I dislike non-stacking Dis/Advantage

[RSP]

Your elf isn't the only elf in the world, and he isn't the first to have the racial charm resistance. The class of effect that elves are resistant to has notable characteristics and similarities between its members, and psychic damage et al is not amongst those traits.

People will know that elves are harder to charm (by whatever term they know the effect) than most other races. In the same way they know goliaths are stronger than humans.

And that of course means they know the mechanics of IF won’t overlap with the mechanics of elven resistance?

[Keltest]

And that of course means they know the mechanics of IF won’t overlap with the mechanics of elven resistance?

Bluntly: yes.

[JNAProductions]

Bluntly: yes.

I wouldn’t expect Human Joe Average to know.
I wouldn’t even expect Elf Jess Average to know that specific interaction.
I WOULD expect a competent adventurer who can actually cast the spell to know. Barring unusual PCs, they know how they do what they do, even if only by instinct.

[RSP]

I wouldn’t expect Human Joe Average to know.
I wouldn’t even expect Elf Jess Average to know that specific interaction.
I WOULD expect a competent adventurer who can actually cast the spell to know. Barring unusual PCs, they know how they do what they do, even if only by instinct.

So characters who can cast spells instinctually know when those spells would or wouldn’t be effective? So if a caster can cast Fireball, they know whether or not a creature would resist fire instinctually? Like a Succubus is encountered but they’d instinctually know “there’s something weird about this seemingly human creature - it resists fire”?

______

Not specific to JNA, but reviewing the Commoner, Knight, Bandit, Assassin, etc, they all represent elves of those “professions”, yet don’t have resistance to Charm.

So it appears the trait many think is common knowledge that all elves possess is more of a special “genetic” trait only shared by certain elves.

Even PC elves can skip it using variant rules. An Aasimar elf wouldn’t have it, nor would an elf made using custom lineage variant rules.

So I’ll say those who think these experiments have been done to show elves are resistant, it looks like the vast majority of elven NPCs wouldn’t have it and, as such, experiments would probably show elves are just as susceptible to Charm as Humans or Dwarves.

[Kane0]

Not a direct answer to the problem, but I generally allow advantage and disadvantage to cancel on a 1:1 basis rather than everything getting dropped. So if for example you have intellect fortress running on your elf against someone trying to charm you while you're poisoned, you still have advantage.
Not that it comes up often, but its neat when it does.

[Amnestic]

Not specific to JNA, but reviewing the Commoner, Knight, Bandit, Assassin, etc, they all represent elves of those “professions”, yet don’t have resistance to Charm.

Please re-read the Monster Manual. Appendix B (where Commoners, Archmages, Assassins, etc. are included) says

This appendix contains statistics for various humanoid nonplayer characters (NPCs) that adventurers might encounter during a D&D campaign, including lowly commoners and mighty archmages. These stat blocks can be used to represent both human and nonhuman NPCs.

The very next section 'Customising your NPCs', says:-

There are many easy ways to customize the NPCs in this appendix for your home campaign.
Racial Traits. You can add racial traits to an NPC. For example, a halfling druid might have a speed of 25 feet and the Lucky trait. Adding racial traits to a n NPC doesn't alter its challenge rating. For more on racial traits, see the Player's Handbook.

If you've got an elf assassin, you can/"are meant to" add their racial traits to it. As a DM you don't have to, if it's easier, but that clearly seems to be the intention. Of course each statblock doesn't specify each separate possible racial trait, that'd be such a waste of pages.

In addition, looking up the Drow statblocks in the monster manual, they all have Fey Ancestry charm resistance (and Drow Spellcasting, and Sunlight Sensitivity).

If the vast majority of elven NPCs you encounter don't have it that's because your DM chose to not include it - I would guess to simplify things on their side of the DM screen - but quite clearly they are meant to.

[kazaryu]

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

why would we "nod solemnly in solidarity" to a point that we explicitly disagree with? or did you actually mean to imply that people's opinions should align with yours?

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),

no it isn't.

and the fact that multiple instances don't stack, and one instance of either cancels out every instance of the other, makes it worse.

no it doesn't.

It's also still swingy.

good.

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

ah yes, thats what it is. people have gotten dumber. totally. noone in this thread has raised any valid objections to the 3.x style of stacking bonuses. its all just them being incapable of keeping track of them, and you're just so cool because you can do it

It’s not an insult: people enjoy 5e for different reasons. You’re saying I should have meta gamed the info I had, strongly suggesting that’s what you would do. I don’t know why you’re saying playing that way is an “insult”. If that’s what you or others enjoy, it’s not wrong or bad, it’s just not how I enjoy playing.

its not metagaming to say that people, in world, would be able to tell that elves were more resistant to certain types of magic. Nor is it metagaming to suggest that a person in world might learn that a spell might benefit certain races over others. specifically the races that lack the natural defense that the spell is meant to imitate. especially when the spell in question came about through rigorous research.

