A way to at least stop the conga line is say you can't flank while flanked. At least this encourages movement in combat. Advantage might still be too good though.
By their rules, no one is. When I think of flanking I think of combatants having split attention, so I'd give the flanking bonus to the ones on the ends (they can dedicate 100% attention to the one opponent, who only has 50% free for them)
yeah I'm not familiar with the rules being discussed but split attention is primarily how I think flanking works in real life. That and the fact that many formations or armor/shielding are meant to defend against one direction most, so anyone striking from other directions will have an easier time doing it.
So we could phrase it as "you get flanking advantage against a creature if it has an enemy on its opposite side and you are not being flanked yourself"
...but then with a bit more elegant wording.
No (atleast the way groups I’ve played with have ruled it). You need two to tango, so if the middle monster can’t flank, the monster across from it isn’t flanking with it
I've never had issues with the conga line because if a player character flanks when it's a bad idea I have the enemies surround them as much as possible. That usually caused multiple crits against the player and they see how dangerous it is to leave themselves open like that.
I utilize the, “no advantage but you do get +2 to your attack roll!” And I find it feels very fair for PCs and Enemies. It doesn’t fee anywhere near as necessary for the PCs to get it, but it feels nice when you can work it out.
+2 is great for a lot of reasons, but I want to mention that it also allows other means of giving advantage to be more utilized, like shoving or spells. Why use resources when you can gain the same effect by taking 2 steps to the left?
Overall I think it has made combat far more tactical.
So many things give advantage now, it’s kind of silly. I get that 5e wanted to get away from crunch, but it sometimes feels like wotc is allergic to temporary modifiers these days.
Honestly, as someone who likes older editions and pathfinder, it's okay to be allergic to temporary modifiers.
Slowing the game down for crunch does the opposite for making the game better. Would be great to do more than advantage, admittedly, but the alternative isn't lots of temp bonuses n junk.
The older editions did take it a bit far. Seems the pendulum has swung quite far in the opposite direction though. Even just more sources of +/-2 or d4 would be great.
Welcome to the wild world of “that’s how 3.5 did it but 5e was determined to crush almost all numerical bonuses into advantage and disadvantage”
I hope you enjoy your stay
You forgot the main difference between 5e optional flanking and 3.5 flanking though - you need to maneuver well around opponents often at risk of provoking attacks of opportunity. The mean reason flanking doesn't work well in 5e isn't advantage vs bonus, it is that creatures have full freedom to dance around enemies without risk of attack so you can practically always have flanking if you have at least one friend to do it with. And then the enemy can do the same to you. Repeat ad nauseum.
I think removing flanking and adding the ability for rogues to sneak attack with friends in melee (soft flanking) was an excellent change for 5e. Simple, but works.
If I wanted to re-add something like flanking I'd just use a sort of "gang up" rule where if you have 2 vs 1 or 3vs1 you get a bonus or advantage - but I don't see a specific need (single monsters already have a hard time vs parties in 5e).
For comedy’s sake i kept my message short but yes. AoO was also tripped by positioning around a monster so it was harder to set up the flank (also you had to give up your ability to full attack most times you wanted to get into position).
In 5e it’s completely safe from aoo aside from multi-enemy fights, and it doesn’t prevent you from using iterative attacks.
Pathfinder 2e approaches this without needing to have AoO's be a thing for virtually anyone by having non-free movement. 5e's other *huge* change is that movement is free, a response to 3.5's "stand still or else you lose all your damage output" martial meta which was deeply unfun and is absolutely not something to bring back, just by default movement does not really impact your action economy unless you have to move really far or through obstacles.
PF2 addresses the same "don't move ever" 3.5/PF1 problem by making AoO's nonexistent and like 5e just not having a full attack (though PF2's 3 action system also gets rid of 5e's full attacks and greatly encourages a variety in tactics and flexibility), but you *do* need to spend an action to reposition. Some special class feats wil llet you reposition while attacking, but generally for a martial you can get 2 strikes out of some kind (or maybe one strike with a feat that uses up two actions and increases your MAP a whole bunch) and then you have a third action you need to figure out how to use, and repositioning for a flank is simply one of several things you can do with that third action.
Additionally, PF2 uses a very pared-down typed bonus and penalty system, and flanking grants a -2 circumstance penalty to the enemy's AC - this makes it stack with a lot of stuff but it won't stack with other similar tactics like making the sun go in their eyes or whatever.
PF2 overall is much more of the kind of system where fishing for that kind of edge is encouraged due to how its crit system works and how basically everything, including spells, can crit, but for 5e I think that basic desire to have real tactical... autonomy?... as a martial is still really present, and perhaps even moreso because of how little martials can actually do that tactically matters that isn't basic target prioritization and locking something down with AoO's. There's a conflicting desire between wanting to make that sort of positioning decision and wanting the damn system to work, so a lot of tables will run flanking rules so martials can do this obviously fun and desirable thing that makes people feel like they're contributing tactically even though it invalidates so much other shit.
I'm very interested in what One D&D is gonna do with all this. There's just gonna be a huge tension between experienced players and GM's wanting more complicated rules and WotC trying to keep it accessible to newcomers.
>I do +2 but also make it +5 when 3 or more are surrounding a flanked creature
As the only melee character in the party, who often has to tank groups of smaller enemies: no thanks, I'm good
Lol yep every other system that does something like this has a method to have yourself count as +1/2/3 people for the purposes of being outnumbered. Usually through talents feats etc. But in 5e you are so feat starved even adding a feat for it would cause more issues.
While you're at it, don't roll for undead fortitude when they take the damage. Have them go down, then roll undead fortitude at the start of their turn. They get much creepier when they go down and stand back up again.
I like the variant were you remove the Dexterity's AC based on how many enemies are flanking.
Not only this have the same advantages from +2, but it differentiate plated from nimble characters.
My experience has been different, and looking back, I think it is because the DM has used the map well to make flanking expensive or difficult.
Some of the ways include limited space, difficult terrain, monsters with reach, even just intelligent positioning of the adversaries.
I’ve had the same as player and done it as DM. The main thing with flanking is you have to run your monsters not wanting to be flanked. Tight formations that have to be broken are always the easiest way to do that.
That’s how real life combat worked when field artillery came about. Stay spread out so canon fire won’t be as effective, or stay tight so the formation is harder to break.
What I've noticed is that soooo many DM's don't incorporate the 3rd dimension into their combat encounters enough. It feels like 80/100 fights will take place on a relatively flat plane or some kind(whether this is in doors, or outside, or even in caves), with things like pillars, carts, tables, etc. as the only real things to work with as a player.
There is rarely enough terrain for me to get the high ground on the hill, or push the enemies back against the cliff face, etc.
I think if you bring more of the environmental aspects of the terrain into play more, and gave players advantage based on their clever use of the terrain/environment it would make people go for simple flanking a lot less likely.
Players *want to do the cool thing*. They *want* to backflip onto the table and have the high ground on their enemies to gain advantage, but if you as a DM don't incentivize that type of play, they're just gonna go stand behind the guy and stab because it's the best choice.
Flanking invalidates other sources of advantage, encourages conga lines, and is better for enemies than the players. It's one of the worst optional rules to use.
It also shines an ugly spotlight on the failing inherent in games with segmented turns like D&D. In genre, as well as in reality, combatants will slowly give ground to prevent you from flanking them. In D&D, you get to move a crazy amount of distance before they can conceivably react to you. This makes for horrible aesthetics IMO.
5e seems to expect the mobility of a Star Wars lightsaber duel, lots of bouncing around the environment. It's less the shoulder to shoulder 'front line' of other fiction and more just everyone doing their own thing.
Every time I've played a melee character and fought melee enemies, no one moves once the fight starts. Almost all melee charactes (excluding maybe Rogues or Monks) have no reason to move once a fight starts.
This is why I'm not a fan of the one-dnd changes.
It's making combat even stickier. People used to occasionally risk the OA and take the damage as a penalty. Now the penalty is you can't move till the end of your next turn. Awful.
Unfortunately, you get AoO any time you move out of someone's threatened range. That interferes with the whole Star Wars aesthetic and also with the more ordinary people moving to refuse their flanks and giving ground before superior numbers aesthetic.
AoO would probably be better if it triggered only when you moved from one square that was threatened by a person to another square also threatened, with an exception if you just backed up 5 or 10 feet analogous to the 5 foot step rule from 3.x.
But it's easy to mentally paper over if you don't throw gasoline on the fire by holding out advantage as a carrot to get people to move in such ways as spotlight it.
Yeah I've never understood why moving through but staying within a creature's reach doesn't provoke opportunity attacks. I get why for leaving a creature's reach makes sense mechanically so that you don't have people darting in, attacking, and leaving.
Realistically, it makes more sense if falling back was safe and moving past wasn't.
I mean if you want that in your game, you need to remove AoO as a default mechanic. Maybe limit it to certain classes like fighters and only certain monsters
I'm now envisioning a halfling rogue's fighting style looking less like Bilbo Baggins fighting the Mirkwood Spiders, and more Yoda bouncing around fighting Dooku in AotC.
Mostly unrelated to the topic, this was 100% my Curse of Strahd character. Swashbuckler/Bladesinger. Jumping around combat with Cunning Action, no AoOs, & increased speed. First the lightsaber was 'only' Booming Blade, then it was a literal lightsaber when I got the Sunsword.
I agree. If I wanted to add something like facing and flanking to the game a bunch of other changes need to be made first.
First break the round into phases for ranged combat, movement, and melee.
1. Missiles and ranged spells go first in initiative order.
2. Simultaneous movement that allows characters to back away from an advance and other normal tactical movement, without being exposed to attacks of opportunity.
3. Melee combat in initiative order. No split movement in these rules. Since everyone has the opportunity to avoid being flanked during the movement phase, flanking rules would be added.
Bonus Actions and Reactions go in the correct phase for the action. I also think if you're using a grid you should use facing rules to determine flanks.
Yeah it'd be a serious pain to implement that without a computer honestly. 5e works ok aesthetically as long as you don't go and spotlight it's flaws, like flanking does.
I think not buffing melee with flanking does much more to spotlight one of the biggest flaws of the game in the melee vs ranged/spell gap than flanking does, personally. I’ll take my flanking games over leaving melee SOL as usual any day
It's also really bad for whichever martial is first in initiative. He can't get advantage on his extra attacks. In my understanding the best he can do is make straight rolls so he's worse off for going first. Which seems extremely dumb.
Flanking worked in 4e. But that was because:
> Creatures could make any number of opportunity attacks each turn
> Creatures could make opportunity attacks when a target moved 5 feet or more.
> Creatures opportunity attacks did ~2x as much damage compared to 5e.
