DnD 5e: Advantage, Disadvantage, Resistance, Vulnerability; and What They're Balanced For

[jack]

Most new editions of DnD come with ideas where I think "oh, that's a good idea" at the time, but it's hard to see more clearly whether they actually made things good or not.

5e introduced Advantage and Disadvantage. Basically, if you're attacking or attempting something similar in any advantageous situation, from hiding, or attacking someone impaired, or a long list of other scenarios, you get advantage -- you get to roll two d20 instead of one and choose the better. It also "turns on" some special abilities like the rogue's backstab. Disadvantage is the same but you have to choose the worse.

At first, I thought it sounded sort of gimicky and simplified. In 3.5e those would all be a +4 or a -4 or something, and would stack, and that felt real-er somehow, maybe because it's just what I'm used to.

But even though I still haven't had a chance to play much, the more I thought about it, the more I'm interested in it. I thought about the probabilities and what's interesting is that it never makes something possible or impossible, it basically halves the chance of succeeding or failing. But that actually simplifies a lot of things, it means you don't need to worry about the action being pointless or automatic, but it will *always* make it easier or harder.

That makes it easier to apply in a range of situations without worrying about the fine detail too much. And as someone pointed out, it allows a lot more free-form combat. If someone wants to swing on the chandelier, you don't have to respond, "ok, but it won't actually help", you can easily say, "sure, acrobatics check DC 15, if you succeed you'll have advantage". If they take some out-of-combat action that should help them but you're not sure how much -- advantage is probably appropriate.

In particular, 5e reduced the size of many modifiers relative to the range of a d20 dice, so many more things are within the "possible, whether likely or not" range not "always unless you roll a 1" or "never unless you roll a 20". That means, the number of +4 bonuses has to be strictly limited or players will go from "balanced" to "basically always hit" with the right shenanigans. But advantage/disadvantage doesn't have that problem, the underlying chance is the same.

I don't quite like the hack that "advantage and disadvantage cancel out" but it's probably necessary.

Vulnerability and resistance are similar, they double and halve the amount of damage dealt. That means you can have monsters or characters which care about particular damage types, but never be in a situation where it's trivial or pointless to fight.

Balance for what timescale

I struggled to put this into words, but it seems like old editions of DnD were balanced for a campaign. There are all sorts of rules that only make a difference if you expect to play the same character through all the levels, classes that are weaker early on but stronger later or vice versa. More like roguelikes than most modern roleplaying sessions.

3.5e is more balanced for a day. You recover many of your resources each night. Throughout a day, you need to judge how many spell slots and similar resources to expend and still have some in reserve. But you're not really expected to do that between days: "we had a really lucky first session so now we'll have an easier time in following sessions" whether because you found some good magic swords or found a clever way to bypass the orc army, or whatever, is the exception not the rule. And honestly, the GM should probably fudge things so each day has about the same amount of interesting challenge, not set up a campaign you play fifty sessions of and let good or bad outcomes affect the next dozen sessions -- that's fine, but it's not what 3.5e is made for.

4e is balanced for a single encounter. As much as people try to say otherwise, most of the polish goes toward ensuring that each encounter is a tactical match for the party. Just like a 2e party might shy away from a too-deadly dungeon but a 3.5e party assumes the dungeon is balanced for them, a 3.5e party might choose which encounters they can handle, but a 4e party is expected to just find all encounters at the "fun challenge" level.

4e does this very well, and I know people who've found it works fine for all the other aspects of roleplaying, but for me it just doesn't work well. It's great at tactical combat if that's what you want. But being focused on particular encounters means that the rest of the story is warped around them: it's hard to have any sneaking in anywhere or dramatic negotiating, if you always have to end in the same fight anyway.

5e zooms out to 3.5e scope again, which suits me well. I'd be interested to play an old-school campaign too, but I probably don't have time.

Comments

[silveradept]

That's handy. Although I may have an abnormal worry about situations where those options were deliberately not available and the campaign or the character's life hinges on a good die roll, because those will come up bad a lot of the time.

[edrith.co.uk]

I find the 'unconscious' mechanic in D&D 3.5, where a player is unconscious but not dead if they have fewer than 0 but more than -10HP, to be very helpful here. It allows the GM to set up good and dramatic encounters and actually knock players out without killing the character. In a party with four characters, it's hard to make genuinely challenging encounters without a risk that one player will go down, but the unconscious rule allows this: in the last session I ran, the final fight saw two of the four PCs go down, so it felt genuinely tense, but no-one died.

