Flanking & Combat Advantage

[Ryngard]

Hello all,

We were playing KotS and had a question...

We are long time 3e players and understand how flanking works (opposite sides, +2 to attack, and it puts the mob under "combat advantage").

NOW, rules as written in KotS SEEM to imply that is another PC comes up on a "non-flanking" square as long as his two buddies are flanking the baddy, he gains combat advantage. Is that correct?

I know initially you'd want to say, no... only those flanking get the bonus, however under Combat Advantage it seems to imply that it is almost a condition like "staggered" or "weakened" or some such.

Thoughts?

 

[Moon-Lancer]

I picture it like this. Your faceing your foe and fighting him. Then a guy comes up from behind you... AHHH your your in a difficult position. Then a guy shows up on one of your flanks. what advantage do the first two guys have that this third guy should not have?

If we want to get brutally realistic... if two allies are adjacent to echother, they should get a combat bonus if they are facing a single foe together. I have done some swordplay and its really hard when 2 or or 3 guys (no flankers) are fighting you at the same time. Every time I swing, if they are tactful, they will go in for the kill at the same time, leaving me defenseless. My only real safe option is to remain in total defense and even that doesn't help much. I tend to disengage at that point, and look for someone else who is engaged and flank them. Its really easy to hit them when they dont know you have engaged them from behind.

I am sorry i cant give you a real rules perspective, only a perspective of why the rules might work in a given manor.

 

[Victoly]

The rules state fairly explicitly that "you have combat advantage against an enemy you flank" - they don't just say that a flanked opponent grants combat advantage. So basically flanking works like 3.0 and 3.5.

 

[Graf]

I could see you being right, but combat advantage isn't actually listed in the status categories (i.e. it's not listed with dazed, etc etc).

Personally I think it's dumb; it's not like adding the third guy suddenly made the fight easier for the victim, but by RAW I think you're incorrect.

 

[Ryngard]

See we were on the fence. Logic plus LITERAL reading of the snippets in KotS support it, game design and past editions do not. So we were a little torn.