I dislike non-stacking Dis/Advantage

[KorvinStarmast]

What if you decide that at your table there's a A/D hierarchy. So this source of advantage is stronger than those sources of Disadvantage so players are encouraged to pursue quality of A/D? Just a not thought through idea.

Too much mental load for the DM, IMHO. The juice is not worth the squeeze.

I think the crux of their argument has less to do with fingers, and more to do with the fact that regardless of how many "advantage" you have, you still only get a single extra d20.

I am aware of that, and I find the complaint to be underwhelming, at best. It works well enough for playability.

You want to RP? Shut the book and make decisions based what your character would do and live with the consequences, including the overlap in mechanics.

I had one DM who uses that approach. Sadly, the campaign is dormant/done since RL got him in a grapple and he can't break free.

Let some of us treat the game like a game. Because it totally is.

The play's the thing.

Advantage/Disadvantage is too simple a mechanic to be virtually the ONLY source of a bonus or penalty in the game

Nope. Bless spell. Mind Sliver. Archery fighting style bonus +2. Dual Wielder feat +1. Lucky feat. Halfling luck. Defensive fighting style +1. Warding Bond +1 to saves and AC. Heavy Armor Master DR of 3 versus BPS.
And that's just off the top of my head.
Adv/Disad is widely used however, and it works. I think that it works due to the math and how it overlaps with bounded accuracy, TBH. (I have seen it argued that expertise is a bit of an edge case/breaker...separate topic).

Sure but I don't think anyone is saying they want to be invincible. The game's "bonus" mechanism has an elf that is resistant to being Charmed + a spell that gives them increased mental resilience, and they got nothing for it.

The dice can be fickle. See the Introduction in the PHB written by Mike Mearls.

You and your friends create epic stories filled with tension and memorable drama. You create silly in-jokes that make you laugh years later. The dice will be cruel to you, but you will soldier on.

Fey Ancestry is essentially a genetic trait of Elves, much like Poison Resistance is a genetic trait of Dwarves. Elves, as far as I’m aware, have no innate knowledge of what effects would trigger their genetic defense and which wouldn’t, anymore than a Dwarf character would innately know “oh my genetic condition is alerting me that this here enemy is going to use a poisoned weapon when they attack.”

I like your IC approach here.

And, as stated in my initial response, my character had no experience with Dominate Person, so I don’t know why you insist knowledge of that specific spell should have been part of his thinking.

Most of the groups I play with are alright with not knowing about a spell or an ability when they first encounter it. It's part of the discovery aspect of the game.

Why does Bless, for instance, represent a different way of doing “divine defense against stuff”.

Why not? Buffing goes back to the earliest versions of the game.

For instance, in game, what’s the difference between the Cleric casting Bless as a defense vs Beacon of Hope? One works with Fey Ancestry, one doesn’t, and the only way to distinguish that is to add metagame knowledge to the PCs.

It is not metagaming to know that a spell does; it's in the Player's Handbook. That's a player-facing resource.

To me, it doesn’t make sense that “I will channel my god’s power to defend us against mind control”, while a 1st level spell provides additional protection, yet a 3rd level spell does not.

And the two stack with each other. Following your (weak) point, the 4th level spell Freedom of Movement doesn't add that protection either. Each spell has its own purpose.

How are characters supposed to work within the game world’s RP without using metagame knowledge to distinguish those two spells?

It is not metagaming to read the spell description in the PHB if one of the players is using the spell. PHB is a player facing resource.

[GloatingSwine]

It is not metagaming to read the spell description in the PHB if one of the players is using the spell. PHB is a player facing resource.

It's not metagaming, but I can see how it might be a pinch point where two divine "make people do stuff better" spells can produce an outcome where the one that's specialised to making people pass wisdom saves better can't make an elf pass a wisdom save better because it's a charm effect but the general purpose make the dice better one can because mechanically it doesn't interact with the advantage system.

[Dr.Samurai]

The dice can be fickle.

Very true.

So imagine that you're supposed to be resilient to mental control, and on top of that you have added protection from a spell, and you still fail. The constant swing makes it difficult to feel like you actually have benefits or advantages over others in any particular area and are carving out a niche in which you're supposed to excel. In the end, all that matters is that die roll.

