dungeons and dragons 5e sheet macros roll

Looking at the d&d sheet and i see that when you roll a certain macros 2 numbers come up instead of 1 how come is that?

In other editions of D&D and D20, you gain bonuses and penalties to actions. A bless gives +1 and prone gives -4 to hit, for example. In 5e, instead of bonuses and penalties to the roll, you gain Advantage or Disadvantage. (Please consult your PHB or the basic rules on the methods of obtaining or inflicting Advantage/Disadvantage.) If you have the Advantage, you roll the roll twice and take the better. If you have the Disadvantage, you roll twice and take the worse. The macros for the roll20 5e sheet roll twice and if you have neither advantage nor disadvantage, you simply take the first number.

See the first FAQ on the sheet's wiki page - <a href="https://wiki.roll20.net/DnD5e_Character_Sheet#FAQ" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.roll20.net/DnD5e_Character_Sheet#FAQ</a>

Thanks for the great sheet Actoba! I did have a question though. Doesn't it make more sense to have people just click the button twice on an advantage or disadvantage roll and compare the results? It seem rolls are subject to advantage/disadvantage happen maybe 5% of the time, and the other 95% of the time you are seeing too many dice which looks like an error and has a negative impact on the users experience. It is a bit easier to ignore the issue when you are not using 3D dice, but I personally like the mechanic of seeing the dice roll to a stop to discover my results. The worst offender is when you roll 3d6+4 damage on a weapon and you get a spam of dice and have to idea which ones add up to the damage you did. You either have to skip using the buttons (which are nice) or turn off 3D dice completely. Again, I really like the sheet! I just question this feature, even after the explanation. Another solution might be to have a red critical / advantage button next to the first button allowing the user to click what they want.

There have been many discussion on whether it is better to click twice, have alternative buttons for adv/disadv, or just roll twice within a single macro. My feelings are that i'm trying to make things as easy as possible both in terms of the actions users have to take to achieve something and in terms of what facilities the sheet itself should provide. Having to provide additional buttons for every roll that may have adv/disad would significantly clutter up the sheet. Clicking twice whilst easier now that players can more easily drag macros from the sheet to their own macro bar, still isnt ideal particularly when macros may do more than one things and so the whole macro is run twice and not just the attack/save/check roll. As such the design decision that was made, particularly as someone who doesnt use the 3d dice feature, was to go with the double roll and allow the user to selectively ignore the 2nd roll as it was the easiest solution that made sense for the majority of people. You are not the first 3d dice user to comment on the problems it generates though, but theres no way to split things depending on whether you have that feature on or off. As such the sheet will continue to use the double roll options for the forseeable future. There are, however, many people who have taken the sheet and customised it to suit their own tastes and requirements and you are also free to do so. Otherwise, other users who have customised the sheet may be willing to share their work with you. To use the custom sheets feature you (or specifically the GM of the campaign) would need to be a mentor level subscriber on roll20.

Nitpick: Advantage/Disadvantage has nothing to do with your damage dice; extra damage dice is a function of the '+XX if crit' portion of the macro. ;) Rolling both d20s at once and the + if crit damage speeds up combat rolls in the game. Rolling everything at once is a time-honored convention among those I gamed with iRL; heck, some of the fun of making new character concepts was picking out the right themed dice! Having all the dice the same color doesn't help in the VTT. It would be nice if one could have different colored dice for different parts of macros/API rolls, but that's a suggestion I'll need votes back to endorse. A sidenote: It may differ in your game(s), but the GMs in the two 5e games in which play don't always come out and tell us immediately if we have advantage/disadvantage, so the dice mechanic employed by the sheet serves those GMs well.

Loytomaki said: Doesn't it make more sense to have people just click the button twice on an advantage or disadvantage roll and compare the results? It seem rolls are subject to advantage/disadvantage happen maybe 5% of the time, and the other 95% of the time you are seeing too many dice which looks like an error and has a negative impact on the users experience. No, because Advantage/Disadvantage can happen a lot more often in 5e than you estimate. More like 85% or better. I use the optional flanking rule in my games for combatants to gain Advantage. In addition, if the players describe an action in order to possibly gain advantage I'm more likely to allow it to happen. I promote creative & descriptive play and having the sheet rolls to always have the 2nd d20 roll for any spontaneous Advantage/Disadvantage...is an advantage for my games. You can easily grab data from the sheets and create your own macros as well (which I've done, too) if there are too many dice on the screen.

Jon S. said: Loytomaki said: Doesn't it make more sense to have people just click the button twice on an advantage or disadvantage roll and compare the results? It seem rolls are subject to advantage/disadvantage happen maybe 5% of the time, and the other 95% of the time you are seeing too many dice which looks like an error and has a negative impact on the users experience. No, because Advantage/Disadvantage can happen a lot more often in 5e than you estimate. More like 85% or better. I use the optional flanking rule in my games for combatants to gain Advantage. In addition, if the players describe an action in order to possibly gain advantage I'm more likely to allow it to happen. I promote creative & descriptive play and having the sheet rolls to always have the 2nd d20 roll for any spontaneous Advantage/Disadvantage...is an advantage for my games. Yeah, I haven't played any 5e games, but my understanding of Advantage and Disadvantage was that it basically replaces situational modifiers from previous versions, which were ubiquitous. It certainly makes for interesting math, as at each of the extremes for easy or hard to hit targets, advantage and disadvantage modify your chances less. The boon and bane are most effective when you've got an average chance to hit.

Brian has it exactly right.

as a side note, those extremes are far less likely to happen, as well. the way things are capped in game prevent a character from getting ridiculously high stats in anything, making the roll needed for most things to BE an average roll. of course, there are situations where high numbers are going to be needed, but hey, thats what advantage is for - after all, if you don't have advantage, or worse, are stuck with a disadvantage, then you probably shouldn't be doing whatever it is very often anyway. (of course, that supposes smart, self preservationalists as PC, which almost never happens :P)