If both of the original numbers would be a success then there is no point in casting SB
This is true. Just like casting shield is useless if the roll is more than 5 over what is needed to hit. RAW you have no way of knowing this when you cast the spell though.
I'm just going to reexplain my points and reasoning just cause.
Here's the relevant rules:
Silvery Barbs: "1 reaction, which you take when a creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself succeeds on an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw...
The triggering creature must reroll the d20 and use the lower roll."
Advantage/Disadvantage: "When you have advantage or disadvantage and something in the game, such as the halfling's Lucky trait, lets you reroll or replace the d20, you can reroll or replace only one of the dice. You choose which one. For example, if a halfling has advantage or disadvantage on an ability check and rolls a 1 and a 13, the halfling could use the Lucky trait to reroll the 1."
The way I see this working with advantage:
Someone rolls, let's say, 12 and a 16 and needs a 13 to succeed. They pass. No dice is discarded and advantage is not resolved, only the first paragraph of advantage is resolved. Advantage does not go away when the reroll is resolved, because that's not a actual game mechanic, but rather a assumption people make because people like to oversimply things.
Advantage goes away when the check goes away, and the check has not gone away because: Someone else casts Silvery Barbs. Because silvery barbs states to "reroll the d20" and because the check does have advantage when it was rolled , it activates the above rules for adv/dis. The "succeeds on an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw" only modifies the casting time of the spell, and has zero effect on the actual spell or what d20s you are rerolling, it only impacts the casting time of the spell.
(reminder the spell states reroll the d20 not reroll the d20 that caused the check to be a success. Big difference.)
The adv/dis rules states that when a effect tells you to reroll a singular d20, you follow these rules: "reroll or replace only one of the dice. You choose which one". So I do my reroll, and I reroll a 18. I could replace the 12, but that doesn't make any sense, so I replace the 16. Silvery Barbs then states to use the lower roll, in this case that'd be a 12. The roll now fails.
I am then understand confused by super-disadvantage, but then realize that super-disadvantage is not new to dnd and is RAW.
In fact, we might even be able to assume it's RAI as well, as Jeremy Crawford has gone on record to state that using lucky to transform disadvantage to super-advantage is RAI ("We like we think of it as fortune smiling on the unlucky!"), so we can assume the inverse is true, abilities that transform advantage to super-disadvantage are RAI (this part is probably the weakest in my argument, but RAI doesn't really matter cause we're mostly discussing RAW).
Then I, like most of you, probably think that's completely unbalanced. To that I say, the other thread about that was like 50 pages and the final conclusion was here's a HB version. Take their advice.
edit: to clarify, advantage never goes away. When you have advantage on that check, that check is forever considered to have advantage unless something overrides it. If you rolled a nat 20 on a check, and you refer back to that check, that check will still have a nat 20 ten years later unless you Wish (assuming said check was one very long round ago) or something.
If both of the original numbers would be a success then there is no point in casting SB
This is true. Just like casting shield is useless if the roll is more than 5 over what is needed to hit. RAW you have no way of knowing this when you cast the spell though.
What happens is that you are applying the advantage twice, which does not make much sense. SB can be cast when the advantage has been solved and the roll has been successful (it cannot be successful before applying the advantage). All your argumentation revolves around the halfling's Lucky trait, but they are two different situations. In SB the trigger is a success, then the advantage has already been applied. In the halfling's Lucky trait the trigger is that you roll a 1, then the advantage has not yet been resolved. In Shield's case, although it doesn't matter, the advantage has also been resolved before it can be cast (since the trigger is a hit). I know you were using it as an example of a spell that can be wasted, and that the advantage does not matter here. But I say it to understand the importance of the trigger, which I think is the point that clarifies how to solve this.
Another different case is Lucky feat. This feat allows you to reroll after rolling the die (same as Halfling's Lucky trait), so it would apply as you say (since the advantage has not been solved yet).
Why do people assume advantage just goes away after you pick the higher die? It's a part of the check, it stays with the check.
Edit: Nobody has yet to point out a passage that says advantage goes away, so there's no reason to believe that. Besides, in my case, you aren't applying advantage twice, you are applying two different bullet points (figuratively speaking) of advantage. Actually, in general why do people assume advantage goes away after dealing with the first paragraph?
So if advantage is resolved and it is a hit, why do you not just roll damage and move to someone else’s turn? Because you are casting a reaction spell that stops the resolution process and says “wait! those two dice might not be saying what you think they are saying”. The spell isn’t rewinding time it’s just a mechanic to say roll one of those dice again to see it the end result is changing. The advantage doesn’t end you are just forcing one of the two dice to be rerolled before the advantage is resolved. Possibly turning the hit to a miss
If both of the original numbers would be a success then there is no point in casting SB
This is true. Just like casting shield is useless if the roll is more than 5 over what is needed to hit. RAW you have no way of knowing this when you cast the spell though.