I understand that in the heat of the moment you're not always going to perfectly come up with these types of explanations. But that doesn't mean that when they get offered to you after the fact that someone is telling you to metagame. sure, the specific mechanical restriction is based on "charm" effects. but "charmed" is just an abstraction of something that is actually occurring in the game world. something that the the inhabitants of that world can observe, learn about, and react to, without ever having opened a PHB

[GloatingSwine]

no it isn't.

Which is why there aren't all sorts of other ways to add either fixed bonuses or bonus dice of varying flavours in 5e.

Wait a minute!

its not metagaming to say that people, in world, would be able to tell that elves were more resistant to certain types of magic.

That's not actually the contention.

The contention is that Spell A won't make them more resistant to certain types of magic but Spell B will. The out of game reason for that is that they interact differently with the dice, whilst the in-game mechanism of both spells' effect on resisting a charm is is "divine power helps you resist things better" and there doesn't seem to be a diagetic reason accessible to the characters why one should work and the other should not.

[schm0]

So characters who can cast spells instinctually know when those spells would or wouldn’t be effective? So if a caster can cast Fireball, they know whether or not a creature would resist fire instinctually? Like a Succubus is encountered but they’d instinctually know “there’s something weird about this seemingly human creature - it resists fire”?

I don't think anyone is suggesting an elves resistance to charms is known by instinct. But there's an argument to be made that such a trait is common knowledge, common enough for someone in the party to be aware of that fact. I would extend that likelihood further if the PC was a caster capable of casting spells with a charm effect, as well. Sure, you can hedge the knowledge behind an Arcana check if you like, but elves are rather ubiquitous in most settings, so the I think there is strong case that knowledge about that species would be similarly so.

And even when a creature's capabilities are likely not common knowledge, such as the case with the succubus, there are PC abilities in the game that allow players to learn all sorts of meta information about that creature. Just look at the Monster Slayer Ranger's Hunter Sense, or the Battlemaster Fighter's Know Your Enemy or the Mastermind Rogue's Insightful Manipulator ability.

So even if the party lacks that knowledge, the game itself provides some PCs with the tools to determine this information just by spending time to study that creature. And while that meta information is presented in mechanical terms for the players to understand, the PCs understand that same information in a real-world sense, just as they do if they were to learn it second hand or through study.

[Psyren]

So characters who can cast spells instinctually know when those spells would or wouldn’t be effective? So if a caster can cast Fireball, they know whether or not a creature would resist fire instinctually? Like a Succubus is encountered but they’d instinctually know “there’s something weird about this seemingly human creature - it resists fire”?

Why "instinctual?" Characters in the fiction can learn how spells and species work in the fiction by a variety of means, including the same way we do - by reading books.

[NichG]

Which is why there aren't all sorts of other ways to add either fixed bonuses or bonus dice of varying flavours in 5e.

Wait a minute!

That's not actually the contention.

The contention is that Spell A won't make them more resistant to certain types of magic but Spell B will. The out of game reason for that is that they interact differently with the dice, whilst the in-game mechanism of both spells' effect on resisting a charm is is "divine power helps you resist things better" and there doesn't seem to be a diagetic reason accessible to the characters why one should work and the other should not.

Well, the characteristic feature of Advantage is variance reduction towards the high end of your possible results. It lets you more consistently do closer to as well as you could possibly do.

Whereas a bonus die moves your bounds up - your highest possible and lowest possible results both move up, with a small increase in variance rather than a decrease.

So things that give Advantage could be thought of as helping you get all the extraneous factors and distractions under control, making it less likely to have a bad day. Or generally anything involving a redundancy or fallback against failure. Or anything reducing the uncertainty of your actions. Minor foresight powers, things borrowing from your more successful alternate selves, things that make all the minor unstated aspects of a task go your way, or things which catch you when you're about to fail or make a mistake. These don't stack, diegetically, because once you've removed some sort of variance on performance, you can't remove the same source again, so there are diminishing returns.

Whereas things that give bonus dice are more directly changing what is even possible for you. Their biggest effect is for the most difficult things, making them actually easier. So good in-character models of this would be the injection of alien sources of competency. You're borrowing the skills of an outsider for a moment, channeling an alternate self whose life went a different way, directly augmenting some basic parameters of your body to get control you would not have had, strength you would not have had, hearing that tells you when you've got the tumbler in place, etc. Rather than removing things that might trip you up, it's giving you new ways to succeed that you simply would not have had.

