Advantages / Disadvantages

[Warbringer]

I don't like the multiple dice in D&D. First, it doesn't feel like D&D..

Fireball ....

On a less flippant note, it does change the way players act, and its fun.

My group has been playing a variant of 3. for a few years where actions (standard, move, plus special for class) create a dice pool that are used for attacking, defending, skill checks, movements...

Want to risk a killing blow, everything goes in attack .... want that skill to absolutley work ... roll all 3 dice ... off course, someone better have your back as an autohit isn't pretty....

It does create great tension though

 

[Ferghis]

On average it's +4.5 IIRC, if that is of any help to you.

I was wondering about this, and I'm not so good at the maths, so I had a spreadsheet count out the permutations, and these are the results: the average result of selecting the best result out of 2d20 is 13.83. Compared to 10.5, that's an improvement of +3.33. The odds of rolling a 20 is 9.75%.

What confuses me is why they do not let advantage stack. The rate of diminishing returns dramatically neuters the advantage of seeking out many advantages. The average result when taking the best of 3d20 is 15.49, which is almost like a +5, but it's only 1.66 better than rolling two dice. And if you roll 4d20, the average of the best roll is 16.48, or almost a +6 over 1d20, but only 1 pip better than rolling 3d20. A flat +2 would be more than twice as effective as rolling a third die, ignoring criticals for a moment.

Even the odds of rolling a critical increase less and less: 2d20 yields 9.75% of rolling a crit, 3d20 14.26%, and 4d20 18.55%.

 

[underfoot007ct]

I like the dis/advantage thing in theory, but it was a bit awkward in practice, especially when you're resolving lots of attacks at once. Tonight I had my fighter stumble into a hall with 40 kobolds, who all threw their spears at him at once. They outnumbered him, so they all got advantage on their attack--but I didn't want to roll 80 dice. I ended up conveniently "forgetting" advantage when combats involved lots of combatants.

It's awesome that it's the kind of fast-playing game like BD&D/AD&D where you can just pick up a giant handful of dice, roll them all and count the hits, but the advantage rules make that a bit awkward. Maybe I'll abstract it to a +3 bonus whenever it would be inconvenient to roll double the d20s.

Possibly this is more of a problems with the encounter of 40 anythings. A better encounter might be 25 Elite Kobolds or 15 Kobold Soldiers, etc.

 

[underfoot007ct]

D20 for everything is so middle school.

In my day rogues rolled d100 all the time for their abilities and clerics had 2d6 on standby for turning undead.

And we colored in the numbers on the die with crayons!

DS

And our favorite TV shows were still in B&W.

Crayons are so middle school, d20s are more like high school

D20s are like color TVs

 

[Libramarian]

I agree that the impact of MMI-rules depend on the group. Especially in groups that have played together for a long time, there is an understanding between players and DM that often allows players to predict how the DM will rule and moreover there is a sufficient level of trust that rulings will typically be fair.

However, in less then ideal situations, misunderstandings between players and GMs can often result in bad experiences or at least in a lot of extra work for the player, if the rules system does little or nothing to support the decisions the GM makes.

The rules DO support the DM empowering improvisational play by making judgements and inferences about the shared imaginary space (I'm not using "MMI play" because it's a stupid, misleading phrase). Advantage makes it easier because there's only the one possible benefit. The DM doesn't have to decide on a modifier, they just decide whether the character has a situational advantage or not.

I wouldn't worry too much about handling huge numbers of enemies. I'm sure the final rules will say use +4 instead of an extra dice in that situation, or they'll come up with some simple swarm rules, no problemo.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Possibly this is more of a problems with the encounter of 40 anythings. A better encounter might be 25 Elite Kobolds or 15 Kobold Soldiers, etc.

If I had been more on-the-ball I would have had some of them wandering around so there wouldn't be all 40 in there, but I still think it's justified. Being able to have 45 creatures in one quick combat is pretty awesome, it's just the advantage rule that gets in the way of that.

(He survived pretty easily, by the way. He tanked all of it, then the cleric tossed him a healing potion and the wizard did cleanup while the rogue searched for treasure. Combat was 2 rounds, took less than 10 minutes to play out.)

It's not just the encounter with 40 anythings, though: The owlbear has three attacks, so I have to roll 6 times if it has advantage? Hypothetical: The mid level fighter has three attacks and a couple henchmen, so he has to roll 10 times per round if he has advantage?

 

[underfoot007ct]

If I had been more on-the-ball I would have had some of them wandering around so there wouldn't be all 40 in there, but I still think it's justified. Being able to have 45 creatures in one quick combat is pretty awesome, it's just the advantage rule that gets in the way of that.

(He survived pretty easily, by the way. He tanked all of it, then the cleric tossed him a healing potion and the wizard did cleanup while the rogue searched for treasure. Combat was 2 rounds, took less than 10 minutes to play out.)

It's not just the encounter with 40 anythings, though: The owlbear has three attacks, so I have to roll 6 times if it has advantage? Hypothetical: The mid level fighter has three attacks and a couple henchmen, so he has to roll 10 times per round if he has advantage?

Not sure I understand you, 40 anythings making 40 attacks is fine, but an owlbear attacking 6 times (34 less) is bad?

The combat was 2 rounds 10 mins, do you really need combat to be must quicker. Sounds like a non issue to myself.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I suspect that the reason they don't have advantages stack is to keep players from seeking out every possible advantage they can. Once you've got advantage, go for it. Speeds play.

 

[triqui]

But wouldn't that be frustrating?
If logic doesnt fail me, then an advantage, which does not gives you any advantages, is not an advantage.

On average, 2 dice is about +4. If you need to roll 9+, and you roll 3, a +4 is not an advantage at all either.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Not sure I understand you, 40 anythings making 40 attacks is fine, but an owlbear attacking 6 times (34 less) is bad?

Well, yes. 40 anythings attacking once each and making 40 rolls is fine (though I'd prefer some way of abstracting that to fewer die rolls), but one something attacking three times and making 6 rolls is bad. Two owlbears, that's 12 rolls. I don't want to roll 12 times for two owlbears.

The combat was 2 rounds 10 mins, do you really need combat to be must quicker. Sounds like a non issue to myself.

If the wizard hadn't sleeped them on round 1 and nuked them on round 2, it would have taken a lot longer.