D&D 5E Doubling Up Advantage/Disadvantage

[Coredump]

Be aware that the 'no stacking advantage' rule was deliberate. As is the 'auto negate' regardless of how many adv/Disadv you have.

The designers didn't want to incentivize people to build characters around gaining advantage multiple times over. They didn't want the mechanics to overshadow the rest of the game as it did in 3.5 etc.


Sure, there are times I will ad hoc allow some other ruling, but I would advise against making it a hard and fast rule.

 

[Dausuul]

Diminishing returns are fairly steep, unless you are imposing a lot of disadvantage on an easy roll or a lot of advantage on a hard roll. I see no balance issues with this--the main problem is that it bogs down play as everyone tries to stack up advantage dice. Here are the actual numbers:

If you need an 11 or better (50%) to hit:

The first advantage die is worth +5.
The second advantage die is worth +2.5.
The third advantage die is worth +1.25.

The first disadvantage die is worth -5.
The second disadvantage die is worth -2.5.
The third disadvantage die is worth -1.25.

If you need a 9 or better (60%) to hit:

The first advantage die is worth +4.8.
The second advantage die is worth +1.92.
The third advantage die is worth +0.768.

The first disadvantage die is worth -4.8.
The second disadvantage die is worth -2.88.
The third disadvantage die is worth -1.728.

If you need a 7 or better (70%) to hit:

The first advantage die is worth +4.2.
The second advantage die is worth +1.26.
The third advantage die is worth +0.378.

The first disadvantage die is worth -4.2.
The second disadvantage die is worth -2.94.
The third disadvantage die is worth -2.058.

If you need a 5 or better (80%) to hit:

The first advantage die is worth +3.2.
The second advantage die is worth +0.64.
The third advantage die is worth +0.128.

The first disadvantage die is worth -3.2.
The second disadvantage die is worth -2.56.
The third disadvantage die is worth -2.048.

 

[Blue]

Sorry if this has been posted before but I was just thinking about this earlier, I know rules as written says you don't go beyond dis/advantage but how much of a difference would a third die make?

Before the Next playtest I had been experimenting with this exact mechanic for an RPG I was writing, but with one important change - I was already using the higher of two dice to get an inverse half bell curve (higher numbers are more likely) as a base. Like if current Advantage was the default roll. Modifiers cancelled out until you only have positive or negative left. Each modifier (positive or negative) added another die to the roll, but if it was a negative you also discard the highest dice after the roll. So two negatives added two dice for a total of four, and then you dropped the top two and took the highest of what was left. While one positive would add one dice for a total of three and took the highest. (Since you're already taking the highest it effectively dropped the "lowest" dice in the positive example.)

The difference there is that I was already onto a curve with two dice. For D&D, going from a flat distribution to two dice is already such a disruptive change that tweaking it more is a real issue. By how it does target numbers you can quickly get to almost always succeed/fail which is not a good place to be.

 

[Particle_Man]

You might check out the Luck feat, as it can be used in conjunction with adv/dis.

 

[davout1805]

My degrees of advantage http://mnt-reddoors.blogspot.com/2015/05/im-rules-junkie-degrees-of.html

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Advantage and disadvantage are huge impacts to the game. Going more extreme with double advantage or double disadvantage would be very harsh - especially double disadvantage. Let's give you an example: Let's say a PC fighter has a 50-50 chance to hit a monster and the monster has a 50-50 chance to hit the PC - before applying advantage/disadvantage. The PC gets double advantage, the monster gets double disadvantage. The PC is going to crit just under 15% of the time, hit another 63% of the time and miss about 12.5% of the time. The monster will crit 0.0125% of the time (negligible), hit about 12.5% of the time and miss 87.5% of the time. If a crit does 50% more damage than a hit, the PC will out-damage the monster at a ratio of roughly 7 to 1. If we remove the disadvantage from the monster and only give the hero double advantage, the ratio drops to a mere 3 to 2, but if we flip that around and give the monster double disadvantage and strip the hero of all advantage, the ratio goes back up to a remarkable 4.4 to 1.

It is a bad idea to grant double advantage, but ridiculously bad to grant double disadvantage.

Here's an anecdote:

I let my players fight a nest of five Phase Spiders around level 8(?) where the spiders got advantage to all their rolls and the PCs (voluntarily!) got disadvantage to all of theirs. IIRC it would have been a Deadly fight even without the advantage. Since it wasn't "normal" advantage/disadvantage I told my players that it would stack, so e.g. the spiders attacking the Reckless Attacking barbarian got double advantage (roll three dice, take the best) and there may or may not have been some PCs using ranged attacks at double disadvantage at some point.

The PCs won and claimed their reward: I handwaved them killing another 45 phase spiders, since this fight represented the "worst luck of the whole day." They therefore got 35,000 XP to split up from that one fight, and were that much closer to having cleared off all the phase spiders on their little flying island. (They want to turn it into an agricultural colony.)

 

[jgsugden]

Here's an anecdote:

I let my players fight a nest of five Phase Spiders around level 8(?) where the spiders got advantage to all their rolls and the PCs (voluntarily!) got disadvantage to all of theirs. IIRC it would have been a Deadly fight even without the advantage. Since it wasn't "normal" advantage/disadvantage I told my players that it would stack, so e.g. the spiders attacking the Reckless Attacking barbarian got double advantage (roll three dice, take the best) and there may or may not have been some PCs using ranged attacks at double disadvantage at some point.

