D&D 5E Advantage/Disadvantage - Common or Special?

[PnPgamer]

It completely depends on if a barbarian is on the party!

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

3 levels of Ranger and being a Halfling. Bam, scaling AC mount.

Is this example of what costs are being paid to result in advantage meant to be proof that advantage can be gained without a cost?

3 levels of a specific class, a specific sub-class choice, and a specific sub-set of race choices (since gnomes are small too), is much higher cost than anything I mentioned - which is why it is okay that it not only gives the benefits (and drawbacks) of what I mentioned, but also a few extra benefits like increased mount AC and HP (over typical mounts, at least - someone mounted on a triceratops is likely to feel they got a better deal).

 

[CapnZapp]

I dont use inspiration for the very reason it grants "too easy" adv (in my view)

I have changed it to +5 precisely in order to not cheapen the often delicate tactical/build choices needed to gain advantage.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Special... -ish.

There are obviously quite a few powers, spells, and situations in the rules that specifically grant (Dis-)Advantage, some of which will come up quite often.

But beyond that, I'll only allow/use it if the situation indicates a significantly disproportionate mismatch in the circumstances. Which will be rarely.

If the players want to generate their own Advantage, there's a way for them to do that - Inspiration.

YMMV, of course.

Mostly this for me too, but I want to add one thing: The help command.

Some of my players (the roleplay heavy ones) often like to do interesting actions during combat rather than just saying "I attack X". For example they think of a neat way to distract the enemy instead of directly attacking it. I consider stuff like this as "Help" action which grants advantage on the next attack done on the distracted enemy at the cost of an action.
So in theory the group could replace 4 normal attack rolls with 2 attack rolls on advantage if they want to. But I fully leave that up to their imagination.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Mostly this for me too, but I want to add one thing: The help command.

Some of my players (the roleplay heavy ones) often like to do interesting actions during combat rather than just saying "I attack X". For example they think of a neat way to distract the enemy instead of directly attacking it. I consider stuff like this as "Help" action which grants advantage on the next attack done on the distracted enemy at the cost of an action.
So in theory the group could replace 4 normal attack rolls with 2 attack rolls on advantage if they want to. But I fully leave that up to their imagination.

They could, but they'd be very silly to do so, mathematically speaking.

4 attacks, assuming even remotely equal hit bonuses, has almost exactly the same chance of total failure (0 hits) or near-total failure (1 hit), but can have 3 or even 4 attacks land, when 2-with-advantage cannot. 2-with-advantage is certainly more likely to get at least one crit, possibly two...but, due to static damage bonuses (from Dex or Str, possibly magic weapon) two crits is still lower than 4-attacks-without-advantage. Only by heavily stacking on two people with substantially superior damage dice (e.g. greatsword, since it's 2d6) can you get a better average result. I suppose if you have multiple Paladins that only drop Smites on a crit, but that smacks of intentionally optimizing for it, rather than a couple of people in the party deciding to do something because it's flavorful, not because it's useful.

[sblock=Math, for those who care]Assuming, say, a 60% hit chance, the expected value of four attacks is 4*.55*(average damage roll+static value)+4*.05*(2*average dam roll+static value), to account for crits. Most people are going to use a d6 or d8 weapon, so we'll go with the latter. And most people should have at least +2 to damage from their base stats (assuming a slightly low value to be conservative: it reduces the impact of the static part). So 4*.55*(4.5+2)+4*.05*(9+2) = 16.5 expected damage per round. For two attacks with advantage, an initial 60% hit chance becomes an 84%, with a 9.75% chance to crit, so the formula becomes 2*.7425*(4.5+2)+2*.0975*(9+2) = 11.7975, about a 30% loss in damage. If we compensate by switching two of the attacks to 2d6 (average 7) and a +3 static bonus, it looks like:
4 Without: 2*.55*(4.5+2)+2*.05*(9+2)+2*.55*(7+3)+2*.05*(14+3) = 20.95
2 With: 2*.7425*(7+3)+2*.0975*(14+3) = 18.165

