Is the 5e adv/disadvantage mechanic perfect?

[cavetroll]

Or has another game something as elegant to provide bonuses?

When I say perfect, I am only referring to the piece of the mechanic where you want to give a bonus, lets say +5 to hit and rather than using any math, you simply roll twice.

What makes it so perfect, is that a) it removes the math involved and b) its super simple to do the same with the disadvantage, just taking the lowest number.

Now the only downside I can think of, is if you lets say needed a 20 to hit, and so rolling twice doesn't confer as much advantage as a +5 for instance. Of course it all depends on what you are striving for.

 

[Jd Smith1]

It's not bad. I house rule it that Ad and Dis cancel each other out on a 1:1 basis.

 

[MGibster]

It's a pretty good rule. It's so good that I sometimes wonder why it wasn't incorporated into the game decades ago.

 

[TwoSix]

I like boons and banes from Shadow of the Demon Lord. A boon gives you a +1d6 to your 1d20 roll, and a bane gives you a -1d6. Boons and banes cancel each other on a 1:1 basis, so if you have 2 boons and a bane from various effects, you roll 1 boon. If you have more than 1 boon/bane, you roll that many d6s and only keep the highest.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

On the DM side, it's a great mechanic. It makes adjudication so easy. Particularly for new DMs.

I'm 11 sessions into playing Shadow of the Demon Lord. Banes and boons are definitely an interesting take on advantage/disadvantage. Not sure if I like it more or less. When my group gets back to 5E I'll ask them if they want to adopt it or not.

 

[Aldarc]

I feel that there are a fair number of dice pool systems out there that are easier or at least the ones that involve simply needing a number or higher.

 

[Deset Gled]

Is any mechanic ever perfect? No. But it's pretty good. I generally like it.

But, IMNSHO, problems with dis/advantage can arrise with how it interacts with other mechanics. For example, we don't have a critical weapon system like we had in 3e (different ranges, different bonuses) partly because the math that balances that system start to break down when when the advantage mechanic is put in place. I happened to enjoy that system, so I consider losing it a sad thing. YMMV.

 

[payn]

Is any mechanic ever perfect? No. But it's pretty good. I generally like it.

But, IMNSHO, problems with dis/advantage can arrise with how it interacts with other mechanics. For example, we don't have a critical weapon system like we had in 3e (different ranges, different bonuses) partly because the math that balances that system start to break down when when the advantage mechanic is put in place. I happened to enjoy that system, so I consider losing it a sad thing. YMMV.

This. Its too simple in the long run. Its better when its more rare IMO.

 

[aramis erak]

Or has another game something as elegant to provide bonuses?

When I say perfect, I am only referring to the piece of the mechanic where you want to give a bonus, lets say +5 to hit and rather than using any math, you simply roll twice.

What makes it so perfect, is that a) it removes the math involved and b) its super simple to do the same with the disadvantage, just taking the lowest number.

Now the only downside I can think of, is if you lets say needed a 20 to hit, and so rolling twice doesn't confer as much advantage as a +5 for instance. Of course it all depends on what you are striving for.

Its flaws...
lack of Granularity/Multiplicity of levels
No reliability of benefit: a +1 always increases the minimum and maximum, a -1 lowers them. Advantage, while roughly equivalent to adding 4, provides no benefit to the extrema of the roll.
Simplicity of execution: while it's easy to pick an advantage or disadvantage, the actual execution of rolling is more involved. See below.
Fails to account for preponderance. If a character has one advantage and 20 disadvantages, it's a "normal roll." Likewise, 20 advatanges and 1 disad? Still a normal roll.

I'm not saying it's bad, but it does have a number of flaws which make it not so good, IMO.

	Adv		Normal		Disad
Mean	13.825		10.5		7.175
Median	15		10.5		6
mode	20		NP		1

The steps for dice mods
Player makes declaration
Player often knows the dice to roll before difficulty, so has them in hand.
Player rolls. GM can have told them the modifier before, or may wait until after.
Player does one to 3 additions.

The steps for adv/disadv
Player makes declaration
GM announces advantage or disadvantage. May also state difficulty now, or later.
Player grabs correct number of dice
Player rolls
Player compares the two dice if either Advantage or Disadvantage
Player then adds 2 factors to the die, either as one or as two additions.

More steps, and some of them are more involved. The sequence also technically requires the player to be told advantage or disadvatage or not.

 

[cavetroll]

Its flaws...
lack of Granularity/Multiplicity of levels

Great points, thanks!

 

[CubicsRube]

I enjoy advantage/disad (or boons and banes in sotdl), as it does something l
proficiency in 5e doesn't. It makes rolls more reliable.

That is, it makes higher rolls more reliable and better results more consistent. In addition to this, if you allow them to stack, the benefit becomes incrementally less.

I'd love to see a system that uses this for skill level vs attributes or some other modifier for talent that adds a bonus. You can have an interesting mix of someone naturally talented (eg a +8 bonus) but untrained (rolling 1d20) vs someone not well talented at all (+2 bonus) but highly skilled (3d20 keep highest). Both of those two characters would have a different experience on the table and i've been tempted to hack something like this together.

 

[CubicsRube]

Also, I don't really buy the argument that advantage is that powerful as I haven't seen it massively turn the tide in any battle or campaign I've been in or run.

