D&D 5E D&D 5E Does flanking grant advantage ?

[Morlock]

It's not an irrefutable fact. Your defining "standard" as not to include "optional" while I'm defining "standard" to inlcude all rules from core rulebooks.

You chided me when I mentioned using the very rule this thread is about. How do you not see the irony ?

Yeah, that's why they call standard stuff standard, and optional stuff optional; the options aren't standard.

Ever bought a car?

 

[Hriston]

Remember that flanking as a 3.x game construct doesn't resemble anything in real life.

I'm not comparing Help with 3.x flanking. I've never played 3.x and I'm not interested in discussing it. I'm comparing Help with 5th edition flanking, which is what this thread is about.

In the first place, if a single fighter is opposed by two fighters it does not really matter whether they are on exactly opposite sides of him or not.

I imagine it would be easy to lose track of your opponents' movements unless your eyes are on opposite sides of your head. While your head is turned towards one, the other can hit you with an attack you won't see coming.

Second, flanking is actually more effective in ranged combat: getting into a position so your target has no cover is what flanking is for.

Since you can't use Help to aid in an attack on a creature more than five feet away from you, I don't think this helps your position very much.

So, arguing whether the Help action resembles flanking on makes sense in the context of "how much 5E plays like 3.x."

It makes sense in the context of the assertion you repeat in the next sentence. Namely:

Help is not inferior to flanking, it is the replacement for it.

This is demonstrably untrue when you consider that when someone chooses to play with the optional flanking rule there is no need to get rid of the Help action. They're just two different rules you can use. One does not replace the other.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I don't care much for the math behind the game, but I wonder how the Help action stacks up as being useful. In other words, you have two goblins attacking a PC. They can either make their normal hit rolls and possibly both do damage, or one can give up his attack to grant the other advantage, which increases the chance to hit but reduces the potential damage by half. Anyone able to give a quick analysis of that?

That depends on the damage potential. If both deal about the same damage then help isn't as useful, but if one can exploit a weakness or simply does much more damage the next turn (e.g. because of a buff), then help can be a viable choice. For min-maxers anyway.

You might just want to use Help because then the narration can be cooler ("A attacks M and misses. B attacks M and hits." is less interesting than "A jumps around trying to distract M. B uses that opportunity and stabs M into the back").

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Help is a poor substitute for Flanking.

More like: Help is a much more balanced substitute for Flanking.

It's not an irrefutable fact. Your defining "standard" as not to include "optional" while I'm defining "standard" to inlcude all rules from core rulebooks.

To be fair, many of the optional rules actually change the normal rules, so they can hardly be seen as "standard". Standard is not using any optional rules. If a DM looks for players and tells me he uses 100% the standard rules, I expect him not to use any optional rule. That should be the common understanding of it. If you think of standard rules as including every single optional rule, you will run into misunderstandings often.

 

[Horwath]

I would rather add increasing bonuses per attacer per single target.

I.e.
1st attacker on the target gets no bonuses,
2nd attacker get +2 on all attacks vs. already attacked enemy
3rd gets +3 on attacks,
4th gets +4* on attacks,
5th gets +5* on attacks,
6th gets +6* etc...

*all bonuses of +4 or higher counts as having advantage for other mechanics.

this favors mooks more that players but if its too high you can lower the increasing bonuses by 1 or 2.

 

[Hriston]

More like: Help is a much more balanced substitute for Flanking.

Why does everyone keep saying this? No one is suggesting using the optional flanking rule and not allowing use of the Help action, so it's a bit nonsensical to keep presenting them as alternatives. I guess this is just the way people who don't like the optional flanking rule are choosing to say, "Don't use the optional flanking rule. Just have flanking creatures use the Help action." I find this unsatisfactory because Help isn't generally applicable to situations in which flanking is occurring and is only advantageous if there is a significant asymmetry in the power level of the flanking creatures. In any situation where one creature isn't significantly more powerful it's actually a very bad idea.

To be fair, many of the optional rules actually change the normal rules, so they can hardly be seen as "standard". Standard is not using any optional rules. If a DM looks for players and tells me he uses 100% the standard rules, I expect him not to use any optional rule. That should be the common understanding of it. If you think of standard rules as including every single optional rule, you will run into misunderstandings often.