[GloatingSwine]

Very true.

So imagine that you're supposed to be resilient to mental control, and on top of that you have added protection from a spell, and you still fail. The constant swing makes it difficult to feel like you actually have benefits or advantages over others in any particular area and are carving out a niche in which you're supposed to excel. In the end, all that matters is that die roll.

Moar advantage dice doesn't technically prevent this, of course. Triple skulls is always out there.

[Theodoxus]

Is it meta-gaming to know that the enemy has some form of 'mind control' and that the best defense to it is Protection from Good and Evil? I mean, it doesn't matter if it's a spell or natural ability... and has nothing to do with Advantage/Disadvantage.

On the actual topic, I've played at tables with just about every iteration imaginable where it comes to Dis/Ad stacking. It's definitely one of those knobs that should have been added to the DMG. Having stacking advantage ends up being nigh super-heroic and works well in the upper power levels of the game. It nearly guarantees a success provided you have enough ways to get it.

If I were going to codify different methods, I'd say the current rule (they just cancel out) is the equivalent of Gritty Realism (not that its realistic, but that it's the least likely to be helpful). A 1:1 ratio, where if you have 2 Ad v 1 Dis ends up being Advantage is the equivalent of Heroic Fantasy. You don't necessarily need to grab as many possible ways to gain advantage, just enough to offset whatever disadvantages are present, +1. This should be (IMO) the default for most games. Yes, it's a little more math than we're used to, but it grants just a bit more power in the players favor, which is how Heroic Fantasy tends (and should) work.

Stacking advantage is again, the super-heroic method.

The last few options are basically modifications on theme and probably don't bring much to the table... You have stacking Ad/Disad if there's nothing opposing it. If you have an opposition, it can default to either the 1:1 ratio, or cancelation. It makes the super-heroic suddenly feel much less than.

[Keltest]

My question is, why is metagaming being treated as a dirty word? Of course you have to metagame sometimes, you're playing a game! You aren't writing a book where the character's can't tap into author knowledge of how the world works, you need to interface with the game elements to do, well, anything as a player.

[GloatingSwine]

My question is, why is metagaming being treated as a dirty word? Of course you have to metagame sometimes, you're playing a game! You aren't writing a book where the character's can't tap into author knowledge of how the world works, you need to interface with the game elements to do, well, anything as a player.

True, but if your answer to "why did you cast Bless rather than Beacon of Hope" is "because it gives a better dice interaction against charm spells for elves" (or "because the DC on this Wis save is high enough that a 1d4 bonus die gives better chances on average than an advantage die") then you're not making decisions based on immersion in your character but based on how corner cases in out-of-character probability works.

Which some people might find jarring, but once they know about it will nag at them if they don't do it.

[grarrrg]

Simply, "I'm an elf, so I am superior at fighting off mind control - our minds are just more powerful than those of the younger races. A spell such as intellect fortress is the only way such a person can have what I have naturally, and therefore intellect fortress is neither necessary nor helpful to me."

Not metagaming, purely in character knowledge that fits the way the world works. Knowing the way the world works from the standpoint of the character is not metagaming, it's roleplaying.

It's still a bit of metagaming.
"I put on Plate armor, I'm harder to hit.
He grabs a shield, he's harder to hit.
What if I have Plate AND a shield?"

"I am resistant, but not immune, to mind control.
He casts a spell that makes him resistant, but not immune, to mind control.
I have literally no way of knowing that the spell does -exactly- the same thing as my natural ability, and is thus completely worthless to me."



Unless your world has Elf scientists running controlled studies to determine that 'resist spell=Elf brain', AND your character has enough INT to be aware of said studies....

[Keltest]

True, but if your answer to "why did you cast Bless rather than Beacon of Hope" is "because it gives a better dice interaction against charm spells for elves" (or "because the DC on this Wis save is high enough that a 1d4 bonus die gives better chances on average than an advantage die") then you're not making decisions based on immersion in your character but based on how corner cases in out-of-character probability works.

Which some people might find jarring, but once they know about it will nag at them if they don't do it.