Resistance meanwhile is that some of the consequences of a kind of generally damaging energy or event are irrelevant for you but relevant for everyone else. A fireball harms people both by burning the outer layer of their skin off but also because it cooks what's beneath. Resistance means you can still be burned or melted but you can't be cooked - your proteins/etc work fine up to the boiling point of water, etc. You can't double up on it because it's removing a vulnerability, not like some layer of armor.

And yeah, under this framework, some spells are thematically mismatched to their particular mechanic. It'd make more sense for Bless to give Advantage and the Animal's Stat spells to give bonus dice or even just 'set stat = X'.

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, the issue there is that there's no diagetic explanation of those things given by the spell descriptions. It might be statistically the case based on how it makes the dice work, but Bless doesn't say "you empower 1-3 willing creatures to perform above their limits with the power of your god, they roll 1d4 and add it to attack and saves", it just says you bless them.

Likewise, there's no diagetic reason why the "hope and vitality" of Beacon of Hope won't help an elf resist being charmed better but will help them resist being trapped by Hold Person better. It just won't because Advantage doesn't stack.

[NichG]

Yeah, the issue there is that there's no diagetic explanation of those things given by the spell descriptions. It might be statistically the case based on how it makes the dice work, but Bless doesn't say "you empower 1-3 willing creatures to perform above their limits with the power of your god, they roll 1d4 and add it to attack and saves", it just says you bless them.

Likewise, there's no diagetic reason why the "hope and vitality" of Beacon of Hope won't help an elf resist being charmed better but will help them resist being trapped by Hold Person better. It just won't because Advantage doesn't stack.

There's also no explicit explanation given as to why there are spell slots and you lose a spell once you cast it. Or hitpoints. Or something like AC. Or how poison works. Or energy types like necrotic. Or why you can't wear 10 magic rings. Or why its harder to learn the basics you need to cast magic missile after studying druidic magic for a lifetime than if you're just starting out.

However, knowing the mechanics, its usually possible to come up with explanations which, while they're never going to be perfect, let you imagine a world as a world rather than just a game.

If that kind of immersion is a thing of interest to a group, it seems odd to me to refuse to actually help it along unless its explicitly given by RAW. I mean, saying 'I wish D&D had such explanations' is fine, but saying 'no, unless WotC prints it, I both refuse to add any interpretation to the world beyond strict RAW, but *also* I refuse to treat strict RAW as if its known in the world' is nonsensical. If you want to claim that stuff in the book isn't available to characters in the world as it's written - fine - but then you *have* to instead construct what characters in the world would know from living in it. And if you don't want that construction to reveal the gamey edges, then you are necessarily going to be moving beyond RAW.

Stacking or non-stacking makes zero difference here.

[RSP]

If you've got an elf assassin, you can/"are meant to" add their racial traits to it. As a DM you don't have to, if it's easier, but that clearly seems to be the intention. Of course each statblock doesn't specify each separate possible racial trait, that'd be such a waste of pages.

You have that backwards: the Commoner stat block is 100% meant to be played as is. A DM can choose to modify it if they want.

But it’s absolutely representative as is. If they wanted it to be different, they would have made it different.

[JNAProductions]

You have that backwards: the Commoner stat block is 100% meant to be played as is. A DM can choose to modify it if they want.

But it’s absolutely representative as is. If they wanted it to be different, they would have made it different.

Such as, for instance, by including a table of racial modifications you can easily use to modify existing humanoid statblocks?
A much better use than printing a statblock for Human Commoner, Dwarven Commoner, Elven Commoner, so on and so forth.

Again-you're choosing to make the world less consistent and sensible. That's not something that was forced onto you.

[RSP]

And while that meta information is presented in mechanical terms for the players to understand, the PCs understand that same information in a real-world sense, just as they do if they were to learn it second hand or through study.

Except the PCs don’t understand that info. I do not believe is meant to be played with PCs being aware that they’re characters in a game, nor are they aware of the mechanics of said game.

Such as, for instance, by including a table of racial modifications you can easily use to modify existing humanoid statblocks?
A much better use than printing a statblock for Human Commoner, Dwarven Commoner, Elven Commoner, so on and so forth.

Again-you're choosing to make the world less consistent and sensible. That's not something that was forced onto you.

So in your opinion, variant spell casting is the way 5e is “meant to be played”? Likewise gritty realism?

