D&D 5E Flanking

[tetrasodium]

We used flanking in our games but then we abandoned it because it was fairly easy to get and we thought advantage was a little too much of eh, an advantage, and it diminished some class abilities such as rage and the samurai fighting spirit abilities. But then we reimplemented because we missed the tactical aspect that it brought to the game and we all know that melee combat needs a little love in this game. But we changed flanking to give +2 to attacks instead of advantage. Our barbarian loved it because they could recklessly attack for advantage plus get the +2 bonus when flanking.

Another variant flanking rule I'm thinking of using would be as follows. In any given round, if there are melee attacks against a target from multiple attackers, the first melee attacker against that target that round would make attack rolls normally. All subsequent melee attackers that round against the target will get +2 to attack rolls if attacking the target from the side and +5 if attacking from the target's rear. This is kind of a reverse correlate to the cover rules for ranged combat. The orientation of the target is defined as if it was facing the first melee attacker.

So how many of you guys use the optional flanking rule in your games and do you use it as written or homebrew it?

at first I thought this seemed interesting but that there was something wrong about it that I jut couldn't place till I let it stew some. This probably works fine for a player, but the gm is now going to need to track every round which monsters have been attacked because there are multiple ways to make yourself immune to the aoO for movig away by attacking the target & what better way to abuse it by moving away & tagging multiple baddies the target is engaged with or just tagging them on your way to your real target

 

[Guest 6801328]

We are (predictably) finding that it advantages whichever team is larger. When surrounded by mooks (goblins, kobolds, whatever) not only do they have an easier time getting advantage, but typically it benefits them more because they have a lower % chance to hit us than we do them.

But against solo bosses it's really one-sided. It requires either some kind of tactical adjustment (e.g., in order to flank you expose yourself to a secondary risk) or should be modified against larger creatures.

 

[BookTenTiger]

d20 Conan had a rule that each subsequent attacker targeting the same enemy got a further +1 on their attack. I could see this being adapted to a new flanking house rule.

Another idea I had was that Flanking increases the critical hit range of Melee attacks to 19-20.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

We jettisoned the optional flanking rule at our table, too. Now the DM just applies advantage (or disadvantage) when the PC's (or monster's/NPC's) approach really warrants it. This method causes players to get a little more creative than just "get on the other side of the baddie".

 

[nixofcyzerra]

The group I'm a member of ruled that flanking only works on small or medium creatures (unless the flankers had been enlarged somehow.)

 

[NotAYakk]

Flanking: when a creature ends its turn surrounded, they become flanked until they are no longer surrounded.

All attacks on flanked creatures are at advantage.

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The idea is to encourage mobility; both threatening a flank and escaping from one. Shoving creatures, killing them, eating OAs, disengaging, flyby abilities; all become tactically stronger.

 

[werecorpse]

We considered it but given:
A: The bonus proposed (advantage);
B: The ease of moving around an opponent into a flanking position without provoking opportunity attacks; and
C: The fact it would thus routinely grant the benefit to the larger sized force it makes outnumbering a greater advantage when it’s already very significant in 5e.

We have never used it.

We have considered the gang up rule “every extra foe that attacks a creature in a round gets another +1 to hit” that Savage World uses but haven’t used it due to the added bookkeeping, concerned about exacerbating conga line style combat and item C above. Still might give it a try one day.

 

[Morrus]

Most groups I've been in as a player did the advantage rule, and I'm mostly fine with that. However as a DM I felt like it is just too easy to set up, and decided it wasn't working for me when I had a Rogue who seemed to just never miss the sneak attack in large part because of it and, of course, crit those sneak attacks twice as often. It seemed to just overwhelm a lot of the fights once the player learned to exploit flanking to the hilt (of course looking back that particular Rogue should have had disadvantage through most of that particular dungeon due to lacking darkvision, but I didn't notice that at the time).

Currently I'm experimenting with having flanking add an extra d4 to the attack roll, potentially stacking with advantage (or disadvantage). Worth getting, and incentivizes getting into melee and taking care in positioning, but it doesn't make advantage nearly so ubiquitous, or step on the toes of various other ways to get advantage. None of the players in that game have really gotten into exploiting flanking so I can't really say much for the results other than that it has not been a problem so far.

The theory behind a d4 rather than a static modifier was mostly just that I like rolling dice and having it be unpredictable, but also because it feels like a more distinct and memorable rule and because rolling an extra die feels more in spirit like advantage, without actually bringing in all the rules significance advantage has.

You’re playing Level Up already!

 

[Charlaquin]

As others have pointed out, the flanking rule from the DMG makes it too easy to gain advantage. +2 to hit or +1d4 on your attack roll instead of advantage can work if you really want a flanking rule.

I actually really like the Facing rule, provided the Mark rule is also in play. That also allows you to make use of tactical positioning to gain advantage, but it takes more work to get that advantage than flanking.

 

[tommybahama]

Doesn’t the +2 for flanking make the Barbarian GWM a little OP? He will get advantage from reckless attack and a +2 to hit?