruined if you have to remember how many advantages you have from each source.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Restating my opinion from last time, no more than 3 dice, ever, and make the third dice rare:

• Everything goes your way - 2 or more advantage, no disadvantage - 3 dice.
• More advantage than disadvantage, regardless of numbers - normal advantage of 2 dice.
• Equal - 1 die.
• More disadvantage than advantage, regardless of numbers - normal disadvantge of 2 dice.
• Should have stayed in bed today - 2 or more disadvantage, no advantage - 3 dice.

I'd do this as an optional module on top of the current rules, which would remain core. The idea here is that you get the maximum reasonable range with the least calculation. Anything over 3 dice is rather neglible in most cases, and the five situations above cover a lot of ground.

What this avoids is the situation where no one cares about pursuing more advantage or disadvantage once you've got each one on the table. If you can get more, it's worth it. But once each one is one the table, you can never get more than two dice. That saves 3 dice for those times when an ambush or other set of highly favorable or unfavorable circumstance means it really should be very easy or hard.

Alternately, an even simpler version of the above is to leave the three middle cases as in the core (i.e. to get advantage you need at least one advantage without the other guy having a disadvantage to cancel it). Then say that you can get three dice when double advantage or disadvantage is in play, but only when there is nothing to cancel, as above. This variant will highly motivate people to try to cancel out the opposing advantage, but you only need one to do it. It should be a good option for people who like the simplicity of the core, but want to make ambushes deadly.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Restating my opinion from last time, no more than 3 dice, ever, and make the third dice rare

I don't know about you, but I think 2 dice for one action is already pushing it.

At higher levels, with lots of combatants on both sides, it could turn the game into this:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sETDJUZE7aU[/ame]