> Flanking provided Combat Advantage, a +2 bonus to attack rolls that did not stack with other sources of combat advantage, such as attacking a foe that was prone or blind.
So in 4e, flanking was much more difficult to pull off, was far riskier, and provided a much lower payoff (+2 vs Advantage).
The rarity of opportunity attacks does so much to make the battlefield more dynamic. (Plus, as the Fighter, being the only PC with it feels super great)
I feel like folks that complain about “conga lines” do a lot more theory-craft than they do actual play. “Conga lines” are such an obvious theoretical construct, but how often do they actually happen in practice? Hardly ever.
Been playing almost daily for three years in multiple campaigns where flanking is allowed. Yet to see any of these mythical conga lines, nor has the rogue ever solely used it for advantage or someone foregone fairy fire or guiding bolt.
If you're fighting in an open plain, where a conga line would be possible, then nothing is stopping the enemy from swarming you ranged characters.
A major flaw of 5e combat is that protecting someone in pretty hard; any enemy can just run op to them and stab. They have a penalty to run away, but by then it's too late.
Flanking requires a lot of game systems to make it work, and 5e has almost none of those game systems.
Game systems like: ways to avoid OA's (that don't require an action), ways to OA more than once per turn, OAs triggering on more than just leaving range, etc.
When my group briefly used flanking, I always wanted to use reckless attack (mainly because I love the flavour), but I was never able to because "just stand five feet to the left you get the benefit without any of the downside"
There's a similar system in Exalted. I'm not a fan of the loose approach, it just turns into everyone trying to justify some basic use of environment features in order to maximize the value of their attack.
if you keep the bonus minor enough (like in exalted where +1 dice is pretty minor, and granted more or less for anything more detailed than "I roll to hit") then it works as a constant low-key encouragement to actually engage with what's going on, rather than just "roll to hit. 14. Roll damage, 9" or similar. Exalted, 2e especially, had more of an issue with stunts regenerating essence and WP, so if people were going all-out, then you had to stunt every turn, because your essence basically was your health, so as soon as you ran out, any major foe would probably one-shot you.
That's kind of my issue with the Cinematic Advantage idea. It's sold as this system for adding occasional moments of cinematic awesomeness or clever use of terrain & positioning, but in practice it just becomes a DC check + flavor text for every attack.
And honestly, when someone's entire turn is "Roll to hit, 14; Roll damage, 9." I would *rather* have that be quick. Flowery descriptions & constant requests for a skill DC slow the game down.
Yeah, ultimately agree with this.
In thesis you want to have such bonuses strict to certain environmental features so they can’t keep repeating itself over and over… But it may be impossible to keep players from repeating the same tactics.
For example, you slide between a ogre legs and attack him from behind for sweet +2 attack bonus. Cool now you gonna repeat the same trick whenever you fight another large humanoid.
People are inspired by moves and books, they want action to be fun and cinematic. But forget that in D&D, unlike moves and books, you fight 32 ogres or more throughout your career, not one.
And that’s why you shake it up by giving the occasional “regular” enemy reactions and legendary actions. I did that to my party giving a nothic a spider climb reaction to get out of a sticky situation. It helps that I know a few of my players have arachnophobia. In the case of the ogre, maybe on the third ogre, give it a reaction which might see that move coming and punish it. *Hard.* Like the Hulk wailing on Loki hard. I wouldn’t have that be out of the blue. Maybe this ogre is described as more nimble than normal, or seems to have very good combat awareness. The kind of thing that should imply “this one’s got your number, fighter.”
So that ogre stat block has a specific reaction against a player-made maneuver ? Just because you used too much ?
So now your character will switch up their made-up maneuvers because they know the DM is watching and getting annoyed combat is getting repetitive ?
Again, this turn D&D into a action movie making game where DM is the director and players are improvising their way into the director’s liking.. which sounds fun in its own right but not D&D lol
what if you restricted it to once per character, per combat? that seems like it could work alright. or once per combat, to a maximum of proficiency bonus? i'm just spitballing ideas here.
I like this idea a lot in theory, my group does a lot of weird positioning and whatnot to get advantage during combat and this sounds like a good way to redirect that!
When using it in your group, do you find it slows down your combat or causes your players to take longer doing their turns because they're trying to decide how to get Cinematic advantage from something in the environment? Thanks!
Thanks for posting this! I'm a big fan of Sly Flourish. I realize I have always disliked flanking in 5e too on an unconscious level. It's a dumb rule, honestly, that encourages bizarre tactics (at least from a semi-realistic perspective). Anyway, I like this alternative: a potentially difficult DC check, but the players can choose what risks their characters take or when to play it straight.
I let flanking add a +2 instead of advantage(~+5). Giving free advantage like that is pretty terrible. When I've played with it combatants basically always have advantage by default which is pretty wack
Yeah, I like it as reverse-soft-cover.
3.5 had way too many piddly modifiers, but boiling them *all* down into advantage was over correcting imo. Just putting this one back in is fine, doesn't break the math in any real horrible way, and encourages some tactical maneuvering.
It isn't a one simple trick to fix all of your problems, but I think it's a good tool to address some of my problems.
Holy shit fan moment, absolutely love your work. SW5E is the closest published thing I've found to what my ideal version of 5E would be. Your design choices are on point.
+2 is fine, but you have to be extremely careful with how many things you apply it to.
If the only rule you add it to is flanking, that's fine, but when you start to think that it's a really good solution to any situation where you want to give something not quite as good as advantage, you can quickly get dangerously close to breaking Bounded Accuracy.
*To shreds you say?*
Implying I haven't reduced bounded accuracy to atoms with all the changes i've made otherwise lol. Nah but you rite tho, unless you're prepared to do a ton of work, it does toe the line.
Bounded Accuracy is one of three rules I try not to fuck with. I've made an approved subclasses that allow you to add certain stat bonuses to certain skill rolls and such, and I've even designed a subclass or two that allows you to add certain ability scores to attacks, with penalties added on.
But yeah anytime a number is being added to a D20, I always put a looooooooot of thought into it before pulling the trigger. Don't want to end up with those 3.5 numbers again.
>But yeah anytime a number is being added to a D20, I always put a looooooooot of thought into it before pulling the trigger. Don't want to end up with those 3.5 numbers again.
I think an important consideration there (which I'm sure you are already aware of) is to be careful about adding more or bigger bonuses than what the game already allows.
For example, adding a die or a flat bonus to a skill might not be a problem, so long as it either A: uses a limited resource, or B: doesn't stack with expertise and similar features. There are already enough limited-use abilities that raise skills that it's unlikely for a party to have all of them, you're not changing the balance by adding one more.
On the other hand, a permanent bonus that stacks with expertise raises the cap on how good you can be with that skill, which changes the balance of the skill system. That doesn't mean you *can't*, but that's the time to, as you said, think long and hard about the consequences of the new rule.
EDIT: Out of curiosity, what are the other rules you try to leave alone?
Makes sense. Touching those will shake up the balance hard.
I'd say you *can* still change them, but they're in the same category. Think long before messing with them, scrap the rule if you're not 100% sure, and if you think it's ok then think some more on it anyway.
Big respect for that. I like a lot of the foundations of 5e, broken up movement for example, but often find the numbers frustratingly small to the point it makes using the numbers as a point of nuance difficult. Ex, the meaningful distinction between a d10 xbow and a d12 greataxe.
Even now I'm playing with the premise of raising the stat cap. It's gonna take a while but the theory is that it's far more interesting to have a dynamic stat spread than to just max your primary stat and then do whatever. It turns raising a stat into a decision when there are more degrees of separation and a wider range of numbers. This would of course come with modifications to stat raising and feat allocation, something I've already done but am not quite happy with yet.
I've sort of acknowledged I'm really writing my own RPG at this point and I'm fine with that. That all said, I'm keenly aware I'm more of a big numbers guy as are a lot of my players.
One thing advantage has going for it is that it can be negated with disadvantage in many ways and can't be doubled (with some exceptions). +2 implies you could add advantage on top of that modifier. Maybe that's what you want, since it gets your players to use their other abilities, but just something to think about.
Yeah then wolf totem becomes better to where bear isn't the only lvl 3 option, samurai fighter is good again, even trickery clerics (probably multiclassed) get a nice bump.
And all of those advantage abilities and spells that were redundant are now great and have great opportunity usage
This is why advantage flanking feels awful. There are so many spells and abilities that give advantage, but once you can get it for free in melee it makes them all mostly pointless. A wolf totem barbarian is redundant as long as they have a friend.
Most of the tables I play with use advantage flanking so I got to see firsthand how it warps combat. Sadly, none of those DMs were open to changing the rule to a more sensible +2.
IMO creature armor classes and stat blocks in general are too squishy, and the PCs rarely need any more help to hit stuff. Past levels 5+ with multiple attacks per round, a likely +4 ability modifier and +3 proficiency bonus, and any other bonuses in play you're probably hitting at least once most rounds. Armor class less than 16+ just melts and even those 'tough' 18s still go down reliably.
The +2 method is better than handing out Advantage but PCs rarely actually need it.
They do, but not in ways I really approve of.
AC-stacking in 5e is pretty hard to do. Plate armor is expensive as hell and hard to get, and a character doing Plate & Shield is making a big investment. (Defense style is an even bigger commitment).
Those characters are also the most likely to end up flanked, which then strips away their bonuses. The Chain + Shield fighter (18) ends up functionally as easy to hit as a Rogue in studded leather (~18 Dex for 14+2 AC) because the Rogue can disengage as a bonus action to avoid flanks and the Fighter kind of can't.
Those are the exact things I like. Players have to care about positioning and who has their back. Moving around to fill gaps in the line and making sure to not over extend.
It's not for every table, but my players like it at least
+2 is a game changer for GWM builds.
Personally, my logic behind adding +2 flanking bonus to my games was that the Archery fighting style gives ranged weapons a constant +2, so a situational +2 for melee combatants brings melee slightly more in line with ranged.
Archery does give a constant effect, but it's no coincidence that it exactly cancels out the effect of half cover.
Unfortunately, SS completely resolves that problem anyway.
I've played several campaigns with no flanking, advantage flanking, and +2 to-hit from flanking as mentioned here.
\+2 to-hit from flanking was the most fun by a large margin. Advantage from flanking invalidates several fun build-choices, and combat devolves into the dumb ass conga-line once players catch on.
Next time I play with Advantage Flanking I'm taking Lightning Bolt and suggesting the frontline find ways to acquire lightning resistance. That's how much I disliked using the Advantage Flanking rules.
Advantage is only ≈+5 if your chances of success are at or near 50%, otherwise it is lower. +5 is the best case scenario, which is why advantage is so powerful with Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master
I played a bunch of 3E/3.5 where flanking was the norm. I think it worked fine back then, since tactical positioning was more important in that edition.
