Minor Advantage

[Jebble]

Hi everybody. As a GM, I really like the advantage mechanic - it's simple, elegant, and it works.

It's not perfect, however. Sometimes I would like to give a player a small circumstantial bonus where an advantage simply would be to big a bonus for that circumstance.

So, I am here to ask if anyone have any good solution to this problem? Have anyone found a solid and elegant way to give a minor advantage?

[jkat718]

The DMG says that (Dis)Advantage is equivalent to a ±5 modifier, on average. I'd just give a +1 or +2 modifier instead. +3 and higher is too much to give reliably.

[Jebble]

The DMG says that (Dis)Advantage is equivalent to a ±5 modifier, on average. I'd just give a +1 or +2 modifier instead. +3 and higher is too much to give reliably.

I have thought about that. The issue though is the fact that a +2 bonus is sometimes better than advantage, making this method inelegant.

[Doof]

How about let them roll once, then as a minor advantage have an option to roll again but instead of choosing the higher die, you must use the second roll. More risk than typical advantage, but if your first roll was really crap anyway might as well do it, no?

[Samuel Sturm]

Why not have them roll a smaller die for their advantage die? You can even scale it for different amounts of advantage. D12 advantage, D10, D16... Seems simple and elegant to me.

[Doof]

Why not have them roll a smaller die for their advantage die? You can even scale it for different amounts of advantage. D12 advantage, D10, D16... Seems simple and elegant to me.

Or, since a full advantage is equivalent of +5-ish, just let them roll a d4 and add the bonus!

[Kryx]

Or, since a full advantage is equivalent of +5-ish, just let them roll a d4 and add the bonus!
That's the same as adding 2. Letting them reroll without picking the highest is likely the best suggestion.

[MeeposFire]

One thing to remember is that the value of advantage changes depending on the difficulty of the roll. The +-5 is based around the middle rolls to succeed. If you go farther from that it becomes effectively less useful.

[Nifft]

Minor Advantage: roll a d12 as well as a d20, and pick whichever result you prefer.

[Mara]

After your first dice, roll two and take the lower if it is better than your first roll.

[sophontteks]

Um, it may be a good idea to just ignore these small advantages too. If players come to rely on these small advantages, it could get out of hand. Then the enemy may get small advantages too, or maybe a different position gives them a small disadvantage.
It may be more trouble then its worth.

If the roll was a close miss, you could always just give it to them and then use the small advantage to justify this rather then trying to make additional rules which you'll feel obliged to carry onto future encounters.

[Coffee_Dragon]

Roll seven and take the third best.

[bardo]

Remember that advantage and disadvantage cancel out. If you add "minor advantage" to the mix you will need to figure out how it combines with disadvantage (e.g. player has "minor advantage" on attack roll for whatever reason, and also disadvantage because target is invisible... now what?).

I'd go with a flat +1 or +2 bonus. Don't sweat it about the edge cases where +2 is more valuable than advantage. That only happens* when the roll is over 90% sure to hit, or over 85% sure to miss. With bound accuracy it shouldn't come up very often.

Bardo.

* assuming my math is correct

[Mr.Moron]

Static modifiers aren't comparable.

They increase your minimum and maximum, extra-roll mechanics like advantage don't do that.
The have a much bigger impact when trying to reach for something you need to land a high roll for.

17 to pass: 20% Chance
17 to pass, roll twice: 36% Chance. +16%.
12 to pass (+5): 45% Chance. +25%
15 to pass (+2): 30% Chance. +10%

When push comes to shove static modifiers are just more powerful. "Minor Advantage" at +2, would give almost as much reach as advantage on very hard checks. It may turn some easy checks from "Almost Certain Thing" to "100% Certain Thing" in a way advantage would not. Finally it can turn impossible checks into possible ones. The benefit of +1 to +5 on a check where you'd otherwise need to roll 21 is infinitely greater than the benefit of a double-roll. This all holds true for any variable numerical bonuses like "+1d4" to the check.

