Quote from: JRR;771600It's a shit mechanic.  For instance, a while back in my 1e game, the pcs fought an ogre who had coerced a trribe of kobolds into sending him 100 warriors.  How the hell do I run that if they have advantage or disadvantage?  I can't just roll a handful of dice using the ADHD mechanic.

As a PC I sure wouldn't be fighting in that scenerio without a lot more information and context.

Quote from: JRR;771600It's a shit mechanic.  For instance, a while back in my 1e game, the pcs fought an ogre who had coerced a trribe of kobolds into sending him 100 warriors.  How the hell do I run that if they have advantage or disadvantage?  I can't just roll a handful of dice using the ADHD mechanic.

You can just re-roll successes or re-roll failures. This slightly effects crit rates, but all in all, it works fine.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;771440I also like that advantage/disadvantage also doesn't change the range of your roll. No inflation of numbers.

    I remember noting this when the prototype of the mechanic was introduced in Star Wars Saga Edition.

   I do wonder why 5E only includes the extreme forms, though--no 'you can/must roll again, but must take the second roll even if it's worse/better'.

When I saw Ad/Disad in the playtest I stole it immediately for my heartbreaker and its been a staple ever since.

That system used 2d10 so add /disad has a slightly lower effect than vs a d 20 (+3 ish as opposed to +5 ish) and the advantages were immediate and impressive. Everything is just quicker.

Furthermore I have added it as a core element of many rolls. So if you choose to evade or defend as an action you make a roll and a sucess gives your oponent dis ad. However you can opt to add multiple disads to your roll and every one you add adds an additional disad to your oponent should you suceed. Previously to this you would have needed to add a rule for "effect number" or rank of sucess etc which get realy fiddly.
So in the games space combat system the PC pilot was taking 4 disads on his evade rolls (roll 6d10 take lowest 2) to evade a pair of military fighters. Awesome. the PCs set the stakes and the risk increases. Slick easy no delay at the table.

Quote from: Marleycat;771603As a PC I sure wouldn't be fighting in that scenerio without a lot more information and context.

Sometimes you have no choice.  In this case they were ambushed as they left the dungeon.  Well, they did have a choice - hand over everything they own and walk away naked.

Quote from: JRR;771600It's a shit mechanic.  For instance, a while back in my 1e game, the pcs fought an ogre who had coerced a trribe of kobolds into sending him 100 warriors.  How the hell do I run that if they have advantage or disadvantage?  I can't just roll a handful of dice using the ADHD mechanic.

Whatever system you use a straight up fight against 100 kolbolds is going to be a PitA. imagine using AoO, flanking, ranks, etc etc ...

Anyway 100 kolbolds wouldn't fight toe to toe, they would dig a shit load of pits and other traps and lure the party into a cross fire.

Quote from: JRR;771600I can't just roll a handful of dice using the ADHD mechanic.

This is one of the major reasons my group rejected a similar system as a house rule in the early 1980s.  As GM, I loathed it because it made handling large numbers opponents hard -- which slowed combat, a huge negative for me. My players liked it at first, but soon decide they liked the standard roll one die with modifiers better.

We did not call it Advantage/Disadvantage but rolling a bonus die or a penalty die. Whether a bonus or penalty die was rolled was determined by subtracting "disadvantages" from "advantages": a positive result rolled a bonus die, negative result rolled a penalty die. None of this one disadvantage cancels 4 advantages (or vice-versa) 5e seems to use -- so it was not exactly like 5e but it was a very similar idea. As GM, I loathed it because it made handling large numbers opponents hard -- which slowed combat, a huge negative for me. My players liked it at first, but soon decided they like one roll with modifers better.

Quote from: jibbajibba;771677Whatever system you use a straight up fight against 100 kolbolds is going to be a PitA. imagine using AoO, flanking, ranks, etc etc ...

Anyway 100 kolbolds wouldn't fight toe to toe, they would dig a shit load of pits and other traps and lure the party into a cross fire.