...Yes. You're playing the game. Beyond that though, "im using Bless because Beacon of Hope doesn't help elves" is still a perfectly legitimate in-character reason to do something.

[Darth Credence]

True, but if your answer to "why did you cast Bless rather than Beacon of Hope" is "because it gives a better dice interaction against charm spells for elves" (or "because the DC on this Wis save is high enough that a 1d4 bonus die gives better chances on average than an advantage die") then you're not making decisions based on immersion in your character but based on how corner cases in out-of-character probability works.

Which some people might find jarring, but once they know about it will nag at them if they don't do it.

How about if your answer is, "Because it requires less power from the caster to cast and they may need the spell energy more for other things" or "Because Beacon of Hope is for large groups, not the 1-3 people we cared about for this, so we went with the more efficient spell for the purpose" or even, "Because we know that elves in particular do not benefit as much from Beacon of Hope as they do from Bless - no one is quite sure why, although the elves will claim it is because they are already beacons of hope themselves and do not need someone else to fill that role"?

There is no way to not metagame if we call knowing what spells do metagaming. In most worlds - certainly in every one I've ever run - the world has been around for a while and the book spells are known quantities. In those worlds, it would have long since been determined by people in the world that casting a spell that gives advantage to saves against charm would not be beneficial to an elf, because they already have advantage. Someone would have noticed and asked their deity about it and been given a reason, or if deities wouldn't talk to people, sometime in hundreds of years there would have been a person who noticed and used the knowledge. If not, then what is metagaming is for the player to notice that they didn't get a benefit - why would the PC be the one to suddenly realize something no one else had noticed before? They couldn't do it with character knowledge, so they must be using player knowledge of the game rules, therefore metagaming.

[GloatingSwine]

...Yes. You're playing the game. Beyond that though, "im using Bless because Beacon of Hope doesn't help elves" is still a perfectly legitimate in-character reason to do something.

But of course Beacon of Hope does help elves, except in the specific case of wisdom saves vs charm effects. Wisdom saves vs anything else and they benefit just fine.

And it can’t be because elves are as good as they can be against charm because otherwise Bless couldn’t help them, which it does.

[Blatant Beast]

Everyone that posted here should have simply nodded solemnly in solidarity with RSP and moved on.

Advantage/Disadvantage is too simple a mechanic to be virtually the ONLY source of a bonus or penalty in the game (barring Expertise for skills), and the fact that multiple instances don't stack, and one instance of either cancels out every instance of the other, makes it worse.

It's also still swingy.

Back in my day, players were able to keep track of their mechanics and bonuses/penalties. But that was a different time I suppose .

This issue in the aggregate would have happened more often in 3e, because they were bunches of Typed Modifiers, and much fewer untyped modifiers.

Advantage/Disadvantage is what I consider the most innovative and elegant mechanic design in 5e, but that said, it does feel unsatisfying at times, (Unseen Attackers, looking at you, buddy!), and given the frequency of the mechanic being used, especially in releases early on in the 5e product cycle, the mechanic could probably use some fine tuning.

I like the idea of Highlander Advantage. I don't think a small change like that, would terribly increase the time to resolve the roll.

[Darth Credence]

It's still a bit of metagaming.
"I put on Plate armor, I'm harder to hit.
He grabs a shield, he's harder to hit.
What if I have Plate AND a shield?"

"I am resistant, but not immune, to mind control.
He casts a spell that makes him resistant, but not immune, to mind control.
I have literally no way of knowing that the spell does -exactly- the same thing as my natural ability, and is thus completely worthless to me."



Unless your world has Elf scientists running controlled studies to determine that 'resist spell=Elf brain', AND your character has enough INT to be aware of said studies....

Why in the world would anyone assume that in a world where magic has existed for hundreds or thousands of years, the people in the world would not have figured out how their magic works? Yes, I expect that some wizard or artificer with access to the spell has at some point figured out what the spell actually does, and that information has gotten around to people who use the spell. To think otherwise is, for me, like thinking that computer programmers don't really know what their commands do - they just kind of do things by rote and hope it works out, but are sometimes surprised that things follow rules they are not aware of. Are there some programmers like that? I'm sure there are. But I'm also quite sure that most do know how different commands interact and how to deal with that, in the same way I'm sure that casters know how their spells work and how they interact with people.