Instead I'd suggest this. Minor Advantage: If you fail your check by 2 or less, you may re-roll it. . The "2" here is actually a number you can play with depending on how minor you want the advantage to be.

[bid]

I agree with the "don't bother with it". Still...

With a base damage of 10 and 15 crit:
Hit on 5+ with advantage is barely better than +4. {10.0875 vs 9.75}
Hit on 18+ with advantage is roughly +3 if you account for the lost crit damage. {3.2625 vs 3.25}

* math hack explaination:
Crit damage is roughly 1.5 normal damage since stat mod is not doubled.
Hitting on 15+ means {10 * 5/20 + 15 * 1/20 = 65/20 = 3.25}
Advantage on 18+ means {10 * 72/400 + 15 * 39/400 = 1305/400 = 3.2625}
[there's 20+19/400 of rolling 20, 19+18/400 of rolling 19, 18+17/400 of rolling 18]


So advantage is better than +3 most of the time.


Ok, Mr. Moron idea is nice too.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Remember that advantage and disadvantage cancel out. If you add "minor advantage" to the mix you will need to figure out how it combines with disadvantage
Minor advantage can only apply if you have neither advantage or disadvantage

[Strill]

The DMG says that (Dis)Advantage is equivalent to a ±5 modifier, on average. I'd just give a +1 or +2 modifier instead. +3 and higher is too much to give reliably.

It's not. It's worth a +/-5 mod when your chance to succeed is 50%, and is worth less the further your chance is from 50%.

[Sindeloke]

More specifically, averaged across every possible roll target, advantage is worth +2.5 (and a non-negligible increase to crit chance, which rises dramatically as your crit range expands).

[Strill]

More specifically, averaged across every possible roll target, advantage is worth +2.5% (and a non-negligible increase to crit chance, which rises dramatically as your crit range expands).

Averaging across every possible roll target is unrealistic and unreasonable. Chance to hit will tend to be relatively close to 50%, andly very rarely go lower than 25% or higher than 75%.

Regardless of the dubious usefulness of this metric for rating the benefit of Advantage, the average benefit of Advantage across all possible roll targets is +16.6 percentage points, or roughly +3. Since we know that this is a low estimate, we can conclude that Advantage's benefit will usually be greater than this.

Since we know that Advantage's benefit cannot exceed +5, we can therefore conclude that Advantage's average benefit is in the range of at LEAST +3 to +5.

[bardo]

Since we know that Advantage's benefit cannot exceed +5, we can therefore conclude that Advantage's average benefit is in the range of at LEAST +3 to +5.

On average, a roll with advantage is +3.325 higher than a roll without advantage. You see it in rolls that have no target AC / DC (e.g. rolling plain initiative compared to rolling initiative with advantage). But advantage isn't "equivalent" to a flat +3 bonus. With a flat +3 bonus the max. roll is a 23, with advantage it's still a 20. And perhaps more importantly, a flat +3 bonus keeps the result distribution uniform (just as likely to get a 4 as you are to get a 23), whereas advantage makes the distribution curvy and tipped towards the high end (39 times more likely to get a 20 than you are to get a 1).

Kind of like comparing goblins and kobolds, statistically speaking.

Bardo.

[pwykersotz]

Static modifiers aren't comparable.

They increase your minimum and maximum, extra-roll mechanics like advantage don't do that.
The have a much bigger impact when trying to reach for something you need to land a high roll for.

17 to pass: 20% Chance
17 to pass, roll twice: 36% Chance. +16%.
12 to pass (+5): 45% Chance. +25%
15 to pass (+2): 30% Chance. +10%

When push comes to shove static modifiers are just more powerful. "Minor Advantage" at +2, would give almost as much reach as advantage on very hard checks. It may turn some easy checks from "Almost Certain Thing" to "100% Certain Thing" in a way advantage would not. Finally it can turn impossible checks into possible ones. The benefit of +1 to +5 on a check where you'd otherwise need to roll 21 is infinitely greater than the benefit of a double-roll. This all holds true for any variable numerical bonuses like "+1d4" to the check.