It's a standard rule that the DM can assign advantage to a roll for any circumstance the DM decides will have a significant effect on the roll's outcome. This can include situations in combat such as being flanked by opponents or opponents holding the higher ground. The optional flanking rule is merely a suggestion as to one way in which the DM can exercise his role as the granter of advantage and disadvantage and do it in a way that's consistent. This is a basic function of the DM in the standard rules, so the adoption of optional flanking doesn't change the way the standard rules function one iota. The DM in one of your standard games always has the ability to grant advantage and doesn't need an optional rule to do it for flanking.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

One point that may not have been made as crystal clear as it should be is that it is entirely disadvantageous (heh) for a creature to use Help to grant advantage to the attack of another creature with identical or inferior attack bonus/damage. The reason for this is that the alternative is that you both make attacks. In both cases, two identical attack rolls are made--but in one case only one of them can potentially hit, while in the other case they can both potentially hit.

You need to make sure you are Helping someone whose damage output per action is significantly higher than your own, or you are reducing your side's effectiveness by using the Help action rather than just making your own attack against the foe.

On the other hand, if you have a group of creatures, it is often a great idea to have one of them use an action/attack to knock a foe prone, allowing multiple allies to attack them with advantage.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Why does everyone keep saying this? No one is suggesting using the optional flanking rule and not allowing use of the Help action, so it's a bit nonsensical to keep presenting them as alternatives. I guess this is just the way people who don't like the optional flanking rule are choosing to say, "Don't use the optional flanking rule. Just have flanking creatures use the Help action." I find this unsatisfactory because Help isn't generally applicable to situations in which flanking is occurring and is only advantageous if there is a significant asymmetry in the power level of the flanking creatures. In any situation where one creature isn't significantly more powerful it's actually a very bad idea.

First of all: Don't care so much about min-maxing. It shouldn't be about highest damage output, but more about what leads to the most fun. Help really doesn't need to increase the damage, as it makes combat more interesting, less damage is fine too.

Second: The rest is all about balancing so that combat is more fun to play. For this, you should first realize that even with just normal attacks, when you are fighting X enemies, it's usually the best strategy to gank up on one, so there are less enemies left that can damage you on their turn. Spreading up attacks on the other hand is already rarely useful. If you add the flanking rule to this now, then focusing on a single enemy gets even better. So in the end combat will lose a lot of strategical decision because all on one enemy will be what everyone does.
Help is a substitute in so far, that it allows you to narrate something as flanking without actually making the attack even better. Help is a lot more interesting because in many situations it's worse but in some situations it's actually better and there are nice synergies with other skills (buffs etc.). Using help as substitute for flanking makes combat consequently much more balanced and interesting.
That's why I'm saying it's a good substitute for flanking.

It's a standard rule that the DM can assign advantage to a roll for any circumstance the DM decides will have a significant effect on the roll's outcome. This can include situations in combat such as being flanked by opponents or opponents holding the higher ground. The optional flanking rule is merely a suggestion as to one way in which the DM can exercise his role as the granter of advantage and disadvantage and do it in a way that's consistent. This is a basic function of the DM in the standard rules, so the adoption of optional flanking doesn't change the way the standard rules function one iota. The DM in one of your standard games always has the ability to grant advantage and doesn't need an optional rule to do it for flanking.

You see the good thing about being free to give advantage as DM rather than binding it to a fixed situation is, that I can grant it sometimes and sometimes not. It allows me to reward good narration. I could decide to not give advantage when someone just says "I attack X from the side", but decide to grant advantage for a really clever situational idea the player comes up with to gain advantage on the next attack.
Using the optional flanking rules takes away from that freedom. You suddenly have to almost always give advantage to attacks. You can no longer award good ideas very well and in the long run, it will make combat more boring, because players won't feel motivated to come up with clever ideas.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Help really doesn't need to increase the damage, as it makes combat more interesting, less damage is fine too.

[Citation needed] frankly.

 

[Reynard]

[Citation needed] frankly.

Come now, do we really need to qualify every statement with IMHO in order to avoid snark?