D&D 5E Does D&D Next need +2/-2 modifiers?

[Li Shenron]

Advantage/Disadvantage is not the same as a +4/-4. Advantage and Disadvantage doesn't change the DC the person can hit, only the chance of actually hitting it.

This is the key point of the matter.

Adv/Disadv really serves a different purpose than circumstance bonuses/penalties of 3e. Both generically increase/decrease the chance of success, but also the latter enable/disable the highest DC.

I am not sure we really "need" circumstance bonuses in 5e. But circumstance (or whatever) bonuses could be used by the DM for implementing a (sort of) gamestyle where there are things you can do only if you get the right idea that gives you an edge, and turns an unreachable DC into a hard but reachable DC. Don't think about using this for stuff you need to do in order to progress in the adventure (the proverbial closed door that if you don't get past, you just can't continue the adventure) which obviously is a problem, but rather think of "unlocking" shortcuts, getting extra bits of information, additional magic treasures etc. You can still just roll for these, but at least I have used in the past the idea that e.g. that special magic sword can be found not simply with a high roll on Search, but the players needed a key idea to get that circumstance bonus. Overall this is still possible of course, by e.g. lowering the DC instead.

 

[Warunsun]

Think about it this way Wulfgar - in this version of the game, a +1 weapon is a very rare, very powerful item.

+1 weapons will be common place in every edition of Dungeons & Dragons. They are not a very rare item. Even in 2E Darksun when this was supposed to be the situation it wasn't and plenty of magical weapons were all over the place.

 

[Li Shenron]

+1 weapons will be common place in every edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

This is mostly under the responsibility of the DM. If a DM shells out tons of +1 weapons throughout the adventures, and then complain because there are too many, it's plain and simply her fault, with one caveat: there are indeed systems such as 3e where the PC equipment total equivalent value per level is built-in the rules, so technically the DM has to give out magic equipment (or gp, which will mostly be spent on magic equipment anyway) in order to keep the PC balanced vs the monsters. Still, even in 3e the DM doesn't really have to give out treasure in the form of +N weapons all the time... there's lots and lots of valid alternatives already in the core, esp. wondrous items that any PC can use. Thus IMHO it's still pretty much the DM's fault. OTOH, adventures designers failed in this regard all the time in the 3e era.

 

[Mistwell]

+1 weapons will be common place in every edition of Dungeons & Dragons. They are not a very rare item. Even in 2E Darksun when this was supposed to be the situation it wasn't and plenty of magical weapons were all over the place.

They put the words 'very rare' with the weapon, they gave them full scale origins and minor powers, you can't buy them, they are very rare in random treasure tables, and they built the game on a platform of bounded accuracy that would cause things to start not work right if they became common place without adjustment. I think it's fair for me to say they are rare.

 

[Savage Wombat]

My gut tells me that if the best, only situational modifier you can acquire adds only 10% to your chances, many players won't bother with them. Go big or go home, I'd say. An equivalent of +4/-4 feels like it matters.

 

[Lokiare]

My gut tells me that if the best, only situational modifier you can acquire adds only 10% to your chances, many players won't bother with them. Go big or go home, I'd say. An equivalent of +4/-4 feels like it matters.

One of the major problems is that this +/- number can vary depending on your target number. For instance, lets say a feature or a feat allows a 10th level Fighter to gain advantage on his next attack, but he has to give up an action in order to do that. Many people might say "its worth it", but in reality its only worth it for a small range of target AC's:

Advantage against specific DC's with a +9 attack bonus:



Now lets say the Fighter deals 2d6+5 damage (average 12) with an attack and crits on a 19-20. There is a 19% chance of a Crit. On a crit they deal 12+1d6+5 damage (average 20.5) with advantage.

Without advantage this ends up being 10% chance of a crit and 60% chance to hit.

Now against AC 18 there is a 84 - 19 = 65% chance of a hit and a 19% chance of a crit which means on average they will deal 11.695 per attack with advantage with hit and miss calculated in.

With two normal attacks they will deal 18.5 with hit and miss calculated in.

So its better to just take two normal attacks than it is to give up an attack to get advantage.

5E is riddle with these weird (dis)advantage maths.

 

[pemerton]

lets say a feature or a feat allows a 10th level Fighter to gain advantage on his next attack, but he has to give up an action in order to do that. Many people might say "its worth it", but in reality its only worth it for a small range of target AC's

Unless gaining advantage gives you some other benefit (like a damage boost), this is never worth it.

Advantage gives you two rolls, with the option for at most one hit. And if you have to spend an action first to get advantage on the second action, that hit cannot occur in the first round.

Two actions gives you two rolls, with the option for both to hit, including in the first round.

Two actions is therefore strictly better. It would be different of you could get advantage in the first round, at the cost of an action as a cooldown cost (say, you get advantage but then are stunned for the next round): then you would have the trade off of choosing between a better chance of dealing damage now - and thereby denying your target an action, if that helps kill it before its next turn - and a lower chance of dealing damage now but an overall better chance of dealing damage over the course of the two rounds.

 

[Lokiare]

Unless gaining advantage gives you some other benefit (like a damage boost), this is never worth it.

Advantage gives you two rolls, with the option for at most one hit. And if you have to spend an action first to get advantage on the second action, that hit cannot occur in the first round.

Two actions gives you two rolls, with the option for both to hit, including in the first round.

Two actions is therefore strictly better. It would be different of you could get advantage in the first round, at the cost of an action as a cooldown cost (say, you get advantage but then are stunned for the next round): then you would have the trade off of choosing between a better chance of dealing damage now - and thereby denying your target an action, if that helps kill it before its next turn - and a lower chance of dealing damage now but an overall better chance of dealing damage over the course of the two rounds.

It was just an example. Another one is the "+5 to damage for taking disadvantage on your attack" that the Barbarian and some monsters used to have. The +5 to damage was not worth it in most circumstances because you would miss enough to make your DPR go down by more than 5 points.

Because of how (dis)advantage works and how easy it is to get it, these kinds of things happen all the time in 5E.

In one of the packets an optimized rogue was better off just making a regular attack with advantage, rather than giving up advantage to add sneak attack damage to it.

The thing is, its not obvious by just looking at it. You have to run some numbers to see what's going on.

This is one of the major reasons I don't like the (dis)advantage mechanic and how easy it is to get it.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I feel that Advantage and Disadvantage are perfectly adequate for check or attack modifiers. It's a great player facing rule. But, I do feel that +2/-2 is still useful for quick changes to DCs. This lets the DM quickly adjust DCs with a gut check, without having to expose the complexity to the players.

 

[Sadras]

5E is riddle with these weird (dis)advantage maths.

I have not studied the latest playtest in that detail, so could you please point me to two examples where this happens, where a [insert class] gives up an attack to get Advantage?