What happens is that you are applying the advantage twice, which does not make much sense.
No I am only applying it once, because Silvery Barbs undoes the success associated with the first time. It is like that never happened
Another different case is Lucky feat. This feat allows you to reroll after rolling the die (same as Halfling's Lucky trait), so it would apply as you say (since the advantage has not been solved yet).
The Lucky feat (not to be confused with Halfling Lucky) is not a reroll. Because of this, the mechanics in the PHB for executing a reroll with advantage do not apply to the Lucky feat. The Lucky feat is triggered when someone with the feat uses one of his three luck points and rolls an additional d20, you can do this before or after the other die/dice are rolled for the check or attack. If you are using it to affect someone else's attack the person spending the luck point rolls a die for the feat, not the attacking creature. Then the person spending the luck point chooses the result to use from the pool of dice. This means it is not a reroll and die replacement, but it is actually a die chosen by the person with the feat that determines the outcome. In terms of mechanics, the Lucky feat is closer to Portent than it is to Silvery Barbs in that the player is rolling a dice for another creature and the player is choosing a result for the attack based on a number of dice. Note it is not the identical to Portent where the die is rolled after a long rest and must be used before any of the creature's rolls, but it is similar in terms of player rolling a die and the player choosing a die for resolving the outcome instead of the creature making his own roll and following a strict regimen to determine which die to use.
On the other hand, Silvery Barbs and the Halfling Lucky trait are both rerolls. The creature making the attack also makes the reroll and there are specific mechanics for resolving it based on those rolls as opposed to someone choosing a die to use.
Also, if you look at verbiage, you will note the term "reroll" never appears in the Lucky Feat, where it is in both Silvery Barbs and Halfling Lucky. That wording is purposeful.
It would be different if Silvery Barbs was worded differently and said something closer to the Lucky Feat. If for example it said: You magically distract the triggering creature and turn its momentary uncertainty into encouragement for another creature. The triggering creature must reroll theYou roll a d20 and use the lower rollchoose whether to use your roll or the creature's roll."
If that part in red was the wording of the spell, then I would agree with you, but it isn't.
Why do people assume advantage just goes away after you pick the higher die? It's a part of the check, it stays with the check.
Edit: Nobody has yet to point out a passage that says advantage goes away, so there's no reason to believe that. Besides, in my case, you aren't applying advantage twice, you are applying two different bullet points (figuratively speaking) of advantage. Actually, in general why do people assume advantage goes away after dealing with the first paragraph?
Because it's the most logical solution, and the natural tendency. This reminds me of those systems where the dice stay on the table, and it takes some time getting used to at first.
It would be different if the trigger was when rolling a die, then I would agree with you. But as it is in being successful, the advantage / disadvantage has already been applied. And if not, you are either applying the advantage / disadvantage twice, or you are undoing it. Either solution is counterintuitive, and would actively require the rules to tell you that it is like that.
As I now see it both interpretations are valid. One makes the spell better under a very specific circumstance and the other makes it a little worse under the very same circumstance.
It seems to depend on the DM's interpretation.
I've sent the following question in to the Sage Advice e-mail so perhaps in the future we will see official clarification and the debate can be put to rest once and for all. Hopefully I worded the other interpretation correctly (pretty sure I did).
If a creature has Advantage and the roll is determined to have succeeded which results in another casting Silvery Barbs what is the correct way to handle it?
1.) Advantage is resolved prior to the casting of Silvery Barbs so the only two dice considered now in the determination of success or failure are the one D20 from the Advantage roll that succeeded and the reroll result?
2.) Silvery Barbs pauses the resolution of Advantage until after the reroll so the D20 that succeeded would be rerolled, taking the lower of the two D20, and then Advantage is resumed and the reroll result is compared to the second D20 from the original Advantage roll?
It's worth noting the method I'm doing is not pausing the resolution of Advantage.
The first paragraph of Advantage/Disadvantage (picking the highest/lowest) continues as normal and resolves (but does not go away) as normal.
It's the later paragraph (which is separate from the picking the highest/lowest) which states that if anything states "reroll the d20" on something with advantage/disadvantage then you should do "reroll a d20" (not including full quote it's in the other post) instead of what the feature/spell/trait/whatever states.
Basically, you pick the highest and keep two dice. Then Silvery Barbs rerolls one of those dice (two dice -> two dice), then it states pick the lowest (which overrides the previous picking highest).
It is a little strange that they have that clause for "reroll the d20" all the way back when Adv/Dis was first published, and it's only now several years alter that it's actually being used. Especially since the other part, "replace the d20" is used in Halfling Luck so it's not like they just forgot the rule existed, they just decided never to use it until now. I wonder if there's other technical terms and definitions that just go completely unused.
