D&D 5E Flanking

[Guest 6801328]

@Elfcrusher it's one thing to say that 5e was trying to avoid things, but it's not exactly like the results of trying to do that didn't create serious problems of their own as this nine page thread is a good example of. At some point 5e's design goal purists need to step back & admit that goals can't always be met without good intentions becoming the enemy of the system itself, You only need to look at jump as an example of oversimplification making an already simple thing complicated

I think you're exaggerating the "problem", though. Or, maybe just failing to recognize that the magnitude of the problem is subjective. As I and others at the table have described, the rule works just fine for us. The bonus doesn't seem to become an iWin button in practice, and the diminishment of class/subclass abilities isn't a problem. Sure, I get that the design could be more elegant, but the game still works fine.

Likewise, my dislike of variable + bonuses is also subjective. I happen to like the elegance of rolling two dice and picking the higher (or lower) without having to do any arithmetic. (Also, I play with one person who really struggles with figuring out their action each turn, and seems to have to look at their character sheet with every single attack to remember what bonus to add, even though it doesn't change. Give that person bless, or bardic inspiration, and the problem gets worse. On the other hand, rolling with advantage doesn't seem to impose any cognitive overhead.)

So, yeah, I agree with the gist of the critiques and think the discussion is worthwhile, but I think the magnitude of the criticism is a little overblown.

 

[Flamestrike]

On the spellcasting bit melee attack spells (shocking grasp/inflict wounds/etc) or those spells need to be made dramatically better to account that casting them is pretty much a guarantee of eating aoo.

I agree.

Another caveat; spells that involve a melee spell attack as part of the casting of the spell, do not provoke AoO.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I think you're exaggerating the "problem", though. Or, maybe just failing to recognize that the magnitude of the problem is subjective. As I and others at the table have described, the rule works just fine for us. The bonus doesn't seem to become an iWin button in practice, and the diminishment of class/subclass abilities isn't a problem. Sure, I get that the design could be more elegant, but the game still works fine.

Likewise, my dislike of variable + bonuses is also subjective. I happen to like the elegance of rolling two dice and picking the higher (or lower) without having to do any arithmetic. (Also, I play with one person who really struggles with figuring out their action each turn, and seems to have to look at their character sheet with every single attack to remember what bonus to add, even though it doesn't change. Give that person bless, or bardic inspiration, and the problem gets worse. On the other hand, rolling with advantage doesn't seem to impose any cognitive overhead.)

So, yeah, I agree with the gist of the critiques and think the discussion is worthwhile, but I think the magnitude of the criticism is a little overblown.

This. Variable action bonuses don’t jive with 5e’s combat mechanic elegance.

While I don’t care for the Optional Flanking rules, I can see how they can be used effectively. At our table, we’ve decided to award Advantage using other criteria.

 

[Guest 6801328]

This. Variable action bonuses don’t jive with 5e’s combat mechanic elegance.

While I don’t care for the Optional Flanking rules, I can see how they can be used effectively. At our table, we’ve decided to award Advantage using other criteria.

Yeah, I have to say, I like the discussion about "cinematic" bonuses, using abilities/skills, goal and approach and consequence of failure. In some cases that might look a lot a lot like flanking, and in other cases...something else.

We had a scene (in Dragon Heist) where a fighter said he wanted to leap onto a long banquet table to give himself a height advantage over an enemy. I said that if he succeeded at Athletics he would have advantage on his attack, but if he failed he would find himself in an awkward position (without specifying what that would be). He rolled TERRIBLY, so of course the result was that when he leapt up he landed on a large, tragically slippery platter, skidded the length of the table (clearing silver and china like a bowling ball through pins), and went flying off the far end.

 

[Rockyroad]

But, no, seriously, I will agree that the problem with the flanking rule as written is that the bonus is really big and it makes certain class (or other) abilities less significant. However, the thing I don't like about replacing it with a straight up +attack bonus is that 5e was trying to avoid keeping track of bonuses that vary during combat, which is a goal I agree with and try to adhere to.

I don't have a perfect solution, though. Allow multiple advantage/disadvantage to stack?

While I agree that the design philosophy of 5e is for simpler less + bonus and more use of adv/disadv mechanics, this is an optional rule and so I don't have an issue with using the + bonus type mechanic. And after all, it's not a hard and fast rule. Just look at the +2 and +5 to AC for half and 3/4 cover mechanic.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Yeah, I have to say, I like the discussion about "cinematic" bonuses, using abilities/skills, goal and approach and consequence of failure. In some cases that might look a lot a lot like flanking, and in other cases...something else.

