D&D 5E "People complain, but don't actually read the DMG!" Which sections specifically?

[Charlaquin]

It ... didn't when I used it.

Yeah, personally I feel like flanking in 5e actually reduces tactical decision making because you don’t have to consider or interact with the environment to gain advantage, you can always just go stand on opposite sides of a monster. But, I can imagine in games where the DM rarely if ever grants circumstantial advantage on attack rolls, flanking might actually increase tactical decision making rather than decrease it.

 

[overgeeked]

Flanking is boring. Use Cinematic Advantage instead.

 

[overgeeked]

You left out the very next sentence.

“You don’t need advantage on the attack roll if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it, that enemy isn’t incapacitated, and you don’t have disadvantage on the attack roll.”

Incorrect.

EDIT: Ninja'd by @Charlaquin - not an attempt to pile on, promise

Exactly. You need one of the following: advantage or another enemy of the target in melee with that target. Saying you don't need advantage is just as wrong as saying you don't need an enemy within melee range of your target. You need one or the other.

 

[prabe]

Exactly. You need one of the following: advantage or an enemy of the target in melee. Saying you don't need advantage is just as wrong as saying you don't need an enemy within melee range of your target. You need one or the other.

As both player and DM, I have seen Sneak Attack happen based on an ally in melee probably ten times as much as I've seen it happen because of Advantage on the attack--though the table I ran with Flanking, the party had no rogue.

 

[Charlaquin]

Flanking is boring. Use Cinematic Advantage instead.

I feel like this is one of those cases where you can tell who has and hasn’t read the DMG. First of all, he talks like flanking is a default rule in 5e rather than an optional rule. Then, he proposes a “new rule” to replace it, and then goes on to describe the rules for normal action resolution. If there’s a rule here at all, it’s just allowing players to improvise an action in addition to making an attack on each of their turns.

 

[J.Quondam]

Question for those who've DMed a lot of 5e:

How often do you find Advantage and Disadvantage cancelling out?

I ask because when I read the RAW, it seems like all the mutual cancellations would wipe out most occurrences either way. But I have little enough 5e experience to know for sure how that plays out in practice, so I'm curious to hear how it tends to work for more experienced DMs.

 

[CleverNickName]

Question for those who've DMed a lot of 5e:

How often do you find Advantage and Disadvantage cancelling out?

I ask because when I read the RAW, it seems like all the mutual cancellations would wipe out most occurrences either way. But I have little enough 5e experience to know for sure how that plays out in practice, so I'm curious to hear how it tends to work for more experienced DMs.

In my experience?

Almost never. The number of ways for a character to gain Advantage far outnumber the number of ways to have Disadvantage imposed....and my players have carefully studied each one and figured out how to bypass them. My players even joke about it:
"Is it still special if we get it on every roll ha ha?"
or
Rogue: "I attack with advantage."
Me: "And why do you have advantage?"
Rogue: "Not sure yet, but give me two minutes and I'll figure out a way ha ha."

 

[prabe]

Question for those who've DMed a lot of 5e:

How often do you find Advantage and Disadvantage cancelling out?

I ask because when I read the RAW, it seems like all the mutual cancellations would wipe out most occurrences either way. But I have little enough 5e experience to know for sure how that plays out in practice, so I'm curious to hear how it tends to work for more experienced DMs.

I'd say it happens sometimes, but not often.

 

[Composer99]

In practice, advantage is far more likely to apply to stuff, because PCs often have ways of getting advantage on things, and many monsters have ways of getting advantage, but few of either have ways of imposing disadvantage on the other. Also, getting advantage on your attacks and killing the monster dead faster is usually going to matter more often than imposing disadvantage on the monster.

So you're likely mostly looking at circumstantial applications of disadvantage imposed by the DM, which may be hard to contrive in sufficient quantity to be noticeable (and likely to be unappreciated if you make too much of a habit of it).

 

[overgeeked]

I feel like this is one of those cases where you can tell who has and hasn’t read the DMG. First of all, he talks like flanking is a default rule in 5e rather than an optional rule. Then, he proposes a “new rule” to replace it, and then goes on to describe the rules for normal action resolution. If there’s a rule here at all, it’s just allowing players to improvise an action in addition to making an attack on each of their turns.

Really? Please point me to the rules in the DMG that this duplicates.