D&D 5E Revised Disadvantage/Advantage

[Kinematics]

OK, this came out of brainstorming on @DEFCON 1's post about exhaustion, and the trouble with the impact of disadvantage on all ability checks at the first level of exhaustion. However I'm finding the idea more generally attractive, and would like comment on it.

The basic idea is to change the interpretation of how disadvantage affects a check. You still roll two dice, but instead of taking the lowest result and being done right there, you take both results, and apply them in order of lowest to highest.

If both results were failures, or both success, then nothing really changes. You still just fail or succeed as normal. However when one is a failure, and the other a success, then things get a bit interesting. Namely, you have to take the consequences of the failure before you can get the results of the success.

If the consequences of failure prevent the success from being possible at all (eg: attempting to jump over a pit trap; attempting to hit an enemy), then it's just a straight failure. But if the consequences of failure don't really prevent success from being possible (most mental skills), it either just adds time (eg: a history check), or you take the consequences before you get the success (eg: animal handling check).


You could apply a similar approach for advantage. With advantage, most cases would have a success prevent the failure condition from happening at all, and obviously wouldn't add extra time or anything. But I could see some cases where you might stumble a bit after a jump (did you make noise the guard would notice?), or stutter a bit in the attempt to seduce the barmaid, somewhat tainting the suave persona you were attempting to project. You still succeed, but the paired failure flavors the results in some way.


Summary: When rolling with advantage or disadvantage, this shifts how to interpret the results when one of the dice would fail while the other succeeds. It makes the results less binary, and allows for imperfect results, or success with consequences.

Thoughts?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

This rule would increase the chance of succeeding when you have disadvantage on a check that has meaningful consequences for failure, but where the consequences are not so meaningful as to prevent you from trying again. Essentially, if disadvantage causes you to fail on your first roll, you get to ignore disadvantage on the next attempt.

I'm not sure that it's really worth codifying this rule for such an obscure scenario. In my experience, characters rarely attempt anything when they have disadvantage. If your experience is significantly different, then this rule might be useful. The only real downside to this rule is its complexity.

 

[Kinematics]

This rule would increase the chance of succeeding when you have disadvantage on a check that has meaningful consequences for failure, but where the consequences are not so meaningful as to prevent you from trying again. Essentially, if disadvantage causes you to fail on your first roll, you get to ignore disadvantage on the next attempt.

I'm not sure that it's really worth codifying this rule for such an obscure scenario. In my experience, characters rarely attempt anything when they have disadvantage. If your experience is significantly different, then this rule might be useful. The only real downside to this rule is its complexity.

My experience is similar, but the point is to make it more tempting to try, even with disadvantage, because an interesting failure is still more interesting than not doing anything at all.

I'm also pondering whether it might not be necessary to exclude combat rolls from 'interesting' results. If you attack with disadvantage, you might hit, but leave yourself open, thus giving the opponent advantage on their next attack. If you have advantage, you might hit, but knock the opponent back out of your reach, giving them a chance to run without taking an opportunity attack. Stuff like that.

It feels like something where being willing to accept disadvantage as just part of combat, but not something that would make you mostly ineffective, allows for much more dynamic results.

I might even back off of some of the complete failure scenarios, such as jumping over the pit trap. A failure/success on that might have you land on the edge of the other side, barely hanging on, but give you a chance to climb out on a separate check, or for others to help pull you out.


As this was put together in conjunction with the issue of exhaustion, people avoid that first level of exhaustion at all costs, because disadvantage on ability checks means they're going to avoid doing anything, if they can help it. That makes exhaustion a massive penalty to the entire game, as it slows things down for nobody's benefit. Getting players to be more willing to engage even with the exhaustion penalty means they're more willing to engage with the trying times of being an adventurer, instead of only engaging when they're at their best.

Basically, it has knock-on effects in all kinds of small areas that add up to being willing to try to continue, even if the results aren't perfect, rather than just shutting down and avoiding doing anything when disadvantage comes into play.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

As this was put together in conjunction with the issue of exhaustion, people avoid that first level of exhaustion at all costs, because disadvantage on ability checks means they're going to avoid doing anything, if they can help it. That makes exhaustion a massive penalty to the entire game, as it slows things down for nobody's benefit.

I guess if you're at an exploration-heavy part of a dungeon, then one level of exhaustion might encourage the party to leave and rest. For the most part, disadvantage can be overcome during exploration by spending more time on each task (except possibly when it comes to Stealth and Perception, which is a significant consideration).

Disadvantage doesn't really become overwhelming in the life-or-death avoid-at-all-costs sense until the third degree, where it starts affecting your attacks and saves. As safe as 5E is, as a general rule, you're still more likely to die from combat than from exploration.

 

[BookBarbarian]

an interesting failure is still more interesting than not doing anything at all.

This is always true regardless of whether there is advantage or disadvantage on the roll.

If there is not a chance for something interesting to happen on a failure, I don't even bother to have the player roll. They just succeed.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

My experience is similar, but the point is to make it more tempting to try, even with disadvantage, because an interesting failure is still more interesting than not doing anything at all.

I think that Saelorn's point is not that your rules make disadvantage less of an issue than the official rules.

They are pointing out that under your rules, a PC's chance of succeeding on some checks (albeit with a downside) is actually higher with disadvantage than without.

 

[DEFCON 1]

This actually turns D&D into a dice pool mechanic game to a certain extent. Just like in some versions of WoD where you roll a pool of d10s and the more successes you roll at a certain target number, the better you do.

In your d20 variant you have a dice pool of two with a target number you have to hit, and the more successes you get, then better you do. Which with two dice is either one success or two, but the effect is still primarily the same. It could work... and if you and your players are much more inclined to dice pool RPGs it'd probably be easier to understand and get into. Personally? I've played few of those types of games so my DM mind isn't really geared towards thinking of stages of success. For me I'm usually a pass/fail kind of DM thinker. Thus your variant probably wouldn't be a step up for me.