Flanking & Combat Advantage

[BASHMAN]

The other night I was playing in a game and I had a bit of a disagreement on how flanking worked in 4.0.

I was under the impression that if an enemy is flanked he provides combat advantage to all. That seemed to make plenty of sense to me (I never liked the 3.x situation of: you are surrounded by enemies-- so you are BETTER able to pay attention to the bowman in the corner than the horde around you?) and seemed very fitting with the effort to simplify the rules and let the rogue sneak attack more often. I seem to remember this being in some of the preview materials as well.

But the PHB says that the attack who is flanking gets combat advantage (though not saying that nobody else gets it). Does this mean the former is not true? If so, did they change this rule, or was this in Pathfinder or something-- because I know I remember reading this as a rule update a couple months ago and thinking it was something that made sense.

 

[Dalzig]

I'm not sure what change you're talking about...

But flanking has not changed since 3.5. Only the people flanking get Combat Advantage.

 

[Oompa]

So lets say an monster is surrounded by 8 pc's, so every threatend square is occupied, every PC gets combat advantage on his turn, because they all flank eachother..

 

[Firebat]

The text says explicitly that in order to gain combat advantage by flanking you must be one of the flankers. Better stack up on Bluff if you ask me

 

[BASHMAN]

Maybe it was a Pathfinder rule. It would have been a good one for 4e though. Oh well.

 

[BASHMAN]

So lets say an monster is surrounded by 8 pc's, so every threatend square is occupied, every PC gets combat advantage on his turn, because they all flank eachother..

Except the enemy is somehow BETTER able to defend himself against a rogue firing a crossbow at him...

 

[Shabe]

Maybe it was a Pathfinder rule. It would have been a good one for 4e though. Oh well.

Heh I was under the impression of that too until i opened up the phb, I think it was mentioned in a 4e preview article.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Better stack up on Bluff if you ask me

Why? So you can gain combat advantage once per encounter?

 

[MarkB]

Except the enemy is somehow BETTER able to defend himself against a rogue firing a crossbow at him...

No, he's just not worse at it than he'd otherwise be.

Flanking works by the two flankers working together to each create openings for the other. A ranged attacker isn't part of that synergy, and thus doesn't get the bonus.

 

[Hypersmurf]

No, he's just not worse at it than he'd otherwise be.

Depends what you mean by otherwise.

Target not engaged in melee vs target flanked in melee by two allies, the rogue has a tougher shot to make.

-Hyp.