So I diss like the D&D rules for advantage and disadvantage.  We are using roll a D10 add them together for advantage and subtract the smaller number from the larger number for disadvantage, if you subtract to 1 or less it counts as a crit fail, and 20 or above is a crit success.  Does this sound good to you or what do you guys use as your house rule for advantage and disadvantage?

Quote from coachmanak>>

So I diss like the D&D rules for advantage and disadvantage.

 Why?

 We are using roll a D10 add them together for advantage and subtract the smaller number from the larger number for disadvantage, if you subtract to 1 or less it counts as a crit fail, and 20 or above is a crit success.

How is this any better than the official rules? What are you trying to achieve? Your disadvantage rule in particular is strange and can result in a higher total than rolling the d20 alone (e.g. the d10 rolls a 1, the d10 rolls a 10, 10 - 1 = 9.)

InquisitiveCoder

'm not sure why I don't like it, I'm also not fully sure why I don't like tomatoes.  But my group doesn't like the rule.  And that seems like a minute point.

Now not sure what your example is pointing out other than the fact that you could roll a D20 twice and get both a 10 and a 9, which would be the same as in our house rules when rolling a d20 and a d10 and getting a 10 and a 1, which your right, and I'm not saying that everyone should play this way, I'm saying this is how we play, is there something fundamentally wrong with this as a house rule, and asking if anyone else has a different house rule for advantage and disadvantage. 

I personally think that advantage and disadvantage are two of the most structurally sound rules of the 5th edition system. They streamline a ton of the 3.5/Pathfinder muck (in my opinion), and manage to round out a ton of different situations into three easy to figure out rules: Disadvantage, nothing, or advantage. 

In a game where everything you do (more or less) is determined by D20 rolls, it makes quite a lot of sense to imply good or bad chances of success by having another D20 roll and taking the higher or lower of the two. 

Wait, like instead of rolling a normal twenty, you roll 2d10 for advantage? That sounds miserable. What you’re doing is just removing a chance of a crit fail and then creating a bell curve of rolls. Compared to the stats for advantage, ( http://andrewgelman.com/2014/07/12/dnd-5e-advantage-disadvantage-probability/ ) you’re essentially crippling your characters potential for rolling high. They’re more likely to roll average (about 10) and will need to have high bonuses to pass any moderate check.

No, 1d20 and 1D10

1d20 + 1d10 wth advantage: roll can vary from 2 at lowest rolls to 30 at highest. Assuming you treat 1 or less as a 1 and 20 or more as a 20 this removes the possibility of crit-failing and the average of a 1d20 roll is 10 and the average of a 1d10 roll is 5. This means with advantage they will on average beat a DC 15 check before even applying bonuses and never have risk of critical failure.

Conversely with disadvantage rolls can vary from -9 at lowest rolls to 19 at highest. Again, assuming you treat 1 or less as a 1 and 20 or more as a 20 this removes the possibility of critical success. Since the average of a d20 is 10 and the average of a d10 is 5 the average result of rolling disadvantage is 5 before applying bonuses with no opportunity of a critical success. At level 1 going by point buy / array stats the maximum any score can be with racial modifiers is 17 which is +3 and proficiency is +2, which will mean the average result on disadvantage rolls is 10 if level 1.

These are very out of balance. With standard advantage and disadvantage rules the outcomes are not so wildly different and although unlikely remains possible to still get a double Nat 1 or double Nat 20. Not only this but your method just needlessly adds an extra step of math. And your way can potentially interfere with the benefits provided by feats like Lucky and Elven Accuracy and features like Portent. The balance of these features rely on the standard advantage/disadvantage re-roll mechanic and with your mechanic they now become out of balance. If you got a 10 on the d10 when rolling disadvantage, for instance, there's not much point in using Lucky since you can no longer get higher than a result of 10 which would fail most checks with average bonuses if proficient. So, if you rolled high on the d10 with disadvantage or low on the d10 with advantage then rerolling the d20 using Lucky provides less worth while with the original mechanic it remains equally beneficial in all circumstances.

I see nothing beneficial at all of using your system over the standard and many areas where it is a hinderence and with the needlessly added maths also an annoyance.

I mean you do as you want for your game, but you wanted our opinions and my opinion is this system of yours is a tragedy and I am very glad I'm not in your game.

I'm not going to comment on whether I like or dislike this rule.

However, It's worth noting that with current disadvantage, a crit w/ Disadvantage is possible. 20/20. I think the odds are around 1.25%. This is about right for swinging a sword blindly, firing an arrow point blank, or attacking someone while a wolf is biting at you from your blindspot. It's not likely, but it's not impossible. A max-roll of 20 - 1 is a max roll of 19, meaning only 1-2 classes can conceivably crit (those designed around critting more).

It's also worth noting that you can mathematically work out the effect of this rule by assuming that you'll roll a 5 on the d10 and adjusting the bell-curve up for advantage and down for disadvantage.

Meaning that, on average, you'll roll a 5 with DA and 15 with Advantage.

As was noted above, 19 and 20 is a crit success with advantage. (1 and 2 are automatically crit failure with DA). This is something I would change. IMO, if you don't crit fail (roll a 1) then you should not crit fail anyway, and certainly not automatically crit fail. I'd change the rule to be either a nat 1 or a MODIFIED -5 to crit fail (and/crit succeed.) 0.02

I think it's an interesting idea.

Rolling 1d20 + 1d10 for Advantage and 1d20 - 1d10 for Disadvantage.

I think I'd be *more* likely to use this rule if I was using 2d10 instead of 1d20 to get a bell curve.

That said what I dislike about this rule is what I dislike about 2d10 for the bellcurve.  Every single roll involves math.  That slows down play

Thank you for your points, and we are going to consider these.

While I stand by what I have said make no mistake that I do applaud your efforts for wanting to take something you dislike and make it better for your games. However, it must be understood that when you replace mechanics with new ones you invent you will invariably have balance issues. The game designers had an entire team and years to create and balance the systems and mechanics they did for each edition. It would be unlikely to surpass their efforts with something you made yourself, unless you happen to be a professional game designer with experience in the making of this game you are adjusting.

May I advise taking a look at smaller solutions like experienting with the Hero Points system suggested in the DMG? Or take heed from previous editions. 3.5 edition, for example, had more detailed and realistic handling of the variables surrounding a battle situation with different modifiers applying in many different situationsm but this was incredibly reliant on math and while this is not necessarily a bad thing, it can slow things as another member mentioned, and not everyone likes this. But if you are more of the mathy sort as are your players then take a look and see if there's something with 3.5 edition rulings that you can perhaps incorporate  You may find these easier to balance than making a new mechanic.

I would also suggest going with "adjustments" as in extra bonuses and penalties as opposed to flat out replacement of the advantage/disadvantage mechanic. I will also mention the entire game was based with this mechanic in mind and so any adjustments or replacements you make balance issues in ways you may not realise. It took professional game designers, experts at D&D, years to build this mechanic and base the game around it and have it all balance out - it will be unlikely you can create a balanced alternative for your game.

Maybe your starting point at coming up with something more suitable for you is to find out why you dislike advantage/disadvantage system. Until you can specifically define this reason, you cannot solve this problem and keep balance. It's only when you find the reason that you find out how to adjust in a way that will work well enough without too much imbalance.

I am all for homebrew, and I commend anyone wanting to tailor a game to their own use, but this is one the core mechanics of the game you are messing with - you're in for a difficult task, especially if you do not know why you need to mess with it. Best of luck.