Flanking Rules

[miggyG777]

Hello guys,

I was wondering if any of you use flanking rules in your 5e games to make combat a bit more tactical. I would like to know why you use the rules or why you don't and also in case you do, what kind of rules these are. Are you using the alternative rules from the DMG (flanking grants advantage) or are you using a homebrew variant?

Lately I have been toying with the idea of grantig a +2 to hit if a combatant is flanked (instead of advantage), just to not break the math too much and invalidate Pack Tactics for instance or give Rogues too many sneak attacks.

Best regards.

 

[DND_Reborn]

In our group the DM determines the opponents facing. If one of us is actually behind the target, we get the advantage of being "unseen" for our attacks. But if we are on the side of the target, we don't usually get a bonus unless the opponent is facing two or more to form a front it has to focus on.

 

[Morrus]

I tend to find that flanking giving advantage is too powerful for my tastes. It's pretty easy to flank, so PCs would have advantage all the time.

 

[Blue]

My experiments with flanking showed it was too powerful, and also trivialized getting advantage so that class features and such that granted it became less valuable. Also it even further worsened solo battles beyond the weak point they are already at because of action economy.

We ditched it.

Changing to a +2 instead of advantage messes a bit with bounded accuracy, especially since you can still get Advantage. If all the ACs stay the same, an easy +2 makes hits that much more likely. If you wanted to boost all ACs by 1 so it was effectively -1 without flanking and +1 with flanking (which also would address some concerns about ranged power vs. melee) it could work.

 

[dco]

The characters can move freely around the enemy so flanking is super easy, advantage is very powerful and it would make hitting far easier than it is specially at higher levels, it reduces the utility of actions like help, some class features and spells.

 

[ad_hoc]

Giving away advantage like that actually makes combat less tactical.

Combat is designed to make it easy to move around enemies, and for enemies to do the same. It is already easy to hit enemies too, no need to increase that. The tactical thrust of combat in 5e is protecting weaker characters. It's also a challenge to get at the ranged enemies who have lower defenses because the monsters can come in many numbers so it is hard to move about.

 

[Mort]

We used Flanking initially, but stopped.

To echo the previous comments, it made advantage too easy to get (it's already not hard).

And, to again echo a previous post, it was not good for solo monster fights - which are already tough to make challenging.

IMO, the +2 is also unnecessary. It won't add to tactics nearly as much as good use of terrain by the group and by villians.

 

[jayoungr]

I use flanking, largely because my players were used to 3E and wanted a bit more tactical crunch in their combat. It can be a pretty big bonus, especially for large single monsters, but I've learned to adjust monster difficulty to compensate.

 

[aco175]

I do not have any big problems with it. It does make getting advantage easy with the fighter being able to move around the back of the enemy, leaving room for the cleric to move in and flank. The halfling thief now closes from ranged combat to flank and gain sneak attack. He does not do the trick of hiding behind the fighter and jumping out to gain sneak attack. We also do not play with feat to any extent so that seems to cut down on the big feats like polearm and great weapon such.

It does make combat a bit static where single monsters are ganged up upon but it ends quickly where it would end the same anyways. I tend to have a lot of smaller monsters where there may be 6-10 monsters who themselves flank and move to get around the front line fighters. I tend to play with 3-4 PCs instead of 5-6 where flanking may be more of an advantage.

 

[Scott Thorne]

I use Flanking but grant only +2 to hit, not advantage, because it gives the "little guys", like Skeletons or Goblins with a low to-hit bonus and no Pack Tactics, a chance to threaten the PCs by swarming them in large numbers. Advantage is too powerful, imo, and will lead to more critical hits against the PCs which can make combat too "swingy." The PCs rarely use -- or need -- a to-hit bonus from flanking because they are either trying to create shield walls to protect their rear line or are outnumbered and fighting on multiple fronts so maneuver and terrain is more important than relative positioning around specific opponents.

I also use a variant of Tumble (Acrobatics(DEX)), Overrun (Athletics(STR)), and Feint (Deception(CHA)) to slip past an opponent so creatures can move through the squares of enemy creatures. Failure to use either of these triggers an opportunity attack.