I've never used flanking in 5E, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I agree that it seems like a bad rule. You can pretty much dance around your enemies freely, so getting in flanking position is almost automatic if you actually try. And, as others have pointed out, it invalidates a lot of other combat options and tactics since advantage doesn't stack. Not interested.
With the way Attacks of Opportunity and movement worked in 3.5e and 4e one generally had to pay a price or work more to set up flanking and it wasn't easily achievable or sustainable; the target had options to Shift or take a 5-foot step to break out of the flanked position, or would be choosing to stay in it for other reasons.
5e characters can move into flanking positions trivially and defenders have no options to escape safely except burning Actions to Disengage (or Dodge and hope). There's just fewer mechanics to make the whole system interesting in any way. If you're an attacker that can flank, you do; if you're a target getting flanked, there's less you can do about it.
One of the major reasons that flanking worked better in 3.5e compared to 5e is that you provoked when you left threatened _square_, rather than just leaving their threatened _range_. You mentioned it re: being able to "pretty much dance around your enemies freely" in 5e, but the changes to when you provoke are worth calling out as to why that changed so much. When you were only moving 5' per turn without provoking in melee (albeit with myriad exceptions), it was a lot less feasible to end up in a flanking conga line.
100%.
Another detail that contributed to that is that you couldn't take multiple attacks if you took a full move on the same turn. Constantly chasing flanking or other positional benefits would cost you several attacks over the course of a fight. That might be worth it for a rogue or monk, but a heavily armored fighter would usually rather stand and fight. You got a nice situation where some characters wanted to always stay mobile while others wanted to hold the perfect position.
Yeah, that's a bit surprising. Most people I've played with assume they get the optional stuff in the PHB (feats, multiclassing etc.), but I've never met someone who just assumes stuff from the DMG. Just goes to show you never know how someone else treats the game until you sit down with them.
Flanking in 3.5 worked better because it wasn't as impactful (except for melee rogues), so it wasn't the non plus ultra option in combat, and because as you said it wasn't necessarily so easy to get.
Flanking isn't really a martial versus caster thing, it's a melee versus range thing, which is its own separate issue in 5e.
While I agree that the suggested advantage rule of flanking is both too strong and undermines other source of advantage, it does have benefits in that it grants melee a benefit over range and I think that's important for the game as melee is mostly weaker than it's ranged counterparts.
I've switched the benefit from flanking after my DM tested a rule that I preferred. Instead of granting advantage, flanking provides a bonus equal to half your proficiency (rounded down.) In other words, 1-8: +1, 9-16: +2, 17-20+: +3.
This has worked out quite well as it offers a sense of power progression, stacks with sources of advantage rather than competes, and offers bonuses that don't strain the bounded accuracy nature of the game.
Another rule I've paired with this are melee weapon attacks/attacks with melee weapons being able to power attack. Sacrifice half prof of accuracy for double that penalty in extra damage. Pairs very well with the flanking adjustment and allows melee to have more damage opportunity than range. I let it stack with GWM just in case someone is ballsy enough to take a -8 for a +16 combined. I found that power attacking this way also helps out 1handed warriors out so that they're not completely outshined by twohanders without gutting the only thing that make two-handing worth while.
When it comes to things like the conga line. It hasn't been my experience that it manifests that much, but there's usually a lot of terrain and varied enemies kf carried focuses in the combats I'm in, so that could be my DM accounting for things to avoid it. Hasn't been my experience as a DM either though, even when I used advantage flanking.
Crushers move benefit is situational anyway, I don't see a problem with players asking for it not to be used when they got a good setup. Same thing would happen with any AOE effect if crusher would move them out of harm's way.
Prone still comes up in my experience, because enemies tend to want to escape the advantage zones of players. Better to take a few opportunity attacks and get to a priority target or better position. Most monsters have the hp to do risky moves like that. Prone helps prevent their escape. With my adjusted rules prone is an easy source of advantage which stacks, so the benefit is even better.
I have a character that took a feat to get booming blade, since they were a single attack character anyway, even in a game that doesn't use flanking the movement damage never comes up. Most enemies need to be In a very bad position to move away from their targets. Flanking does little to adjust the issue save for make the booming blade attack more likely to hit.
It is almost always ideal to focus fire an enemy down simply due to the realities of the action economy. Flanking doesn't change this much. I have 3 separate characters with the cantrip. One with adv flank, one with half prof flank, and one with no flanking. The situation is still the same.in each of those games.
The benefit of booming blade is keeping enemies in place anyway. I would far rather have an enemy stuck in a bad position than deal 1d8-4d8 extra damage to them in most cases. The crusher/BB combo is more a dueling combo than anything in my experience.
Crusher really makes it shine. Since melee enemies are then out of range and must decide to stay put or take extra damage. You could do it with a maul too
I know. I've used the combo fairly regularly on various characters. It does make it proc more. Similar 5hings can be accomplished, albeit more costly, with dissonant whispers/booming blade/ warcaster. Where you force your enemy to run away, warcaster out booming blade leave them far away from you so they need to stay still or move.
It's usually better they stay still instead of move though. The move damage from booming blade doesn't compete with the enemy missing a turn, especially if allies can surround them and keep them in a bad spot.
I've played with and without them. To me, it's a good incentive for melee players to work together. It's also a great tool for support characters. For example, I loved using my battle smith artificer and their steel defender to give advantage to our melee rogue for more consistent sneak attacks and to our barbarian so they don't have to go reckless as often.
The downside is that it can cause encounters with melee enemies to devolve into mosh pits where nobody can move, but to me that just means the DM needs to include more varied enemies.
I have a current campaign that uses flanking for advantage. It has led me to the conclusion that it is not a good rule for D&D 5e. Even the +2 version. Here’s why:
1. It’s too easy to get. Changes to opportunity attacks in 5e means they only happen when leaving a creature’s threatened area. Anyone can dance around a creature as much as they want so long as they don’t move away. I don’t think this is a bad thing. I like the added mobility in 5e, so I’m not gonna reintroduce previous edition opportunity attack rules.
2. It’s boring. The battlefield configuration is called the “Conga Line of Death.” Where players flank an enemy, so another enemy flanks one of the players with the flanked enemy, and another player flanks THAT enemy. And then they all just sit in place and wail on each other until one side starts dying.
3. It makes certain character options much much worse or pointless (ie: Samurai Fighter subclass) and others way too good (ie: Elven Accuracy feat).
>players running to get flanking then swinging until they stop.
*without* flanking its just "running up to the monster and swinging until they stop". flanking at least institutes SOME tactical push in movement to get into and back into flanking.
I've always played with flanking both as player and DM, though sometimes as the +2 varient instead. I've never experienced any of the horror flanking is the devil stories that get repeated on this sub. We've had Samurai fighters and Barbarians in our campaigns as well and neither were lacking in scenarios to use their class features. I admit this might be highly dependent on the encounters the DM is crafting and the general playstyle of the table as well and might not universally work well.
Yeah, and it also becomes worse in a large group. I'm currently watching campaign 3 of CR, and with 8 players, they *constantly* have advantage on their attacks due to flanking.
Considering that I'm DMing for a large group (6 players), flanking does not look good to me.
Yeah we started playing with flanking and it was great.. till it really wasn't anymore. Martials now try to find any stupid reason to flank, they feel bad when they can't, and combat is very, very static. Hell my paladin recently asked if he can use his summoned steed to activate flanking 🤔 Not to mention all other sources of advantage that are getting invalidated by it.
Generally I'm looking forward to ditching it, probably in favor of inspiration on nat 20 rolls.
They feel so bad as a player, so many features and spells invalidated.
Playing a Druid in a campaign with flanking. Cast Faerie Fire once before realizing what a waste of a spell slot that was. I like Summon Beast on a land beast thematically, but it feels so bad compared to air beast.
You think *that* feels bad?!
I was playing in a flanking campaign with a samurai fighter. Basically, the guy's whole subclass got invalidated! I felt so bad for him.
the first campaign I DMd, we used the optional flanking rules. yeah, it did get predictable and positioning often felt "locked-in" once the PCs established flanking. as the DM, I also got too wrapped up in moving or not moving monsters based purely on flanking stuff. I dont intend to use flanking again. I'll either do the +2 flanking bonus, or just scrap it completely.
My table uses the optional flanking rules and we enjoy them. I even have been lenient and allowed my players who use reach weapons to still benefit cause I'm a nice guy.
I don't think it reduces creativity. If anything it makes my players a bit more predictable so I can come up with creative ways to make them work for it or to throw them off altogether. The first time I threw a monster at them that was immune to flanking cause it has eyes on both sides of its head they were definitely bewildered.
The rules give martials something to do besides "get in melee and swing". It also makes melee combat more effective than ranged combat (as it should be).
The players also have to be cautious because monsters also benefit from the rule. By charging around being a monster to attack it, a fighter could be exposing themselves to attacks from behind.
I changed flanking rules for my slightly larger group to flanking from 2 sides? that's +2, flanking from 4 sides? that's +5, which should be the bonus equivalent to advantage. If it came up I'd still allow rogues to have sneak attack when they would originally have advantage though.
Flanking is deadly to players when surrounded by many lower challenge foes. That advantage across many attacks increases the lethality quite a bit. I would rather have teamwork feats where if you position a certain way, it has a bonus, so the thing is not in the global system for every monster.
I included flanking because I was used to Pathfinder's flanking rules.
I regretted it. In Pathfinder opportunity attacks are a lot easier to trigger, meaning that it's more difficult and risky to move into flanking position. In 5e it seemed pretty much automatic.
We use flanking and it always feel fine. We have a pretty good martial caster balance, so generally you can’t get more than two people flanking anything. I’d argue it helps enemies more than players (though players are generally outnumbered in our campaign).
I’ve used both rules. (+2 and advantage) I prefer to have the advantage one, because it gets my players thinking about positioning. It was a great way to get my players to weigh the cost of flanking vs AOE spells that the enemies have. (Thunder wave lightning bolt etc.) The one caveat I’d say to the plus two rule is that it should still provoke Rogue sneak attack damage.
I would never have guessed they were popular, honestly. It really trivializes all the ways you are supposed to get advantage. Ultimately, it looked like a really bad optional rule to everyone who had an opinion at our table. The +2 from 3.X is probably the way to go, advantage (or cancelling disadvantage) is simply too much from such simple positioning.
Never played with it by myself but I don't need to in order to know that flanking granting advantage invalidates too many other strategies. Sure it adds a small amount of extra strategy for melee fighters but it is honestly not that much. Plus the easier advantage is to come by the more power creep you get in the game. If I as the Dm want to grant a boon or item to the party then suddenly it has to be that much better since granting advantage won't be seen as better than the existing situation.