Ambushed on a hilltop from range.  No flanking, ranks or otherwise.  Just 100 short bows at a rate of fire of 2.  I rolled 10d20 10 times, kept note of the hits.  High ground grants a +1 to hit, so they'd all have advantage instead, meaning I'd have to reroll all the misses, which would be most of the rolls due to the pcs relatively high ac.  And then do it all over again on the secondary attacks.  Way too much hassle.  

I don't use AOOs and rarely a grid.

Quote from: JRR;771600It's a shit mechanic.  For instance, a while back in my 1e game, the pcs fought an ogre who had coerced a trribe of kobolds into sending him 100 warriors.  How the hell do I run that if they have advantage or disadvantage?  I can't just roll a handful of dice using the ADHD mechanic.

Well, given that in AD&D I'd probably skip rolling hit points for a hundred kobolds and just say they go down after one hit, here I'd cut the corner and either not use advantage/disadvantage or turn it into a straight +2; anyway no D&D is really that good at fights of that size so you do what you can to make it work better.

Edit: Oh I see, massed archery vs. high AC. You ever just figure an average of 5 arrows are gonna hit from 20s, so you roll a d10 to see how many land?

Nonsense, OD&D does it well.  AD&D does it a little less well due to multiple die damages.  BECMI does it best because it has very few multi-dice weapons but also because it generally streamlines the system.

My Dark Passages neoclone does it about as well as BECMI.

Want to speed it up even more?  Give every thing half their hit dice in hit points.  And ignore non-kill results on anything with less hit points than the damage die type.

It's the only real advantage to D&D's ass backwards armor and hit point mechanisms and all the designers since AD&D first edition can do is mess with the system's only strength.

Quote from: Imp;771685Well, given that in AD&D I'd probably skip rolling hit points for a hundred kobolds and just say they go down after one hit, here I'd cut the corner and either not use advantage/disadvantage or turn it into a straight +2; anyway no D&D is really that good at fights of that size so you do what you can to make it work better.

Edit: Oh I see, massed archery vs. high AC. You ever just figure an average of 5 arrows are gonna hit from 20s, so you roll a d10 to see how many land?

Eh, not across the board high.  3 fighters in plate, an OA Shukenja in studded and a wizard with no armor.

Regardless, what bothers me about Advantage is that it's hard coded into the game.  Too many abilities depend on it to easily remove it.

I would never, ever, bother rolling for 100 enemies.

There are a lot of good rules idea to handle it as a group of mooks. Group them up into a bunch of units. Maybe 1 hit point per enemy or something.

Quote from: David Johansen;771687Nonsense, OD&D does it well.  AD&D does it a little less well due to multiple die damages.  BECMI does it best because it has very few multi-dice weapons but also because it generally streamlines the system.

My Dark Passages neoclone does it about as well as BECMI.

Want to speed it up even more?  Give every thing half their hit dice in hit points.  And ignore non-kill results on anything with less hit points than the damage die type.

It's the only real advantage to D&D's ass backwards armor and hit point mechanisms and all the designers since AD&D first edition can do is mess with the system's only strength.

As Imp points out..... 100 bows really ... just work out they need 18s to hit so the average number of hits would would be 15% so make it 10% + 1d10% hits. You will find the actual numbers work out almost precisely the same as rolling hundreds of dice and the more dice you roll the closer it will get. 1000 bows make it 12% +1d6%. 10,000 13% + 1d3%... etc

Even if you used OD&D you woudl have to divide the Kobolds into groups based on who each was attacking then each defender may have different modifiers etc etc ..... so you don't roll 200 d20s and work out hits you rolls sets of d20s based on who each group aims at ... etc etc etc

If a problem with ad/disad is you can't use it to replicate dozens of opponents attacking simultaneously you are using the wrong tools... I will take that over a list of a dozen modifiers I need to apply to eqach roll.

Quote from: Silverlion;771428If you set the DC's right in the first place, all those old +X and -Y's are covered already. No sense double dipping here.

Old method: You want to climb a slanted wall, its easy DC 10, oh but its raining so +3 and someone buttered it, so +2, and well there is a strong wind so +5

New Method: Raining, buttered, wind chased wall. DC 20.

There's no difference between those methods.

I would treat 100 archers firing like a large damage area of effect spell with a dexterity save for half damage rather than individual attacks.