I remember when 5e came out and people were complaining that medium difficulty is a dc 15. I always wondered if the math had assumed that pcs would often roll with advantage (through inspiration, help from a party member or the like).

 

[CubicsRube]

More steps, and some of them are more involved. The sequence also technically requires the player to be told advantage or disadvatage or not.

Sorry not my experience at all. Most people are far quicker at seeing which number is higher on 2 d20s than finding the right modifier on their sheet to add, especially when you have a str check, and athletics check and a str saving throw.

I suspect that was the case for WotC playtests as well which is why they restricted modifiers so much.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Its flaws...
lack of Granularity/Multiplicity of levels
snip

Brilliant!

 

[aramis erak]

Sorry not my experience at all. Most people are far quicker at seeing which number is higher on 2 d20s than finding the right modifier on their sheet to add, especially when you have a str check, and athletics check and a str saving throw.

I suspect that was the case for WotC playtests as well which is why they restricted modifiers so much.

It varies widely how long it takes -people to do the comparisons. Pretty much, in my experience, comparison problems take longer than 1 digit plus 2 digit, when the 2 digit is under 21... largely because it's a well drilled skill in the district where I taught.
It is, however, still more steps, and a more restrictive sequence, than using additive modifiers.

 

[Jd Smith1]

It varies widely how long it takes -people to do the comparisons. Pretty much, in my experience, comparison problems take longer than 1 digit plus 2 digit, when the 2 digit is under 21... largely because it's a well drilled skill in the district where I taught.
It is, however, still more steps, and a more restrictive sequence, than using additive modifiers.

While you are right, I will say that the advantage/disadvantage system is very useful in Roll20, where every die roll can be set to displayed being rolled twice.

Zweihanders d100 system has seven different distinctions of difficulty, ranging from +30 to -30, with 30 capping either end. In Roll20, a simple click on a seven-stage bar applies it. I find it better than 5e's Ad/disAd, particularly since Zwei doesn't use contested rolls in combat to the degree that 5e does.

 

[aramis erak]

While you are right, I will say that the advantage/disadvantage system is very useful in Roll20, where every die roll can be set to displayed being rolled twice.

Zweihanders d100 system has seven different distinctions of difficulty, ranging from +30 to -30, with 30 capping either end. In Roll20, a simple click on a seven-stage bar applies it. I find it better than 5e's Ad/disAd, particularly since Zwei doesn't use contested rolls in combat to the degree that 5e does.

I'm not saying it is a bad mechanic; I'm saying it has some drawbacks which make it not "perfect" and definitely not suitable for all purposes.

The only parts I particularly dislike are the need for the player to be told whether 1 or 2 dice, and the "stop looking at advantages at the first" and "stop looking for disadvantages at the first"....

One player (not my table, thankfully) got a bit hot headed when he listed off 10 advantages, the GM cited one and told him to roll a 1d20...
stormed off, totally peeved. 5E isn't the engine for him, I think...

I accept it when running Pugmire, D&D 5, and Stargate because it's a useful streamline... and ignore the "stop at 1" portion; if the preponderance is more than 2:1 reasonable I'm going to ignore the rule and let the 2 side triumph... 1.9:1 through 1:1.9 is going to be neutral.... because that's a low impact fix for what I consider a detrimental portion of the process.

On the other hand, in a Star Wars session in 2017, a player had 8 blue dice and 12 black, plus 5 for stat+skill, and 2 for difficulty... the roll was needed because it was for a key stroke in the plot... they did succeed. Net 2 successes, a triumph and several threat. Others might have stopped looking at one or two elements adding blue and black.

 

[S'mon]

It's a good mechanic. It's not always applied well.
A rope of climbing gives 'advantage on climb checks' - but you can still roll badly & fall off. I'd rather give -5 to the climb DC.

 

[aco175]

I like it overall, mostly because it is simple and I do not have players looking at all the buffs like in 3e.

I have not played with double advantage/disadvantage where you have 3 dice. It is not official, but I heard it on a few sites and things.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

Nothing is ever "perfect", so let's take it down a notch.

How good is the advantage/disadvantage mechanic for 5e? It's good. It's very good. It was one of the few innovations of this edition that really stood out to me. Here's why:

1. It's simple. Simple is good. D&D is a very complex game. All of the individual processes might not be that difficult or complex, but imagine if they were. And you had to constantly maintain knowledge, performance, and tracking of all of them simultaneously. Now if you're a DM, multiply that by the number of players at your table. Simple is a blessing!
2. It works well for the d20 mechanic. I have always considered the d20 to be a poor choice for a game that tries to make player choices like character options and feats more meaningful. This idea has curbed the swinginess in a way that reflects what is going on in the game without changing the unpredictable behavior of the d20.
3. It allows more for focus on the story and events and less on rules and optimization. If you played any other edition before 5th, then you know how much time and energy was spent trying to find every single bonus, penalty, and effect that could possibly influence a single die roll. So now you're spending less time finding ways to squeeze out those bonuses from every possible source. Just figure out one, you're good to go.

Notice that I have specified how this works well specifically for 5e and using the d20 mechanic. It could work for other games or editions, but without making some additional changes to the system, it won't have nearly the same impact.