[RSP]

No. All the character has to know is that they are naturally resistant to mind control effects as an elf, and that additional things to make one resistant to mind control are simply bringing the other races up to the level of elves. They don't need to know about advantage or how things utilize it. Simply, "I'm an elf, so I am superior at fighting off mind control - our minds are just more powerful than those of the younger races. A spell such as intellect fortress is the only way such a person can have what I have naturally, and therefore intellect fortress is neither necessary nor helpful to me."

Again look at Bless vs IF or Beacon of Hope.

All are magics that offer protection “to the mind”. One works with elven “genetics” but the others don’t. A Cleric could offer the protection of their god via Bless or BoH, and though the magic is from the same source, it may or may not actually help, and the only way to know is to use metagame knowledge.

You could have a Devotion Paladin using their Sacred Weapon ability (+Cha mod to attacks), combined with Bless (+1d4), a +1 magic weapon (+1) and be under the effect of Synaptic Static (-1d6). Those all stack even though they’re all various sorts of magic.

Yet divine magic (Beacon of Hope) doesn’t work with “genetics (Fey Ancestry), or arcane magic (IF).

They simply decided to over simply some stuff and not others. I don’t see Bless being thought of as disastrous to table play due to it adding a variable bonus instead of falling in with the Adv rules.

[JNAProductions]

If you drop iron (a metal) in water, it sinks.
If you drop cesium (another metal) in water, it explodes.
Things that are similar don't always respond the same way.

If magic is brand-new to the world, then yes-it wouldn't make sense to know that Bless stacks with Fey Ancestry while Intellect Fortress does not.
But in a more standard D&D world, magic has been around since the dawn of time. Scholars and mages of the world may or may not know or have theories WHY Bless stacks and Fortress doesn't, but to those who deal with spells, it'd be known that that's a thing.

[Darth Credence]

Again look at Bless vs IF or Beacon of Hope.

All are magics that offer protection “to the mind”. One works with elven “genetics” but the others don’t. A Cleric could offer the protection of their god via Bless or BoH, and though the magic is from the same source, it may or may not actually help, and the only way to know is to use metagame knowledge.

You could have a Devotion Paladin using their Sacred Weapon ability (+Cha mod to attacks), combined with Bless (+1d4), a +1 magic weapon (+1) and be under the effect of Synaptic Static (-1d6). Those all stack even though they’re all various sorts of magic.

Yet divine magic (Beacon of Hope) doesn’t work with “genetics (Fey Ancestry), or arcane magic (IF).

They simply decided to over simply some stuff and not others. I don’t see Bless being thought of as disastrous to table play due to it adding a variable bonus instead of falling in with the Adv rules.

Again, look at it from the point of view of a character in the world. They know what their spells do. If they don't, they are bad at what they do - that can be enjoyable to play, but it isn't the baseline I'm looking at. A competent PC knows what their spells do, in the world. You disagree with the rules. That's fine. But it does not follow that just because you disagree with them that they cannot make sense from an in-game perspective and it must be metagaming to play by those rules.

It's pretty easy to turn this argument around and show that you are the one metagaming. Why in the world do you even notice that the spells don't work together? If your character doesn't know that (if they did it wouldn't be metagaming to use that knowledge, so they must not) the spells are not additive, why are they able to figure it out from a single encounter? If they passed their saves with just advantage, why do they even consider that they didn't get a bigger bonus? If they failed their saves, why was your character the one to figure out that it means that the spells didn't interact, and why are they sure that was it and they weren't just unlucky? By trying to get extra advantage, you are using play knowledge to try to affect the game world, e.g. metagaming.

[RSP]

Sorry, I didn't mean for it to come across that way. I was more being cheeky with the people disagreeing with you, since I think your premise is spot on.

No worries, as I said I think you did a much better job of succinctly stating the issue than my rant did.

It is not metagaming to know that a spell does; it's in the Player's Handbook. That's a player-facing resource.

…It is not metagaming to read the spell description in the PHB if one of the players is using the spell. PHB is a player facing resource.