Instead I'd suggest this. Minor Advantage: If you fail your check by 2 or less, you may re-roll it. . The "2" here is actually a number you can play with depending on how minor you want the advantage to be.

I think this is a pretty great idea.

[Jebble]

Wauw, there is a lot of good ideas here.


Static modifiers aren't comparable.

They increase your minimum and maximum, extra-roll mechanics like advantage don't do that.
The have a much bigger impact when trying to reach for something you need to land a high roll for.

17 to pass: 20% Chance
17 to pass, roll twice: 36% Chance. +16%.
12 to pass (+5): 45% Chance. +25%
15 to pass (+2): 30% Chance. +10%

When push comes to shove static modifiers are just more powerful. "Minor Advantage" at +2, would give almost as much reach as advantage on very hard checks. It may turn some easy checks from "Almost Certain Thing" to "100% Certain Thing" in a way advantage would not. Finally it can turn impossible checks into possible ones. The benefit of +1 to +5 on a check where you'd otherwise need to roll 21 is infinitely greater than the benefit of a double-roll. This all holds true for any variable numerical bonuses like "+1d4" to the check.

Instead I'd suggest this. Minor Advantage: If you fail your check by 2 or less, you may re-roll it. . The "2" here is actually a number you can play with depending on how minor you want the advantage to be.

This is exactly my quarrel with a static bonus. It acts on another level than advantage, like you explain. Therefore I do not find a static bonus as a great solution, even though it is quite simpel, and may work fine in most circumstances.

I really like that idea. It is quite simple, and follows the rule of advantage. The only problem I could see with this, is the fact that the players have to know the DC. Sometimes the DC is hidden, and this solution requires that the DC is known.


Why not have them roll a smaller die for their advantage die? You can even scale it for different amounts of advantage. D12 advantage, D10, D16... Seems simple and elegant to me.

Hmm, this idea could work if we could get our hands on a couple of d18s or d16s. Do you know how the distribution looks like? I can't seem to write the correct line in AnyDice.


One of my players had a good suggestion. If you roll and unequal number you may choose to reroll. This idea is somewhat simple and is in the same spirit as advantage. However, the players might forget that they may reroll the die, when having a minor advantage. How does that idea sound?

[Person_Man]

You should note that the 5E developers purposefully left out most small bonuses. If you include such bonuses in your game, then optimization tends to be about accumulating those bonuses, tracking the things that grant those bonuses, etc. They can cause all sorts of problems. At the very least, they make everyone worry about more bookkeeping/charts/etc to keep track of.

[Jebble]

You should note that the 5E developers purposefully left out most small bonuses. If you include such bonuses in your game, then optimization tends to be about accumulating those bonuses, tracking the things that grant those bonuses, etc. They can cause all sorts of problems. At the very least, they make everyone worry about more bookkeeping/charts/etc to keep track of.

The bonus will only be given by non-specific circumstances. No spell or ability will give this bonus. In addition, it will not stack with advantage or disadvantage. This should keep bookkeeping to a minimum.

[bardo]

You can emulate a d18 by rolling a d20 and re-rolling if it lands on 19 or 20 (if a re-roll also lands on 19 or 20 then roll again). Kind of a bummer though, getting a 20 and having to re-roll it.

Roll d20 and d12 pick the highest looks like this (I don't know how to insert a graph here, sorry):


Result - Probability
1 0.416%
2 1.25%
3 2.083%
4 2.916%
5 3.75%
6 4.583%
7 5.416%
8 6.25%
9 7.083%
10 7.916%
11 8.75%
12 9.583%
13 5.0%
14 5.0%
15 5.0%
16 5.0%
17 5.0%
18 5.0%
19 5.0%
20 5.0%

Average is 11.69.

