G
Guest 6801328
Guest
So effectively Solo monsters (such as Legendary monsters) are debuffed considerably by every PC getting 'flanking' against them more often than not.
Fighter attacks, Rogue moves and dashes 60' around the back of the monster, advantage. Monster now cops advantage from its attackers to hit it, and cant move or else it provokes an attack from the Fighter (meh), and the Rogue (ouch - sneak attack again). Instead of the combat becoming more tactical and fluid, it's actually become more static.
Lets not forget that your average DnD adventuring party will consist of only 2-3 melee PCs, with the other 2 being a Spellcaster of some sort, and usually a ranged PC, wheras many monster encounters SHOULD feature around half a dozen monsters (a boss and 4-6 or so mooks).
Being outnumbered in combat is already a massive disadvantage, and ganging up on monsters is something PCs will naturally try to do anyway (focus fire on one monster at a time till its dead, before moving onto a different monster).
The latter is a negative and unrealistic consequence of the Hit point attrition nature of combat, but still it holds true - two monsters attacking you is twice as bad as only a single monster attacking you. That's already a steep penalty to bear (taking into account bounded accuracy) and I personally see no reason to toss out easy advantage via flanking (which would also require 3.5's movement and AoO rules to make it worthwhile).
Yes. In line with what I've said above:
1. Flanking tends to favor the larger group, the most extreme/typical being party of PCs vs. solo boss
2. If the DM designs and runs encounters they way they would have designed and run them without flanking, it's going to feel like a bad rule.
It also diminishes Battlemasters, Barbarians, Rogues, Vengeance Paladins etc who all have a way to obtain advantage anyway.
Agreed, to lesser or greater degrees. And if you don't have any of those classes (or specific subclasses, or specific subclass choices) then it's not a problem.
Look, I'm not arguing that everybody should use flanking, or that the game is bad (or even worse) without it. Just that it's entirely possible to use flanking in a way that adds another tactical dimension to the game, without combat being trivialized. YMMV, of course.
Strangely, this debate reminds me of the one about flying, except we're on opposite sides.
Me: Flying trivializes encounters.
You: Design different encounters!
Last edited by a moderator: