65
No. There is no handed-ness in D&D, so characters do not have a dominant and weak hand. (Unless the player narrates them as such)
In addition, even when wielding two weapons, you don't have disadvantage on the second one you attack with (referred to as the off-hand, but either hand can be your off-hand depending on which weapon you swing first), rather ...
62
This is how skills are supposed to work!
If you are in a situation where there is only one person doing something, and they are rolling a single skill check, then yes, this is how it's supposed to work. Giving help is a natural thing and should be used in situations like this. There is no reason to prevent it unless the task is clearly something that's not ...
61
Yes, advantage would negate disadvantage for purposes of Sneak Attack.
According to the rules on advantage and disadvantage (PHB 173, emphasis mine):
If circumstances cause a roll to have both advantage and disadvantage, you are considered to have neither of them, and you roll one d20. This is true even if multiple circumstances impose disadvantage and ...
61
Rolling 12d20 and taking the 6 highest is not equivalent
Taking the 6 highest rolls out of 12d20 is not equivalent to 6 attacks with advantage. It is significantly better. I could lay out the probability argument, but it's easier to cherry-pick an example that demonstrates the difference. Let's say you roll your 6 attacks with advantage. On the first 3 ...
58
The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Performance Improves
It does exactly what it says it does. The Drow House Captain can attack an ally with the whip, and that ally gains advantage to attack rolls. The Captain is flogging subordinates in hopes it will make them fight better, and in this case, it actually works.
Note that the whip attack does not ...
52
Having both advantage and disadvantage on your roll from any number of sources always means you have neither. (Even if you have a dozen sources of advantage, and just one source of disadvantage.)
From the Basic Rules section on advantage:
If circumstances cause a roll to have both advantage and disadvantage, you are considered to have neither of them, ...
52
The rule on modifiers applies only after you've determined a base roll. And to do that you must first resolve disadvantage (PHB page 173):
Use the higher of the two rolls if you have advantage, and use the lower roll if you have disadvantage.
Therefore, you always take the lower roll.
This is a direct inverse of this answer here for rolling a critical ...
52
This is going to be difficult to balance
Having advantage on a roll is roughly equal to having +5 to your roll, and having disadvantage is roughly equal to having -5 on your roll, as suggested by applying advantage and disadvantage to passive checks.
Your suggested change would require somebody to have 5 different sources of advantage to get the same bonus ...
51
About 27%, or a little over 1/4
This is a pretty easy calculation to run in anydice:
As you can see, the percentage chance of rolling at least a 19 one of the d20 rolls is 27.10% So you can expect, on average, to crit a little over once in every four attacks made in this manner.
How do you calculate that without a simulation?
The probability of getting ...
49
Possible exceptions:
The player already has advantage; granting them advantage again does nothing, but imposing disadvantage on the monster does.
The 'Lucky' feat allows the underdog with disadvantage to go from "roll two, choose the worst" to effectively "roll three, choose the best".
Asymmetry: Stopping the bad guy from doing something might be more ...
49
It levels the playing field
Casting darkness will cancel out both advantage and disadvantage, due to the way they stack.
If your opponent has advantage and you have disadvantage, then cancelling both will be good for you, and bad for them.
It benefits those who can see through magical darkness
Some characters (eg, Warlocks with Devil's Sight) can see ...
48
The attacking enemy has disadvantage on the roll.
The relevant quote from the PHB is here:
If circumstances cause a roll to have both advantage
and disadvantage, you are considered to have neither of
them, and you roll one d20... In such a situation, you have
neither advantage nor disadvantage.
It's pretty clear that, in order for the advantage ...
47
Not exactly. The rules on Working Together in order to give advantage are as follows:
A character can only provide help if the task is one that
he or she could attempt alone. For example, trying to
open a lock requires proficiency with thieves’ tools, so a
character who lacks that proficiency can’t help another character in that task. Moreover, a ...
46
No, a Crit Fail doesn't automatically overrule Advantage.
The Advantage and Disadvantage section of the PHB clearly states:
Use the higher of the two rolls if you have advantage... (pg.173)
Nothing in there says anything that would suggest rolling a 1 would cancel out Advantage so you would still take the higher of the two rolls.
The Rolling 1 or 20 ...
41
In this case, the Cloak is better
To explain this, let's first look at some stats.
When no bonuses are involved, the Chances of rolling a 20 normally is 5% (1/20), while the chance for rolling 18 or higher normally is 15%. So, from the start, it seems as if having a 20 AC is a better thing.
But not so fast. According to this source, who used a Monte Carlo ...
41
It complicates what is intentionally simple.
