D&D 5E Flanking

[ki11erDM]

I think everyone is assuming that the DMG will give us rules to ADD to combat, but it might have rules to REPLACE the current combat rules.

For instance it could remove rogues getting sneak attack based on if someone is within 5' and go back to flanking only adding it.

I honestly like combat as it is now, which I did not think i would, so its really not that important to me any more.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

I enjoy combat as an abstract situation where everyone is vying for position all the time. I won't be using rules to penalize archers for firing into melee, so I won't be using rules to give any kind of advantage for positioning tricks either.

In fact, experience has shown me that not making players have to analyze their movement choices in the same way they have to analyze actual actions greatly speeds up combat encounters. This means no flanking for us.

 

[aramis erak]

I think everyone is assuming that the DMG will give us rules to ADD to combat, but it might have rules to REPLACE the current combat rules.

For instance it could remove rogues getting sneak attack based on if someone is within 5' and go back to flanking only adding it.

I honestly like combat as it is now, which I did not think i would, so its really not that important to me any more.

Actually, one can grant advantage due to flanking and still be within RAW...

PBR 57, PHB 173:

You usually gain advantage or disadvantage through the use of special abilities, actions, or spells. Inspiration (see chapter 4) can also give a character advantage on checks related to the character’s personality, ideals, or bonds. The DM can also decide that circumstances influence a roll in one direction or the other and grant advantage or impose disadvantage as a result.​

Note that last sentence.

If you, as the DM, want to grant advantage due to flanking, you can. If you want to grant it to attacks from behind a fleeing foe, you can! Right there is your explicit, RAW permission.

 

[ccooke]

So, here's the thing - Flanking already gives you a bonus in 5e. It just doesn't need a specific rule to do so.

Consider the effect of flanking in 5e, without actually going too far into the mechanics:

1) Anyone trained to exploit a distracted enemy gets to do so
2) The flanked enemy cannot move towards either of the flanking characters without triggering an opportunity attack or sacrificing an action
3) The flanked enemy cannot move away from the flanking characters without triggering two opportunity attacks or sacrificing an action

That's quite a big difference, and note that point 2 is a big departure from 3e and 4e. In those editions, you could always take a 5' step or shift 1. That doesn't exist in 5e - you can move around a single opponent all you like, but as soon as you're flanked you're much more effectively pinned down unless you use the Disengage action.

With all the extra tactical shove and grapple use I'm seeing in 5e, I'm not entirely sure that specific flanking rules in addition wouldn't be overpowered. There's a lot of tactical depth in the 5e rules that I think we have only really started to see, especially with games that really focus on gridded play.

I think the thing I like most about 5e combat layout is that I can switch effortlessly between complicated gridded scenarios with loads of props (I've been known to abuse a bit of Lego; a 3x3 grid in lego is almost exactly 1" square, you know) and narrative combat with theatre of the mind play. Being able to choose which is best for a particular encounter is very freeing - I seem to run about 60/40 ToM/Gridded.

 

[Stalker0]

Flanking was there to add depth to the tactical layer: if there's no positional benefit to be gained, then you don't encourage people to move their PC's around the battle-mat.

I think this is another case where WOTC decided to go with "DM instead of rules".


Before, the rules provided concrete benefits for positioning and movement. Now the rules made mobility fluid, but left it up to the DMs to create combats that would encourage movement.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I've modified my flanking rule. There are a number of monsters, particularly lower level ones like kobolds, that already have a flanking bonus. So I don't want to take that away from them. On the other hand, I'd still like to allow the PCs to benefit without special abilities or a feat.

So I've decided on a different approach:

Flank: If you and your allies are adjacent to a target, not incapacitated, and not adjacent to any other hostile creatures, you and your allies gain advantage on your attacks.

Simple and easy to adjudicate. And it limits the opportunities a bit, so those other abilities have some relevance. It will also speed up the end of combat situations if the combat happens to

Ilbranteloth

 

[ccooke]

I've modified my flanking rule. There are a number of monsters, particularly lower level ones like kobolds, that already have a flanking bonus. So I don't want to take that away from them. On the other hand, I'd still like to allow the PCs to benefit without special abilities or a feat.

