i personally as a dm and sometimes a player don,t like the system so we don,t use it it just doesn,t feel right 2 of my players played 3e and the rest all started with 4e so it just doesn,t feel right to the majority of my group what do you guys think of it.
I felt it is a simple and very eligent way to display a disadvantage or advantage in combat by giving a very clear combat indicator. Rolling the dice twice and taking the best or worst result depending on the state of player encourages one to really set out the advantages and makes the game hyper lethal to those that play unsoundly. This encourages a player to respond quickly to sort the situation out, something that a mere minus or plus to stats might not inspire.
Main issue is I feel it might be a tad heavy as rolling the die twice means you become largely incapible, and even the most incept advantaged foe turns into a real threat. But then again, it merely keeps every dungion feeling like a geninue threat, easpically to not get sarrounded by the poky things. I generally like it though.
What is it that you don't like about it? The fact that it seems so different? How many encounters have you kept this system in?
we tried it for about 5 encounters and the it was the fact that it was so different that keeps us from liking it very much we have a group of about 7 players
It is a good, elegant system when you have one or two combatants affected by it. When you have a lot of combatants all affected by it, especially if they are monsters (at least when the PCs have it they feel a little better about it, monsters aren't as exciting), it just slows down the game.
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I like the overall simplicity of it. But I do see a couple downsides at the same time.
First is the potential for argument over what situations grant advantage. For those with a back ground in playing and accepting the DM as the arbitor of the rules, this may not be as much of an issue. However, for those used to the rules being very specific and detailed in their application, the open nature of the advantage rule (at least as currently presented) could easily spark some intense discussion about any circumstance's advantage potential.
Second is the way the odds are shifted with the second die. If the target number is right in the middle of the range, advantage and disadvantage have the same effective change to the odds. If the target number is higher, the 'penalty' of a disadvantage is higher; likewise, if the target number is lower, the 'bonus' from advantage is higher.
For me, neither issue is a 'make-or-break' problem for the game mechanics. But is was a topic of a lot of discussion within our test group.
We as a group were excited when we read about advantage/ disadvantage. After four sessions as Dm, its a gamble. I like as a quick ruling in specific situations. Gaining advantage always feel like a boon and disadvantage feels like a penalty. But the dice may or may not be with you after the roll, so its still a gamble. It seems the OP problem is that it is new and different. Acceptance of things that are new and different is what innovation is about. Anyway in game play its been a lot of fun for us. Give it a try.
On the con side, the bonus or penalty can be enormous. So the book will need to stress that advantage isn't gained through things that could PLAUSIBLY give it. It has to be SOLIDLY an advantage. I mean the high ground is an advantage but it isn't probably worth granting advantage. So a lot of guidance needs to be there for players especially who are the ones who are going to be demanding it for everything under the sun at first.
BUT...
Given that they do it, Advantage/Disadvantage speeds combat and resolution in general up SO much that you can't really argue its positive impact.
You could just as easily rule that Advantage/Disadvantage gives you +3 or -3. period. I'd be fine with that. As long as its simple and easy and fast, i could care less which variant you go with in the end product.
Tried it, don't like it. It seems to take away from those over-the-top "wow" moments and those gut-wrenching "oh crud" moments by requiring a roll of two successes or two failures in a row on one shot. Fortunately, it's not something that's going to throw the whole game out of whack if I go back to adding or subtracting 2 or 4 depending on how easy or tough I deem something to be.
Tried it, don't like it. It seems to take away from those over-the-top "wow" moments and those gut-wrenching "oh crud" moments by requiring a roll of two successes or two failures in a row on one shot. Fortunately, it's not something that's going to throw the whole game out of whack if I go back to adding or subtracting 2 or 4 depending on how easy or tough I deem something to be.
I have a different experience. I found it quite gut wrenching when for the fourth encounter in a row, a pack of 8 kobolds with advantage chewed into 5 1st level pcs. The pcs won of course, because kobolds loose advantage when they lose there numbers. But really I think that is besides the point. I really don't see how subtracting 2 or 4 gives the game any over-the-top "wow" moments or those gut-wrenching "oh crud" moments either.
But I think your subtract 2 or 4 depending on how easy or tough you deem something is a good substitute for the advantage/ disadvantage. Me I like it because it is a gamble. Yeh, advantage is good to have, but its still a gamble, +2 bonus is guarantee, advantage is not. But the pay off can be huge.
Just read through the rules so far, and the advantage/disadvantage (A/D) system seems at first glance to be a powerful mechanic that will be very popular with my players. I like many of the examples in the playtest rules (e.g., firing into melee is a disadvantage) and given that attack bonuses don't appear to increase by level, it's a way to create really challenging encounters (badguys have advantage for some reason) or "minion-like" encounters that the party facerolls (goodguys have advantage for some reason).
That being said, especially for difficult-to-hit opponents, having disadvantage will be tremendously, well, disadvantageous. If the dragon has an AC of 21, and the best members of the party have a +6 attack bonus, they need a 15 to hit, or about 30%. In this case, advantage means their hit chance rises to 51% (0.7 failure x 0.7 failure = 0.49 failure, or 0.51 success). Yay! Disadvantage, however, means their hit chance drops to only 9% (0.3 success x 0.3 success = 0.09 success).
I saw a suggestion where advantage could grant +3 and disadvantage -3, and that's close to the probabilities above.
Apologies for the formatting below - if you can insert tables, I don't know how. The probabilities below are for success and are in percent. I also assume that a natural 1 is still a failure.
Target Number on d20, Normal Probability, Advantage Probability, Disadvantage Probability, "Equivalent +/-"
The average bonus and penalty percentages are 3 (15%), so the +3/-3 rule is effectively the same, without the extreme weighting at the ends. If your target number is a six, the above numbers tell you that your success is pretty much guaranteed (93.75%) if you have advantage. With a +3 to the roll, that's pretty close to the same thing (75% + 15% = 90%) without having to roll nearly as many dice.
My bottom line - I like the mechanic, the multiple dice thing will be fun to my players, and it will be more time consuming on the battlemat. I don't know yet how high level attacks work (are there going to be iterative attacks, for example) so I don't know if that's a huge issue. Everyone with one attack per round, maybe two if they're two-weapon fighting? Not so bad.
The probabilities below are for success and are in percent. I also assume that a natural 1 is still a failure.