Edit: correction from Drunkprince.
Yes I talked about super disadvantage. It's in my post. Read it. It's RAW, Jeremy Crawford has stated super adv/dis effects to be RAI (although referring to a different effect but the same logic applies here).
SB does not add a die, but causes a reroll (the die that causes the trigger, I understand). In any case, it does not add a die. What other people are proposing is: reroll, choose the lowest result of the reroll, and then apply the advantage / disadvantage. Choosing the lowest of three dice seems even stranger to me. That turns the advantage into a super disadvantage, making SB even more powerful.
I was thinking of Lucky for some reason, but assuming you choose to reroll the highest/lowest die it's basically the same.
Edit: it's the same conclusion just different wording. Fixed it the other post though. Also the order of operations is as follows: Advantage/Disadvantage, Reroll, reroll triggers Adv/Dis (NOT the pick highest/lowest which has already happened, the OTHER part of adv/dis that I've quoted several times by now. Just read the post.)
This is true. Just like casting shield is useless if the roll is more than 5 over what is needed to hit. RAW you have no way of knowing this when you cast the spell though.
I'm just going to reexplain my points and reasoning just cause.
Here's the relevant rules:
The way I see this working with advantage:
Someone rolls, let's say, 12 and a 16 and needs a 13 to succeed. They pass. No dice is discarded and advantage is not resolved, only the first paragraph of advantage is resolved. Advantage does not go away when the reroll is resolved, because that's not a actual game mechanic, but rather a assumption people make because people like to oversimply things.
Advantage goes away when the check goes away, and the check has not gone away because: Someone else casts Silvery Barbs. Because silvery barbs states to "reroll the d20" and because the check does have advantage when it was rolled , it activates the above rules for adv/dis. The "succeeds on an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw" only modifies the casting time of the spell, and has zero effect on the actual spell or what d20s you are rerolling, it only impacts the casting time of the spell.
(reminder the spell states reroll the d20 not reroll the d20 that caused the check to be a success. Big difference.)
The adv/dis rules states that when a effect tells you to reroll a singular d20, you follow these rules: "reroll or replace only one of the dice. You choose which one". So I do my reroll, and I reroll a 18. I could replace the 12, but that doesn't make any sense, so I replace the 16. Silvery Barbs then states to use the lower roll, in this case that'd be a 12. The roll now fails.
I am then understand confused by super-disadvantage, but then realize that super-disadvantage is not new to dnd and is RAW.
In fact, we might even be able to assume it's RAI as well, as Jeremy Crawford has gone on record to state that using lucky to transform disadvantage to super-advantage is RAI ("We like we think of it as fortune smiling on the unlucky!"), so we can assume the inverse is true, abilities that transform advantage to super-disadvantage are RAI (this part is probably the weakest in my argument, but RAI doesn't really matter cause we're mostly discussing RAW).
Then I, like most of you, probably think that's completely unbalanced. To that I say, the other thread about that was like 50 pages and the final conclusion was here's a HB version. Take their advice.
edit: to clarify, advantage never goes away. When you have advantage on that check, that check is forever considered to have advantage unless something overrides it. If you rolled a nat 20 on a check, and you refer back to that check, that check will still have a nat 20 ten years later unless you Wish (assuming said check was one very long round ago) or something.
if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.
What happens is that you are applying the advantage twice, which does not make much sense.
SB can be cast when the advantage has been solved and the roll has been successful (it cannot be successful before applying the advantage).
All your argumentation revolves around the halfling's Lucky trait, but they are two different situations. In SB the trigger is a success, then the advantage has already been applied. In the halfling's Lucky trait the trigger is that you roll a 1, then the advantage has not yet been resolved. In Shield's case, although it doesn't matter, the advantage has also been resolved before it can be cast (since the trigger is a hit). I know you were using it as an example of a spell that can be wasted, and that the advantage does not matter here. But I say it to understand the importance of the trigger, which I think is the point that clarifies how to solve this.
Another different case is Lucky feat. This feat allows you to reroll after rolling the die (same as Halfling's Lucky trait), so it would apply as you say (since the advantage has not been solved yet).
Why do people assume advantage just goes away after you pick the higher die? It's a part of the check, it stays with the check.
Edit: Nobody has yet to point out a passage that says advantage goes away, so there's no reason to believe that. Besides, in my case, you aren't applying advantage twice, you are applying two different bullet points (figuratively speaking) of advantage. Actually, in general why do people assume advantage goes away after dealing with the first paragraph?
if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.