Or is it more correct to say the rules in the book are the way the devs meant to design the game, but offer dofferent options on how to change the game to taste?

Because you’re saying the alternate rules are the main rules…

More over, you’re admitting the rules as is aren’t “making sense” and stating it’s on the DM to change the world to make up for the issue that the devs were lazy in their design.

Now, sure, the DM can adjust things to fix the devs errors, but it’s way more simpler to just allow stacking that have to contrive reasons for why every instance of dis/advantage doesn’t stack, rewriting their world every time a new case comes up.

But I’m glad you admit it’s an issue.

[JNAProductions]

There's a difference between "Here's something that fundamentally alters core mechanics," like changing how Rests or Spell Slots work, and "Here's a simple way to make different humanoids feel different."

Look, 5E has plenty of issues. It's not a perfect game-it's generally just good enough.
But these issues here? These are issues of your own making. You're choosing an explanation that doesn't make sense to you, and then insisting that anyone who chooses a different explanation is metagaming.

[RSP]

Why "instinctual?" Characters in the fiction can learn how spells and species work in the fiction by a variety of means, including the same way we do - by reading books.

Which goes back to the DM having to come up with lore on every and each instance of dis/advantage every time a new instance comes up, that makes sense in their world, and makes sense with all the other explanations they’ve created, and probably explain how it’s know (if it’s being explained to the PCs).

Or is it simpler to just allow stacking Dis/advantage?

[JNAProductions]

Which goes back to the DM having to come up with lore on every and each instance of dis/advantage every time a new instance comes up, that makes sense in their world, and makes sense with all the other explanations they’ve created, and probably explain how it’s know (if it’s being explained to the PCs).

Or is it simpler to just allow stacking Dis/advantage?

What's the lore behind cesium exploding in water and iron sinking?
Or why drinking a glass of water when you're thirsty makes you feel better, but drinking thirty gallons makes you feel worse?
Or why an iron sword is more effective than a wooden sword?

Some things work, some things don't. You don't need an in-depth explanation for why everything is the way it is. If you want to come up with one, that's cool. But unless you're playing as a scientist who's trying to figure out the deeper reasoning behind everything, I'd imagine most characters are fine with knowing "This works, and this doesn't," rather than digging excessively deep into the why.

Edit: And you'd need to make an explanation for why the first advantage is a huge boost, while each subsequent one is a smaller boost. That's the conclusion, is it not?

[RSP]

Look, 5E has plenty of issues. It's not a perfect game-it's generally just good enough.
But these issues here? These are issues of your own making. You're choosing an explanation that doesn't make sense to you, and then insisting that anyone who chooses a different explanation is metagaming.

What explanation makes sense???

If I chose, as you suggest, that my character experiences perceivable effects on a save that the rules say is not perceptible, that’s me choosing not to follow the rules.

So your advice is, frankly, horrible advice: “choose to stop RPing, and chose to ignore the rules and what your DM says.”

…yeah, thanks, that’s super helpful.

[JNAProductions]

What explanation makes sense???

If I chose, as you suggest, that my character experiences perceivable effects on a save that the rules say is not perceptible, that’s me choosing not to follow the rules.

So your advice is, frankly, horrible advice: “choose to stop RPing, and chose to ignore the rules and what your DM says.”

…yeah, thanks, that’s super helpful.

Elves have been around for eons.
Elves have mages amongst them, and have fought mages.
Some of these mages have used charm effects, and found that they're more likely to work against most non-elven humanoids than elves.
This isn't 100% perfectly known across the whole world, but many elves (ESPECIALLY those who want to test their mettle against the world in dangerous scenarios) know this.

Mages who are able to cast Intellect Fortress also know how the spell works-with Wizards generally drawing upon bodies of research and Sorcerers simply by feel, with other classes doing so in similar or their own ways.

Do you also RP not knowing how large the radius of a Fireball is until you've cast it many times?
Or not knowing how many targets Bless has?
Or how far a Misty Step takes you?

[KorvinStarmast]

Or is it simpler to just allow stacking Dis/advantage?

We are right back to post number 1 and my response to it.
It is actually simpler to have it or not have it. The playability aspect of that is what underlay how that works.

[GooeyChewie]

Which goes back to the DM having to come up with lore on every and each instance of dis/advantage every time a new instance comes up, that makes sense in their world, and makes sense with all the other explanations they’ve created, and probably explain how it’s know (if it’s being explained to the PCs).

Or is it simpler to just allow stacking Dis/advantage?