One of the aims of the advantage/disadvantage system is to remove the payoff for "bonus-scrounging". It isn't desirable to have your players constantly trying to find one more reason to get a little plus in their column; that has historically led to a lot of friction, book-diving, and absurd arguments to realism (...
40
No, because you're breaking bounded accuracy
Rolling a d30 would let you achieve results far beyond what the character can normally achieve. D&D 5e's 2d20 advantage mechanic specifically prevents this.
D&D 5e follows a design philosophy called bounded accuracy, where the range of numbers a character could roll is intentionally limited. Part of this ...
39
Your ruling is unlikely to break anything. However, the rules on their own (and the underlying fictional significance of the rules) appear to answer this with a No.
The surface rules difficulty is that a there's no object duplication involved — you start with a spell scroll and end with a page in a spellbook. These aren't identical objects, as the ability ...
39
If you cannot see your opponent then you cannot use any spell or feature that says "that you can see".
For example, you cannot:
Use Protection fighting style.
Use Uncanny Dodge.
Make Opportunity Attacks.
Cast any spells that require a target you can see.
Your attack rolls will be at normal (the advantage for the target not seeing you is negated by the ...
39
Just give advantage
I’ll get to the math in a minute, but the math really should be moot: there is no guidance for altering DCs based on PC actions because the point of the advantage mechanic is to eliminate the hundreds of ways of tweaking situational probability.
Advantage (and disadvantage) exist entirely to handle exactly these sorts of situations. ...
39
Mechanically, I would say the main difference is that advantage is easier and provides more stable results (As your result chances go from evenly distributed, to a favorably skewed curve). 5e favors using advantage/disadvantage as a quick, simple, effective way to deal with temporary bonuses.
Narratively, advantage is a temporary bonus to one action, while ...
39
It's inherently unbalanced
You're using ways of determining success/failure using methods yielding different probabilities. For this reason it's not fair/balanced.
That being said, let's do a more detailed analysis of the probabilities of achieving a certain result using both methods.
The probability of rolling at least n is 1-(probability of rolling ...
38
Abuses of this will center on avoiding disadvantage on rolls that are important to the current situation. In particular, there's no time limit on this, so the player could just use it out of combat and either use up the disadvantaged roll attacking something irrelevant, or keep the advantage until combat next starts. As you've mentioned, there's also the ...
37
Net attacks RAW are made perpetually with disadvantage.
They act as a normal ranged attack, so you are either always throwing them at long range (10-15 feet) and incurring disadvantage, or you are throwing them at short range and as a result are in close combat and throwing them at disadvantage. The description of the net in the PHB gives it no special ...
answered Sep 12 '14 at 17:33
Joshua Aslan Smith
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37
When it comes to DM rulings, they are ultimately always correct by the rules as intended: the intention is that, as the DM, you have the final say in these matters. So that one's easy.
It's not correct by RAW, as the Mage Hand spell does not state anywhere that it causes Disadvantage, nor do Ogres list anything about having Disadvantage because they get ...
37
Yes, that is the rules-as-written.
It's worth noting, additionally, that there's actually no need for the archer to step out of the fog cloud in most circumstances: despite being effectively blinded, per the rules of the game, a creature would still know the location of another creature they cannot see, so long as that creature does not take the Hide action ...
36
Inspiration grants Advantage, and Advantage enables Sneak Attack. There are no requirements or specifications in Sneak Attack for how the advantage is gained, so yes... by RAW, Inspiration enables Sneak Attack.
You're the DM, so you're the ultimate arbiter on what is "allowed". You control the distribution of Inspiration, so it's all in your hands anyway. ...
35
Flanking for advantage is an optional rule in DnD 5e
The flanking rule is given on Dungeon Master's Guide, page 251. It is an optional rule, and works as you describe. For squares:
When a creature and at least one of its allies are adjacent to an enemy and on opposite sides or corners of the enemy's space, they flank that enemy, and each of them has ...
35
Elven Accuracy applies to all the attack rolls.
The two bullet points are independent. Consider the wording of the Resilient feat, where all of the effects apply to only one ability score:
Choose one ability score. You gain the following benefits:
Increase the chosen ability score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
You gain proficiency in saving throws ...
35
No, it's not a loophole. On their turn, PCs either Attack or Help
Your Turn
On your turn, you can move a distance up to your speed and take one
action. (Basic Rules, p. 72)
Actions in Combat
Attack, Cast a Spell, Dash, Disengage, Dodge, Help, Hide, Ready,
Search, Use an Object (Basic Rules, p. 74 & 75)
Pick one, unless a game ...
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