The Disadvantage of Disadvantage

[hymer]

Advantage/Disadvantage is a pretty elegant mechanic, and I like it a lot. But it does have some drawbacks. One I felt a while back, and still haven't come up with a good solution for, is when a whole bunch of mooks are shooting at the PCs from long range.
If they didn't have disadvantage, rolling for ten mooks would take about five seconds: Roll 5d20 twice, note number of hits. But rolling with disadvantage generally means rolling one attack roll at a time, and rolling for ten (or twenty, or thirty, or more, because players aren't always afraid of small armies) becomes a chore, and it holds up the fight.

So, does anyone have a solution, or a method for alleviating this annoyance?

[Ganymede]

Roll for five attacks normally instead of ten attacks with disadvantage. It's hacky and not a perfect probability swap, but it definitely meets your goal of saving time.

[Kadesh]

+/- 5 is the effect of advantage/disadvantage on passive rolls. Seems easy enough to apply it to mass Redshirt enemies.

[MrStabby]

You dont have to roll them seperatly. Roll them all then reroll any hits.

[MaxWilson]

Buy more dice so you can roll all twenty d20s at the same time, and have a way of distinguishing which are which (i.e. ten reds and a corresponding ten blues). Have a standard way of counting dice in order (e.g. left to right then top to bottom) so you can correlate which goes with which.

Rolling ten d20s and then re-rolling any hits, as MrStabby suggests, also works fine and I've used it plenty.

But the more dice you can roll in parallel, the smoother things will go for you as DM.

And for extra time savings, you can always outsource the rolling to one of your players.

[hymer]

Excellent ideas, thanks all! :smallsmile:

[Unoriginal]

You can also use online dice rollers

[Doomeye56]

You dont have to roll them seperatly. Roll them all then reroll any hits.

This right here

[Corpus]

You dont have to roll them seperatly. Roll them all then reroll any hits.

2nded!
I love this and it works for advantage.
Roll them all and Reroll any misses.

[stoutstien]

Question. Why are all the mobs attacking at once? Are you considering the group as one enemy that is just split up or just for the sake of speed?

[qube]

Roll for five attacks normally instead of ten attacks with disadvantage. It's hacky and not a perfect probability swap, but it definitely meets your goal of saving time.if the mob has a 50% chance to hit, it's an exact swap (considering the "first round", would give you 5 hits & 5 misses, at which point you need to "confirm" the 5 hits, which is equal to what you're doing).

For less competent mobs, you can roll 4 or 3 dice (if they only have a 40% (resp. 30%) hit chance).

[Tanarii]

Question. Why are all the mobs attacking at once? Are you considering the group as one enemy that is just split up or just for the sake of speed?
I've played with DMs that move all the enemies first, then have them do their attacks all at once. It's like side-initiative on steroids ... but just for the monsters. :smallmad:

[Kadesh]

Question. Why are all the mobs attacking at once? Are you considering the group as one enemy that is just split up or just for the sake of speed?
Ease, speed.

[Mith]

If you group your enemies into squads, you can use mob rules in the DMG to say that opponents deal X number of hits. Advantage/Disadvantage alterations may be given in that section but +/-5 to the target AC with that table works well.

[SuperFerret]

I'd either roll 20d20 and take the ten lowest, or roll 5d20 and assume that every other mook has taken the Help action to negate the disadvantage (which still results in less overall damage coming the PCs way).

[dragoeniex]

There are some good options here already like outsourcing to players, flat mod, re-rolling hits, etc.

To toss another one in, I would use a dice roller and punch in 20d20, then go by pairs of results to see who hits/misses. Smaller scale example: Let's say I've got 3 archers firing at players cloaked in darkness.

Rolling 6d20, I get: 2, 19, 6, 14, 4, 7.

Enemy One rolled a 2, Enemy Two rolled 6, and Enemy Three rolled 4. ... Welp. They'd better hope they've got really good to-hit mods.

[MaxWilson]

I'd either roll 20d20 and take the ten lowest

I advise against this. This isn't the same thing as disadvantage--it's more powerful.

[LudicSavant]

Roll 10d20 for 10 mooks.
Gather up however many dice would have hit, if not for disadvantage, and roll again with those dice.

Bam, 2 rolls instead of 10.

Works for Advantage too, you just reroll the misses instead of the hits.

[No brains]

There's also mob rules on page 250 of the DMG. It's a table that shows you some dirty assumptions about the number of attempts identical enemies need to hit a given AC. I think it would work well enough with the disadvantage=-5 to passive checks.