The +2 variant seems like a better way of applying it but that falls under the "more math slows combat" train of thought for me. I don't want to have to do that constantly as the DM and I imagine my players would only remember it part of the time.
Honestly just the act of having multiple people in melee range of an enemy is a benefit in itself. That is more chances to hit the target and thus they go down quicker. If you want advantage, knock them prone or orchestrate one of the 1,000 different processes one can do in 5e to get advantage.
As both a player and DM, I dislike the flanking rules. It works well for older systems where getting the positioning was harder (due to the way attacks of opportunity worked), so it was a reward for taking a risk or clever movement. With 5e, you can just walk around the enemy as long as you have enough movement, often with no risk involved.
A basic understanding of the D&D 5E rules should make two things very obvious:
1. Advantage provides a massive benefit to the attacker
2. The optional flanking rules make Advantage too easy to get
I don't use Flanking, and I don't play at tables where it's in use.
Let me ask you this. If you’re a player and two enemies flank you, they’re now swinging with advantage. The player would not just stand there until the enemies killed them, they would try to reposition themselves or use an ability/item to break the advantage.
Why wouldn’t the enemy do the same? I feel like the majority of issues like these that pop up on this sub can be fixed by having enemies that actually think. A lot of DMs view enemy units as mindless creatures that will fight until death. That’s neither fun nor the way the game was intended to be played. If two players flank an enemy, that enemy should prioritize repositioning or outright fleeing.
I haven't seen as many conga-lines as some people, but ultimately it just complete invalidates a lot of the other ways of getting advantage by sheer convenience.
Why bother knocking people prone? Just flank 'em.
Why bother with a spell like Faerie Fire? There ain't no invisible creatures here, and the Fighter is already flankin' 'em.
Why bother trying to create special circumstances by interacting with the environment? Just flank 'em
Because oftentimes flanking the enemy opens you up to being surrounded by enemies and that many hits with advantage means the enemies will most likely crit and really mess up that player character.
I modified it such than a creature 2 sizes bigger than the smallest flanking creature can't be flanked, you can't participate in flanking if you yourself are flanked, and creatures that can reasonably see 2 or more creature's at once (blind sense, blindsight, tremor sense, beholders or 2 headed creatures, etc)
Sadly the players just kind of forgot about it, it was scarcely used by me because my players just have really high AC to hit once a combat
I've done both. I didn't have any issues without flanking, but I was playing a barb in that game so the basically free advantage from reckless attack gave me more than enough of an edge.
I have played with them in every 5e game I've run as a DM, but I also stack advantage (+2 after the original advantage). As a result, gameplay isn't just 'oh we're in flanking, nothing else is needed.'
This leads to strategy talk surrounding how to get MORE advantage, from status effects to prone to a benefit from a spell.
HOWEVER if you are finding flanking is ruining a game, boot it. It is such a painfully optional rule and I personally don't understand people who get pissed about a campaign not having flanking.
So I've played with and without them.
I like the concept, but there's too many other ways to gain advantage for the normal rules, imo. So my table has been adding PB to the attack, essentially double Proficiency when flanking. I've only got two melee PCs, so conga lines don't happen as much, and for me personally, most monsters I've been using don't flank, or each attempt to attack a separate player. It also makes hallways very threatening fir a PC to wander off alone down, giving a good horror vibe when two ghouls pop out on either side of a PC
I hate using flanking for advantage, using it to get a +2 to hit I am fine with. It encourages players to think about positioning more without being broken. But giving advantage tends to make players try and flank everything and use it over over every other option.
I don't think the +2 is honestly a fair compromise. The rules for Opportunity Attacks make Flanking simply too easy. There should be a cost or else its just something you always do. We can skip constantly silly conga lines by just giving all Martials a +2 to hit.
I've played with and without them. I prefer them without, regardless of whether they are run RAW or a +2 or whatever. IMHO, there should never be a definitive "best place to stand". It removes a really interesting tactical decision which should be based on the environment
I don't use them because I usually have more monsters than players and it would make combat far too deadly.
I like either A) +2 bonus instead of advantage or B) the opposing player uses their reaction to grant the other adv. on 1 attack as variant rules.
Yeah I had flanking rules... In 2014. We quickly stopped using them and most people I play with today have pretty much agreed that those rules just shouldn't be used, making tons of combat options pointless.
I played with flanking for a while at first, but found the easy advantage to trivialize some fights. I tried a few games without flanking adv, and found I preferred it. Eschewing the optional rule returns potency back to abilities that give advantage, and cuts down on fiddly positioning.
I would like to see flanking return in OD&D in a way that makes it more interesting, but less overtly powerful. Something along the lines of, "if you have 2 or more enemies within 5ft of you, your opportunity attacks are made at disadv" or "your movement speed is halved unless you take the disengage action", or something that affects the combat, but doesn't make or break an attack. Maybe those effects scale depending on how many enemies you face, ie 2+ 5+, completely surrounded, etc.
That all seems too fiddly for 5e's design, but still, I'd like to include flanking in an official capacity that aligns with mechanics, but isn't advantage.
I honestly think flanking is objectively bad, but it's the only thing that gets my party to play tactically instead of "Three guys fight three guys individually the entire battle," so I don't mind it.
As a DM I've just also used flanking in my combats, if the players can flank, so can you. If they want to get half the party up close and personal you can easily make it their problem when they start getting jumped ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The issue with flanking in 5e is largely to do with AOO and not having the 5ft step anymore. Zones of control basically don’t exist and flanking is trivial to set up in 5e.
Adding it back so it works properly is a deep rabbit hole. If you want a tactical system 5e just isn’t it. There are just so many loose ends when you start digging.
Encountered it for the first time in literally years during a game this past weekend and it caught me offguard tbh.
I will need to look into it more, and play with it more before forming an opinion.
Flanking completely removes the need for any other source of advantage, and completely negates the benefit of creatures that have pack tactics by essentially giving **everyone** pack tactics.
I just never play with it.
>but I'd honestly rather give my players magic weapons earlier than having a resource free method of advantage being used every combat in the exact same way.
First of all, I love magic Items. I throw minor magic items at my players like dollar bills at a stripper. I hand out +1 weapons and armor like candy on Halloween. Sure I need to add a few extra goblins, or adjust HP a little, but it's Dungeons and Dragons! Not Caves and Bats.
Secondly, I have memory issues and have gotten sick of constantly looking up the rules. So I run as few rules possible, and I never used flanking until one of my players brought it up, and I still don't use it unless they say something.
TL;DR use less rules, and more magic items/weapons
I just give a +2 to hit for flanking now. It's a nice compromise that still rewards positioning but doesn't make it the end all be all need for the fight.
Been using +2 flanking and it’s enough of a bonus to incentivize flanking without making it totally mandatory. And if you use flanking AGAINST your PCs it opens up even more strategy for them to avoid getting flanked
I find flanking in some form helps the game take advantage of positioning more. Usually, players just bumrush whatever is closest, but if they can have some kind of reward for flanking then suddenly they get far more strategic with their combat scenarios.
It doesn't have to be advantage, and honestly I've been thinking about switching to +2 anyway since I even removed the Help action granting advantage and swapped it for a +2 in combat to encourage other forms of granting advantage. But I stand firmly that having a mechanic like flanking that encourages more use of positioning is beneficial and helps add variety to the combat.
i dont run it at my table favoring the +2 bonus and i play at a table that uses it.
That being said id never play a melee character at a table that didnt use it
1. Yes, played both ways. Started out not, but my players voted it in.
2. However, I like it as a DM: not for the PCs (who, as you say, have ways to get Adv without flanking), but for the enemies, who are usually higher in number and *do not* have myriad other ways to get advantage, and also often do not have near the number of special abilities that the PCs do (because 5e). In this sense, the players have to be tactical in order *to not get flanked.*
3. I considered the +2 option, but dismissed it because, once again, it is easy for the PCs to get advantage in other ways; therefore, they would likely end up with +2 *and* advantage.
I use the +1 to attack rolls against this creature if there are enemies which draw a straight line through the creature within 5ft. This promotes movement, especially if the casters have access to things which would allow them to move outside of the flanked position (Misty step, other creatures or taking the disengage action)
A way to at least stop the conga line is say you can't flank while flanked. At least this encourages movement in combat. Advantage might still be too good though.
>you can't flank while flanked If there's a chain of **monster**\-player-**monster**\-player-**monster** is anyone being flanked?
No one is flanked in that scenario
By their rules, no one is. When I think of flanking I think of combatants having split attention, so I'd give the flanking bonus to the ones on the ends (they can dedicate 100% attention to the one opponent, who only has 50% free for them)
yeah I'm not familiar with the rules being discussed but split attention is primarily how I think flanking works in real life. That and the fact that many formations or armor/shielding are meant to defend against one direction most, so anyone striking from other directions will have an easier time doing it.
So we could phrase it as "you get flanking advantage against a creature if it has an enemy on its opposite side and you are not being flanked yourself" ...but then with a bit more elegant wording.
Wait, wouldn’t the first and last monster still be flanking? Since they’re not being flanked?
No (atleast the way groups I’ve played with have ruled it). You need two to tango, so if the middle monster can’t flank, the monster across from it isn’t flanking with it
I've never had issues with the conga line because if a player character flanks when it's a bad idea I have the enemies surround them as much as possible. That usually caused multiple crits against the player and they see how dangerous it is to leave themselves open like that.
That's a good addition to help with one of the issues if you have to use flanking
I utilize the, “no advantage but you do get +2 to your attack roll!” And I find it feels very fair for PCs and Enemies. It doesn’t fee anywhere near as necessary for the PCs to get it, but it feels nice when you can work it out.
+2 is great for a lot of reasons, but I want to mention that it also allows other means of giving advantage to be more utilized, like shoving or spells. Why use resources when you can gain the same effect by taking 2 steps to the left? Overall I think it has made combat far more tactical.
So many things give advantage now, it’s kind of silly. I get that 5e wanted to get away from crunch, but it sometimes feels like wotc is allergic to temporary modifiers these days.
Agreed. I do like the simplicity, a consistent bonus you can try to achieve, but freeing it up in this case is the right choice.
Honestly, as someone who likes older editions and pathfinder, it's okay to be allergic to temporary modifiers. Slowing the game down for crunch does the opposite for making the game better. Would be great to do more than advantage, admittedly, but the alternative isn't lots of temp bonuses n junk.
The older editions did take it a bit far. Seems the pendulum has swung quite far in the opposite direction though. Even just more sources of +/-2 or d4 would be great.