All the mechanics are in the PHB. If your argument is everything in the PHB is character knowledge, you play a very different RP style than I do.

Just because a player reads a spell description with mechanics, doesn’t mean the character knows that mechanic.

[JNAProductions]

All the mechanics are in the PHB. If your argument is everything in the PHB is character knowledge, you play a very different RP style than I do.

Just because a player reads a spell description with mechanics, doesn’t mean the character knows that mechanic.

Sure, characters won't know everything in the PHB.
But when your party specifically researches a foe that likes to sling enchantments and charms, don't you think it'd make sense that they would learn what a lot of charm spells do, including Dominate Person?

[NichG]

You RP'd your character not knowing something, and the fact that they didn't know it meant they made an error. Now your character knows it, and can tell others, and it can become in-character knowledge.

If your complaint is, 'when I RP my character not knowing how the world works, it should never have a negative consequence' then that seems sort of... wanting to have your cake and eat it too?

[KorvinStarmast]

All the mechanics are in the PHB. If your argument is everything in the PHB is character knowledge, you play a very different RP style than I do.

Indeed. We don't subscribe to the myth/convention of player character separation to the depth that you appear to. There are pracitical reasons to do this: making spell choices as you level up is one reason. Choosing a sub class at 3 or 2 is another. Know your options to make informed choices...

Just because a player reads a spell description with mechanics, doesn’t mean the character knows that mechanic.

That's a separate topic, I think.

[sithlordnergal]

Questions: Why do people who are super against metagaming assume in-game characters don't know what spells do?

And why do you assume an Elf doesn't understand they have a resistance to charm? Hell, I'm a Human, I've never studied advanced biology, but I know that Humans have a natural resistance to a lot of substances that would harm a lot of animals. I also know that there is a limit to that resistance. Why wouldn't an Elf have learned similar things about Elves while growing up?



Even if you don't use terms like Advantage and Disadvantage, you can say "This spell grants a similar effect to how Elves resist being charmed by spells". Given you're adventurers with experience, you can also reasonably say "This spell's protection won't really improve the natural resistance Elves have to being charmed".

As for how you can describe the difference between Bless and Mental Fortress, you can easily describe it as "Bless gives a small amount of protection against everything. Where as Mental Fortress gives you the mental fortitude of an Elf while making mental attacks hurt less"

[KorvinStarmast]

Why in the world would anyone assume that in a world where magic has existed for hundreds or thousands of years, the people in the world would not have figured out how their magic works?

Indeed, the game resources are one means by which the players inhabit the secondary world; RP isn't the only means to achieve that end.

[schm0]

Questions: Why do people who are super against metagaming assume in-game characters don't know what spells do?

And why do you assume an Elf doesn't understand they have a resistance to charm? Hell, I'm a Human, I've never studied advanced biology, but I know that Humans have a natural resistance to a lot of substances that would harm a lot of animals. I also know that there is a limit to that resistance. Why wouldn't an Elf have learned similar things about Elves while growing up?

This isn't a metagaming thing, and more of a hasty generalization. I am firmly against metagaming of the negative sort, but trying to say spellcasters don't know what their spells do is a bit silly, IMHO. It also has little to do with the topic at hand.

[sithlordnergal]

This isn't a metagaming thing, and more of a hasty generalization. I am firmly against metagaming of the negative sort, but trying to say spellcasters don't know what their spells do is a bit silly, IMHO. It also has little to do with the topic at hand.

But that's essentially the argument I see being made. "My character knowing X spell won't stack with Y benefit I already have is a form of metagaming". To literally quote RSP here:

We learned our opponent “uses magic to control minds”, that on its own doesn’t equal the same thing as “elves, being Fey descendants are naturally resistant to Charm and sleep.” You need to know the game mechanics of what Magic exists and if those are “charm” magics to make that determination.

My question is, WHY is knowing what kind of magic exists, and the fact they Charm you metagame knowledge? There's no reason to consider it metagame knowledge. There are very few spells that allow someone to mind control you that don't Charm you at the same time.

Heck, another quote from RSP:

All the mechanics are in the PHB. If your argument is everything in the PHB is character knowledge, you play a very different RP style than I do.

