Advantage/disadvantage tweaks

[Project_Mayhem]

How much does scrapping the rule that any amount of advantage cancels out any amount of disadvantage change the game?
So that, for example, a player making an attack with three sources of advantage and one source of disadvantage ends up with advantage.

My intent here is partly to try and make players approach fights a bit more tactically and/or creatively (by not just being able to rely on one way of negating disadvantage), and partly to avoid situations where a character is blind, poisoned, fighting in a cramped space, and has one hand tied behind their back, but had their familiar use help for a net result of no penalties :smalltongue:.

So yeah, I'm just trying to find out if there's anything major that this change will mess up. My players aren't exactly high-op, so I'm not concerned about theoretical exploits that require careful building - more stuff that might just happen accidentally in play.

[Eragon123]

Well, that nerfs Foresight out of a level 9th spell.

Also it will slow down the table. The rules as is allow you to just to determine if one or both exist rather than counting. Because no one wants to count up the sources for a prone invisible goblin in the middle of a darkness spell versus an archer with see invisibility and has a companion that used the help action.

[Arkhios]

Also it will slow down the table. The rules as is allow you to just to determine if one or both exist rather than counting. Because no one wants to count up the sources for a prone invisible goblin in the middle of a darkness spell versus an archer with see invisibility and has a companion that used the help action.

This.
If I had to choose between "-1 here, -2 there, +2 because it's thursday, +4 because it's full moon" or "advantage/disadvantage" I would still choose the latter.

[MrStabby]

It means it is always worth having a source of advantage/disadvantage you can use. If some enemies have five "advantages" then there would be no point in being able to impose disadvantage.

It keeps more abilities relevant.

[Kane0]

My table has been using this as a houserule for almost a year now. Works just fine and makes us look for all the advantages rather than just one.

[Coffee_Dragon]

I strongly considered stacking advantages as a house rule, almost decided for it, but ultimately decided firmly against it. There's a reason they settled on the binary model instead of the stacking +2s/-2s they had in playtesting. Aside from the simplicity it also makes sense: if you're disadvantaged in some way, how do you make use of multiple advantages to end up at net advantage?

[Kane0]

I strongly considered stacking advantages as a house rule, almost decided for it, but ultimately decided firmly against it. There's a reason they settled on the binary model instead of the stacking +2s/-2s they had in playtesting. Aside from the simplicity it also makes sense: if you're disadvantaged in some way, how do you make use of multiple advantages to end up at net advantage?

A prone barbarian recklessly attacking another prone opponent?

[90sMusic]

I have always counted.

It's usually very rare that you have multiple sources of both at the same time, but it just feels crappy when you have 3 things giving you advantage on an attack but one random little thing giving you disadvantage so it all cancels out. Just seems silly. If you have multiple advantages and only one disadvantage, you should have advantage. And vice versa.

People saying it slows down combat or is complicated are making mountains out of molehills and being overly dramatic.

The amount of time it takes me to determine if an attack is advantage or disadvantage has always been so quick that there isn't even a perceptible delay in thinking about it. The only way it could possibly ever slow you down is if you just aren't familiar with the rules of what does and doesn't give advantage/disadvantage and you have to sit there and count on your fingers and toes or something. I dunno, the way these guys are trying to make it sound seems like those terrible infomercials where it shows the guy in black and white video doing something poorly and terribly then it shows the guy in color using their method/product and it works perfectly. :P

Counting is great and it does encourage more tactical thinking on the part of the players.

[Arkhios]

I have always counted.

It's usually very rare that you have multiple sources of both at the same time, but it just feels crappy when you have 3 things giving you advantage on an attack but one random little thing giving you disadvantage so it all cancels out. Just seems silly. If you have multiple advantages and only one disadvantage, you should have advantage. And vice versa.

People saying it slows down combat or is complicated are making mountains out of molehills and being overly dramatic.

The amount of time it takes me to determine if an attack is advantage or disadvantage has always been so quick that there isn't even a perceptible delay in thinking about it. The only way it could possibly ever slow you down is if you just aren't familiar with the rules of what does and doesn't give advantage/disadvantage and you have to sit there and count on your fingers and toes or something. I dunno, the way these guys are trying to make it sound seems like those terrible infomercials where it shows the guy in black and white video doing something poorly and terribly then it shows the guy in color using their method/product and it works perfectly. :P

Counting is great and it does encourage more tactical thinking on the part of the players.

I disagree for the most parts. Having to take into account multiple different types of bonuses (in pathfinder there were a dozen or more), keeping track of which ones stack with each other, keeping track when each bonuses apply, and that there can be equal amount of penalties to add into the equation as well is way more complicated and time consuming than taking a note whether I have advantage, disadvantage, or both (canceling each other out). It's simple and efficient, and not at all timeconsuming.