The system stops working at higher levels because damage amounts are higher. To get around this, my house rule is that your maximum negative hitpoints is your Constitution score (not modifier) plus your level, instead of -10. And similarly, in systems which don't have this, it's well worth introducing a mechanic which means that people can be knocked out/disabled in combat rather than just dying.

I do think the possibility of character death is important in adding meaning and tension - but in general I want it to be meaningful, and I want players to have some ability to choose their risk appetite here, as some players are much more comfortable rolling up a new character and like taking risks, while others aren't. I find use of words like 'Are you sure?' or 'You can, but it could be seriously risky' can be helpful (though of course you need to make sure your players know what you mean). For example, if the party was fighting an ogre and it got a critical hit on a player, I might say, "the club smashes into you, doing 18hp and badly bruising your ribs. You have 2hp left. As you struggle to regain your breath, you see the ogre turning his attention to [Player B], who is still unhurt." If next round, the player says, "I hit the ogre again," I might say, "Are you sure? You are feeling very badly wounded." If they say "Yes", then - unless they were new to role-playing - I'd feel quite comfortable killing them, as they've had a chance to retreat/drink a healing potion/etc and a warning (if they were new, I would make sure they really understood what I meant by risky, but ultimately that is their choice).

I very rarely fudge rolls, largely because I do them in front of everyone, but I will try to make sure people aren't killed by a random sneak attack - and occasionally bend turn order / give an extra skill check or save - to ensure players have a chance to be rescued. And adversaries will usually have other objectives (e.g. 'steal the item; get away; keep their cave save) rather than have 'killing the PCs' as their primary objective. I won't drop a surprise dragon on a Level 3 party. But if the party goes into attack that dragon, when they know it's there, it's definitely a dragon, the NPC has warned them how dangerous it is and so on; well, the dragon won't mercilessly hunt them down (it will stop when they run away and may be unusually susceptible to 'distractions' to allow them to do this) but equally, I will allow its attacks which do enough damage to kill a level 3 character in one round to actually do so, if it rolls well.

[silveradept]

The unconscious mechanic seems like a good idea to avoid outright killing a character. Although I'd be annoyed at spending significant amount of time unconscious because of a bad roll as well, because as a player, I want to feel like my character is contributing, rather than getting knocked out and having to wait until someone can spare a turn to attempt a revive, and if the encounter is tense enough that it doesn't happen, then I'm basically a frustrated player with nothing to do because my dice are in the part of fandom where bad rolls happen.

As for that possible dragon encounter, I suppose if it's in the module, it's there for a reason, but it seems like of a level 3 party doesn't have a plot reason to go after something that will kill them, then that's not a part of the adventure that needs mentioning. Feels a bit like a small piece of Tomb of Horrors slips in as a way of tempting characters so that they can be squished with delight.

[edrith.co.uk]

Although I'd be annoyed at spending significant amount of time unconscious because of a bad roll as well

Yes, totally! Ideally someone would be knocked unconscious near the end of a big battle where everyone contributed, not right at the start.

More broadly, I think part of the GM's role is to make sure the same character doesn't get piled on to in every combat. Maybe the cunning rogue will attack the party wizard, but the group of orcs head straight for the guy with the big sword out front - at the end of the day, you can generally find some reason to justify targeting decisions. Basically, as a GM, play the enemies in the way that's most narratively satisfying and best for your player's enjoyment, not just what's tactically best.

From some of what you've been saying, it seems as if you've maybe played in games where the GM has approached it very adversarially, more like a tactical board game. And of course that's a valid style of play if the GM and all the players enjoy it and are on board with it, but I don't think it's a style that most people (including me) would find most enjoyable.

As for that possible dragon encounter, I suppose if it's in the module, it's there for a reason, but it seems like of a level 3 party doesn't have a plot reason to go after something that will kill them, then that's not a part of the adventure that needs mentioning.
I wrote the adventure, so yes, it was there for a reason! I must admit, I've very rarely played bought modules (either as a GM or a player), so I'm not very familiar with what it was like.

For context, my current group is pretty experienced (all players have role-played for >10 years including 2 other GMs) and aren't that keen on detailed tactical battles: they look more for overall narrative and how to set up the situation - with allies, ambushes, etc. - so that when they are in combat they'll win.

