Ignoring An Opponent?

[Plane Sailing]

I've never had PCs try this or ask about trying it. If they did, I'd probably allow them to treat one foe as invisible to deny flanking to the other.

Then, in their next battle, I'd pit them against two rogues, one using a hat of disguise to look like a dog. The dog would move to flank him, the PC would ignore the dog to concentrate on the obvious rogue, and the disguised (higher level) rogue would rip him a new one.

The problem with this approach though is that when flanked by two rogues, ignoring one of them halves the amount of sneak attack damage you take, and thus would *always* be the preferred tactic. After all, two flanking rogues would normally both do sneak attacks anyway. Plus for creatures with no dex bonus to AC to speak of, they would always do better to ignore potential flankers.

On balance I'd certainly recommend that you just stick with the basic rules. In the rogue and badger situation perhaps the badger just keeps getting underfoot

 

[diaglo]

The problem with this approach though is that when flanked by two rogues, ignoring one of them halves the amount of sneak attack damage you take, and thus would *always* be the preferred tactic. After all, two flanking rogues would normally both do sneak attacks anyway. Plus for creatures with no dex bonus to AC to speak of, they would always do better to ignore potential flankers.

On balance I'd certainly recommend that you just stick with the basic rules. In the rogue and badger situation perhaps the badger just keeps getting underfoot

i would also deny shield bonus to the PC against the ignored attacker.

 

[Storm Raven]

I'd rule that if you wanted to completely ignore a flanking opponent, then you would:

(1) Not threaten that opponent; and
(2) Be subject to an AoO from that opponent each round; and
(3) Lose any Dexterity, dodge, or insight bonuses to AC; and
(4) Treat your opponent as invisible, granting him all the benefits and inflicting upon you all the attendant drawbacks; and
(5) Be considered a helpless defender against that opponent.

Do you still want to ignore your attacker?

 

[Warehouse23]

As someone who loves the RAW, I'd just suggest that "ignoring" a flanking opponent is already taken care of in the rules by the +2 flanking bonus for the attackers. What that bonus represents is all of the things folks have mentioned: the inherent difficulty to evade two or more sets of blows, not seeing a second attacker, chosing to ignore the lesser threat, etc. For that reason, I'd disagree with the interpretation that you "cannot flank a blind creature." Remeber: for a highly tactical game, 3.5 still has hugely abstract rules.

For a test of this RAW-only interpretation, have two of your coworkers stand on either side of you and smack you with rulers/papers/shipping tubes/whatever. I promise that you will have trouble evading those blows, no matter how nimble you are and no matter how much you try to ignore one of them.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

This is a bit like breaking the 'can't run' when blind rule. The player is wanting to have their character ignore their inbuilt limitations of action which are an abstraction of self preservation, so as to out-maneuver the meta rules which the players have to adhere to.

Thematically I'd call this "taking the character for a joy ride", & no I don't like the direction it goes.

The abstraction of hit points consist of part physical conditioning, part minimizing harm (hence no defence bonus to AC) & part luck. What a player that wants to ignore a flanker is saying is that they want to transcend self preservation by not having their hit points apply to one attacker, among other things. I think this gives good reason to believe that the cdg rules should be applicable somewhere within such a house rule.

Ultimately, in acknowledgement to the fact that I the dm am not all-powerful within a collaborative game, I would ask the players their opinion & give great weight to the players of rogues with sneak attack & barbarians with improved uncanny dodge. Just as I successfully petitioned the removal of "animated" from shields to validate the S&B fighting style, players of such classes should have a say over a houserule which (imho) will screw them royally.

 

[elrobey]

Let's call a spade a spade. You are not trying to *ignore* a flanker (opponent A); you are trying to *avoid being flanked* (by opponent B).

There is a class feature for being 'unflankable'. If you want to avoid being flanked, get enough levels in an appropriate class so that you gain access to this as a class feature.

It's that simple.

 

[AuraSeer]

Let's call a spade a spade. You are not trying to *ignore* a flanker (opponent A); you are trying to *avoid being flanked* (by opponent B).

That's technically true, but you're missing the point. Consider what happens when a creature is flanked by opponents of highly varied power levels.

My favorite extreme example is a Colossal dragon who is threatened on one side by four Rog20s standing side by side, and on the other side by an ordinary nonmagical poodle. One of these forces is highly dangerous, while the other is completely unable to harm the dragon even on a max-damage critical.

By the RAW, the dragon is forced to pay equal attention to each set of opponents. It must devote some of its effort to "defending" against the harmless little dog, effectively turning its back on the rogues and leaving itself open to a devastating series of sneak attacks.

The house rule is designed to avoid this kind of situation. The dragon should have the option to devote its entire attention to the main threat, leaving the insignificant annoyance until later. Let the stupid poodle gnaw on a scaly ankle as much as it wants; the dragon won't even notice.

(Of course there's the possibility that the lesser threat is more deadly than it looks. That's what the AoOs are for. If that normal-looking puppy is actually the feared CR 25 Tarrassadoodle, the dragon is in for a rude surprise when he neglects to defend against it.)

 

[frankthedm]

simple way to alieve the situation is to bring back facing

 

[elrobey]

I understand the point completely, and I stand by what I said.

Respectfully, I think you are missing the point. The point is that this is the Rules forum, which is for discussion of the rules. You want to take this to the House Rules forum, that's fine, but a discussion of house rules doesn't belong here.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

The problem with this approach though is that when flanked by two rogues, ignoring one of them halves the amount of sneak attack damage you take, and thus would *always* be the preferred tactic. After all, two flanking rogues would normally both do sneak attacks anyway. Plus for creatures with no dex bonus to AC to speak of, they would always do better to ignore potential flankers.

The trick is that the obvious rogue is low-level, with bad equipment. He's a flunky who doesn't have much chance of hitting the fighter in the first place, with very little SA damage even if he does. The other rogue, on the other hand, is deadly. Or at least, that was my thought at three o'clock last night.

On balance I'd certainly recommend that you just stick with the basic rules. In the rogue and badger situation perhaps the badger just keeps getting underfoot

Probably the best idea.