I do agree, however, that multiple advantages and disadvantages could be ruled to only cancel each other on 1 to 1 rate to give a sense of tactical thinking, but is it worth it? Hardly. For some people, maybe. But I believe that most people don't care about that much technicalities complicating turns in combat. I know I don't.

[Cespenar]

I think 2 advantages + 1 disadvantage = 1 advantage is both intuitive and tactically deepening at the same time. It's the "cancel out infinitely" rule that needs to be spelled out to newbie players and needlessly complicate the game in a backwards way.

It's not "the hardships of keeping track of multiple sources", you already keep track of multiple conditions, advantages and disadvantages. 2-1=1 is just logical, minimalistic, and tactical.

[Arcangel4774]

I think it should be left to DM discretion and not have a hard rule in terms of canceling. I imagine a barbarian stwing an ax in large arc not caring for the fact that he can hardly see. That mass in front of him is not his friend. On the other hand flanking an enemy shouldn't make up for the halfling who's scraping a greatsword on the ground and causing a ruckus before he swings a weapon that weighs about as much as he does.

I think it ups the factor of tactical thinking and role playing when you stray from the rules and imagine what would happen in a given situation.

[Arkhios]

I think it should be left to DM discretion and not have a hard rule in terms of canceling.

This pretty much sums 5th edition, and it's quite better that way. We, our DM's and players, will make the game our own anyway, with our own house rules. Why do we need everything written in stone if we're not going to follow all of the rules by the book anyway? In the corner case if we play exactly by the book, I believe that the game designers have thought the same things through many times before they even released the final product.

[Knaight]

I think it should be left to DM discretion and not have a hard rule in terms of canceling. I imagine a barbarian stwing an ax in large arc not caring for the fact that he can hardly see. That mass in front of him is not his friend. On the other hand flanking an enemy shouldn't make up for the halfling who's scraping a greatsword on the ground and causing a ruckus before he swings a weapon that weighs about as much as he does.

I think it ups the factor of tactical thinking and role playing when you stray from the rules and imagine what would happen in a given situation.

While the discretion works fine, it is dependent on the group having a similar perspective on things. For instance, both of those examples make zero sense to me - I've done some axe and longsword* sparring, and can confirm that a vision impediment utterly ruins any capacity to fight with an axe while flanking is the one thing that can reasonably overcome using a weapon that's too big for you (although that sword won't weigh anywhere near as much as the halfling)**. I'd be inclined to rule in pretty much the opposite way - that the barbarian being half blind totally nullifies several advantages, while the halfling flanking nullifies several advantages.

*What D&D calls a great sword is usually called a long sword elsewhere.
**Obviously everyone involved is human. However, this can still happen to a lesser extent, particularly when younger teens are allowed to fight and they end up trying out a weapon picked by that one really big person.

[Conundrumist]

I've been playing with this rule and honestly it hasn't come up that much. Now this may be because we're all still fairly new to D&D 5e and aren't taking advantage of advantage/disadvantage as much as we could, but so far I haven't really seen multiple sources of either in the campaign. It's almost always one, the other, or one of each. That said I do like the option.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I think 2 advantages + 1 disadvantage = 1 advantage is both intuitive and tactically deepening at the same time. It's the "cancel out infinitely" rule that needs to be spelled out to newbie players and needlessly complicate the game in a backwards way.

It's not "the hardships of keeping track of multiple sources", you already keep track of multiple conditions, advantages and disadvantages. 2-1=1 is just logical, minimalistic, and tactical.
+1 to this. It's inherently obvious and, unless the DM is throwing out dozens of ad-hoc modifiers, isn't likely to involve more than one or two things.

[Laserlight]

I disagree for the most parts. Having to take into account multiple different types of bonuses (in pathfinder there were a dozen or more), keeping track of which ones stack with each other, keeping track when each bonuses apply, and that there can be equal amount of penalties to add into the equation as well is way more complicated and time consuming than taking a note whether I have advantage, disadvantage, or both (canceling each other out). It's simple and efficient, and not at all timeconsuming.


This was one of the problems with 4e also, and I agree that it's a problem -- but we're not talking about 4e or Pathfinder. All the Advantages and Disadvantages stack, and they don't come in different strengths, or double anything. All you have to do is see whether you have more A's than D's. Granted, you still have to keep track of whether an effect causes A or D, but you'd need to know that anyway.

[90sMusic]

I disagree for the most parts. Having to take into account multiple different types of bonuses (in pathfinder there were a dozen or more), keeping track of which ones stack with each other, keeping track when each bonuses apply, and that there can be equal amount of penalties to add into the equation as well is way more complicated and time consuming than taking a note whether I have advantage, disadvantage, or both (canceling each other out). It's simple and efficient, and not at all timeconsuming.

I do agree, however, that multiple advantages and disadvantages could be ruled to only cancel each other on 1 to 1 rate to give a sense of tactical thinking, but is it worth it? Hardly. For some people, maybe. But I believe that most people don't care about that much technicalities complicating turns in combat. I know I don't.