So if advantage is resolved and it is a hit, why do you not just roll damage and move to someone else’s turn? Because you are casting a reaction spell that stops the resolution process and says “wait! those two dice might not be saying what you think they are saying”. The spell isn’t rewinding time it’s just a mechanic to say roll one of those dice again to see it the end result is changing. The advantage doesn’t end you are just forcing one of the two dice to be rerolled before the advantage is resolved. Possibly turning the hit to a miss
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
No I am only applying it once, because Silvery Barbs undoes the success associated with the first time. It is like that never happened
The Lucky feat (not to be confused with Halfling Lucky) is not a reroll. Because of this, the mechanics in the PHB for executing a reroll with advantage do not apply to the Lucky feat. The Lucky feat is triggered when someone with the feat uses one of his three luck points and rolls an additional d20, you can do this before or after the other die/dice are rolled for the check or attack. If you are using it to affect someone else's attack the person spending the luck point rolls a die for the feat, not the attacking creature. Then the person spending the luck point chooses the result to use from the pool of dice. This means it is not a reroll and die replacement, but it is actually a die chosen by the person with the feat that determines the outcome. In terms of mechanics, the Lucky feat is closer to Portent than it is to Silvery Barbs in that the player is rolling a dice for another creature and the player is choosing a result for the attack based on a number of dice. Note it is not the identical to Portent where the die is rolled after a long rest and must be used before any of the creature's rolls, but it is similar in terms of player rolling a die and the player choosing a die for resolving the outcome instead of the creature making his own roll and following a strict regimen to determine which die to use.
On the other hand, Silvery Barbs and the Halfling Lucky trait are both rerolls. The creature making the attack also makes the reroll and there are specific mechanics for resolving it based on those rolls as opposed to someone choosing a die to use.
Also, if you look at verbiage, you will note the term "reroll" never appears in the Lucky Feat, where it is in both Silvery Barbs and Halfling Lucky. That wording is purposeful.
It would be different if Silvery Barbs was worded differently and said something closer to the Lucky Feat. If for example it said: You magically distract the triggering creature and turn its momentary uncertainty into encouragement for another creature.
The triggering creature must reroll theYou roll a d20 anduse the lower rollchoose whether to use your roll or the creature's roll."If that part in red was the wording of the spell, then I would agree with you, but it isn't.
Because it's the most logical solution, and the natural tendency. This reminds me of those systems where the dice stay on the table, and it takes some time getting used to at first.
It would be different if the trigger was when rolling a die, then I would agree with you. But as it is in being successful, the advantage / disadvantage has already been applied. And if not, you are either applying the advantage / disadvantage twice, or you are undoing it. Either solution is counterintuitive, and would actively require the rules to tell you that it is like that.
As I now see it both interpretations are valid. One makes the spell better under a very specific circumstance and the other makes it a little worse under the very same circumstance.
It seems to depend on the DM's interpretation.
I've sent the following question in to the Sage Advice e-mail so perhaps in the future we will see official clarification and the debate can be put to rest once and for all. Hopefully I worded the other interpretation correctly (pretty sure I did).
It's worth noting the method I'm doing is not pausing the resolution of Advantage.
The first paragraph of Advantage/Disadvantage (picking the highest/lowest) continues as normal and resolves (but does not go away) as normal.
It's the later paragraph (which is separate from the picking the highest/lowest) which states that if anything states "reroll the d20" on something with advantage/disadvantage then you should do "reroll a d20" (not including full quote it's in the other post) instead of what the feature/spell/trait/whatever states.
Basically, you pick the highest and keep two dice. Then Silvery Barbs rerolls one of those dice (two dice -> two dice), then it states pick the lowest (which overrides the previous picking highest).
It is a little strange that they have that clause for "reroll the d20" all the way back when Adv/Dis was first published, and it's only now several years alter that it's actually being used. Especially since the other part, "replace the d20" is used in Halfling Luck so it's not like they just forgot the rule existed, they just decided never to use it until now. I wonder if there's other technical terms and definitions that just go completely unused.
Edit: correction from Drunkprince.
Yes I talked about super disadvantage. It's in my post. Read it. It's RAW, Jeremy Crawford has stated super adv/dis effects to be RAI (although referring to a different effect but the same logic applies here).
if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.
SB does not add a die, but causes a reroll (the die that causes the trigger, I understand). In any case, it does not add a die. What other people are proposing is: reroll, choose the lowest result of the reroll, and then apply the advantage / disadvantage.
Choosing the lowest of three dice seems even stranger to me. That turns the advantage into a super disadvantage, making SB even more powerful.
my bad sorry
you reroll a die of your choice
I was thinking of Lucky for some reason, but assuming you choose to reroll the highest/lowest die it's basically the same.
Edit: it's the same conclusion just different wording. Fixed it the other post though. Also the order of operations is as follows: Advantage/Disadvantage, Reroll, reroll triggers Adv/Dis (NOT the pick highest/lowest which has already happened, the OTHER part of adv/dis that I've quoted several times by now. Just read the post.)
if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.
I really wish I had the ability to close my own thread. This was resolved on page five.
"Not all those who wander are lost"