D&D 5E (2014) Reflecting on advantage and disadvantage.

[psychophipps]

We just finished Tiamat after a year of play and I never got tired of the advantage/disadvantage mechanic. It strips the mechanics to their blunt essence and stops the aforementioned "bennie hunting" that 3.5 was chock full of.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

So now that 5e has been out a long while what do you think about the A/D mechanic? Originally I absolutely adored it, but when I began playing more and more it seemed like the concept is a bit too... homogenized I guess is the best word. Since they did away with the +2/-2 as the DM rule and replaced it with A/D I'll be the first to admit that it simplified book keeping and that was a very good thing. However there's a key part of that which is the + and ='s. A/D mechanics basically makes it impossible to stack. Despite the fact that stacking +-2's can open the door to some heavy power gaming, it doesn't allow for a gradation of rewards on the PCs part. I'm specifically talking about DM adjudication, no specific powers that grant A/D.

Unless I missed something, it seems like no matter how many advantages you have just ONE disadvantage will negate pretty much all of that advantage you built up. Which means that preparing heavily to take down some crazy monster or something can be pointless if the monster has anything that would grant disadvantage. That being said I totally understand how doing a 1/1 match for cancellation can lead to a scenario where the PCs almost can't fail or can't succeed if you have ... say 5 advantage dice. Thoughts on the subject? Am I being too harsh thinking that it can take away meaning of well prepared PCs? Like I said, I don't necessarily hate the mechanic and I understand why it's implemented, I just think that we have sacrificed a bit more than we had bargained for when wanting a simpler edition.

A thought: I think the main reason why they did the cancellation the way they did was to keep bookkeeping simple, since simplicity is a major design goal for 5E. If the binary nature of advantage were offending me often enough to get upset, I'd probably just say,

"Count up the number of distinct types of advantage and disadvantage. If there's at least 50% as much of one as the other, roll normally. Otherwise, apply whichever type (advantage or disadvantage) is more numerous."

So a prone creature shooting at long range at an enemy restrained by a net would have (2 vs 1 = no advantage/disadvantage), but a prone creature shooting at long range at a restrained enemy while an enemy orc is hacking frantically at him with a greataxe would have (3 vs 1 = disadvantage).

There's an increase in complexity in that you have to count up all the sources of advantage and disadvantage, but if the situation occurs frequently maybe that won't be a big deal for you since you'll be used to what conditions are usually in play.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Funny, 'old school' where I come from means embrace complexity. I liked A/D at first but I've gone off it. I think it's too reductive. In fact, that's my main criticism of 5e as a whole.

I like advantage/disadvantage, but not for the reasons other people like it. I like it because it's the first time (A)D&D has had anything even vaguely approaching a bell curve on a single roll. It also gets you off that silly "even a blind peasant at extreme range hits a great wyrm red dragon at least 5% of the time" thing.

But I agree that it's too reductive when used blindly. I think the designers did the right thing by making partial cover an AC bonus instead disadvantage; and I think DMs are wise to consider using bonuses and penalties instead of disadvantage in other situations as well. In fact, a large part of the value of getting onto the bell curve is so that you can apply numerical bonuses and penalties and they'll have a consistent meaning no matter where on the curve you're located. When you're already at disadvantage, slipping from a target of 11+ on d20 to 13+ approximately halves your success rate. Likewise, slipping from 15+ to 17+ halves it again. That means that +/- 2 matters, it's not just noise.

So I very much recommend using bonuses and penalties in 5E in conjunction with binary advantage/disadvantage.

 

[Sunseeker]

It's very black-and-white. Which I find is great at low levels. A little smidgen of dis or adv goes a long way. At higher levels, it's almost on everything, around every corner and it becomes devalued. It becomes a headache to track just as the bonuses from prior editions did, who's granting what, how many of each are out, etc...

It's also very powerful, but I find that power leans heavily in favor of dis advantage regardless of level. You still have to roll well to hit, even with advantage, and it only takes one failure on a disadvantage roll toe fail completely. "Buffs" aren't very buffy (those +1d4's to a roll). I really like the mechanic, but advnatage is by no means a higher guarantee of success. Statistically, you are more likely to miss than you are to hit so doubling your probability to hit does less than doubling your probability to miss.

I wouldn't mind good old +X's back, but I'd still like to keep the numbers down, much like how they limited magical items to +3. A simple rule of "only one buff" with a cap at +3 would easily keep the math down, without having to track too many advs and disadvs.

 

[Evenglare]

Has anyone tried a "stacks up to 1" system for A/D? For example, if you have 5 advantage giving occurrences, but only 1 disadvantage, you still have advantage, because the 4 advantages left stack to 1. That would solve the "have it or don't" problem, right?

For whatever reason I overlooked this simple idea. Thanks for pointing it out actually. Im disappointed with myself for not seeing this instead of 1 to 1 canceling. This is such a good idea I wish it would be eratta'd in the actual rules. This completely takes care of my disdain for the mechanic. Glad I made this thread.