See, you're trying to make it sound more complicated and complex than it is again. There aren't multiple different types of bonuses like there were in pathfinder. You already know what your modifier to rolls is going into it, you're just figuring out whether you have advantage or not.

It is just more reasonable for those advantages to overcome disadvantages if there are more of them. I know the idea of 5e is to keep things "simplistic" because older editions got super bogged down with excess modifiers and bonuses and penalties, but honestly counting disadvantages then counting advantages until you equal or surpass the previous number is not hard. You don't even have to count them all, you just have to make sure one value is bigger than the other or equal.

A warlock with devil sight (or whatever that invocation is called) can cast darkness to have permanent advantage on all attacks and enemies have permanent disadvantage on all attacks against you. Darkness is a 2nd level spell.

You know what other spell also gives you advantage on all attacks and enemies disadvantage on all their attacks against you? Foresight. 9th level.

Not only that, but it makes that warlock have a permanent immunity to ever being disadvantaged or to have advantage against him.

Counting up advantages and disadvantages makes more sense because you can have multiple factors in your favor as well as multiple factors in the favor of the enemy. Having everything just instantly cancel out makes no sense. You have advantage on Bob The Builder because you have pack tactics. But now Bob the builder also has Faerie Fire on him. Uh oh, now Bob the builder has also been the victim of Hold Person and is paralyzed. Well none of that matters, his condition is exactly equal to none of that being true because you had pack tactics going into it.

It removes tactics and depth to combat which is already a wee bit on the shallow end. It's far more engaging for players to have to try to get those advantages or disadvantages and overwhelm their opponent's strategy rather than doing the bare minimum to get advantage then ignoring everything else because nothing else matters anymore.

You can run it how you want of course, but I like more tactical battles and decision making involved.

[Eragon123]

A warlock with devil sight (or whatever that invocation is called) can cast darkness to have permanent advantage on all attacks and enemies have permanent disadvantage on all attacks against you. Darkness is a 2nd level spell.

You know what other spell also gives you advantage on all attacks and enemies disadvantage on all their attacks against you? Foresight. 9th level.

Not only that, but it makes that warlock have a permanent immunity to ever being disadvantaged or to have advantage against him.

One important thing to note is that darkness can be dealt with either by simply moving out of the circle, casting daylight or managing to hit the warlock (perhaps with an AOE) and force him to lose concentration. Or throwing demons that also have the feature. Or throwing things that have blindsense. Foresight can only be dispelled with is a bit harder since it is ninth level and isn't concentration but you knew that.


Counting up advantages and disadvantages makes more sense because you can have multiple factors in your favor as well as multiple factors in the favor of the enemy. Having everything just instantly cancel out makes no sense. You have advantage on Bob The Builder because you have pack tactics. But now Bob the builder also has Faerie Fire on him. Uh oh, now Bob the builder has also been the victim of Hold Person and is paralyzed. Well none of that matters, his condition is exactly equal to none of that being true because you had pack tactics going into it.

It removes tactics and depth to combat which is already a wee bit on the shallow end. It's far more engaging for players to have to try to get those advantages or disadvantages and overwhelm their opponent's strategy rather than doing the bare minimum to get advantage then ignoring everything else because nothing else matters anymore.

You can run it how you want of course, but I like more tactical battles and decision making involved.

Well, the hold person changes things as all hits against him will crit. Which can't be taken lightly.

Also multiple sources of advantage dont actually change the dice. Having 3 sources of advantage doesn't allow you to roll 4 dice so why go for more unless there is a source of disadvantage.

[Arcangel4774]

While the discretion works fine, it is dependent on the group having a similar perspective on things ... I'd be inclined to rule in pretty much the opposite way

The disagreements are part of the draw of it to me. It helps everyone imagine the same thing and be in the same world.

When one person is imagining the greatsword dnd describes, and the other has in mind a weapon that would be more fitting in Final Fantasy (sized like cloud's buster sword) it a leaves a big difference when viewed in the hands of a somebody who in the first case could wield the weapon with some difficulty while in the other is roughly half the size of the weapon.

[Asmotherion]

Viable in specific kinds of play. And with specific kinds of players.

If you want a heavy strategic game, I suppose it's a very good option. The only thing that changes is the pace of combat, were an encounter might take more out of a play session than otherwise.

[Ruslan]

It definitely makes the game more tactical. Like a wargame, where a soldier or a unit look for any possible advantage over the enemy. Which is exactly what the 5E designers were trying to avoid. They wanted a quick and simple resolution system where it's very simple to work out whether you have Advantage/Disadvantage or not. Once the Advantage/Disadvantage have been worked out, you are free to proceed to the meat of the game.

Of course, you may disagree with the designers as to what the meat of the game actually is. You may think the tactical wargame stuff of looking for advantages is, in fact, the meat of the game. If that is the case, the proposed change will work out well for you.