I flank myself! ...

[CRGreathouse]

One of two things will most likely happen: a)The flanker will die from one of the dragon's three to six attacks (depending on size) or breath weapon, or b)It's not going to roll a natural 20 on it's saving throw against the thing's fearsome aura, and run for it, dying from an AAO. Really, monsters so powerful they should logically be able to ignore certain enemies have so many advantages already that it's really a bad idea to stack things in their favor.

The wizard casts summon monster (either with Quicken Spell or haste so it comes on the same round) and the rogue does a full sneak attack. Yes, it'll be killed the next round, but who cares?

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Again, do you guys think that you can be flanked by an invisibile opponent?

Of course. By the rules you can.

Logic also tells me you can do it. If your opponent is fighting against one of your teammate he is more distracted than usual and that gives you flanking bonus on top of invisibility advantage. And if you start bashing on your opponent, this will distract your opponent who will then be forced to adjust his fighting chance to your presence, no matter whether he like it or not, and that will gives your partner flanking bonus.

 

[Pielorinho]

I think if an invisible person was haking at my back it would really distract me. I don't know how you would act, but I find it hard to believe that you would ignore someone hitting you with a sword just because you couldn't see them.

That's a very interesting case of "out-of-sight, out-of-mind."

Out of mind, indeed.

Reread what you quoted. I referred to an opponent "of whom you're unaware." Surely you're not suggesting that you'd be unaware of an invisible opponent hacking at your back.

Again: could you be flanked by an opponent of whom you're unaware?

Given the situation in which you might ignore the fighter to concentrate on the rogue, and the fighter is therefore considered invisible, consider this: you suddenly can't make an AoO on the fighter. That means she often gets to grapple you, or sunder your weapon, or disarm you, or any number of other nasty attacks. You ignore someone at your own peril.

Daniel

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Of course opening a flank attack while invisible tends to reveal your position.

Hmm...that suggests a good use of an animal companion that may be incapable of causing damage due to DR or somesuch. Have him be Invisible and on full defense. Then the target has to consider whether to take a 50% miss chance against a target that is not actually damaging him, suffer the flank attacks, or make a tactical retreat.

Could work for familiars, too. But most lack the necessary 5' reach.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Hmm...that suggests a good use of an animal companion that may be incapable of causing damage due to DR or somesuch. Have him be Invisible and on full defense. Then the target has to consider whether to take a 50% miss chance against a target that is not actually damaging him, suffer the flank attacks, or make a tactical retreat.

Could work for familiars, too. But most lack the necessary 5' reach.

...thus the reason for my house rule.

 

[Forrester]

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

I'm with you. I might give the creature being completely ignored an extra +2 to attack, and the auto crit-threat isn't a bad idea, but for realism's sake some sort of house rule is in order. A rogue getting massive sneak attack damage against a giant because the wizard of the party managed to summon a Celestial Badger on the previous initiative click is just stupid.

 

[AuraSeer]

[Somehow lost nearly all of what I typed. Edited to put the rest back in, as near as I can remember it.]

As an aside, the teeny-creature-flanking-big-creature does not only show up against massive monsters. One of my PCs carries a Bag of Tricks for use in every challenging combat; the creatures do very little damage by themselves, but have been tremendously useful in setting up flanking situations for the rogue.

Here's a question that might clear things up a little: Can you be flanked by an illusion?

We have a PC in melee with a single opponent. An enemy spellcaster casts a Major Image, and a figment of a dire wolf runs slavering up to flank the character.

A) Say the PC is Bob the Barbarian, who can't tell a Major Image from a Summon Monster. He has every reason to believe the wolf is real. Is Bob considered flanked?

B) Say the PC is Steve the Sorcerer. Steve knows his Spellcraft, and he correctly identified the spell as it was cast. He knows the wolf is just a figment, and cannot possibly harm him. Is Steve considered flanked?

C) Say the PC is Mike the Monk. He has no Spellcraft, but he sees and hears the wolf close its jaws on his bare arm, and feels no pain. He decides that it's almost certainly an illusion, and in any case probably can't hurt him. He focuses all his attention on the original opponent, ignoring the wolf entirely. Is Mike considered flanked?

If you answer "yes" to any of the above questions, then flanking is a function of distraction, not physical interference. In such a case, it's quite sensible to allow 'ignoring' of one flanker in order to concentrate on the other.

IMC, I'd give the ignored attacker a double (+4) flanking bonus to hit, as well as removing the defender's Dex bonus against his attacks. I wouldn't give any bonus to damage; that's what Power Attack is for. Also, the ignored attacker could not draw any AoO from the defender.

In effect, the defender would be simply treated as flat-footed with respect to the ignored attacker. This prevents puny creatures from getting killing strikes, while still making sure that it's a bad idea to ignore a reasonably threatening opponent. And since it doesn't refer to invisibility, creatures with blindsight don't complicate anything.

 

[IceBear]

I agree that using Monster Summoning I to flank a dragon is cheesy and should be addressed, but there are a couple of problems:

1) If you state that the ignored opponent is treated the same as if they were invisible, then I don't feel that a the character deciding to ignore the fighter in order to prevent the rogue from sneak attacking him as having a large enough penalty. To me, you would almost always ignore the non-rogue so that you wouldn't suffer sneak attacks and thus lessen the value of the rogue.

2) If you use something more drastic as the penalty for ignoring someone (free CdG attempt, auto-crit, etc) then you will make someone think twice about ignoring an opponent, but then it doesn't make sense with respect to invisibility.

It's a tough one.

IceBear

 

[Pielorinho]

What about this, then:

You can ignore someone, treating them as if they're invisible, until you suffer damage from them.

Once you've suffered damage from them, you cannot ignore them for the remainder of the combat.

That solves the Irish Setter vs. the Dragon dilemma nicely, while still making it very difficult to ignore a fighter who's whaling on you.

Daniel

 

[drnuncheon]

An invisible enemy (even improved invisible) is only undetected until they begin to attack. When I feel their sword hit me, I swing my weapon in their direction, move slightly away, and generally try to reduce the damage they deal me.

You do realize that an opponent causes a flanking situation even if he's not attacking you, right?

If the setup is like this:

G C G F G
(G = goblin, C = Cleric, F = Fighter)

then all three goblins get flanking bonuses, regardless of who the center goblin is attacking.

Originally posted by Storm Raven

Invisible opponents are not also automatically silent, scentless, and formless. You can possibly hear, smell or feel their presence (by feeling their presence, I mean that their motion causes disturbances in the air, some people, myself included, can notice this sort of thing in the right circumstances).

In addition, being invisible does not mean that the effects of their actions are invisible. Dust moved by their motions and footprins can help give them away, and so can any number of other factors. An invisible opponent is difficult to deal with, but it isn't like they have an automatic 'immune to detection' spell on as well.


I believe that all of this is covered under the following rule: "A Spot check result of greater than 20 can generally let the character become aware of an invisible creature near the character (though the character can't actually see it)." The sounds are covered under Listen checks.

(Please note that in combat, a character is going to count as 'distracted' for a further -5 penalty.)

So, it is entirely possible and even likely to be invisible and to approach someone engaging in melee combat while remaining undetected. Thus my question: If I don't know Invisble Guy is there (failed Spot & Listen checks), does he cause a flanking situation? If so, why? What if he doesn't reveal himself by attacking me?

If he doesn't cause flanking, then I'm effectively ignoring him - are you going to let him get a Coup de Grace with automatic maximum damage and a cherry on top like some people seem to be suggesting? I think you'd see monsters dropping like flies from invisible rogues (so at least the 'gutting the rogue's combat potential' isn't a problem).

J