D&D 5E Flanking

[tetrasodium]

Different take:

Replace Flanking with Cinematic Advantage: SlyFlourish.com

I've run a lot of fate & the links of that to fate are obvious right down to the index cards for aspects, but that manages to be even lower cost than invoking aspects in fate literally for the same +2 bonus. In fate there are two ways to invoke an aspect as the link describes (either yours or the fate one).

The first is to spend a fate point to make use of an aspect you or an ally didn't create or an aspect that has expended all of the free invokes. Fate poinys are not always easy to get & obtained in ways that are likely in conflict with d&d explaining why it has absolutely no mechanics for something similar unless you realllllly stretch to use inspiration.

The second is to use your action to create an advantage granting one or potentially more free invocations of that aspect but obviously not on the same action you used to create it or it would be like using one action to do two things.

This is a neat idea that is missing pieces, doesn't really mix with d&d, & potentially makes it difficult to narrate combat without replacing "does 17 hit> yes>I got a 7 & let go of the light>Alice you do 7 damage to it bob your turn" with "if I swing from the chandelier to attack it does that grant advantage>yes>cool dos a 17 hit>yes?> got a seven>alice you hit for 7 bob your up>if I swing from the chandelier to attack it does that grant advantage". Giving players the ability to make fate style aspects & make use of the fate fractal would destroy d&d into a heretically broken mess because it's just backwards of the assumptions made by every other part of he system

 

[Swarmkeeper]

This is a neat idea that is missing pieces, doesn't really mix with d&d, & potentially makes it difficult to narrate combat without replacing "does 17 hit> yes>I got a 7 & let go of the light>Alice you do 7 damage to it bob your turn" with "if I swing from the chandelier to attack it does that grant advantage>yes>cool dos a 17 hit>yes?> got a seven>alice you hit for 7 bob your up>if I swing from the chandelier to attack it does that grant advantage". Giving players the ability to make fate style aspects & make use of the fate fractal would destroy d&d into a heretically broken mess because it's just backwards of the assumptions made by every other part of he system

You're forgetting the part where the DM determines if a thing is possible and then sets a DC. If everyone wants to swing on a chandelier, fine. It may only grant advantage for the first PC, or the DC might increase, since the chandelier is now swinging and not as easy for the next PC to try the same. It's only messy if the players are trying to "game" the system and the DM is not paying attention to how the fiction might change.

Works well, IME.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Personally I'd rather fight 6 ogres where we have to be smart about flanking to win, than fight 4 ogres without the flanking rule.

 

[Don Durito]

Nice succinct article by Sly Flourish on the topic from just a few days ago:
Replace Flanking with Cinematic Advantage

TL;DR: players invoke part of the scene description and, as appropriate, DM applies an ability check based on the approach and goal of the PC.
Success = advantage on the attack, Failure = meaningful consequence

He's read 13th Age I see.

 

[tetrasodium]

You're forgetting the part where the DM determines if a thing is possible and then sets a DC. If everyone wants to swing on a chandelier, fine. It may only grant advantage for the first PC, or the DC might increase, since the chandelier is now swinging and not as easy for the next PC to try the same. It's only messy if the players are trying to "game" the system and the DM is not paying attention to how the fiction might change.

Works well, IME.

not really forgetting so much as couldn't imagine someone would think any players would use their action this round to get +2 on the attack roll they make next round since thats even worse than truestrike. The idea of adding a second free action this round to do it all like that in one round falls victim to d&d being very different from fate & it would fall into much the same very little risk/it's not hard that it mentions after the bit about twitter.

People have been dancing around the last 7 years making tweaks to an unfinished flanking rule rather than adding the missing parts on the theory that it was fear of AoOskeeping players from moving around too much &not bothering to try for five foot steps around opponents to always get flanking if they didn't think the monster would last long enough or have high enough ac to be worth always trying it or coming up with convoluted overengineered alternatives that are lacking in new ways rather than just accepting that frequently it was a deliberate choice to go for the optimal option of not flanking with many baddies because of

Spoiler: this

I like fate & applaud the attempt that slyflourish made in the link but d&d is too different from fate to pull aspect tagging over that unchanged without introducing new problems or creating a system that designs itself into being unused.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

not really forgetting so much as couldn't imagine someone would think any players would use their action this round to get +2 on the attack roll they make next round since thats even worse than truestrike. The idea of adding a second free action this round to do it all like that in one round falls victim to d&d being very different from fate & it would fall into much the same very little risk/it's not hard that it mentions after the bit about twitter.

People have been dancing around the last 7 years making tweaks to an unfinished flanking rule rather than adding the missing parts on the theory that it was fear of AoOskeeping players from moving around too much &not bothering to try for five foot steps around opponents to always get flanking if they didn't think the monster would last long enough or have high enough ac to be worth always trying it or coming up with convoluted overengineered alternatives that are lacking in new ways rather than just accepting that frequently it was a deliberate choice to go for the optimal option of not flanking with many baddies because of

Your highlighted spoiler is not from 5e, which is what this thread is discussing. That highlighted rule does not exist in 5e.

I like fate & applaud the attempt that slyflourish made in the link but d&d is too different from fate to pull aspect tagging over that unchanged without introducing new problems or creating a system that designs itself into being unused.

