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View Full Version : 5e Disadvantage = fail houserule.



BerzerkerUnit
2021-10-22, 01:06 PM
So I’m thinking of a house rule where disadvantage equals failure unless something is done to offset it.

This greatly improves the protection fighting style and heightened spell. Returns firing blind to the nightmare it should be.

Besides those scenarios is there some gallingly obvious issue that makes you think as your read the above “is this rhubarb out of his gourd?”

Honestly, I see disadvantage on a minuscule fraction of rolls. So would this be a buff or nerf to players, or kind of a wash since it would affect monsters as well.

nickl_2000
2021-10-22, 01:19 PM
What would you consider offsetting disadvantage?

Things that immediately come to mind:
-Knocking someone prone and grappling them just got WAY more powerful
-PC Distance kiting with the sharpshooter feat is now practically invincible.
-Darkness Spamming Devil's Sight warlock and shadow sorcerer is effectively invincible

Although the Dodge action is likely the most powerful aspect of this. Haste a Rogue, who dodges during their action and attacks with the bonus action. They can't possibly hit and they are still doing a lot of damage. Or make Patient Defense full invincibility for the cost of 1 ki.

BerzerkerUnit
2021-10-22, 01:58 PM
What would you consider offsetting disadvantage?

Things that immediately come to mind:
-Knocking someone prone and grappling them just got WAY more powerful
-PC Distance kiting with the sharpshooter feat is now practically invincible.
-Darkness Spamming Devil's Sight warlock and shadow sorcerer is effectively invincible

Although the Dodge action is likely the most powerful aspect of this. Haste a Rogue, who dodges during their action and attacks with the bonus action. They can't possibly hit and they are still doing a lot of damage. Or make Patient Defense full invincibility for the cost of 1 ki.

Thank you for the feedback!

Anything that grants advantage offsets disadvantage.

Prone/grapple isn’t a particularly effective tactic on its own outside select builds or party composition, this makes breaking the grapple a priority for creatures that would otherwise ignore it to mail the grappler.

Distance kiting is, in my estimation, virtually meaningless in 90% of combats since terrain generally doesn’t afford those distances to matter.

Darkness/Devilsight is switched to a push of enemies use the help action and generally penalizes allies as much as foes outside specific party composition.

Dodge is the sticky wicket. I knew there was something I’d forgotten, some easy means of granting disadvantage to foes but could quite recall.
Then again, it does eat an action and hasting a rogue (or anyone) is already a suboptimal use of a spell slot.

Your rogue build may or may not work depending on how the dm interprets the haste action (can you dodge with it)? Patient defense getting a buff is well within acceptable parameters.

You’ve given me some things to think on, thanks again!


Anything that

Bjarkmundur
2021-10-22, 02:00 PM
I can see cases where a DM can rule for expediency that a disadvantage is an automatic fail, but I do think it should remain as exactly that, a per-case ruling to quicken gameplay.

The Dodge action really kills it as a "quick and easy Houserule to improve gameplay in it's entirety"

nickl_2000
2021-10-22, 02:03 PM
Thank you for the feedback!

Anything that grants advantage offsets disadvantage.

Prone/grapple isn’t a particularly effective tactic on its own outside select builds or party composition, this makes breaking the grapple a priority for creatures that would otherwise ignore it to mail the grappler.

Distance kiting is, in my estimation, virtually meaningless in 90% of combats since terrain generally doesn’t afford those distances to matter.

Darkness/Devilsight is switched to a push of enemies use the help action and generally penalizes allies as much as foes outside specific party composition.

Dodge is the sticky wicket. I knew there was something I’d forgotten, some easy means of granting disadvantage to foes but could quite recall.
Then again, it does eat an action and hasting a rogue (or anyone) is already a suboptimal use of a spell slot.

Your rogue build may or may not work depending on how the dm interprets the haste action (can you dodge with it)? Patient defense getting a buff is well within acceptable parameters.

You’ve given me some things to think on, thanks again!


Anything that

For the hasted Rogue you dodge with your primary action, then use the haste attack to get your sneak attack damage in. I will try and think of other abuses.

It boosts the frightened condition and all the fear spells as well, and makes fighting a dragon really flipping hard.

Ilerien
2021-10-23, 07:54 AM
I know the primary goal of this thread is to find what 5e mechanics your idea might break, but if I may suggest something...
From my own experience at different tables, players generally like to roll more dice and not less dice: rolling with advantage is more exciting than rolling with a flat bonus, for example, even if mean values are roughly the same.
Risking to run afoul of 5e simplicity here, but I'd introduce stacking (dis)advantage: count all the factors you have advantage from and subtract the number of factors that grant you disadvantage. If you end up with 0, roll a straight d20. In case of a positive number, roll an additional d20 for every +1, take the highest value. In case of a negative number, roll an additional d20 for every -1, take the lowest value. Might as well place a cap on this so it doesn't become unreasonable: +3 means automatic 20 (or maybe success) and -3 means automatic 1 (or maybe failure). So even if some task is really hard to succeed at due to different limiting factors, there should be a way for blind luck or exceptional skill to allow a success. Elven Accuracy will need a slight rewording, probably.
Also, if you think some circumstances are worth more than just disadvantage (like the "firing blind" example), this approach allows to impose double disadvantage and still allow a chance of success.

BerzerkerUnit
2021-10-23, 12:40 PM
First, thank you all for your contributions!

After some rumination, I'm going to describe what I envision the results to be.

1. Monks- A monk, a melee class with weak offense and defense (lower than average damage, lower than average AC, and middling HP), expends their primary resource to be "untouchable" by normal attacks. This forces enemies to expend actions to coordinate attacks or engage in nondamaging tactics to undermine the monk's defense, lowering their overall damage by 1/2 when facing the monk unless they really pile on to shove prone. And still does mostly nothing against spells.
Compare to Barbarian, a class with better damage, better defenses (stronger AC with shield, top tier HP), that lowers enemy overall damage by half unless very specific conditions end rage.

I may house rule Step of the Wind to "Spend 1 ki to dodge as a bonus action, enemy attacks with disadvantage against you automatically miss until the beginning of your next turn or you are incapacitated." One tweak and the Monk is an ok melee class on par with Barbarian and it would be very thematic for a monk.

2. Haste- Haste is a suboptimal spell. It feels strong, we know action economy is king and giving more to the party is a path to success, BUT, when weighed against the options of Hypnotic Pattern or Slow, it is just not on the same level. Even against top tier solo bosses that rely on multiattack, there's no contest between what's better to land. Haste is comparable if you Twin Spell on high damage PCs. So we have a suboptimal spell that becomes better by allowing the target to dodge with their action and be "untouchable" like the monk can for 1 ki and a bonus action. BUT, for most PCs that's a big drop in DPR anyway and what it really does is make a few enemies take the Help action. Now it's on par with Slow as it eats enemy action volume at the cost of PC DPR. Seems fine.

3. Shove/Grapple. Now the target has to use its action to break out instead of going ham on the grappler. Seems fine. Wait, does this mean open hand monks are great grapplers now?

4. Darkness/Devilsight. Still more of a hindrance unless the party is built around it.

5. Protection Fighting Style and others. At higher levels these are largely worthless because disadvantage is not likely to invoke a miss. Now it definitely does, guaranteed miss is definitely worth the reaction.

While I'm coming out hard in favor of using this, I don't think I will, but that monk tweak is almost certainly going to happen in the next game I run. As is, monks are bad, but making one a circumstantially viable tank at the cost of their primary resource and offense seems more than fair, and that places the "onus" of rolling fewer dice squarely on the DM, a thing some DM's would probably appreciate.

Thanks again!