[1Pirate]

Roll 10d20 for 10 mooks.
Works for Advantage too, you just reroll the misses instead of the hits.

Not quite. With advantage you have to check for crits.

[LudicSavant]

Not quite. With advantage you have to check for crits.

Oops, that's right. Forgot to mention that for advantage you need 3 rolls.

[ad_hoc]

How often does this happen?

Thrown weapons are the only ones that this really applies to. Hand crossbows too if fighting Drow I guess.

[SuperFerret]

I advise against this. This isn't the same thing as disadvantage--it's more powerful.

Fair enough. I'd argue that they're mooks in this scenario, but everyone has different expectations for their games.

[MaxWilson]

How often does this happen?

Thrown weapons are the only ones that this really applies to. Hand crossbows too if fighting Drow I guess.

Or anyone shooting at PCs who have dropped prone, I guess. Or any engagement at ranges beyond 80', i.e. most daytime outdoor engagements.

There could be some other niche scenarios involving total cover and PCs who are Dodging and/or Blurred. (That is, if any PC who isn't Dodging is behind total cover or hidden this round.)

[sambojin]

An app on your phone with a dice roller. There's quite a few good ones, and you don't need an online connection to use it.

[BurgerBeast]

If you have the dice for it, roll 5 pairs of same-coloured d20s. Then just pick the highest toll from each colour.

[hymer]

@ stoutstien: Large groups of statistically identical mobs tend to get the same initiative and move interchangeably for the sake of speed. But:

I've played with DMs that move all the enemies first, then have them do their attacks all at once. It's like side-initiative on steroids ... but just for the monsters. :smallmad:
I don't do it like that. If they couldn't do it by one-mook-at-a-time, they can't do it.


How often does this happen?

Thrown weapons are the only ones that this really applies to. Hand crossbows too if fighting Drow I guess.
Kobolds with slings is the most common mass application of disadvantage due to range so far.

@ all: And more thanks for the thoughts and ideas!

[Hand_of_Vecna]

You dont have to roll them seperatly. Roll them all then reroll any hits.

This. It's how Warhammer checks attack, wound, armour saves, rerolls, and in vulnerable saves for squad on squad in under a minute.

[Kadesh]

This. It's how Warhammer checks attack, wound, armour saves, rerolls, and in vulnerable saves for squad on squad in under a minute.

It was also something that Warhammer has purposefully tried to move away from IIRC due to the amount of rolls and table checks were needed.

[NaughtyTiger]

There's also mob rules on page 250 of the DMG. It's a table that shows you some dirty assumptions about the number of attempts identical enemies need to hit a given AC. I think it would work well enough with the disadvantage=-5 to passive checks.

I use this...
mobs of mooks aren't likely to hurt the PCs. so the excess die rolls are just slow and time wastey. mob rules gaurantee at least 1 hit, and are fast.

[napoleon_in_rag]

You dont have to roll them seperatly. Roll them all then reroll any hits.
Do this. It reduces the number of rolls with out changing the probability.

[MrConsideration]

I pair my D20s. The two white ones are that guy, the two red-ish ones are this other guy...

Then you can still roll a big pile of dice at the same time.

[Tanarii]

I pair my D20s. The two white ones are that guy, the two red-ish ones are this other guy...

Then you can still roll a big pile of dice at the same time.Isn't it faster to just roll them as you designate who they are for?

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This seems kinda moot to me. Creatures should move take turns in sequence anyway.

[etrpgb]

2nded!
I love this and it works for advantage.
Roll them all and Reroll any misses.

I can see how one might decide to ignore the point, but actually it does not work with Advantage. You have to Reroll also the hits because they might become Critical Hits.

[Laserlight]

Clear plastic box divided into compartments, usually found in craft stores. Each compartment has 2d20 and two different colored damage dice. "One through four aim at Joe, five through ten at Sarah, the rest at Julie", shake the box. If it's a regular hit, use the blue die for damage; if it's a crit, use both dice. You can pass the box around and let each player roll their own incoming attacks (or let the one player who can do arithmetic say "your AC is 16? Three hits, fifteen damage") while the DM moves the monsters.

[Asmotherion]

For multiple die rolls I find that the best solution other than owing multiple sets of dice is a die roller app.

Might take away some of the fun, but when you're faced in situations were you have to casually roll multiple dice per round, you'll save time and effort.