Facing

[Gundark]

I doubt we'll see facing in 4e...and I'm glad

 

[Ahglock]

Me too. I've had many a facing-related argument.

You don't even need facing for the "sneak by a guard" trick. Just roll a sneak vs. the guard's spot. If the guard fails to spot you, just assume the guard was looking the wrong way when you moved by. As a DM I'd give circumstance bonuses for situations where the spotter has an obvious/definite facing (e.g. king sitting in a throne while you sneak behind).

Unless of course they create some nifty rules in a .5 version where you need cover or concealment to sneak. Now without facing if there isn't cover or concealment in that street you are sneaking past the guard in you insta fail. Yes most DMs will give effective concealment for waiting till the guard is turned. A quasi nod to facing.

 

[Andor]

I like facing, myself. I think the protestations of it lack of realism are over thought. Having fought in multi-person melees I can tell you that you can deal with multiple foes, but you're still only facing one direction at a time. Sure you can turn quickly, but it's pretty much impossible to pay attention in 360 deg around you. And the guy in front of you is probably taking up most of your attention.

 

[Ahglock]

Facing rules are pretty lame, and grievously exploited in any game where they exist. I have not-so-fond memories of Champions characters teleporting or even flying around behind enemies because it would halve their target's defenses.

I never understood how people could think that facing should matter, as if the opposition just faces one direction and then freezes into that position until it's their turn again.

Well teleporting wouldn't bother me, but yes its silly to assume barring super human feats of speed you wouldn't turn with an opponent as they circled you.

Sneak examples already given, but lets say Fighter X is charging down a road at some bandits, he passes a couple who were hiding or he ignored in order to get to the bandit mage in the back. While he is running toward that bandit mage in the back is he turning like a top or can someone shoot him in the back?

I think the rules in 3e worked fairly well, no facing and flanking so you can't be looking two directions at once but you can follow a dude you are fighting. And I'm ok with losing out on the variety of odd situations where facing makes sense. But I hated the square horse who is slowed moving down a corridor he easily fits in, or the can't sneak up on someone in a field dilemma since there isn't any cover or concealment.

Lack of facing is fine just don't implement unrealistic rules as a "logical" extension of an ease of play rule.

 

[Celebrim]

Well, if we are through discussing... errr...'team gymnastics', maybe we could discuss facing?

I think flanking is a very well designed rule, but I don't think that it is perfect. However, I don't think that bringing back facing is necessarily a good idea either.

The problem with facing is that D&D is turn based. That means that everyone except the character whose turn it is is largely frozen and unable to react, and that makes an absolute facing rather unrealistic.

Take a game like Battletech. In turn based pen and paper Btech, a highly mobile opponent like a VTOL can always arrange to attack the rear hex of a foe, and generally always after that opponent has chosen a facing. This allows a VTOL to pit its front armor against the rear armor of its foe, and generally only the opponents rear firing weapons. But if you try to do this in a real time simulation, you'll find that its impossible because the opponent will be reacting to your movement continiously. What this means is that 'facing' in a turn based game isn't actually realistic. The more abstract implementation is actually more realistic given the other abstractions that we've chosen.

So 'flanking' is in my opinion a better implementation than 'facing', both in being more realistic AND simplier and cleaner play.

However, it's not perfect. There are some issues that I would like to see cleared up, and they are in large part the result of another abstraction - the passive nature of AC.

Under the rules, the following situation:

XAX
XDA
AXX

Where 'A' is an attacker, 'D' is the defender, and 'X' is an unoccupied space, and similar variants of the above don't constitute a particularly serious situation. They are really no worse than this:

AXX
ADX
AXX

But realisticly speaking, the situation of being surrounded to the point that there is no where to turn where you do not present your undefended back is not only much worse than having all attackers to one side of you, but it is much worse even than being 'flanked'. It would be nice if the rules accounted not only for this but perhaps even for the fact that you can't defend equally well against multiple attackers as you do against a single one even if you aren't flanked.

 

[ZappoHisbane]

Under the rules, the following situation:

XAX
XDA
AXX

Where 'A' is an attacker, 'D' is the defender, and 'X' is an unoccupied space, and similar variants of the above don't constitute a particularly serious situation. They are really no worse than this:

AXX
ADX
AXX

Right off the bat, 'D' is worse off in the first situation because he can no longer use the Withdraw action without provoking at least one AoO. Also, any one of the attackers is only a non-provoking 5' step away from a true flank. Being surrounded limits your tactical options and provides more to the attackers, even if they don't get actual mechanical bonuses.

Having said all that, I wouldn't argue too vigorously against a circumstance bonus/penalty. I've always wished that the flanking rules allowed for the target of the flank to deliberatly ignore one attacker and focus on the one that can really hurt him, in order to deny a sneak attack for instance. Of course the one being ignored would get significantly more than a +2 to attack.

 

[Felon]

Well teleporting wouldn't bother me, but yes its silly to assume barring super human feats of speed you wouldn't turn with an opponent as they circled you.

I think the teleporting backshot would grow tiresome to just about anyone once it becomes an every-round tactic.

Sneak examples already given, but lets say Fighter X is charging down a road at some bandits, he passes a couple who were hiding or he ignored in order to get to the bandit mage in the back. While he is running toward that bandit mage in the back is he turning like a top or can someone shoot him in the back?

He's not turning like a top, but he's probably going to keep an eye over his shoulder and keep track of their relative position to make sure his back is protected. Unless, of course, they were hidden, in which case the fighter would lose his Dexterity bonus against their attack.

 

[Celebrim]

Right off the bat, 'D' is worse off in the first situation because he can no longer use the Withdraw action without provoking at least one AoO. Also, any one of the attackers is only a non-provoking 5' step away from a true flank. Being surrounded limits your tactical options and provides more to the attackers, even if they don't get actual mechanical bonuses.

All of which is true, but the first objection doesn't negate the fact that if he chooses to stay where he is, he suffers no penalty for doing so. And, while it is also true that a 5' adjustment by any of the attackers would create a true flanking situation, such advantage is counterintuitively achieved by repositioning so that you less completely surround the target.

Having said all that, I wouldn't argue too vigorously against a circumstance bonus/penalty.

Like I said, I wish that there was some elegant set of rules which covered the possibilities better.

I've always wished that the flanking rules allowed for the target of the flank to deliberatly ignore one attacker and focus on the one that can really hurt him, in order to deny a sneak attack for instance. Of course the one being ignored would get significantly more than a +2 to attack.

I would think so, since if you are truly ignoring them, then you are helpless to defend yourself from thier attack.

 

[StarFyre]

We use a simplified facing. We assume people look around now and then, but if not otherwise stated, people do NOT walk forward and every 3 seconds turn around behind them UNLESS there is a reason to do so.

Thus, forward arc is assumed visible to everyone. Rear is not unless told to me ahead of time. Since we position miniatures though when something is important, the miniature facing is where you are looking at that instant.

We don't do that for everything, so it works well.

Sanjay

 

[Lurks-no-More]

Facing, like weapon speeds, is one of those neat and obvious ideas that turn out to suffer from all matter of non-obvious problems in practice.

I'm all for the current, abstracted facing; flanking, feinting and so on work quite well enough, without need for more complexity.