Bardo.

[Meepo_]

Why not have them roll a smaller die for their advantage die? You can even scale it for different amounts of advantage. D12 advantage, D10, D16... Seems simple and elegant to me.

Have you ever played DCC by any chance?

[Shining Wrath]

Mr. Moron's suggestion of letting them reroll if they miss by only 1 or by only 2 seems like the best way - and only under DM decree circumstances, as Person Man's observation about the accumulation of fiddly little modifiers is astute. An example of when I might grant the reroll would be a ranged weapon at 10' range against a restrained target.

[Anonymouswizard]

Roll seven and take the third best.

Why stop there? For minuscule Advantage roll 19 dice and take number 9.

[Ruslan]

Hi everybody. As a GM, I really like the advantage mechanic - it's simple, elegant, and it works.

It's not perfect, however. Sometimes I would like to give a player a small circumstantial bonus where an advantage simply would be to big a bonus for that circumstance.

So, I am here to ask if anyone have any good solution to this problem? Have anyone found a solid and elegant way to give a minor advantage?
Roll d20 and d12, take highest. Instant minor advantage.

[Mr.Moron]

Roll d20 and d12, take highest. Instant minor advantage.

This is also a good suggestion and flows faster than mine as it doesn't require the extra step of waiting to see the result before re-rolling. It can't result in crits either. The drawback is it can't help at all on hard checks where you need to roll 13+, which aren't so uncommon (at least in my games) as to not be a consideration so it won't work if you want minor advantage to be a thing that "Helps a little with any check" rather than "Helps a lot with little checks".

Still this is a solid suggestion and worth going for if your primary concern is play flow and ease of resolution.

[bid]

So, I am here to ask if anyone have any good solution to this problem? Have anyone found a solid and elegant way to give a minor advantage?
Another way: roll 2d20 of different color, only use the second if the first rolled 1-2.

[Shining Wrath]

One possibility for a fiddly little advantage might be (D6-2)/2, drop fractions. 1,2, or 3, no benefit. 4 or 5, add one. 6, add 2. Net add of 2/3 of a point to the roll - less than a +1, and also less predictable.

[Kajorma]

Why stop there? For minuscule Advantage roll 19 dice and take number 9.

I really like where this is headed.

[Shining Wrath]

I really like where this is headed.

Flipping a coin and taking 10 or 11?

HA! I scoff at your feeble averaging!

You must flip 10,000 coins and take 10 or 11 depending on whether heads or tails are in the majority.

[Jebble]

Thanks for your answers everyone! I think our group found a good solution, which is the following:


When you have minor advantage, you may roll another d20 if the first die is even and choose the higher number.

When you have minor disadvantage, you must roll another d20 if the first die is even and choose the lower number.

You have minor advantage when flanking, as an example.

Minor advantage and minor disadvtange does not stack with other minor advantages and disadvangtages. Advantage and disadvantage always replace minor advantage or minor disadvantage.

This ruling worked wonderfully in our playtesting yesterday. It was fast and quick, and it felt like a suitable bonus for flanking. The players also enjoyed this rule, and didn't feel it interwened with the tempo of the game.

The distribution for this solution also look very nice. I made the following graph in MatLab, which shows the probability for rolling at least the specific number between 1 and 20: (I can't post or link to the damnes image, sinse I have not posted over 10 posts yet. You can see the graph in my signature (Edit: I can't do that either. I guess I'll post it, when I have made the required number of posts.)).

As you can see, the minor advantage's distribution is just below normal advantage, exactly where I want it to be.

[Nifft]

@ Jebble - You ought to be able to post a plain-text HTTP link to the image.

Eventually, you can edit it to be an in-line image link.

[Knaight]

The even-odd method seems like a pretty solid way to handle this, with the only real slowdown potential being that you can't roll both dice at the same time if they aren't color coded. It also makes even results slightly less likely, but that's only really going to have an effect for people who are really particular about dice distributions.