Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 SkullKingX Apr 01, 2015 9:20:35	I've been playing 5th edition since the starter set and so have all the same players I have now with a few new ones in the last 3 months. My weekly games are fun, but 9 adventurers can get exhausting. So I've been trying to find ways to make things smoother and faster. Most of what I've found is thanks to forums, but some has just been from rereading rules to make quick decisions when players ask, "How does this work?"   One of the rules I reread was Advantage/Disadvantage. I have no idea how I missed it, but we've been screwing up two parts of the advatage/disadvantage rules. (pg 173 PHB/ pg 239 DMG)   NUMBER 1: We've been allowing all instances of Advantage and Disadvantage stack. FI: if an attacker is flanking an enemy (pg. 251 DMG) and someone has casted faerie fire (pg 239 PHB), the attacker would roll 3 dice and take the highest. One for the normal attack and two more for two instances of advantage. This system has been working, except the enemies don't have such a wide variety of abilities to challange multiple instances. Plus, it does make it harder to remember once it gets to someone's turn how many advantage rolls they roll if its been 2 to 4 minutes before you get to go again.   Ultimatley, I agree with the rules, which states you may only roll two dice maximum, rather than with how we've been conducting this variant.   NUMBER 2: We've allowed stacking in both directions and coming up with a 'net' amount of dice you roll. With the same instance above, if  an attacker is flanking an enemy (pg. 251 DMG) and someone has casted faerie fire (pg 239 PHB), but the attacker is poisoned, there is a net advantage of one. So the player would roll two dice and take the higher. This one gets stupid confusing to add and subtract, but that's how I read it.   I agree with the rules on this one just for simplicities sake. Honestly, if I had a smaller group I woul just "house rule" how we've been playing. But to make things smoother, I think I should go by the rules. What do you think????
#2 ChrisTheS Apr 01, 2015 9:42:12	Rather than trying to mechanically tabulate net advantage/disadvantage, I'd just make a gut judgement call on whether I felt the advantages (or disadvantages) outweighed each other.  After all, it would be kind of silly to say that overwhelming numbers, good morale, and the high ground could be canceled out just by getting a stubbed toe.
#3 ZHDarkstar Apr 01, 2015 9:53:54	ChrisTheS wrote:
#4 QwertyAzerty Apr 01, 2015 9:54:04	you can houserule what you want, but if you want to play by the rule (or if you play AL) then yes even if you are a barbarian using reckless attack, on a faeri fire target, when the cleric hit with a guiding bolt just before you and the target is also paralyzed, you only roll advantage once, and if you get restrain and gain a single instance of disavantage then you loose all your advantage and roll normally. This is by the rule, like I said if you are playing a home game house rule what you want, but if you want to follow the rule (or play AL) then it a simple rule, that make the game easier for everyone.   If you want to make all your advantage stack then you might prefer playing 3.x where you were receiving +1/+2 bonus for multiple reason and had to keep track of them all, allowing more strategic and tactical decision, but making the game much more complex for many player.   By the way if you are playing AL, the max table size is 8 players, and you cannot use the flanking optional rule from the DMG. If you play home game, then ignore this last sentence.   If a big table is too much work, once I split my table in half, on half I was running them on saturday and the other table I was runnig on Wednesday, putting both group in the same setting, but with different objective and the action of one group would affect the setting of the other group.  and make both group meet on special events.
(Reply to #3) ChrisTheS	ZHDarkstar wrote:
#6 Coredump00 Apr 01, 2015 10:26:51	Yeah, in general I have them cancel out, but if there is enough of a slant, I will still give adv/Dis.  I have no hard "3 to 1" rule or anything, just DM adjudication.
#7 SkullKingX Apr 05, 2015 9:13:20	Thank you for all of your input. I used to play 3.5 and pathfinder, so I'm used to everything stacking. I think I have an idea of how I want to run my homebrew campaign.   I have a few ideas of what will happen about the huge party. Some drama might have some people leaving the group as is.   I am using flanking from the DMG rules because I'm used to those rules, but realistically its too easy in 5th edition in my mind.       Ultimately, I like the use of judgement calls, but I want my players to be on the same level as me on how to invoke advantage and disadvantage to make the fights much more interesting. I think I'll use the rule to not stack advantage, but a judgement call for which way it should pull. If there is one instance of disadvantage, but several of advantage, than I'll say advantage. Although its not rules based, I like that better and I think my party will too.
(Reply to #7) mbeacom	SkullKingX wrote: