I flank myself! ...

[Gromm]

The invisible effect seems appropriate and right.
They ARE invisible to the enemy (no dex etc).
Of course in the case of the dragon it wont do much good (immune to the damage, no dex bonus and effectively can "see" invisible as it is).
I'd probably rule that even though the dragon has blindsight it would still suffer the effects of having an "invisible" foe attacking it since it is in fact ignoring that opponent. To do otherwise would constitute a flank, ie. its dividing its attention between 2 foes.

To my knowledge theres no "official" line on this one, but it would be a good one for the Sage to answer.

It could also be said that you can't really "ignore" the opponent since if they attempted a CdG you would respond, so I'd probably rule you can't ignore a flank. If you do and are willing to risk a CdG doing it then more power to you I guess.

 

[CRGreathouse]

The invisible effect seems appropriate and right.
They ARE invisible to the enemy (no dex etc).
Of course in the case of the dragon it wont do much good (immune to the damage, no dex bonus and effectively can "see" invisible as it is).
I'd probably rule that even though the dragon has blindsight it would still suffer the effects of having an "invisible" foe attacking it since it is in fact ignoring that opponent. To do otherwise would constitute a flank, ie. its dividing its attention between 2 foes.

To my knowledge theres no "official" line on this one, but it would be a good one for the Sage to answer.

It could also be said that you can't really "ignore" the opponent since if they attempted a CdG you would respond, so I'd probably rule you can't ignore a flank. If you do and are willing to risk a CdG doing it then more power to you I guess.

Why would you allow a CdG? Even if you don't have a Dex bonus, you aren't helpless.

 

[navriin]

I think the rules as they are in the book are fine.

Remember, hp are abstract, your character doesn't 'know' that he can take ten sword shots to the gut, it's just more combat skill and luck.

Any creature that can inflict even 1 point of damage on you can potentially kill you-be realistic, even the battle-hardened veteran knows that the peasant with the pitchfork can kill him if he ignores him.

There are already rules for concentrating on one opponent while worrying less about another....it's called making your attacks against the more dangerous opponent.

My 2 cp...

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Any houserule that makes ignoring an enemy in flanking position possible is an houserule that screw the rogue royally and favor the fighter immensely.

Just thought I'd let you know.

Personnaly I think no matter how you look at it, having even a goblin flanking you is impossble to ignore. You may refuse to look at him, you may act as if he's not here but he's still trying to climb on your back and slit your throat.

Here is a thought for you. Get two friends, we'll name them Bob and Jay. Get two soft props that can stand in for swords. Start sparing with Bob. When you get the hang of it, ask Jay to give you little pushes in the back while you keep sparing with Bob. Ignore Jay, see if Bob doesn't manage to get more blows past your guard. Now imagine if Jay wanted to kill you.

It's utterly impossible to ignore Jay! It makes no sense from a rule POV, from a realism POV and from a cinematic POV. Have you ever seen Jet Li, Jackie Chan or Errol Flynn stop parrying and blocking the blows from one goon in order to concentrate on the main opponent!? No! They qucikly dispatch the lesser opponents in order to be able to concentrate on the real threat.

 

[Cl1mh4224rd]

That's exactly what I was going to say. When you ignore a character, you're not protecting yourself at all; with an invisible character, you're dodging away from the attacker when you feel the weapon hit you, and you're occasionally making a wild swing in their direction to keep them away. When you ignore them, you're not even doing that.

Due to the inherent risks of ignoring an opponent in combat, it won't come up very often - who wants to give that opportunity to a foe who may be more powerful than you guessed? Still, it should prevent needless summon monster abuse.

uuuuuhhhhhhh........ i think you're taking the word "ignore" waaaay too far. how can you claim that ignoring someone is worse than not even knowing they're there?

my buddy goes invisible before entering my house. i'm sitting here, typing away, completely oblivious to his presence. he walks up behind me (for you lawyers, just pretend i failed my listen check ) and stabs me in the kidney. damn, it was good shot. now ... say he just plain walks into my house. i know he's there, but now he's going on and on, jabbering about something i've heard a million times. i ignore him. he stabs me. damn, that was a good shot, too. didn't even see it coming ...

i don't know about you, but if i was in a fight with two people who were flanking me, and i decided to ignore one ... i'd sure as hell still be aware of the fact that the guy i'm ignoring is still dangerous. i'm gonna do whatever it takes to make his job more difficult, without taking too much attention away from my focus.

i cast my vote for "treat the ignored combatant as invisible".

 

[mmu1]

Any houserule that makes ignoring an enemy in flanking position possible is an houserule that screw the rogue royally and favor the fighter immensely.