Also Kudos on you guys for keeping it civil.

 

[wr4tchild]

Has anyone tried a "stacks up to 1" system for A/D? For example, if you have 5 advantage giving occurrences, but only 1 disadvantage, you still have advantage, because the 4 advantages left stack to 1. That would solve the "have it or don't" problem, right?

That is definitely my favorite way of doing it. I believe capping it at 1 is awesome because it keps the counting and rolling down but letting one disadvantage negate two or more disadvantages (or the other way round) is something I don't appreciate. It feels like taking it one step too far.

Overall I really like Adv/Dis.

 

[The Human Target]

It's very black-and-white. Which I find is great at low levels. A little smidgen of dis or adv goes a long way. At higher levels, it's almost on everything, around every corner and it becomes devalued. It becomes a headache to track just as the bonuses from prior editions did, who's granting what, how many of each are out, etc...

It's also very powerful, but I find that power leans heavily in favor of dis advantage regardless of level. You still have to roll well to hit, even with advantage, and it only takes one failure on a disadvantage roll toe fail completely. "Buffs" aren't very buffy (those +1d4's to a roll). I really like the mechanic, but advnatage is by no means a higher guarantee of success. Statistically, you are more likely to miss than you are to hit so doubling your probability to hit does less than doubling your probability to miss.

I wouldn't mind good old +X's back, but I'd still like to keep the numbers down, much like how they limited magical items to +3. A simple rule of "only one buff" with a cap at +3 would easily keep the math down, without having to track too many advs and disadvs.

Yeah I think there's a wide ground of design space between the simplicity of Advantage/Disadvantage and having a a huge amount of overlapping bonus/penalty counting.

 

[Uchawi]

It's very black-and-white. Which I find is great at low levels. A little smidgen of dis or adv goes a long way. At higher levels, it's almost on everything, around every corner and it becomes devalued. It becomes a headache to track just as the bonuses from prior editions did, who's granting what, how many of each are out, etc...

It's also very powerful, but I find that power leans heavily in favor of dis advantage regardless of level. You still have to roll well to hit, even with advantage, and it only takes one failure on a disadvantage roll toe fail completely. "Buffs" aren't very buffy (those +1d4's to a roll). I really like the mechanic, but advnatage is by no means a higher guarantee of success. Statistically, you are more likely to miss than you are to hit so doubling your probability to hit does less than doubling your probability to miss.

I wouldn't mind good old +X's back, but I'd still like to keep the numbers down, much like how they limited magical items to +3. A simple rule of "only one buff" with a cap at +3 would easily keep the math down, without having to track too many advs and disadvs.

I tend to agree. Advantage/Disadvantage was a solution looking for a problem. I don't mind dice averaging in other games but it tends to be an all or nothing thing. So in that sense they should have stuck with adding skill dice to skills, or even saves. Then any bonus is averaged.

When people mention numbers bloat with 3E or 4E, I tend to think 3E had a lot of sub-systems, and 4E had a lot of interrupts, and instant actions. Both bog down the game but for different reasons. In addition, you had crunch bloat in 3E and 4E, so things tend to get unwieldy because there were too many choices to make. But if you had a chance to re-do 3E and 4E, they would be fine if you cut down the sub-systems, created a streamlined action economy, and placed stacking limits on bonuses. You could still have bounded accuracy, but you could also expand the complexity of those bounds and the results are predictable.

 

[Sunseeker]

That is definitely my favorite way of doing it. I believe capping it at 1 is awesome because it keps the counting and rolling down but letting one disadvantage negate two or more disadvantages (or the other way round) is something I don't appreciate. It feels like taking it one step too far.

Overall I really like Adv/Dis.

Honestly, I didn't know it was any other way. I just always went with 1 dis=1 adv and players can never have more than one. If for no other reason than it keeps the dice clutter down.

 

[Jester David]

I love advantage/disadvantage.
Often, despite bonuses, you roll poorly. And its easy to roll and apply after, but with a +2 you need to remember what you had rolled.

I still play Pathfinder and it can get crazy with bonuses. Flanking, bless, prone enemy, higher ground, cover, aid, dazzled, etc. I was forever asking people if they remembered bard song and buff table tents were common. Paizo even sells a deck of Buff cards.

I considered allowing stacking advantage but then realised it would end up being "I have advantage for X, Y, and Z but disadvantaged for A and B. So I roll twice... Oh, but I forgot flanking." That and the math breaks down because of the bell curve, so chances of not rolling a 8-13 are low.

That said I plan on a few advantage house rules:
First, I'll still have the occassional +2 bonus. It still works.
Second, other times I might allow double proficiency if skill and training matters. (This is a really good library, so you can maximise your History check.)
Third, Inspiration either grants advantage or a reroll. I want that to be desirable.
Fourth, the Help action will either grant advantage or a +2 bonus. Either or, chosen by persons helping. Two people assisting let's you be better (its odd that having two people or eight people trying to bash down a door or build a barn is identical).