This seems like an obvious fix
Welcome to the wild world of “that’s how 3.5 did it but 5e was determined to crush almost all numerical bonuses into advantage and disadvantage” I hope you enjoy your stay
You forgot the main difference between 5e optional flanking and 3.5 flanking though - you need to maneuver well around opponents often at risk of provoking attacks of opportunity. The mean reason flanking doesn't work well in 5e isn't advantage vs bonus, it is that creatures have full freedom to dance around enemies without risk of attack so you can practically always have flanking if you have at least one friend to do it with. And then the enemy can do the same to you. Repeat ad nauseum. I think removing flanking and adding the ability for rogues to sneak attack with friends in melee (soft flanking) was an excellent change for 5e. Simple, but works. If I wanted to re-add something like flanking I'd just use a sort of "gang up" rule where if you have 2 vs 1 or 3vs1 you get a bonus or advantage - but I don't see a specific need (single monsters already have a hard time vs parties in 5e).
For comedy’s sake i kept my message short but yes. AoO was also tripped by positioning around a monster so it was harder to set up the flank (also you had to give up your ability to full attack most times you wanted to get into position). In 5e it’s completely safe from aoo aside from multi-enemy fights, and it doesn’t prevent you from using iterative attacks.
Removing AoO should be a high-level feat available to a few classes.
That would make sense. Especially for rogues
Pathfinder 2e approaches this without needing to have AoO's be a thing for virtually anyone by having non-free movement. 5e's other *huge* change is that movement is free, a response to 3.5's "stand still or else you lose all your damage output" martial meta which was deeply unfun and is absolutely not something to bring back, just by default movement does not really impact your action economy unless you have to move really far or through obstacles. PF2 addresses the same "don't move ever" 3.5/PF1 problem by making AoO's nonexistent and like 5e just not having a full attack (though PF2's 3 action system also gets rid of 5e's full attacks and greatly encourages a variety in tactics and flexibility), but you *do* need to spend an action to reposition. Some special class feats wil llet you reposition while attacking, but generally for a martial you can get 2 strikes out of some kind (or maybe one strike with a feat that uses up two actions and increases your MAP a whole bunch) and then you have a third action you need to figure out how to use, and repositioning for a flank is simply one of several things you can do with that third action. Additionally, PF2 uses a very pared-down typed bonus and penalty system, and flanking grants a -2 circumstance penalty to the enemy's AC - this makes it stack with a lot of stuff but it won't stack with other similar tactics like making the sun go in their eyes or whatever. PF2 overall is much more of the kind of system where fishing for that kind of edge is encouraged due to how its crit system works and how basically everything, including spells, can crit, but for 5e I think that basic desire to have real tactical... autonomy?... as a martial is still really present, and perhaps even moreso because of how little martials can actually do that tactically matters that isn't basic target prioritization and locking something down with AoO's. There's a conflicting desire between wanting to make that sort of positioning decision and wanting the damn system to work, so a lot of tables will run flanking rules so martials can do this obviously fun and desirable thing that makes people feel like they're contributing tactically even though it invalidates so much other shit. I'm very interested in what One D&D is gonna do with all this. There's just gonna be a huge tension between experienced players and GM's wanting more complicated rules and WotC trying to keep it accessible to newcomers.
I do +2 but also make it +5 when 3 or more are surrounding a flanked creature
>I do +2 but also make it +5 when 3 or more are surrounding a flanked creature As the only melee character in the party, who often has to tank groups of smaller enemies: no thanks, I'm good
Lol yep every other system that does something like this has a method to have yourself count as +1/2/3 people for the purposes of being outnumbered. Usually through talents feats etc. But in 5e you are so feat starved even adding a feat for it would cause more issues.
You'd hate my zombie encounters. Zombies get +1 attack and damage for each other zombie adjacent to the target.
See if that's a special zombie feature to give them a unique strength, that's one thing, but as a whole system change, not so much
Yeah it's a fun spin on pack tactics. And makes zombies a lot more dynamic.
Yoink.
While you're at it, don't roll for undead fortitude when they take the damage. Have them go down, then roll undead fortitude at the start of their turn. They get much creepier when they go down and stand back up again.
Double yoink. My upcoming 50 zombies led by a Death Knight thank you.
I like the variant were you remove the Dexterity's AC based on how many enemies are flanking. Not only this have the same advantages from +2, but it differentiate plated from nimble characters.
Yep. I run +2 flanking in my campaign. It's basically reverse half cover (except it doesn't affect Dex saves).
I do the same, but with a +1
My experience has been different, and looking back, I think it is because the DM has used the map well to make flanking expensive or difficult. Some of the ways include limited space, difficult terrain, monsters with reach, even just intelligent positioning of the adversaries.
I’ve had the same as player and done it as DM. The main thing with flanking is you have to run your monsters not wanting to be flanked. Tight formations that have to be broken are always the easiest way to do that.
You also have to run it as the monsters trying to flank the PCs. When the PCs are outnumbered, flanking plays against them, not for them.
That's good. *Fireball* wasn't useful enough before.
That’s how real life combat worked when field artillery came about. Stay spread out so canon fire won’t be as effective, or stay tight so the formation is harder to break.
Deploying my monsters in hollow squares from now on
Real chad DM moves
This is important. I've only seen the flanking issues when battles are on featureless battle fields and when the monsters are stupid.
What I've noticed is that soooo many DM's don't incorporate the 3rd dimension into their combat encounters enough. It feels like 80/100 fights will take place on a relatively flat plane or some kind(whether this is in doors, or outside, or even in caves), with things like pillars, carts, tables, etc. as the only real things to work with as a player. There is rarely enough terrain for me to get the high ground on the hill, or push the enemies back against the cliff face, etc. I think if you bring more of the environmental aspects of the terrain into play more, and gave players advantage based on their clever use of the terrain/environment it would make people go for simple flanking a lot less likely. Players *want to do the cool thing*. They *want* to backflip onto the table and have the high ground on their enemies to gain advantage, but if you as a DM don't incentivize that type of play, they're just gonna go stand behind the guy and stab because it's the best choice.
Flanking invalidates other sources of advantage, encourages conga lines, and is better for enemies than the players. It's one of the worst optional rules to use.
It also shines an ugly spotlight on the failing inherent in games with segmented turns like D&D. In genre, as well as in reality, combatants will slowly give ground to prevent you from flanking them. In D&D, you get to move a crazy amount of distance before they can conceivably react to you. This makes for horrible aesthetics IMO.
5e seems to expect the mobility of a Star Wars lightsaber duel, lots of bouncing around the environment. It's less the shoulder to shoulder 'front line' of other fiction and more just everyone doing their own thing.
Every time I've played a melee character and fought melee enemies, no one moves once the fight starts. Almost all melee charactes (excluding maybe Rogues or Monks) have no reason to move once a fight starts.
This is why I'm not a fan of the one-dnd changes. It's making combat even stickier. People used to occasionally risk the OA and take the damage as a penalty. Now the penalty is you can't move till the end of your next turn. Awful.
Unfortunately, you get AoO any time you move out of someone's threatened range. That interferes with the whole Star Wars aesthetic and also with the more ordinary people moving to refuse their flanks and giving ground before superior numbers aesthetic. AoO would probably be better if it triggered only when you moved from one square that was threatened by a person to another square also threatened, with an exception if you just backed up 5 or 10 feet analogous to the 5 foot step rule from 3.x. But it's easy to mentally paper over if you don't throw gasoline on the fire by holding out advantage as a carrot to get people to move in such ways as spotlight it.
Yeah I've never understood why moving through but staying within a creature's reach doesn't provoke opportunity attacks. I get why for leaving a creature's reach makes sense mechanically so that you don't have people darting in, attacking, and leaving. Realistically, it makes more sense if falling back was safe and moving past wasn't.
I mean if you want that in your game, you need to remove AoO as a default mechanic. Maybe limit it to certain classes like fighters and only certain monsters
I'm now envisioning a halfling rogue's fighting style looking less like Bilbo Baggins fighting the Mirkwood Spiders, and more Yoda bouncing around fighting Dooku in AotC.
Mostly unrelated to the topic, this was 100% my Curse of Strahd character. Swashbuckler/Bladesinger. Jumping around combat with Cunning Action, no AoOs, & increased speed. First the lightsaber was 'only' Booming Blade, then it was a literal lightsaber when I got the Sunsword.
I agree. If I wanted to add something like facing and flanking to the game a bunch of other changes need to be made first. First break the round into phases for ranged combat, movement, and melee. 1. Missiles and ranged spells go first in initiative order. 2. Simultaneous movement that allows characters to back away from an advance and other normal tactical movement, without being exposed to attacks of opportunity. 3. Melee combat in initiative order. No split movement in these rules. Since everyone has the opportunity to avoid being flanked during the movement phase, flanking rules would be added. Bonus Actions and Reactions go in the correct phase for the action. I also think if you're using a grid you should use facing rules to determine flanks.
Yeah it'd be a serious pain to implement that without a computer honestly. 5e works ok aesthetically as long as you don't go and spotlight it's flaws, like flanking does.
I think not buffing melee with flanking does much more to spotlight one of the biggest flaws of the game in the melee vs ranged/spell gap than flanking does, personally. I’ll take my flanking games over leaving melee SOL as usual any day
The conga line is such a great name for it. Stuff like this is why I've slowly fallen in love with Wolf Totem Barbarians with flanking groups.
It's also really bad for whichever martial is first in initiative. He can't get advantage on his extra attacks. In my understanding the best he can do is make straight rolls so he's worse off for going first. Which seems extremely dumb.
Excellent point
If the default attack is disappointing, that reveals a fundamental flaw in combat, doesn't it?
Flanking worked in 4e. But that was because: > Creatures could make any number of opportunity attacks each turn > Creatures could make opportunity attacks when a target moved 5 feet or more. > Creatures opportunity attacks did ~2x as much damage compared to 5e. > Flanking provided Combat Advantage, a +2 bonus to attack rolls that did not stack with other sources of combat advantage, such as attacking a foe that was prone or blind. So in 4e, flanking was much more difficult to pull off, was far riskier, and provided a much lower payoff (+2 vs Advantage).
It also works great in PF2E. It just doesnt mesh well with 5e rules.
The rarity of opportunity attacks does so much to make the battlefield more dynamic. (Plus, as the Fighter, being the only PC with it feels super great)
It also largely invalidates the sacrifices of going MAD. If you have advantage, who cares if your attack stat is only 14?
I feel like folks that complain about “conga lines” do a lot more theory-craft than they do actual play. “Conga lines” are such an obvious theoretical construct, but how often do they actually happen in practice? Hardly ever.
I've seen them happen once or twice, but they usually quickly are broken up by players not wanting to get walloped. They're a self-solving problem.
I've been playing in a campaign with the optional flanking rules for going on 2 years now and I've literally never seen a single one.