We had a scene (in Dragon Heist) where a fighter said he wanted to leap onto a long banquet table to give himself a height advantage over an enemy. I said that if he succeeded at Athletics he would have advantage on his attack, but if he failed he would find himself in an awkward position (without specifying what that would be). He rolled TERRIBLY, so of course the result was that when he leapt up he landed on a large, tragically slippery platter, skidded the length of the table (clearing silver and china like a bowling ball through pins), and went flying off the far end.

Definitely. Flanking and "cinematic" bonuses are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Awesome story about the ability check failure!

 

[Guest 6801328]

While I agree that the design philosophy of 5e is for simpler less + bonus and more use of adv/disadv mechanics, this is an optional rule and so I don't have an issue with using the + bonus type mechanic. And after all, it's not a hard and fast rule. Just look at the +2 and +5 to AC for half and 3/4 cover mechanic.

So maybe the one little tweak I would make, if I were going to adopt this approach, is to make it a -1 to AC instead of a +1 to the attack. So the player still just rolls and adds their usual bonus. The DM does the "work" of determining if it succeeds.

 

[Rockyroad]

If it must be done (flanking) then this is how I would do it:

1) Flanking provides a +1 bonus to hit, as long as your flanking ally is not incapacitated, and you can see your enemy. +1 to hit is a huge deal in 5E, and is a larger relative bonus that 3.X's +2 to hit.

As a bonus this fixed +1 doesn't devalue spells, class features and other abilities that grant advantage to hit (Barbarian Reckless attack, Wolf Barbarians, Pack tactics on monsters, Shove action, certain spells, certain Battlemaster manoeuvres, Samurai, Aim manoeuvre, Hiding, Vengeance Paladins etc) and it doesn't overvalue feats like Elven Accuracy.

2) Movement, flanking and OA rules need to be brought into line with 3.5. Namely:

• All movement out of a threatened square provokes AoO before that movement (unless you first withdraw, or take a 5' step [see below], or have some other ability like the Mobile feat or Swashbucklers Fancy Footwork, Relentless Avenger from the Vengeance paladin, and some monster abilities which allow you to move without provoking AoO's).
  • PAM feat no longer provides a free attack when a creature enters your threatened area, instead it now provides advantage on attacks of opportunity against creatures that are not adjacent to you who move out of a square you threaten, to a square that is adjacent to you.
  • The second benefit of the Sentinel feat changes to: Creatures within your reach provoke opportunity attacks when they leave a threatened square, even if they took the Disengage action or took a 5' step.
• Insert a new action entitled '5' Step' which can be taken as a Bonus action by all creatures.
• Have spellcasting with a casting time of one Action trigger OA's. Bonus action and reaction casting (Shield, counterspell, quickened spells etc) are not affected and those spells do not trigger OA's.
  • Mage Slayer's 1st bullet point now states: When a creature you can see starts casting a spell, you can use your reaction to move up to 5' towards that creature as long as you threaten that creature at the end of that movement. You may then make a single melee weapon attack against that creature as part of the same reaction.
  • Warcaster no longer allows spellcasting in place of an AoO. Instead it now lets you cast spells while threatened without AoO (in addition to its other benefit of advantage on Con saves to maintain concentration).
• d) Sneak attack now only triggers when you have advantage, or you flank your target and don't also have disadvantage.

Rogues remain the kings of manoeuvrability thanks to bonus action withdrawing letting them position themselves with ease. However now that they need to flank to get sneak attack (instead of just having a friendly ally next to them) they will have some tougher decisions to make about battlefield positioning. Ranged Rogues get weaker (but this is countered by the new Aim action in Tashas) and just like before, they can always Hide for advantage (and sneak attack) as needed.

Spell casters now have as much to fear as do Martials from being threatened and flanked by multiple creatures (3 creatures properly positioned around a caster ensures an AoO, and being stuck near a creature creature with reach, all but ensures one), but also have an easy way to avoid it (bonus action 5' step and cast) unless overwhelmed.

A +1 to hit wont overwhelm PCs when flanked by monsters like advantage would. It's still a bonus worth chasing, but it's not that out of proportion that a flanked PC is doomed like they would be if monsters got easy advantage.

If I were to implement it, the above is how I would do it.

This is a nicely thought out revision for flanking to make it jive with the rest of the rules, but my problem would be that it does change quite a lot of mechanics because of the intersection of OA with lots of different class abilities. I do not like adding more OA to the game because it tends to slow things down in combat, but that's a personal preference thing.

