D&D 5E Flanking, advantage, and opportunity attacks

[Arvok]

I think the easiest solution to the problem is turning the situation around onto the players. It would be extra bookkeeping on your part, but have them fight large groups of monsters, preferably with a few heavy hitters and swarms of minions. After a few encounters when nearly every enemy attack was at advantage they might be begging to get rid of flanking.

 

[tetrasodium]

LOL that is pretty much what I've been advocating and using for months now.

@tetrasodium you stole it from me (formerly dnd4vr). But I am glad it seemed to make enough of an impression you remembered it.

I've got a word doc of promising & interesting houserules I've been putting together since covid started, that got included

This is not really much of a debuff. Personally, in point buy a lot of my characters start with a 10 constitution, so this would have no effect on hp but give me an AC boost There are no Constitution skills so there already is little reason for anyone except melee characters to invest in constitution, if you take away the bonus there would be none. I think people would probably straight dump constitution all the way to 8 for most characters if you did this. For spell casters and concentration, the boost to AC would more than make up for the -1 to constitution saves.

This would make Rogues and Wizards far more powerful than other classes and make Barbarians in particular far weaker, to a lessor extent fighters as well.

You could drop everyone's hit dice a notch from the outset if you wanted to go further or do it different. People who expect to be taking hits tend to have at least a few points of con the ease of recovery through short/long rests is going to be a problem no matter what but getting an ac bump & needing to overcome the same ac bump adds up

 

[GMMichael]

I have found flanking to be too easy to attain in his games (especially since I play a cleric in his game and he let's me flank with my spiritual weapon). People just run around enemies willy nilly and flank all the time.

But, looking at how much value the DMG monster creator places on pack tactics (+1 attack), I'm wondering if the designers expected advantage to be more common. I'm considering trying out flanking advantage, but also making it harder to get into flanking by making OA's more strict.

Instead of provoking an opportunity attack when you exit a threatened area, you'll once again provoke from leaving a threatened square. I'll also bring back 5 ft steps as a move action, and acrobatics as a way to avoid opportunity attacks.

This way, positioning for flanks will take more work.

If my opponent avoids my attack by doing a cartwheel, I'm leaving the table.

On adding Flanking and Threatened Squares: no thanks. That's 3.5e territory.

You should:
1) Let flanking provide +2 to attack rolls, unless the flanker has disadvantage, or
2) Just use the Help action. It's what 5e has instead of flanking.

 

[TwoSix]

I've gone from being anti-flanking to pro-flanking because it gives melee an advantage (NPI) over ranged. Making advantage easy to get isn't ideal, but it's better than a party that kites all the time.

 

[jgsugden]

I like my flanking rules. They turn flanking into a lockdown maneuver, not a route to easy advantage.

General Rule: If you're flanked, you provoke OAs from all adjacent enemies if you move without disengaging.

De Minimis Threat Rule: You may elect to give an opponent a free attack that does not use a reaction in order to ignore that enemy for purposes of the flanking rule. [This rule is intended to limit the use of a minor threat being used to flank].

It plays a strategic rule without busting the nose of bounded accuracy.

 

[elangen]

Our group played both with and without the flanking rule. We found that without it, giving an ally Advantage via the Help action was too costly; with it, giving an ally Advantage based solely on where you're standing was too cheap. (If the enemy creature is larger than medium, the cost of flanking becomes even cheaper because you can grant flanking Advantage to multiple allies.)

So we settled on a cost somewhere in the middle:
If you and an ally are flanking an enemy, as a bonus action, you can Help that ally (as per the Help action) against that enemy.

It's served us pretty well since then.

 

[Rune]

^^ same

If I were to bring it back, I'd bring back 4e movement rules as well. Move more than 5', take an OA. Might even make it +2 to hit again rather than advantage, which is just really powerful (effective +5 to hit and 2x crit chance).

This can effectively be done by using the DMG flanking variant in conjunction with the DMG facing variant.

You can even do it without making players decide or even having to indicate their character’s facing: just assume that everyone pulls focus at the beginning of their turn and, therefore, all combatants start their turns with all others facing them.

 

[Xeviat]

If my opponent avoids my attack by doing a cartwheel, I'm leaving the table.

On adding Flanking and Threatened Squares: no thanks. That's 3.5e territory.

You should:
1) Let flanking provide +2 to attack rolls, unless the flanker has disadvantage, or
2) Just use the Help action. It's what 5e has instead of flanking.

It's not a cartwheel to avoid an attack, it's swift agile movements to not drip your guard to open yourself up to another attack while retreating or moving past. It's the same as taking the disengage action, which the rogue can as a bonus action anyway.

 

[DemoMonkey]

If you really want it, just ignore the advantage effect in the optional rule and have Flanking provide a flat +2 bonus.

It seems the simplest solution, and avoids any potential cheese that feeds off having Advantage.

The problem you will then encounter is PCs running up to monsters/monsters running up to PCs and then circling around them without impediment, in order to get the bonus. But that's it's own problem.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I like having players think tactically and positioning characters, we’re all about the grid. I find advantage is far too much just from location. Matt Colville’s “Running the Game“ video on the math of D&D really clarified why it felt too much, it’s a huge benefit.

A straight +2 is cleaner, but I could even see instead using d4 like bless, that may or may not stack with bless.