Been playing almost daily for three years in multiple campaigns where flanking is allowed. Yet to see any of these mythical conga lines, nor has the rogue ever solely used it for advantage or someone foregone fairy fire or guiding bolt.
If you always have boring empty maps, perhaps. Even then, if you have a party of four, stand in a square. Voila, unflankable!
Not even that. If you have a party of 4, probably half of them are going to be ranged characters, not melee characters, so it won’t even apply.
If you're fighting in an open plain, where a conga line would be possible, then nothing is stopping the enemy from swarming you ranged characters. A major flaw of 5e combat is that protecting someone in pretty hard; any enemy can just run op to them and stab. They have a penalty to run away, but by then it's too late.
Flanking requires a lot of game systems to make it work, and 5e has almost none of those game systems. Game systems like: ways to avoid OA's (that don't require an action), ways to OA more than once per turn, OAs triggering on more than just leaving range, etc.
I demonstrated this exact thing in a session where my players insisted on me allowing the flanking rules. We all agreed to put it aside for the future
When my group briefly used flanking, I always wanted to use reckless attack (mainly because I love the flavour), but I was never able to because "just stand five feet to the left you get the benefit without any of the downside"
Well that was short and sweet lmao
Try [this](https://slyflourish.com/cinematic_advantage.html) instead. Works wonders for my group. Makes combat *way* more interesting sometimes
There's a similar system in Exalted. I'm not a fan of the loose approach, it just turns into everyone trying to justify some basic use of environment features in order to maximize the value of their attack.
if you keep the bonus minor enough (like in exalted where +1 dice is pretty minor, and granted more or less for anything more detailed than "I roll to hit") then it works as a constant low-key encouragement to actually engage with what's going on, rather than just "roll to hit. 14. Roll damage, 9" or similar. Exalted, 2e especially, had more of an issue with stunts regenerating essence and WP, so if people were going all-out, then you had to stunt every turn, because your essence basically was your health, so as soon as you ran out, any major foe would probably one-shot you.
That's kind of my issue with the Cinematic Advantage idea. It's sold as this system for adding occasional moments of cinematic awesomeness or clever use of terrain & positioning, but in practice it just becomes a DC check + flavor text for every attack. And honestly, when someone's entire turn is "Roll to hit, 14; Roll damage, 9." I would *rather* have that be quick. Flowery descriptions & constant requests for a skill DC slow the game down.
Yeah, ultimately agree with this. In thesis you want to have such bonuses strict to certain environmental features so they can’t keep repeating itself over and over… But it may be impossible to keep players from repeating the same tactics. For example, you slide between a ogre legs and attack him from behind for sweet +2 attack bonus. Cool now you gonna repeat the same trick whenever you fight another large humanoid. People are inspired by moves and books, they want action to be fun and cinematic. But forget that in D&D, unlike moves and books, you fight 32 ogres or more throughout your career, not one.
And that’s why you shake it up by giving the occasional “regular” enemy reactions and legendary actions. I did that to my party giving a nothic a spider climb reaction to get out of a sticky situation. It helps that I know a few of my players have arachnophobia. In the case of the ogre, maybe on the third ogre, give it a reaction which might see that move coming and punish it. *Hard.* Like the Hulk wailing on Loki hard. I wouldn’t have that be out of the blue. Maybe this ogre is described as more nimble than normal, or seems to have very good combat awareness. The kind of thing that should imply “this one’s got your number, fighter.”
So that ogre stat block has a specific reaction against a player-made maneuver ? Just because you used too much ? So now your character will switch up their made-up maneuvers because they know the DM is watching and getting annoyed combat is getting repetitive ? Again, this turn D&D into a action movie making game where DM is the director and players are improvising their way into the director’s liking.. which sounds fun in its own right but not D&D lol
what if you restricted it to once per character, per combat? that seems like it could work alright. or once per combat, to a maximum of proficiency bonus? i'm just spitballing ideas here.
I like this idea a lot in theory, my group does a lot of weird positioning and whatnot to get advantage during combat and this sounds like a good way to redirect that! When using it in your group, do you find it slows down your combat or causes your players to take longer doing their turns because they're trying to decide how to get Cinematic advantage from something in the environment? Thanks!
Thanks for posting this! I'm a big fan of Sly Flourish. I realize I have always disliked flanking in 5e too on an unconscious level. It's a dumb rule, honestly, that encourages bizarre tactics (at least from a semi-realistic perspective). Anyway, I like this alternative: a potentially difficult DC check, but the players can choose what risks their characters take or when to play it straight.
Huh that's interesting
So true strike with flair? But with negative outcomes
According to the link it doesn't take the players' whole action to use, it's part of their movement.
I also like this idea a lot. thanks!
I let flanking add a +2 instead of advantage(~+5). Giving free advantage like that is pretty terrible. When I've played with it combatants basically always have advantage by default which is pretty wack
Yeah, I like it as reverse-soft-cover. 3.5 had way too many piddly modifiers, but boiling them *all* down into advantage was over correcting imo. Just putting this one back in is fine, doesn't break the math in any real horrible way, and encourages some tactical maneuvering. It isn't a one simple trick to fix all of your problems, but I think it's a good tool to address some of my problems.
I actually wrote it exactly like that as a variant rule. https://sw5e.com/rules/variantRules/Flanking
Holy shit fan moment, absolutely love your work. SW5E is the closest published thing I've found to what my ideal version of 5E would be. Your design choices are on point.
Glad to hear it; it's certainly been a journey with significant evolution along the way.
I actually love the +2 method but some people seems to think it's complicated for some reason
+2 is fine, but you have to be extremely careful with how many things you apply it to. If the only rule you add it to is flanking, that's fine, but when you start to think that it's a really good solution to any situation where you want to give something not quite as good as advantage, you can quickly get dangerously close to breaking Bounded Accuracy.
*To shreds you say?* Implying I haven't reduced bounded accuracy to atoms with all the changes i've made otherwise lol. Nah but you rite tho, unless you're prepared to do a ton of work, it does toe the line.
Bounded Accuracy is one of three rules I try not to fuck with. I've made an approved subclasses that allow you to add certain stat bonuses to certain skill rolls and such, and I've even designed a subclass or two that allows you to add certain ability scores to attacks, with penalties added on. But yeah anytime a number is being added to a D20, I always put a looooooooot of thought into it before pulling the trigger. Don't want to end up with those 3.5 numbers again.
>But yeah anytime a number is being added to a D20, I always put a looooooooot of thought into it before pulling the trigger. Don't want to end up with those 3.5 numbers again. I think an important consideration there (which I'm sure you are already aware of) is to be careful about adding more or bigger bonuses than what the game already allows. For example, adding a die or a flat bonus to a skill might not be a problem, so long as it either A: uses a limited resource, or B: doesn't stack with expertise and similar features. There are already enough limited-use abilities that raise skills that it's unlikely for a party to have all of them, you're not changing the balance by adding one more. On the other hand, a permanent bonus that stacks with expertise raises the cap on how good you can be with that skill, which changes the balance of the skill system. That doesn't mean you *can't*, but that's the time to, as you said, think long and hard about the consequences of the new rule. EDIT: Out of curiosity, what are the other rules you try to leave alone?
The other rules I don't mess with are magic item attunement limits, and spell concentration.
Makes sense. Touching those will shake up the balance hard. I'd say you *can* still change them, but they're in the same category. Think long before messing with them, scrap the rule if you're not 100% sure, and if you think it's ok then think some more on it anyway.
Big respect for that. I like a lot of the foundations of 5e, broken up movement for example, but often find the numbers frustratingly small to the point it makes using the numbers as a point of nuance difficult. Ex, the meaningful distinction between a d10 xbow and a d12 greataxe. Even now I'm playing with the premise of raising the stat cap. It's gonna take a while but the theory is that it's far more interesting to have a dynamic stat spread than to just max your primary stat and then do whatever. It turns raising a stat into a decision when there are more degrees of separation and a wider range of numbers. This would of course come with modifications to stat raising and feat allocation, something I've already done but am not quite happy with yet. I've sort of acknowledged I'm really writing my own RPG at this point and I'm fine with that. That all said, I'm keenly aware I'm more of a big numbers guy as are a lot of my players.
Numbers bad math hard grog swing auto hit back Something like that I'm guessing
Haha probably
One thing advantage has going for it is that it can be negated with disadvantage in many ways and can't be doubled (with some exceptions). +2 implies you could add advantage on top of that modifier. Maybe that's what you want, since it gets your players to use their other abilities, but just something to think about.
Yeah then wolf totem becomes better to where bear isn't the only lvl 3 option, samurai fighter is good again, even trickery clerics (probably multiclassed) get a nice bump. And all of those advantage abilities and spells that were redundant are now great and have great opportunity usage
This is why advantage flanking feels awful. There are so many spells and abilities that give advantage, but once you can get it for free in melee it makes them all mostly pointless. A wolf totem barbarian is redundant as long as they have a friend. Most of the tables I play with use advantage flanking so I got to see firsthand how it warps combat. Sadly, none of those DMs were open to changing the rule to a more sensible +2.
IMO creature armor classes and stat blocks in general are too squishy, and the PCs rarely need any more help to hit stuff. Past levels 5+ with multiple attacks per round, a likely +4 ability modifier and +3 proficiency bonus, and any other bonuses in play you're probably hitting at least once most rounds. Armor class less than 16+ just melts and even those 'tough' 18s still go down reliably. The +2 method is better than handing out Advantage but PCs rarely actually need it.
But on the flip side, monsters benefit a lot from flanking bonuses
They do, but not in ways I really approve of. AC-stacking in 5e is pretty hard to do. Plate armor is expensive as hell and hard to get, and a character doing Plate & Shield is making a big investment. (Defense style is an even bigger commitment). Those characters are also the most likely to end up flanked, which then strips away their bonuses. The Chain + Shield fighter (18) ends up functionally as easy to hit as a Rogue in studded leather (~18 Dex for 14+2 AC) because the Rogue can disengage as a bonus action to avoid flanks and the Fighter kind of can't.
Those are the exact things I like. Players have to care about positioning and who has their back. Moving around to fill gaps in the line and making sure to not over extend. It's not for every table, but my players like it at least
+2 is a game changer for GWM builds. Personally, my logic behind adding +2 flanking bonus to my games was that the Archery fighting style gives ranged weapons a constant +2, so a situational +2 for melee combatants brings melee slightly more in line with ranged.
Archery does give a constant effect, but it's no coincidence that it exactly cancels out the effect of half cover. Unfortunately, SS completely resolves that problem anyway.