Just because a player reads a spell description with mechanics, doesn’t mean the character knows that mechanic.

Why wouldn't a character know about the effects of a spell. Yes, they are mechanics, but those mechanics have a tangible effect on the world. I could see a peasant that has no experience with magic not knowing about a spell. But an adventurer? They should know the effects of some kind of spell. Not everything mind you. They don't need to know that a spell can only be learned/cast by XYZ classes. But the stuff that has a tangible effect on the game world? I'd expect the character to know it, unless this is a spell that has never been used before.

[Dr.Samurai]

This issue in the aggregate would have happened more often in 3e, because they were bunches of Typed Modifiers, and much fewer untyped modifiers.

This is not my recollection. In 3rd, if you wanted to feel competent at something, you could certainly stack modifiers and be consistently good at it.

In 5e, you never really escape Bounded Accuracy. The game thinks being good at something means failing nearly half the time.

Advantage/Disadvantage is what I consider the most innovative and elegant mechanic design in 5e, but that said, it does feel unsatisfying at times, (Unseen Attackers, looking at you, buddy!), and given the frequency of the mechanic being used, especially in releases early on in the 5e product cycle, the mechanic could probably use some fine tuning.

I like the idea of Highlander Advantage. I don't think a small change like that, would terribly increase the time to resolve the roll.

I agree with you that it's a nice and elegant mechanic.

What is Highlander Advantage?

[Wintermoot]

This is not my recollection. In 3rd, if you wanted to feel competent at something, you could certainly stack modifiers and be consistently good at it.

In 5e, you never really escape Bounded Accuracy. The game thinks being good at something means failing nearly half the time.

I agree with you that it's a nice and elegant mechanic.

What is Highlander Advantage?

I think its just if there are more advantages than disadvantages, you get advantage. If there are more disadvantages than advantages, you get disadvantage. So if there are 3 advantages and 2 disadvatages, you get advantage. If there are 17 advantages and 23 disadvantages, you get disadvantage.

You cancel them out until there is one (or more) left uncancelled and go with that.

Its how every group I've every played with in 5e has done it. I don't think since the very very early play test days did anyone use the full cancel (1 disadvantage and 7 advantages? you get NOTHING)

[grarrrg]

This isn't a metagaming thing, and more of a hasty generalization. I am firmly against metagaming of the negative sort, but trying to say spellcasters don't know what their spells do is a bit silly, IMHO. It also has little to do with the topic at hand.

You need to draw a line somewhere.
Unless someone wants to argue that the people in the game have figured out that their world runs on finite numbers and dice-rolls.

The people in the world should have a -good idea- of what their spells do. But they shouldn't know -EXACTLY- what their spells do, otherwise you break the immersion.


Cast charm on a human, it works most of the time, but not all of the time.
Cast charm on an elf, it fails most of the time, but not all of the time.
Cast a resist-charm spell on a human then cast charm, charm fails most of the time, but not all of the time.

Cast a resist-charm spell on an elf, then cast charm.
Charm fails most of the time. Does it fail more often? Or about the same?
Maybe it only had a 10% success rate on elves to begin with. How many times do I need to try to charm a resisted-elf before I'm sure the resist really doesn't do anything?

If I'm an elf that risks getting mind controlled then I'd still want to opt for the resist spell if able, just in case.

[Theodoxus]

Why wouldn't a character know about the effects of a spell. Yes, they are mechanics, but those mechanics have a tangible effect on the world. I could see a peasant that has no experience with magic not knowing about a spell. But an adventurer? They should know the effects of some kind of spell. Not everything mind you. They don't need to know that a spell can only be learned/cast by XYZ classes. But the stuff that has a tangible effect on the game world? I'd expect the character to know it, unless this is a spell that has never been used before.

It's kind of the difference between knowing how guns work, and knowing how to shoot. I know how guns work, the chemistry of gun powder and bullet casings. I couldn't build a gun though. I haven't been out shooting since I was a Boy Scout Scouting American, so easily 40 years. It would take some time and instruction to be able to accurately shoot down range (much less at a living creature). Spell casting is pretty much the same. I'd suspect anyone with at least a 10 in Int would grok how spells work and their interaction - especially in a typical High Magic society of a standard D&D campaign world. A non-magic user wouldn't be able to figure out the finger work, the enunciation and/or components of casting a spell, and I'd probably require proficiency in Medicine to know the basic inherited attributes of species outside your own (unless you've received some specific education about a species). So, it's possible that a dwarf might not know about Fey Ancestry, but I'd rule that an elf certainly would.

