Non Advantage/Disadvantage bonus and penalties

[thecasualoblivion]

Reading through the playtest documents, I'm finding little +/- 1s and 2s tucked here and there, like mob rule for Kobolds and Rats in the Bestiary, or -1 to attack when prone. It kind of defeats the purpose of advantage/disadvantage simplifying everything to mix the static modifiers back in, and static mods mixed with advantage/disadvantage I would even consider more complex than static modifiers alone.

 

[Ahnehnois]

If the goal is solely to make things simpler, I suppose you are right.

If, instead, the goal were to give the designers another tool in the box, one that goes outside of D&D's strictly linear probabilities, than it still accomplishes something rather good.

 

[BobTheNob]

Im kinda with you on this.

The old +1/-1 here and there is one of those "Sounds completely feasible on paper" things, but ultimately leads to counting nightmares in end game scenarios (Not SO much 4e, but high 3e keeping track of bonus's was just a pain), and then the whole end game "I have a +53 with a target of 40" problem. I liked that there was one thing to consider : Ad vs Dis. Easy and potent with game breaking.

I would prefer if they just built on the concept of Advantage/Disadvantge, so (for instance, spitballing an idea) if I have 2 source of advantage I can ignore either of the the dice if they roll a 1-2, and vice versa (ignore a 19-20) for disadvantage.

I dont mind static bonus's on damage, but for probability math you just dont want stacking static bonus's.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Yeah, I thought the point of the a/d mechanic was to substitute for the old +2/-2 mod rule of thumb.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

double post

 

[Zelc]

The problem with using advantage and disadvantage exclusively is eventually there will be so many sources of both that someone will almost always have both advantage and disadvantage. That means any additional sources of advantage/disadvantage become useless.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

The problem with using advantage and disadvantage exclusively is eventually there will be so many sources of both that someone will almost always have both advantage and disadvantage. That means any additional sources of advantage/disadvantage become useless.

But since multiple sources don't stack, it stays balanced.

 

[Ahnehnois]

But since multiple sources don't stack, it stays balanced.

Character 1 has advantage from 1 source. Character 2 has advantage from 5 sources. Their attacks/checks/etc. are treated exactly the same. How is that balanced? Character 2 is really getting screwed by this system!

 

[BobTheNob]

Character 1 has advantage from 1 source. Character 2 has advantage from 5 sources. Their attacks/checks/etc. are treated exactly the same. How is that balanced? Character 2 is really getting screwed by this system!

I could interpret that as character 2 over-capitalising, rather than saying he is being "screwed". Chances are player 2 spent alot of effort to stack all those bonus's onto himself (3.X cleric, Im looking at you!).

Also, dont you have advantage if your number of advantages is greater than the number of disadvantages? (Thats what I thought, cheerfully happy to be corrected) Therefore I have 5 sources of advantage and a good thing I did, because I have 4 sources of disadvantage.

 

[Zelc]

It doesn't matter how many of each you have. If you have at least one source of advantage and at least one source of disadvantage, you get just a normal roll. It doesn't matter if you have 10000 sources of advantage and 1 source of disadvantage: they cancel completely.

So if everything that grants a bonus or a penalty simply grants advantage or disadvantage, then you might end up with a bunch of sources of each. Then an ability that does Xd6 damage and gives you advantage is pointless compared to an ability that does Xd8 damage with no other effects.