Why advantage/disadvantage mechanic?

[slobster]

I'm still not a fan of re-roll mechanics because they do weird things to probability and I believe they slow the game down. And I believe WotC already came to this conclusion once; Star Wars Saga had somewhat extensive reroll mechanics, whereas in 4e they only show up for the Avenger and some oddball corner cases.

Agreed about rolling 2 dice and taking the better to save time. Also, in 4E the Elven race, one of the most played races IME, had an encounter reroll. That's not quite a corner case, and they clearly weren't too afraid of using the mechanic.

I mean, I agree that rerolling should be used sparingly, for time reasons. I'm just saying.

 

[zoroaster100]

I read the rule on advantage/disadvantage in the latest playtest packet and understand if you have advantage from one circumstance and disadvantage from another they cancel out. But what happens if you have advantage from two circumstances and disadvantage from only one? Does the one advantageous circumstance cancel disadavantage and the second advantageous circumstance then give you advantage? Or does any amount of advantage and any amount of disadvantage result in a straight roll with no advantage or disadvantage applied?

 

[Grydan]

The current ruling is that, yes, if you have both advantage and disadvantage, regardless of how many times and ways you have either, they cancel out and you only roll one die.

However, things that require advantage (such as Sneak Attack) would still trigger. Presumably to avoid making it too easy to neutralize the Rogue.

I imagine any negative effects connected to disadvantage (other than the rolling bit) would still be in play as well.


Note that, as some posters in this thread have indicated, not everyone thinks this is the best way to handle it. Some people would rather it worked so that whichever you had more of (sources of advantage, or sources of disadvantage) was the one you got. In such a set-up, the only times you wouldn't be rolling two dice are when you have no sources of advantage or disadvantage, or when they are in perfect balance.

 

[Stalker0]

I'm a big fan of adv/dis.

It provides a solid bonus without math, people get to roll more (and people always like to roll dice it seems), and it increases proficiency without raising potency

 

[ComradeGnull]

I think this comic pretty much sums up the reason to prefer something like advantage/disadvantage to lots of little bonuses: Giant In the Playground Games