So I've decided on a different approach:

Flank: If you and your allies are adjacent to a target, not incapacitated, and not adjacent to any other hostile creatures, you and your allies gain advantage on your attacks.

Simple and easy to adjudicate. And it limits the opportunities a bit, so those other abilities have some relevance. It will also speed up the end of combat situations if the combat happens to

Ilbranteloth

That seems to be too powerful, to me. Advantage is huge.
I still think people are thinking too much in a 3e/4e mindset here - 5e has a lot more subtlety about it. Yes, there's no explicit rule for flanking. There isn't an explicit rule for Coup de Grace, either, but it's still there.
Flanking already provides you with a big tactical bonus without any modifiers.

 

[keterys]

You could add "Flanking" as a feat potentially. Trivial advantage for just standing in the right place in a system where walking circles around someone doesn't provoke isn't something I'd just tack onto the system for free.

 

[KarinsDad]

The current rules, one of the two flankers could use the help action to give the other one advantage.

I might give advantage if the target was out numbered by 4 to 1 by opponents equal to his size, or so like a gang up rule.

No need. Someone already out numbered by 4 to 1 is already being ganged up on.

 

[Runny]

I also changed my approach. I now ignore flanking and instead give advantage if someone is totally surrounded. Basically, four on one for a medium creature. Six to one for large. Eight to one for huge. Bigger than huge gets no effect.

 

[KarinsDad]

I like +1d4 for a generic, not quite advantage, bonus. People can see if the die roll included it, just by looking at the dice on the table. It averages ~2, and there's precedent in the system (bane and bless).

So why prep and cast the spell?

I do not prefer extraneous rules to overlap with spells or feats or other resources that one PC works for, handed out to other PCs for free.

 

[KarinsDad]

Flank: If you and your allies are adjacent to a target, not incapacitated, and not adjacent to any other hostile creatures, you and your allies gain advantage on your attacks.

Simple and easy to adjudicate. And it limits the opportunities a bit, so those other abilities have some relevance. It will also speed up the end of combat situations if the combat happens to

And way too powerful and easy to acquire. +5 for advantage, just because a fellow PC is on the opposite side of the monster? Yikes!

 

[KarinsDad]

I also changed my approach. I now ignore flanking and instead give advantage if someone is totally surrounded. Basically, four on one for a medium creature. Six to one for large. Eight to one for huge. Bigger than huge gets no effect.

I once saw an actual fight at a park. 6 guys were trying to beat up one guy who happened to be a martial artist. They never got flank on him. He hit them. They hit him. But he constantly moved, never staying in a single place for an instant. Kicking, punching, running, retreating. I never saw the outcome of the fight (he was on the other side of a waterway and went out of view), but I do know that for a real melee fighter in the real world who has room to maneuver, flank is very difficult to get.

D&D does not have this "constant move" capability of real life, so RPG flank shouldn't mean much of anything from a plausibility POV. It's not like the NPC is just going to stand there and have one guy in front of him and one guy behind him.

 

[Joe Liker]

The more I play, the more I'm convinced that a flanking bonus is completely unnecessary and would be harmful to the dynamics of the game.

Every house rule suggestion in this thread seems overpowered to me. I just don't see any need to reward flanking with advantages beyond what such a position inherently does for you. It's already a hugely powerful place to be without artificially amping it even further.

I hope the DMG does not mention it at all.

 

[Nebulous]

The more I play, the more I'm convinced that a flanking bonus is completely unnecessary and would be harmful to the dynamics of the game.

Every house rule suggestion in this thread seems overpowered to me. I just don't see any need to reward flanking with advantages beyond what such a position inherently does for you. It's already a hugely powerful place to be without artificially amping it even further.

I hope the DMG does not mention it at all.