Wait, what? Why would the DM need to come up with lore on each and every instance of dis/advantage? The only reason we're coming up with lore for the IF and Elves interaction is because you are arguing that such lore cannot make sense. For actual play, it's good enough to simply assume the players' characters know how things work, even if they don't exactly know why they work that way.

If anything, it's simpler to not allow stacking dis/advantage, because once you've got one source of advantage and one source of disadvantage you don't need to figure out the rest. If you allow stacking dis/advantage, you have to consider all possible sources of dis/advantage.

Don't get me wrong, there are pros to stacking dis/advantage. And if using stacking works for your table, I'm all for you using it. But there's also pros to having dis/advantage cancel each other out.

[RSP]

Elves have been around for eons.
Elves have mages amongst them, and have fought mages.
Some of these mages have used charm effects, and found that they're more likely to work against most non-elven humanoids than elves.
This isn't 100% perfectly known across the whole world, but many elves (ESPECIALLY those who want to test their mettle against the world in dangerous scenarios) know this.

Mages who are able to cast Intellect Fortress also know how the spell works-with Wizards generally drawing upon bodies of research and Sorcerers simply by feel, with other classes doing so in similar or their own ways.

So this is “Mages know the advantage mechanic and how it doesn’t stack with other effects that have advantage, and they inyuituvely know what does and doesn’t use Advantage”.

That’s all meta gaming.

[RSP]

Wait, what? Why would the DM need to come up with lore on each and every instance of dis/advantage? The only reason we're coming up with lore for the IF and Elves interaction is because you are arguing that such lore cannot make sense.

Because whatever you come up with for why Fey Ancestry and IF don’t stack, needs to be compatible with Beavon of Hope and Fey ancestry not stacking; and BoH and IF not stacking; and BoH and DP not stacking, and DP and Fey Ancestry not stacking; and DP and IF not stacking; and IF and Gnome Cunning not stacking; and Gnome Cunning and DP not stacking; and Gnome Cunning and BoH not stacking; etc.

And then those explanations need to not step on why Bless and IF DO stack; and Fey An earth and Bless do stack, etc.

It just gets more and more complex with every and any new instance of Dis/Advantage. (Not to mention how you explain in game how X Advantages are canceled by one Disadvajtage, but Bless is not…

[schm0]

Except the PCs don’t understand that info. I do not believe is meant to be played with PCs being aware that they’re characters in a game, nor are they aware of the mechanics of said game.

I didn't say they were. I said the players get metagame information and the PCs get in-universe information.

[JNAProductions]

So this is “Mages know the advantage mechanic and how it doesn’t stack with other effects that have advantage, and they inyuituvely know what does and doesn’t use Advantage”.

That’s all meta gaming.

Elves have been around for eons.
Elves have mages amongst them, and have fought mages.
Some of these mages have used charm effects, and found that they're more likely to work against most non-elven humanoids than elves.
This isn't 100% perfectly known across the whole world, but many elves (ESPECIALLY those who want to test their mettle against the world in dangerous scenarios) know this.

Mages who are able to cast Intellect Fortress also know how the spell works-with Wizards generally drawing upon bodies of research and Sorcerers simply by feel, with other classes doing so in similar or their own ways.

Do you also RP not knowing how large the radius of a Fireball is until you've cast it many times?
Or not knowing how many targets Bless has?
Or how far a Misty Step takes you?

You only responded to part of my post. Here it is again, for your convenience. I think responding to the last three lines would help elucidate the matter.

[GooeyChewie]

Because whatever you come up with for why Fey Ancestry and IF don’t stack, needs to be compatible with Beavon of Hope and Fey ancestry not stacking; and BoH and IF not stacking; and BoH and DP not stacking, and DP and Fey Ancestry not stacking; and DP and IF not stacking; and IF and Gnome Cunning not stacking; and Gnome Cunning and DP not stacking; and Gnome Cunning and BoH not stacking; etc.

And then those explanations need to step on why Bless and IF DO stack; and Fey An earth and Bless do stack, etc.

It just gets more and more complex with every and any new instance of Dis/Advantage. (Not to mention how you explain in game how X Advantages are canceled by one Disadvajtage, but Bless is not…

None of that explains why the DM (or the players) need to come up with that lore in the first place. The players' characters don't need to know why various things do or don't stack. It only needs to be known in-universe that various things do or do not stack. And the only lore explanation needed there is that the inhabitants of the world care about figuring out what combinations tend to work best.

[RSP]

I didn't say they were. I said the players get metagame information and the PCs get in-universe information.

So what’s that in-game universe info that is not the metagame info?

[KorvinStarmast]

That’s all meta gaming.

You keep using that word.

Your entire rant/argument, from post 1, is meta gaming.