The gap narrows, but only slightly. Only by having a substantial difference in damage values (e.g. Battlemaster maneuver, Paladin Smite, maybe Barb Rage) can you even get it up to parity. I'll also note that, while the 60% hit rate was chosen more or less at random, the effect is pretty solid unless it's almost impossible to hit the target....which, as I understand it, isn't really supposed to happen in 5e because of "Bounded Accuracy."[/sblock]

Everyone attacking without advantage is, in the main, superior to half the group attacking with it. You just don't get enough bang for your buck. And since it's only the next attack roll, rather than the next Attack Action, many classes actually lose multiple attacks to do it (particularly Fighters) while only generating 1 roll's worth of advantage.

It's kind of a neat idea, and it has its place, but surely there are better ways to try to help an ally. Finding some way to even potentially inflict Disadvantage on enemy attacks, for example; even if it only works 50% of the time, that can be enough to make most high-AC characters effectively unhittable,

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Well my players don't really metagame so they don't care so much about it being potentially less useful.

 

[Forged Fury]

There are the cost of buying and caring for your mount(s), the restriction of potentially not being able to fit well in some areas while on your mount, and the disadvantage (common usage of the word, not game term) of making yourself a more prominent target for your enemies.

Getting on a mount is actually pretty far from "no cost" advantage.

Also, doesn't getting advantage require having the Mounted Combatant feat? I don't think everyone on a horse gets advantage against legs, based on my recall.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Well my players don't really metagame so they don't care so much about it being potentially less useful.

Of course your players don't "metagame," there is no such thing as metagaming - it's an illusion designed to keep players asking their DM for permission to be in control of their character, including their thoughts and lucky guesses.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Also, doesn't getting advantage require having the Mounted Combatant feat? I don't think everyone on a horse gets advantage against legs, based on my recall.

Yes, it does, and I kept forgetting to mention that so thank you for doing so.

 

[Arial Black]

When I started to run Lost Mines of Phandelver I chose to use the optional flanking rule from the DMG.

Why? Coming through extensive 3E/PF play, flanking gives a +2 attack bonus, 5E uses advantage instead of such bonuses, so flanking=advantage seemed fair enough.

In play, it meant that nearly every melee attack had advantage. It is much easier to get into a flanking position in 5E than it was in 3E. In 3E, if you start adjacent to the enemy, you can move one square without a problem, but when you move two or more you provoke an AoO. But in 5E, you can run circles around and around your enemy without provoking, as long as you don't leave his reach.

So it's trivially easy to get into a flanking position in 5E but not 3E, advantage is not only better mathematically than +2 it also cancels disadvantage and some other mechanics key off it. Flanking became the dominant factor in my 5E combats.

Still, I didn't think to do anything about it. Then I tried making some characters myself.

My barbarian can get it at will, but all attacks on her get advantage too. My paladin of vengeance can get it at will...against one target per short rest.

I could cast true strike, but there goes my action for that entire turn...!

Why go to all that trouble when I can simply walk around the bad guy into a flanking position at no cost?

Then I saw a thread comment that said that his table had stopped using this optional rule that isn't even in the PHB! It's only then that it occurred to me that I could simply choose not to use that rule! I only used it in the first place because I'd been playing with a flanking rule since 3E came out, so I felt that there aught to be one.

And now I (finally!) come to the topic of this thread. In all this research, I discovered that advantage should not be trivial and/or without cost. You shouldn't be able to get it just by saying so; just by describing how your punch is a superman punch. If it works like that, then every punch would be described as a superman punch at no cost, and the world would be full of people attacking by jumping up a bit before attacking.

I don't think the question of 'common/rare' is what matters here. I think it should be a matter of cost.

Even the free advantage you get by using Inspiration is a one-shot deal that has to be regained before using it again, so is usually saved for an important roll.