In this situation, they were following drow into an ancient elven burial mound. Some drow were guarding the door to the next level and, when they ambushed them, they disturbed the cave drake. They played this well (the dragon ate a drow) but now they had to get past this dragon. There were two ways to get past: either sneaking or, in another part of the dungeon (which the kobolds had already told them was significant) there was an ancient elven paladin ghost who would drive away the dragon if they persuaded him to. Putting an actual dragon there was the clearest way for me of signalling 'You are not meant to fight this obstacle head on' because, you know, DRAGON.

My players decided to use their druid to see if she could make it friendly (technically not allowed due to creature type, but I ruled they could try with a penalty). This was a great idea, but they failed (I think she needed an 18) and the dragon attacked. I made it attack using its claws and teeth instead of its breath weapon (which could have taken out the whole party) as not killing the party is more fun for everyone. Then after a round of very little success by the players and lots of damage, I said, 'You can see the dragon is preparing to use its breath weapon' (rules don't say you have to give warning, but I reckon in real life you'd probably be able to tell, right?). Three of the players then ran but one player chose to stay to have 'one more attack'. He got hit by the breath weapon, saved, took lots of damage but stayed upright, and then ran. That player (a) is experienced and totally knew what he was risking, (b) has a good reflex save and (c) is fairly relaxed about character death; he totally could have died then, but didn't, and that possibility increases enjoyment for all of us about his narrow escape and how he faced down the dragon.

After this, the party talked about sneaking but ended up deciding that was too risky and explored the other bit of the dungeon, found the paladin ghost, persuaded him of their righteous cause and using his help got past the dragon.

When my players, talk about this adventure, the dragon tends to be what comes up most, in a really positive way, about how they got to eat the drow, tried to tame it, got mauled, nearly killed and ultimately managed to get through after some difficult ghostly diplomacy. Basically, because of setting it up in that way, a Level 3 party got to have a genuinely meaningful set of encounters with a CR8 cave drake. Death was possible - and that was important - but I wasn't aiming to kill. For a group where it's all about the tactical battles, it wouldn't have worked, but for mine it did - I think at the end of the day as a GM it's all about knowing your group and trying to make it so there's something there for everyone.

[silveradept]

Clearly a plot-relevant dragon, yes!

And yes, I worry for finding the GM that considers the players adversaries rather than collaborators because that won't be any fun at all.

[edrith.co.uk]

P.S. Sorry, I realise I got a bit carried away there describing that encounter! I guess some adventures you just look back on with particular fondness. :-)

[jack]

It's funny how much of this I've worked out subconsciously but haven't explicitly put into words until I talk about it with someone else.

I think good games should try to avoid the problems you've described. And part of that is on the system, to make it so that a "natural" outcome of playing as expected is that character death, incapacitation, or even just being sidelined and not having anything to contribute, comes up rarely. And part of it is the module, of designing things so those outcomes are rare (e.g. not having instant death for walking into the wrong room either). And part of it is the GM, playing fair by not being too adversarial (except in situations where the players and GM share expectations), by knowing when to go easy on players (e.g. even if you don't fudge dice rolls, secretly substituting things a bit easier or harder as seems appropriate).

Even really inexperienced GMs often do this a bit, they realise that someone dying early on isn't fun, and even if they don't know how to handle it well, often do SOMETHING, whether it's "uh, can we pretend that didn't happen", or "an angel appears and uh resurrects you" which has its own problems but doesn't leave one player out.

The bigger problem is, people have different expectations of fun, but most people expect a reasonable amount of "I do the obvious thing, and have a fun game" and for MOST people being punished mercilessly isn't fun. But sometimes you get a GM who has different expectations and no-one's talked it through, and the GM lets players get screwed over, usually by accident, because they follow the rules and don't realise it might be a good time to fudge something. But you'd HOPE, that normal social stuff like, "is everyone enjoying this activity, if not, can we help that" would kick in, but sometimes it doesn't.

That can play out in many ways. Maybe the GM is used to experienced players and just treats new players the same way and doesn't think maybe they need some pointers. Maybe the GM wants to play the game by the rules and didn't realise the consequences. And of course, the reverse can happen too: if the GM wants a combat-light fun-heavy game or a rules-light acting-heavy game, or a tactics-heavy game and most players agree but one player doesn't, they may just not be suited to playing together, but hopefully neither will be rude about it.

[silveradept]

I am often good at getting people to make explicit what they have worked out in their heads by asking quotations about what I don't understand. Yay?