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<blockquote data-quote="StreamOfTheSky" data-source="post: 4920233" data-attributes="member: 35909">The Fighter can't take the AoO, and in fact doesn't threaten the L1 guy, by virtue of the fact he's IGNORING him completely. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />And yes, Kerrick, I'm serious.&nbsp; To totally disregard a foe threatening you is a grevious laxitude.&nbsp; If you really want to get technical about the whole &quot;what if the guy has no chance at all of harming me?&quot; scenario, he's still at least a nuissance.&nbsp; If someone kept jabbing me in the spine with a plastic knife, it wouldn't really hurt, but I wouldn't be able to just ignore it for long without turning around and strangling the little bastard.And from a game balance perspective, it's important to make sure the rogue gets his flanking benefit in melee.&nbsp; Even with it, he generally gets pulverized by an equal level fighter in a full attack exchange.&nbsp; And there could be many situations where mathematically if the penalties were minor, it would be very much worthwhile to ignore the rogue's flanking buddy.And again, this is all not taking into account the point another poster made (I forgot to, glad he did): awareness has nothing to do with getting flanked.&nbsp; Invisible attackers can flank you, even if you don't realize one of them is there.&nbsp; Flanking in 3E is some weird mish-mash of abstracted facing rules + coordinated teamwork + other stuff all rolled into one simple condition.Back to the coup de grace thing.&nbsp; I think if the fighter truly were ignoring the L1 guy completely and not caring to leave his defenses wide open, it makes perfect sense for the L1 to line up a coup de grace.&nbsp; What the OP is talking about goes beyond &quot;not seeing&quot; the weak ally.&nbsp; The fighter is actively choosing to not even try to defend himself.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="StreamOfTheSky, post: 4920233, member: 35909"] The Fighter can't take the AoO, and in fact doesn't threaten the L1 guy, by virtue of the fact he's IGNORING him completely. :) And yes, Kerrick, I'm serious. To totally disregard a foe threatening you is a grevious laxitude. If you really want to get technical about the whole "what if the guy has no chance at all of harming me?" scenario, he's still at least a nuissance. If someone kept jabbing me in the spine with a plastic knife, it wouldn't really hurt, but I wouldn't be able to just ignore it for long without turning around and strangling the little bastard. And from a game balance perspective, it's important to make sure the rogue gets his flanking benefit in melee. Even with it, he generally gets pulverized by an equal level fighter in a full attack exchange. And there could be many situations where mathematically if the penalties were minor, it would be very much worthwhile to ignore the rogue's flanking buddy. And again, this is all not taking into account the point another poster made (I forgot to, glad he did): awareness has nothing to do with getting flanked. Invisible attackers can flank you, even if you don't realize one of them is there. Flanking in 3E is some weird mish-mash of abstracted facing rules + coordinated teamwork + other stuff all rolled into one simple condition. Back to the coup de grace thing. I think if the fighter truly were ignoring the L1 guy completely and not caring to leave his defenses wide open, it makes perfect sense for the L1 to line up a coup de grace. What the OP is talking about goes beyond "not seeing" the weak ally. The fighter is actively choosing to not even try to defend himself. [/QUOTE]

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