What is Highlander Advantage?

It's the idea of a ratio for Advantage. Each instance of Advantage and Disadvantage cancel each other, but 'there can be only 1' - so if you have 5 Advantages and 2 Disadvantages, you end up with Advantage.

[NichG]

You need to draw a line somewhere.
Unless someone wants to argue that the people in the game have figured out that their world runs on finite numbers and dice-rolls.

The people in the world should have a -good idea- of what their spells do. But they shouldn't know -EXACTLY- what their spells do, otherwise you break the immersion.


Cast charm on a human, it works most of the time, but not all of the time.
Cast charm on an elf, it fails most of the time, but not all of the time.
Cast a resist-charm spell on a human then cast charm, charm fails most of the time, but not all of the time.

Cast a resist-charm spell on an elf, then cast charm.
Charm fails most of the time. Does it fail more often? Or about the same?
Maybe it only had a 10% success rate on elves to begin with. How many times do I need to try to charm a resisted-elf before I'm sure the resist really doesn't do anything?

If I'm an elf that risks getting mind controlled then I'd still want to opt for the resist spell if able, just in case.

If you want the world to be more fleshed out via RP than the book mechanics and numbers, you have to flesh it out.

It's not just 'I cast, it failed', it's 'I cast, but felt the spell slipping off of something'. It's not 'someone tried to charm me, they failed' it's 'someone tried to charm me, but every time I fought back with my will, I felt my defenses give me a bit of breathing room and anchor my self'. It's not 'I have this defensive spell', it's 'I feel this spell seep into the edges of my perception, quieting any random intrusive thoughts and helping me focus.' and for an elf 'that's cute, this spell is trying to help me hold focus on myself like I were some quickling to be distracted by any new idea or possibility, but my mind belongs to a race that can hold onto themselves for a thousand years - this thing does me little good here'

Don't just remove stuff. You have to fill it in too, or you're just left with a lot of blank space. A character's life is not just their uptime, it's the thousands or tens of thousands of little conversations, thoughts in the depth of night, offhand rumors in taverns, books read by firelight, etc.

[RSP]

Is it meta-gaming to know that the enemy has some form of 'mind control' and that the best defense to it is Protection from Good and Evil? I mean, it doesn't matter if it's a spell or natural ability... and has nothing to do with Advantage/Disadvantage.

I’d imagine (and have discussed this very thing with my current DM) that PCs generally have an idea regarding creature types, so spells like PfGandE can generally be used, but it’s not a given that PCs instinctively know creature types. Your table may see it differently, of course, but as certain spells require creature type knowledge I think it’s fair to assume basic education in it. Now, there could be edge cases where something seems like one thing (a succubus in disguise for example) and the PCs are unaware of the true nature.

But in this case, the creature did not fall into the types PfGandE works against, though we didn’t know the type before facing it.

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But I also want to push back on the “simplicity needed” argument being posed.

There are so many fiddly stacking numbers already in 5e. There are tons of ways to stack effects. For instance, you could have

18 AC from Plate, +3 from the plate being magical, +2 from a shield, +3 from it being magical, +1 from Ring of Protection, +1from Cloak of Protection, +3 from a Defender sword, +3 from a dual wielded Defender sword, +2 from Shield of Faith and +5 from a Shield spell.

That’s an exaggeration, but a perfectly legal way to have plenty of number bonuses stack.

Likewise, you can have non-numeric stacking effects like using Mirror Image, False Life, Blur, and Sanctuary can all be used as defensive stacking buffs, for instance (and probably plenty more).

I’d say 70% of the game effects are stackable, fiddly bits. They just decided to make a non-stacking, catch-all mechanic that seemingly arbitrarily affects some 30% of abilities.

The same stacking can affect skills, saves, or attacks, too. It’s not a limited feature in 5e.