It should have some sort of tactical advantage. Otherwise having two enemies right in front of you is no different than having one in front and one unseen behind. How to balance that in 5e, i don't know. Throwing around bonuses and advantages seems overpowered no matter which way it's cut. Maybe it's not that big a deal after all. I'm curious how the DMG will address it.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

For me it really just depends on the players. I don't mind having a rule that everybody (including monsters) can use. Kobolds, wolves, rogues, and other creatures already essentially have a flanking rule. That's why I don't mind considering it for the right circumstances. Yes, there are characters that essentially can't be flanked, but I would consider that the result of an ability or feat.

So for my campaign I'd be OK with it being the result of a feat. But I also like to see the players think about their tactics (and my monsters use tactics and terrain to their advantage too). Flanking is an easy concept, and pretty easy to include. If you think advantage is too much, then do a +1 or +2 bonus.

Part of my approach is because I have two players that learned with the 4th Edition. We sometimes use minis as a visual aid, but I don't want them to be counting squares and moving their minis to specific positions, etc. So part of the reason for including it in my current campaign is to allow them to think in a similar way, but to get away from the war game approach with the minis.

The way I worded my option is to take into account that when you gang up on an opponent, it's more difficult for them to defend as well against multiple opponents. But that doesn't apply if you are also adjacent to several opponents yourself, since you have the same problem and can't be as focused on the advantage you gain.

The reason I keep falling back on advantage/disadvantage is because it's a core mechanic in the rules. Aside from that, the whole point about tactics in combat is to get the upper hand - that is, advantage.

Ilbranteloth

 

[drjones]

We have some players in person, some over skype. The skype folks pretty much always said the same thing when playing 4e 'I move to where I get a flank and attack' since it was almost always possible to get a flank with some fiddly moving, they pretty much always got it.

The new (Basic) rule saves time by taking a minor bonus that both the players and the monsters were always getting and assumes it balances out. That's why rogues get the sneak damage if there is anyone nearby. Not because the target does not have to be flanked to sneak attack, but because it assumes that you will always try to get a flank so there is no reason to spend time fiddling with it.

These rules come from wargames where flanking is very important because it was on the battlefield: when considering blocks of soldiers attacking together and the use of cover that only effects one direction. Both those can be modeled, by powers like the kobolds in the first case and by cover bonuses in the second. I'm not going to say don't put it in the tactical module because it's optional, go nuts. But I would say I do not miss it at all from the basic rules.

On the actual bonus if one was using it: I like advantage and want to see it come up often but if it is given for really simple stuff like flanking then there is zero reason to try to get it in a more complicated way. you can only have one (well unless you have Disadvantage for something, then you can only have two) so spells and actions and class features etc. that grant it will be marginalized by rules that allow one to get advantage easily. If I was still using flanking I would go with a lesser bonus like +1 which in the world of bounded accuracy and stacking with other forms of advantage would be significant.

 

[Joe Liker]

It should have some sort of tactical advantage. Otherwise having two enemies right in front of you is no different than having one in front and one unseen behind. How to balance that in 5e, i don't know. Throwing around bonuses and advantages seems overpowered no matter which way it's cut. Maybe it's not that big a deal after all. I'm curious how the DMG will address it.

What I'm saying is, it already gives significant tactical advantages, as outlined by ccooke.

The idea of facing has been gone for some time now. I find it's easier just to let that notion go than to try to jimmy it into a ruleset that doesn't support it.

 

[Nebulous]

What I'm saying is, it already gives significant tactical advantages, as outlined by ccooke.

The idea of facing has been gone for some time now. I find it's easier just to let that notion go than to try to jimmy it into a ruleset that doesn't support it.

Okay, yeah, he makes some good points.

 

[Thaumaturge]

So why prep and cast the spell?

I do not prefer extraneous rules to overlap with spells or feats or other resources that one PC works for, handed out to other PCs for free.

Because then you'd get another d4 irrespective of positioning?

I know you don't like it as a flanking bonus. We've covered that elsewhere. I brought it up in this discussion for the OP.

Thaumaturge.