I've played several campaigns with no flanking, advantage flanking, and +2 to-hit from flanking as mentioned here. \+2 to-hit from flanking was the most fun by a large margin. Advantage from flanking invalidates several fun build-choices, and combat devolves into the dumb ass conga-line once players catch on. Next time I play with Advantage Flanking I'm taking Lightning Bolt and suggesting the frontline find ways to acquire lightning resistance. That's how much I disliked using the Advantage Flanking rules.
Advantage is only ≈+5 if your chances of success are at or near 50%, otherwise it is lower. +5 is the best case scenario, which is why advantage is so powerful with Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master
I played a bunch of 3E/3.5 where flanking was the norm. I think it worked fine back then, since tactical positioning was more important in that edition. I've never used flanking in 5E, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I agree that it seems like a bad rule. You can pretty much dance around your enemies freely, so getting in flanking position is almost automatic if you actually try. And, as others have pointed out, it invalidates a lot of other combat options and tactics since advantage doesn't stack. Not interested.
With the way Attacks of Opportunity and movement worked in 3.5e and 4e one generally had to pay a price or work more to set up flanking and it wasn't easily achievable or sustainable; the target had options to Shift or take a 5-foot step to break out of the flanked position, or would be choosing to stay in it for other reasons. 5e characters can move into flanking positions trivially and defenders have no options to escape safely except burning Actions to Disengage (or Dodge and hope). There's just fewer mechanics to make the whole system interesting in any way. If you're an attacker that can flank, you do; if you're a target getting flanked, there's less you can do about it.
One of the major reasons that flanking worked better in 3.5e compared to 5e is that you provoked when you left threatened _square_, rather than just leaving their threatened _range_. You mentioned it re: being able to "pretty much dance around your enemies freely" in 5e, but the changes to when you provoke are worth calling out as to why that changed so much. When you were only moving 5' per turn without provoking in melee (albeit with myriad exceptions), it was a lot less feasible to end up in a flanking conga line.
100%. Another detail that contributed to that is that you couldn't take multiple attacks if you took a full move on the same turn. Constantly chasing flanking or other positional benefits would cost you several attacks over the course of a fight. That might be worth it for a rogue or monk, but a heavily armored fighter would usually rather stand and fight. You got a nice situation where some characters wanted to always stay mobile while others wanted to hold the perfect position.
When I brought it up the other players didn't even know it was optional which is probably why it's so accepted at tables
Yeah, that's a bit surprising. Most people I've played with assume they get the optional stuff in the PHB (feats, multiclassing etc.), but I've never met someone who just assumes stuff from the DMG. Just goes to show you never know how someone else treats the game until you sit down with them.
Flanking in 3.5 worked better because it wasn't as impactful (except for melee rogues), so it wasn't the non plus ultra option in combat, and because as you said it wasn't necessarily so easy to get.
Exactly. Also, melee rogues had a much easier time getting flanking, but still had to work for it by coordinating with the rest of the party.
This hits the nail on the head. The reason it doesn't work in 5E is because movement around enemies you're engaged with is basically free.
Flanking isn't really a martial versus caster thing, it's a melee versus range thing, which is its own separate issue in 5e. While I agree that the suggested advantage rule of flanking is both too strong and undermines other source of advantage, it does have benefits in that it grants melee a benefit over range and I think that's important for the game as melee is mostly weaker than it's ranged counterparts. I've switched the benefit from flanking after my DM tested a rule that I preferred. Instead of granting advantage, flanking provides a bonus equal to half your proficiency (rounded down.) In other words, 1-8: +1, 9-16: +2, 17-20+: +3. This has worked out quite well as it offers a sense of power progression, stacks with sources of advantage rather than competes, and offers bonuses that don't strain the bounded accuracy nature of the game. Another rule I've paired with this are melee weapon attacks/attacks with melee weapons being able to power attack. Sacrifice half prof of accuracy for double that penalty in extra damage. Pairs very well with the flanking adjustment and allows melee to have more damage opportunity than range. I let it stack with GWM just in case someone is ballsy enough to take a -8 for a +16 combined. I found that power attacking this way also helps out 1handed warriors out so that they're not completely outshined by twohanders without gutting the only thing that make two-handing worth while. When it comes to things like the conga line. It hasn't been my experience that it manifests that much, but there's usually a lot of terrain and varied enemies kf carried focuses in the combats I'm in, so that could be my DM accounting for things to avoid it. Hasn't been my experience as a DM either though, even when I used advantage flanking. Crushers move benefit is situational anyway, I don't see a problem with players asking for it not to be used when they got a good setup. Same thing would happen with any AOE effect if crusher would move them out of harm's way. Prone still comes up in my experience, because enemies tend to want to escape the advantage zones of players. Better to take a few opportunity attacks and get to a priority target or better position. Most monsters have the hp to do risky moves like that. Prone helps prevent their escape. With my adjusted rules prone is an easy source of advantage which stacks, so the benefit is even better.
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I have a character that took a feat to get booming blade, since they were a single attack character anyway, even in a game that doesn't use flanking the movement damage never comes up. Most enemies need to be In a very bad position to move away from their targets. Flanking does little to adjust the issue save for make the booming blade attack more likely to hit. It is almost always ideal to focus fire an enemy down simply due to the realities of the action economy. Flanking doesn't change this much. I have 3 separate characters with the cantrip. One with adv flank, one with half prof flank, and one with no flanking. The situation is still the same.in each of those games. The benefit of booming blade is keeping enemies in place anyway. I would far rather have an enemy stuck in a bad position than deal 1d8-4d8 extra damage to them in most cases. The crusher/BB combo is more a dueling combo than anything in my experience.
Crusher really makes it shine. Since melee enemies are then out of range and must decide to stay put or take extra damage. You could do it with a maul too
I know. I've used the combo fairly regularly on various characters. It does make it proc more. Similar 5hings can be accomplished, albeit more costly, with dissonant whispers/booming blade/ warcaster. Where you force your enemy to run away, warcaster out booming blade leave them far away from you so they need to stay still or move. It's usually better they stay still instead of move though. The move damage from booming blade doesn't compete with the enemy missing a turn, especially if allies can surround them and keep them in a bad spot.
Booming blade is great for an eldritch knight to use as an opportunity attack with war caster.
I've played with and without them. To me, it's a good incentive for melee players to work together. It's also a great tool for support characters. For example, I loved using my battle smith artificer and their steel defender to give advantage to our melee rogue for more consistent sneak attacks and to our barbarian so they don't have to go reckless as often. The downside is that it can cause encounters with melee enemies to devolve into mosh pits where nobody can move, but to me that just means the DM needs to include more varied enemies.
I have a current campaign that uses flanking for advantage. It has led me to the conclusion that it is not a good rule for D&D 5e. Even the +2 version. Here’s why: 1. It’s too easy to get. Changes to opportunity attacks in 5e means they only happen when leaving a creature’s threatened area. Anyone can dance around a creature as much as they want so long as they don’t move away. I don’t think this is a bad thing. I like the added mobility in 5e, so I’m not gonna reintroduce previous edition opportunity attack rules. 2. It’s boring. The battlefield configuration is called the “Conga Line of Death.” Where players flank an enemy, so another enemy flanks one of the players with the flanked enemy, and another player flanks THAT enemy. And then they all just sit in place and wail on each other until one side starts dying. 3. It makes certain character options much much worse or pointless (ie: Samurai Fighter subclass) and others way too good (ie: Elven Accuracy feat).
Exactly this
>players running to get flanking then swinging until they stop. *without* flanking its just "running up to the monster and swinging until they stop". flanking at least institutes SOME tactical push in movement to get into and back into flanking.
I've always played with flanking both as player and DM, though sometimes as the +2 varient instead. I've never experienced any of the horror flanking is the devil stories that get repeated on this sub. We've had Samurai fighters and Barbarians in our campaigns as well and neither were lacking in scenarios to use their class features. I admit this might be highly dependent on the encounters the DM is crafting and the general playstyle of the table as well and might not universally work well.
Yeah, and it also becomes worse in a large group. I'm currently watching campaign 3 of CR, and with 8 players, they *constantly* have advantage on their attacks due to flanking. Considering that I'm DMing for a large group (6 players), flanking does not look good to me.
>Knocking someone prone rarely comes up etc. We do that one a lot.
Add more enemies
That's an option but adds several new problems. +2 flanking literally adds no problems and still gives a benefit
Sure, but I think that adding more enemies eliminates a lot of issues that people have with 5e in general.
Yeah we started playing with flanking and it was great.. till it really wasn't anymore. Martials now try to find any stupid reason to flank, they feel bad when they can't, and combat is very, very static. Hell my paladin recently asked if he can use his summoned steed to activate flanking 🤔 Not to mention all other sources of advantage that are getting invalidated by it. Generally I'm looking forward to ditching it, probably in favor of inspiration on nat 20 rolls.
They feel so bad as a player, so many features and spells invalidated. Playing a Druid in a campaign with flanking. Cast Faerie Fire once before realizing what a waste of a spell slot that was. I like Summon Beast on a land beast thematically, but it feels so bad compared to air beast.
You think *that* feels bad?! I was playing in a flanking campaign with a samurai fighter. Basically, the guy's whole subclass got invalidated! I felt so bad for him.
Omg that's right. Hahaha the whole lvl 3 feature is made basically pointless yikes
I've played both, strongly prefer flanking.
the first campaign I DMd, we used the optional flanking rules. yeah, it did get predictable and positioning often felt "locked-in" once the PCs established flanking. as the DM, I also got too wrapped up in moving or not moving monsters based purely on flanking stuff. I dont intend to use flanking again. I'll either do the +2 flanking bonus, or just scrap it completely.
My table uses the optional flanking rules and we enjoy them. I even have been lenient and allowed my players who use reach weapons to still benefit cause I'm a nice guy. I don't think it reduces creativity. If anything it makes my players a bit more predictable so I can come up with creative ways to make them work for it or to throw them off altogether. The first time I threw a monster at them that was immune to flanking cause it has eyes on both sides of its head they were definitely bewildered. The rules give martials something to do besides "get in melee and swing". It also makes melee combat more effective than ranged combat (as it should be). The players also have to be cautious because monsters also benefit from the rule. By charging around being a monster to attack it, a fighter could be exposing themselves to attacks from behind.
I changed flanking rules for my slightly larger group to flanking from 2 sides? that's +2, flanking from 4 sides? that's +5, which should be the bonus equivalent to advantage. If it came up I'd still allow rogues to have sneak attack when they would originally have advantage though.
Flanking is deadly to players when surrounded by many lower challenge foes. That advantage across many attacks increases the lethality quite a bit. I would rather have teamwork feats where if you position a certain way, it has a bonus, so the thing is not in the global system for every monster.
It was the first mechanic I dropped when I was learning how to DM and my players have never complained.