 

[tetrasodium]

I think you're exaggerating the "problem", though. Or, maybe just failing to recognize that the magnitude of the problem is subjective. As I and others at the table have described, the rule works just fine for us. The bonus doesn't seem to become an iWin button in practice, and the diminishment of class/subclass abilities isn't a problem. Sure, I get that the design could be more elegant, but the game still works fine.

Likewise, my dislike of variable + bonuses is also subjective. I happen to like the elegance of rolling two dice and picking the higher (or lower) without having to do any arithmetic. (Also, I play with one person who really struggles with figuring out their action each turn, and seems to have to look at their character sheet with every single attack to remember what bonus to add, even though it doesn't change. Give that person bless, or bardic inspiration, and the problem gets worse. On the other hand, rolling with advantage doesn't seem to impose any cognitive overhead.)

So, yeah, I agree with the gist of the critiques and think the discussion is worthwhile, but I think the magnitude of the criticism is a little overblown.

Even without things like +1 or +2 weapon/wand/armor, 5e has a bunch of things that are +N as part of a well designed subsystem as already noted by others . It's ok that you like advantage & that it works well in your game but that doesn't mean that everything else is difficult to the point it should be verboten or that a well designed set of flanking rules from the start couldn't include a one sentence footnote that strips it down to the dmg251 flanking rule by saying "you can choose to ignore the opportunity attacks for all but moving out of reach without disengaging & roll the d20 with advantage instead of +N" but the same is not true the other way around because so many individual parts proven to work well with known results are missing with what looks like a rushed attempt to design against & the creatures themselves don't ever assume the presence of magic items feats or any flanking bonus let alone the effective +4 to +5 of advantage. I'm playing in a friend's game as a favor for now and the friend's kid who always plays a melee fighter loves that dmg251 rule as is no matter how sick everyone but the kid & his dad is with it because he only sees the benefits & gets to be extra awesome compared to everyone not playing a melee character... but that doesn't mean the friend saying "I don't want to have a bunch of house rules or make a bunch of monster changes " when players bring it up" doesn't mean it's not an even bigger problem with everything else after including the strict RAW of everything else along with the adventure he's running isn't suffering as a result of this poorly designed rule.


If we had a complete mechanic that used advantage & a system with creature ACs & such calculated around the assumption of things like flanking advantage it wouldn't be a problem &t would strengthen your case for advantage more than saying "you're exaggerating" but instead we have the poorly balanced afterthought that5e has. Advantage on flanking in a system not assuming it in creature ACs with no cost doesn't need to be "an iWin button" to cause a lot of blatantly obvious & completely foreseeable problems that should never have allowed it to be printed as is in a system tuned to no magic items no feats.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Even without things like +1 or +2 weapon/wand/armor, 5e has a bunch of things that are +N as part of a well designed subsystem as already noted by others . It's ok that you like advantage & that it works well in your game but that doesn't mean that everything else is difficult to the point it should be verboten or that a well designed set of flanking rules from the start couldn't include a one sentence footnote that strips it down to the dmg251 flanking rule by saying "you can choose to ignore the opportunity attacks for all but moving out of reach without disengaging & roll the d20 with advantage instead of +N" but the same is not true the other way around because so many individual parts proven to work well with known results are missing with what looks like a rushed attempt to design against & the creatures themselves don't ever assume the presence of magic items feats or any flanking bonus let alone the effective +4 to +5 of advantage. I'm playing in a friend's game as a favor for now and the friend's kid who always plays a melee fighter loves that dmg251 rule as is no matter how sick everyone but the kid & his dad is with it because he only sees the benefits & gets to be extra awesome compared to everyone not playing a melee character... but that doesn't mean the friend saying "I don't want to have a bunch of house rules or make a bunch of monster changes " when players bring it up" doesn't mean it's not an even bigger problem with everything else after including the strict RAW of everything else along with the adventure he's running isn't suffering as a result of this poorly designed rule.


If we had a complete mechanic that used advantage & a system with creature ACs & such calculated around the assumption of things like flanking advantage it wouldn't be a problem &t would strengthen your case for advantage more than saying "you're exaggerating" but instead we have the poorly balanced afterthought that5e has. Advantage on flanking in a system not assuming it in creature ACs with no cost doesn't need to be "an iWin button" to cause a lot of blatantly obvious & completely foreseeable problems that should never have allowed it to be printed as is in a system tuned to no magic items no feats.

I think you're expecting or hoping for too much out of 5e. Or for something that it's not.