The PCs won and claimed their reward: I handwaved them killing another 45 phase spiders, since this fight represented the "worst luck of the whole day." They therefore got 35,000 XP to split up from that one fight, and were that much closer to having cleared off all the phase spiders on their little flying island. (They want to turn it into an agricultural colony.)

Five phase spiders are 3500 exp. That equates to 7000 XP if there is a pack of 3-6. For 8th level PCs, that is exactly a Hard, not Deadly, encounter... also, you're canceling the double disadvantage, which is kind of negating your example. Let's make this simple:

Build an 8th level fighter. An 8th level deadly encounter for a solo fighter is somewhere between a Challenge 5 and 6. Have him go one on one with an Earth Elemental. Fighter gets double disadvantage on all rolls. Elemental gets double advantage.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Five phase spiders are 3500 exp. That equates to 7000 XP if there is a pack of 3-6. For 8th level PCs, that is exactly a Hard, not Deadly, encounter... also, you're canceling the double disadvantage, which is kind of negating your example. Let's make this simple:

Build an 8th level fighter. An 8th level deadly encounter for a solo fighter is somewhere between a Challenge 5 and 6. Have him go one on one with an Earth Elemental. Fighter gets double disadvantage on all rolls. Elemental gets double advantage.

No, the Deadly threshold for three 8th level PCs is 6300 XP. It's not Hard. In reality my party has heterogenous levels and I don't remember who was 4th level and who was 7th and who was 8th at the time; but I do know I checked it afterwards and it was Deadly. (I also know the pilot got knocked out during the fight and the spelljamming ship came one initiative roll away from crashing to the ground and inflicting 20d6 falling damage on everybody including the crew, which was a fun almost-disaster. Then the new pilot got hit and managed to not quite blow his concentration check, thus avoiding the almost-disaster for a second time.)

I don't know what you mean by "cancelling the double disadvantage." You mean, because the barbarian was Recklessly attacking? But that isn't cancelling double disadvantage, it's cancelling disadvantage to-hit while creating double advantage to be hit. Without Reckless or long-range trick shots (at double-disadvantage) there isn't any double (dis)advantage to be cancelled in the first place. Please clarify your observation.

Edit to clarify: The point of my anecdote was that yes, at least one DM here has used double-advantage and double-disadvantage in a real game situation, in a Deadly encounter, and FWIW the PCs didn't die. Although that may have been sheer luck. Also, the players had fun.

P.S. Your math is a bit off. The Deadly threshold for a solo 8th level character vs. a solo monster is between CR 4 and 5, not 5 and 6, due to XP multiplier of x1.5.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Hmmm! Has anyone else used this? Sounds like an interesting idea!

Why not just count the +/- ala older editions then? Advantage/Disadvantage's main benefit is you aren't calculating bonuses all the time.

 

[KarinsDad]

Diminishing returns are fairly steep, unless you are imposing a lot of disadvantage on an easy roll or a lot of advantage on a hard roll. I see no balance issues with this--the main problem is that it bogs down play as everyone tries to stack up advantage dice. Here are the actual numbers:

If you need an 11 or better (50%) to hit:

The first advantage die is worth +5.
The second advantage die is worth +2.5.
The third advantage die is worth +1.25.

The first disadvantage die is worth -5.
The second disadvantage die is worth -2.5.
The third disadvantage die is worth -1.25.

If you need a 9 or better (60%) to hit:

The first advantage die is worth +4.8.
The second advantage die is worth +1.92.
The third advantage die is worth +0.768.

The first disadvantage die is worth -4.8.
The second disadvantage die is worth -2.88.
The third disadvantage die is worth -1.728.

If you need a 7 or better (70%) to hit:

The first advantage die is worth +4.2.
The second advantage die is worth +1.26.
The third advantage die is worth +0.378.

The first disadvantage die is worth -4.2.
The second disadvantage die is worth -2.94.
The third disadvantage die is worth -2.058.

If you need a 5 or better (80%) to hit:

The first advantage die is worth +3.2.
The second advantage die is worth +0.64.
The third advantage die is worth +0.128.

The first disadvantage die is worth -3.2.
The second disadvantage die is worth -2.56.
The third disadvantage die is worth -2.048.

Looked at a different way:

If you need an 11 or better (50%) to hit:

The first advantage die changes it to a 6.
The second advantage die changes it to a 3.
The third advantage die changes it to a 2.

If you need a 9 or better (60%) to hit:

The first advantage die changes it to a 4.
The second advantage die changes it to a 2.
The third advantage die changes it to a 2.

If you need a 7 or better (70%) to hit:

The first advantage die changes it to a 3.
The second advantage die changes it to a 2.
The third advantage die changes it to a 2.

If you need a 5 or better (80%) to hit:

The first advantage die changes it to a 2.
The second advantage die changes it to a 2.
The third advantage die changes it to a 2.


Since 95% of attacks in the game result in 50% to 80% chances to hit, all a second advantage does is typically drops the die needed from whatever it was, to a 2 or 3. The third advantage always (in the 50% to 80% chances to hit) causes it to go to a 2.

So, having a second or third advantage roll means that you need to basically roll a 2 on the dice. Why not just go with the rule: "You need to roll a 2 on the dice"?

I agree with you that it bogs down play for no reason.