Advantage/Disadvantage Impressions

[Mercule]

They clarified that if you have advantage at all, then you are still considered to have advantage for anything that requires that (you just don't roll any extra dice). So a blind rogue who is invisible can still do sneak attack damage.

Cite, please. Not calling you a liar. I'm just stunned. I had a player ask me about that and I said something to the effect of "Having advantage and disadvantage simultaneously is too stupid of a concept for me to even ponder. Absolutely not."

While I still stand by that statement, in principle, it's a playtest and I'll give the official rules a fair shake. I just want to actually read it before I change my ruling.

<mumble>Blind rogues sneak attacking. Ridiculous.</mumble>

 

[Mercule]

As long as advantage and disadvantage cancel each other out, it's absolutely one of the best new features of 5e.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Cite, please. Not calling you a liar. I'm just stunned. I had a player ask me about that and I said something to the effect of "Having advantage and disadvantage simultaneously is too stupid of a concept for me to even ponder. Absolutely not."

While I still stand by that statement, in principle, it's a playtest and I'll give the official rules a fair shake. I just want to actually read it before I change my ruling.

<mumble>Blind rogues sneak attacking. Ridiculous.</mumble>

It was in a Rule of Three column:

The D&D Next playtest rules state that advantage and disadvantage cancel each other out. How does this work when you have advantage or disadvantage from multiple sources?

When you have disadvantage or advantage, you have it, no matter how many sources you're getting it from. They are binary conditions, and once you have that condition in a certain situation, you simply have it. However, if you have both, then their effects cancel each other out—you roll no additional dice; again, no matter how many sources grant advantage or disadvantage, having both means that you, effectively, gain the die-rolling effects of neither advantage nor disadvantage at that time. Technically, you still have both advantage and disadvantage (for the purpose of things that key on those situations), their basic effects simply negate one another.

-Hyp.

 

[delericho]

2) With a class that need advantage to work (rogue), it would need adv a lot/ The above 1 screws them over. Darkness = Anti rogue. Uphill = Anti rogue. Etc Etc. (Dis)Advantage needs to be rarer.

So to me.

3) (Dis)Advantage based characters need a built in (Dis)Advantage mechanic or feature.

I'll go much further than this: classes should not be dependent on getting Advantage to work.

If the Rogue needs Advantage to Sneak Attack, and also needs Sneak Attack to be a viable option in combat, then the Rogue is a one-trick pony and needs to be redesigned.

(My suggested solution: give the Rogue several different (non-stacking) high-damage attack options, each of which has different circumstances required for use, and each of which is more or less damaging depending on the circumstance/opposition. That way, clever play for the Rogue becomes more than just "how do I arrange to be flanking", and it also means that some monsters can be immune to some of the Rogue's attack options without reducing the Rogue to being a spectator in 40% of fights (as in 3e).)

 

[Frostmarrow]

I'm thinking the acting character can claim advantage from one source. If that doesn't stick no more claims can be made. The reacting character can similarly point out one disadvatage.

Adam: I'm charging.
Bertil: I have a spear set to receive charge. Also I've got the sun in my back.
Adam: I wear shades.

Adam might still have other various advantages that he could claim but only one claim can be made per turn.

 

[Nebulous]

i'm worried that A/D and its implementation in 5e will lead to overuse. Even if spells and feats and whatnot explicitly "give" advantage, I can see players arguing that their cleverly worded plan should also offer advantage. In fact, i can see the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic used constantly, every round for practically all d20 rolls. And then it won't feel so special anymore.

 

[pauljathome]

Sure, you can create ridiculous extremes of anything. The above extreme involved counting to - what - three? Even a toddler doesn't find that a challenge!

I think that you are seriously underestimating how innumerate many North Americans are. Its quite appalling how bad most peoples basic arithmetic skills are.

 

[OnlineDM]

My thoughts:

1. The math isn't that hard. I worked it out in detail here.

2. I personally find rolling the extra die to be fun, so I like the mechanic.

3. Tracking the stacking is something I'm leery of. As long as advantage and disadvantage are both rare, then saying "having X instances of Advantage and Y instances of Disadvantage cancels out" (X and Y both greater than zero) works for me.

4. To the point about complexity from [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION] - I would personally say it's "fiddly" more so than "complex" and that's still a problem. The back and forth of sources of Advantage and Disadvantage becomes a pain in the butt if there are a lot of them and it matters which one is more numerous. If it's a common thing to get, then I'm sure this would get tiresome at high level ("okay, that's three disadvantages... I know I've got at least three advantages... can I find fourth to make it net out to advantage...").

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I really like the mechanic, especially as a replacement for a whole mess of modifiers that tended to be so minor as to be not worth tracking individually, yet massively overpowering when put together.

Three things:

- My gut feeling is that advantage/disadvantage will be at their best when applied sparingly. My worry is that WotC will now proceed to introduce a hundred and one powers/class features/conditions that apply one or the other, and destroy an excellent mechanic by making it ubiquitous.

- Likewise, I'm inclined to oppose stacking of advantage and disadvantage. If you have advantage from multiple sources, you roll 2 dice. Likewise disadvantage. And if you have both advantage and disadvantage (no matter how many times each), they cancel each other out.

- And finally, the probability of rolling 2 dice is not obvious, but bearably so. However, the effects of rolling 2 dice and applying a static modifier could get very messy. Where possible, they should try to avoid that combination.

Yes. It's a very fine, workable mechanics in real danger of being abused unmercifully. I don't have a problem with modest stacking, to no more than 3 dice, with 3 dice rare, in order to extend the workable range of the mechanic, though I grant that this is grasping after a portion of the "other 20%" after the mechanic as written has neatly grabbed the 80% of useful effects. The more the mechanic is pushed past its natural limits, the more of that 80% will be compromised.

What I'd really like to see in extension is other mechanics based on the same principles. For example, there might be a separate set of "damage advantage/disadvantage" mechanics using the damage dice. Obviously, with different die sizes and more of them, it might not work exactly the same way, and they might want to call it something different than "advantage." Something different for skill results would be nice, too. The idea is to take the pressure off of the current mechanic trying to do too much.