What problems are introduced? If players are playing in good faith, there are no problems that I see or have experienced. They are simply adding a movement flourish (pun intended) to their attack action. It's not an extra action, it's simply an approach that requires an ability check to succeed, adding risk to the PC's regular action in exchange for the potential reward of advantage. Or, if the DM so desires, said flourish might need to cost the PC a bonus action to carry it out in addition to the ability check. Or the DM could just say it's not even possible if the stated approach goes too far, so the player needs to come up with something else or risk auto-failing.

Any way you stack it, IMO, it's far more interesting narratively to try to gain advantage "cinematically" instead of the nearly automatic "I run around to the other side of the monster to flank". YMMV.

 

[tetrasodium]

Your highlighted spoiler is not from 5e, which is what this thread is discussing. That highlighted rule does not exist in 5e.



What problems are introduced? If players are playing in good faith, there are no problems that I see or have experienced. They are simply adding a movement flourish (pun intended) to their attack action. It's not an extra action, it's simply an approach that requires an ability check to succeed, adding risk to the PC's regular action in exchange for the potential reward of advantage. Or, if the DM so desires, said flourish might need to cost the PC a bonus action to carry it out in addition to the ability check. Or the DM could just say it's not even possible if the stated approach goes too far, so the player needs to come up with something else or risk auto-failing.

Any way you stack it, IMO, it's far more interesting narratively to try to gain advantage "cinematically" instead of the nearly automatic "I run around to the other side of the monster to flank". YMMV.

aspects are not just flourish as interacting with the environment changes it if not creating things outright. Take this simple example from fate commonly used to illustrate a few things.

• APlayers get in a fight with some bad guys while looking for a macguffin.
• BFire gets started during the fight allowing the bad guy to get away while everyone focuses on putting out the fire so they don't wind up destroying the macguffin in the burning building
• Cplayers declare a maid/janitor/etc left behind a mop bucket of water & use that to help them put out the fire
• DPlayers think they have the bad guys cornered later
• Ebad guys duck around the corner and emerge with the maid/janitor/etc the playas a hostage by tagging the aspect the players made to create the maid/janitor/etc

D&d lacks the ability to compel aspects against someone making it even worse & if you add compels it's even worse because every ability magic item & spell in 5e assumes both a much more top down gm to players concrete world than the fuzzy one aspects create.

Yes that rule I pointed out is from 3.5, wotc wrote 5e in such a way that it goes out of it's way to just say

Spoiler: this

is silly & creates a huge mess but some of the problematic aspects can be resolved by using the old flanking/AoO rules if not for 5e going out of it's way to make doing that difficult rather than just a one sentence "you could ignore these rules if you want."

 

[Swarmkeeper]

aspects are not just flourish as interacting with the environment changes it if not creating things outright. Take this simple example from fate commonly used to illustrate a few things.

• APlayers get in a fight with some bad guys while looking for a macguffin.
• BFire gets started during the fight allowing the bad guy to get away while everyone focuses on putting out the fire so they don't wind up destroying the macguffin in the burning building
• Cplayers declare a maid/janitor/etc left behind a mop bucket of water & use that to help them put out the fire
• DPlayers think they have the bad guys cornered later
• Ebad guys duck around the corner and emerge with the maid/janitor/etc the playas a hostage by tagging the aspect the players made to create the maid/janitor/etc

D&d lacks the ability to compel aspects against someone making it even worse & if you add compels it's even worse because every ability magic item & spell in 5e assumes both a much more top down gm to players concrete world than the fuzzy one aspects create.

Yes that rule I pointed out is from 3.5, wotc wrote 5e in such a way that it goes out of it's way to just say

Spoiler: this

View attachment 131290

is silly & creates a huge mess but some of the problematic aspects can be resolved by using the old flanking/AoO rules if not for 5e going out of it's way to make doing that difficult rather than just a one sentence "you could ignore these rules if you want."

Who said anything about the players being able to create objects that weren’t in the DM’s description of the environment? That’s not what is being proposed at all. There are no “compels”. Fate-like =/= Fate.

 

[tetrasodium]

Who said anything about the players being able to create objects that weren’t in the DM’s description of the environment? That’s not what is being proposed at all. There are no “compels”. Fate-like =/= Fate.

"is there a ..." is all it takes Yes there are no compels, those generally act as a check allowing the gm to keep things on track. It's not just fate-like though, it's practically the invoke for effect rule itself. If I created a system that was almost exactly like Thac0 but called it something els.. it's still basically Thac0 any strengths/weaknesses/incompatibilities with Thac0 are still going to apply

 

[Don Durito]

I think the intent with the Sly Flourish rule is for the players to make use of aspects of the environment that have already been established.

I used to do similar things with 4E. Even to the extent of making say a bubbling cauldron of acid that the player could overturn the equivalent of a daily power in effect and damage.

It's very different from Fate.

In 13th Age I made use of the save system if something was uncertain. So if it something might be there I would roll on a D20 usually against an 11 and if it was equal or higher then it was there. But the player had no power to decide if something was there (well not unless they used an icon relationship in some way, but that's a different thing).