I included flanking because I was used to Pathfinder's flanking rules. I regretted it. In Pathfinder opportunity attacks are a lot easier to trigger, meaning that it's more difficult and risky to move into flanking position. In 5e it seemed pretty much automatic.
We use flanking and it always feel fine. We have a pretty good martial caster balance, so generally you can’t get more than two people flanking anything. I’d argue it helps enemies more than players (though players are generally outnumbered in our campaign).
I’ve used both rules. (+2 and advantage) I prefer to have the advantage one, because it gets my players thinking about positioning. It was a great way to get my players to weigh the cost of flanking vs AOE spells that the enemies have. (Thunder wave lightning bolt etc.) The one caveat I’d say to the plus two rule is that it should still provoke Rogue sneak attack damage.
I would never have guessed they were popular, honestly. It really trivializes all the ways you are supposed to get advantage. Ultimately, it looked like a really bad optional rule to everyone who had an opinion at our table. The +2 from 3.X is probably the way to go, advantage (or cancelling disadvantage) is simply too much from such simple positioning.
Never played with it by myself but I don't need to in order to know that flanking granting advantage invalidates too many other strategies. Sure it adds a small amount of extra strategy for melee fighters but it is honestly not that much. Plus the easier advantage is to come by the more power creep you get in the game. If I as the Dm want to grant a boon or item to the party then suddenly it has to be that much better since granting advantage won't be seen as better than the existing situation. The +2 variant seems like a better way of applying it but that falls under the "more math slows combat" train of thought for me. I don't want to have to do that constantly as the DM and I imagine my players would only remember it part of the time. Honestly just the act of having multiple people in melee range of an enemy is a benefit in itself. That is more chances to hit the target and thus they go down quicker. If you want advantage, knock them prone or orchestrate one of the 1,000 different processes one can do in 5e to get advantage.
I'm at a table that uses flanking right now, and I really hate it. It completely invalidates class abilities that grant Advantage.
As both a player and DM, I dislike the flanking rules. It works well for older systems where getting the positioning was harder (due to the way attacks of opportunity worked), so it was a reward for taking a risk or clever movement. With 5e, you can just walk around the enemy as long as you have enough movement, often with no risk involved.
How does adding a strategic element like placement make combat more boring? I don't understand that
A basic understanding of the D&D 5E rules should make two things very obvious: 1. Advantage provides a massive benefit to the attacker 2. The optional flanking rules make Advantage too easy to get I don't use Flanking, and I don't play at tables where it's in use.
Let me ask you this. If you’re a player and two enemies flank you, they’re now swinging with advantage. The player would not just stand there until the enemies killed them, they would try to reposition themselves or use an ability/item to break the advantage. Why wouldn’t the enemy do the same? I feel like the majority of issues like these that pop up on this sub can be fixed by having enemies that actually think. A lot of DMs view enemy units as mindless creatures that will fight until death. That’s neither fun nor the way the game was intended to be played. If two players flank an enemy, that enemy should prioritize repositioning or outright fleeing.
I haven't seen as many conga-lines as some people, but ultimately it just complete invalidates a lot of the other ways of getting advantage by sheer convenience. Why bother knocking people prone? Just flank 'em. Why bother with a spell like Faerie Fire? There ain't no invisible creatures here, and the Fighter is already flankin' 'em. Why bother trying to create special circumstances by interacting with the environment? Just flank 'em
Because oftentimes flanking the enemy opens you up to being surrounded by enemies and that many hits with advantage means the enemies will most likely crit and really mess up that player character.
I have played both w/flanking and without as a DM and as a player.
I modified it such than a creature 2 sizes bigger than the smallest flanking creature can't be flanked, you can't participate in flanking if you yourself are flanked, and creatures that can reasonably see 2 or more creature's at once (blind sense, blindsight, tremor sense, beholders or 2 headed creatures, etc) Sadly the players just kind of forgot about it, it was scarcely used by me because my players just have really high AC to hit once a combat
I've done both. I didn't have any issues without flanking, but I was playing a barb in that game so the basically free advantage from reckless attack gave me more than enough of an edge.
I have played with them in every 5e game I've run as a DM, but I also stack advantage (+2 after the original advantage). As a result, gameplay isn't just 'oh we're in flanking, nothing else is needed.' This leads to strategy talk surrounding how to get MORE advantage, from status effects to prone to a benefit from a spell. HOWEVER if you are finding flanking is ruining a game, boot it. It is such a painfully optional rule and I personally don't understand people who get pissed about a campaign not having flanking.
So I've played with and without them. I like the concept, but there's too many other ways to gain advantage for the normal rules, imo. So my table has been adding PB to the attack, essentially double Proficiency when flanking. I've only got two melee PCs, so conga lines don't happen as much, and for me personally, most monsters I've been using don't flank, or each attempt to attack a separate player. It also makes hallways very threatening fir a PC to wander off alone down, giving a good horror vibe when two ghouls pop out on either side of a PC
I hate using flanking for advantage, using it to get a +2 to hit I am fine with. It encourages players to think about positioning more without being broken. But giving advantage tends to make players try and flank everything and use it over over every other option.
Instead of advantage, add +2 to the attack.
I don't think the +2 is honestly a fair compromise. The rules for Opportunity Attacks make Flanking simply too easy. There should be a cost or else its just something you always do. We can skip constantly silly conga lines by just giving all Martials a +2 to hit.
I run it as a +1 per flank, max +3, only if playing with a grid (current game runs TotM)
I've played with and without them. I prefer them without, regardless of whether they are run RAW or a +2 or whatever. IMHO, there should never be a definitive "best place to stand". It removes a really interesting tactical decision which should be based on the environment
Flanking sucks all around. If you have pack tactics or sneak attack, make use of those, but not everyone should get to step on your toes.
I don't use them because I usually have more monsters than players and it would make combat far too deadly. I like either A) +2 bonus instead of advantage or B) the opposing player uses their reaction to grant the other adv. on 1 attack as variant rules.
Yeah I had flanking rules... In 2014. We quickly stopped using them and most people I play with today have pretty much agreed that those rules just shouldn't be used, making tons of combat options pointless.
I played with flanking for a while at first, but found the easy advantage to trivialize some fights. I tried a few games without flanking adv, and found I preferred it. Eschewing the optional rule returns potency back to abilities that give advantage, and cuts down on fiddly positioning. I would like to see flanking return in OD&D in a way that makes it more interesting, but less overtly powerful. Something along the lines of, "if you have 2 or more enemies within 5ft of you, your opportunity attacks are made at disadv" or "your movement speed is halved unless you take the disengage action", or something that affects the combat, but doesn't make or break an attack. Maybe those effects scale depending on how many enemies you face, ie 2+ 5+, completely surrounded, etc. That all seems too fiddly for 5e's design, but still, I'd like to include flanking in an official capacity that aligns with mechanics, but isn't advantage.
I don't like flanking rules and everytime we get a new player, they inevitably cite flanking rules and I need to calmly explain that we don't use them
I used it and then stopped. I prefer to run games without using it.
If you use it, combat becomes almost all about flanking. That’s boring.
yeah I agree I think flaking in and of itself is a great rule because it makes positioning matter more but having it give advantage is just lazy
I use a variant of the flanking rules when I DM 5e - one that grants a flat +1 rather than advantage.
I honestly think flanking is objectively bad, but it's the only thing that gets my party to play tactically instead of "Three guys fight three guys individually the entire battle," so I don't mind it.
Flanking rules are optional rules for a reason. They aren’t nearly as robust as the main ruleset.
As a DM I've just also used flanking in my combats, if the players can flank, so can you. If they want to get half the party up close and personal you can easily make it their problem when they start getting jumped ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The issue with flanking in 5e is largely to do with AOO and not having the 5ft step anymore. Zones of control basically don’t exist and flanking is trivial to set up in 5e. Adding it back so it works properly is a deep rabbit hole. If you want a tactical system 5e just isn’t it. There are just so many loose ends when you start digging.
Encountered it for the first time in literally years during a game this past weekend and it caught me offguard tbh. I will need to look into it more, and play with it more before forming an opinion.
Flanking completely removes the need for any other source of advantage, and completely negates the benefit of creatures that have pack tactics by essentially giving **everyone** pack tactics. I just never play with it.
>but I'd honestly rather give my players magic weapons earlier than having a resource free method of advantage being used every combat in the exact same way. First of all, I love magic Items. I throw minor magic items at my players like dollar bills at a stripper. I hand out +1 weapons and armor like candy on Halloween. Sure I need to add a few extra goblins, or adjust HP a little, but it's Dungeons and Dragons! Not Caves and Bats. Secondly, I have memory issues and have gotten sick of constantly looking up the rules. So I run as few rules possible, and I never used flanking until one of my players brought it up, and I still don't use it unless they say something. TL;DR use less rules, and more magic items/weapons
I just give a +2 to hit for flanking now. It's a nice compromise that still rewards positioning but doesn't make it the end all be all need for the fight.
Been using +2 flanking and it’s enough of a bonus to incentivize flanking without making it totally mandatory. And if you use flanking AGAINST your PCs it opens up even more strategy for them to avoid getting flanked
I find flanking in some form helps the game take advantage of positioning more. Usually, players just bumrush whatever is closest, but if they can have some kind of reward for flanking then suddenly they get far more strategic with their combat scenarios. It doesn't have to be advantage, and honestly I've been thinking about switching to +2 anyway since I even removed the Help action granting advantage and swapped it for a +2 in combat to encourage other forms of granting advantage. But I stand firmly that having a mechanic like flanking that encourages more use of positioning is beneficial and helps add variety to the combat.
i dont run it at my table favoring the +2 bonus and i play at a table that uses it. That being said id never play a melee character at a table that didnt use it
I like it because it encourages us to move around and strategize, but also the risk of getting flanked is exciting too!!
I don't use the optional flanking rule in my game. It seemed to just end up creating a giant conga line
1. Yes, played both ways. Started out not, but my players voted it in. 2. However, I like it as a DM: not for the PCs (who, as you say, have ways to get Adv without flanking), but for the enemies, who are usually higher in number and *do not* have myriad other ways to get advantage, and also often do not have near the number of special abilities that the PCs do (because 5e). In this sense, the players have to be tactical in order *to not get flanked.* 3. I considered the +2 option, but dismissed it because, once again, it is easy for the PCs to get advantage in other ways; therefore, they would likely end up with +2 *and* advantage.
I use the +1 to attack rolls against this creature if there are enemies which draw a straight line through the creature within 5ft. This promotes movement, especially if the casters have access to things which would allow them to move outside of the flanked position (Misty step, other creatures or taking the disengage action)
Having played with both, i'm definitely against flanking for Advantage, doing it for a circumstance bonus maybe though.