My point exactly... With a rule like this in place, there won't be a single enemy that wouldn't rather ignore a non-rogue in exchange for the piddly penalties proposed rather than suffer sneak attacks. Even more so at high levels where a fighter will hardly ever need a bonus of any kind to hit anyway, or when you're fighting enemies that have no dex bonus or dex penalty. Think, people...

 

[Storm Raven]

i don't know about you, but if i was in a fight with two people who were flanking me, and i decided to ignore one ... i'd sure as hell still be aware of the fact that the guy i'm ignoring is still dangerous. i'm gonna do whatever it takes to make his job more difficult, without taking too much attention away from my focus.

Ah, so you'd be distracted by the guy you are trying to ignore. To quote you again "i'm gonna do whatever it takes to make his job more difficult, without taking too much attention away from my focus." Sounds like you are dividing your attention between your two foes there, giving them flanking bonuses.

Just use the standrd rules. They make more sense then every single one of these goofy "I'll ignore him, but not too much" rationalizations everyone keeps trying to come up with.

 

[CRGreathouse]

My point exactly... With a rule like this in place, there won't be a single enemy that wouldn't rather ignore a non-rogue in exchange for the piddly penalties proposed rather than suffer sneak attacks. Even more so at high levels where a fighter will hardly ever need a bonus of any kind to hit anyway, or when you're fighting enemies that have no dex bonus or dex penalty.

Wait a moment - you'd suffer a near-automatic critical for max from the fighter in exchange for denying the rogue a flank? Example:

Rog7, +9 melee (1d6+1/crit 18-20)
Ftr7, +12/+7 melee (1d10+4/crit 19-20)
Umber Hulk: AC 17, 16 flat-foot

Normally, when the umber hulk is flanked by these two:
* Rogue deals 5d6+1 points of damage 75% of the time (plus an additional 1d6+1 points 9.75% of the time)
* Fighter Power Attacks for 4, dealing 1d10+8 70% and 1d10+8 45% (with a decent chance for another 1d10+8).
* Average damage (including crits): 31.46 (the rogue deals about 45% of the total damage)

If the umber hulk ignores the fighter:
* Rogue deals 1d6+1 points of damage 65% of the time (plus crit chance)
* Fighter Power Attacks for 4, gaining an invisibility bonus in place of a flanking bonus, striking a lower AC, and getting auto-threat.
* Average damage (including crits): 40.31 (the rogue deals about 31% of the total damage)

If you really want to make a case for ignoring = bad, use a foe with a high Dex bonus to AC and a fighter with a scythe. As it stands now, though, ignoring a "rea" foe in combat can be deadly.

Edit: The fighter actually deals more damage than originally posted when he's ignored - damage is automatically maxed. Oops!

 

[drnuncheon]

That's exactly what I was going to say. When you ignore a character, you're not protecting yourself at all; with an invisible character, you're dodging away from the attacker when you feel the weapon hit you, and you're occasionally making a wild swing in their direction to keep them away. When you ignore them, you're not even doing that.

After all this, I ask again: If you don't know the invisible opponent is there, how can you dodge away from him? Why would you make wild swings to keep him away? (Is it some kind of paranoid epileptic condition that makes you flail about wih your sword just in case there's an invisible opponent nearby?) Wouldn't the first indication of the invisible opponent be a dagger up the strap? If I don't know he's there, aren't I effectively ignoring him?

As for the 'distracted by multiple opponents' - if I'm standing at 5 on the keypad and my opponents are at 9, 6, 3, and 2, I don't suffer from flanking attacks, even though I'm paying attention to twice as many attackers. The flanking bonus comes about because to defend yourself against two people on opposite sides, you have to turn your back on one or the other at some point during the round.

If you're giving an ignored combatant any more than the +2 to hit and loss of Dex bonus, then you need to give the same benefits to surprise attacks from invisible opponents if you want to be consistent.

Furthermore, since the PCs presumably don't have built-in 'invisible opponent proximity radar', if they want to avoid these penalties they need to say which squares they are expecting an invisible attack from - and opponents opposite those squares should get a flanking bonus because the PCs are distracted.

It's silly. Ignored opponent = invisible opponent is quick and clean. An undetected, unknown invisible opponent doesn't get any of these super insta-kill bonuses, so there's no reason to give them to a detected and known (but ignored) opponent.

J

 

[SpikeyFreak]

Malenkirk and Stormy have good points.

You are screwing with something that is going to severly affect game balance when you start to introduce facing and ways to get rid of the flanking.

For one thing you are just about gutting the combat effectiveness of rogues. "Oh crap, he's getting sneak attack damage, I'm going to ignore the other guy so I don't sneak attacked again."

It's a bad idea to try to fix something that doesn't really need it.

--Simple Spikey