I've been thinking about this, and here's a rough draft of a homebrew Flanking rule which makes a little more sense to me:
If you begin your turn within 5ft of an unfriendly creature, and that creature has another creature within 5ft of it which is unfriendly towards it, you may use your reaction to Flank it. Roll a Dex check contested by the enemies Dex check. If you succeed, you gain Advantage on all attacks made against the creature until the end of your turn. If you fail, the creature may use its reaction to make an Opportunity Attack against you.
You have to use your reaction to do it, you must start your turn next to it, you have to succeed at a contest, and you suffer consequences if you fail.
It requires a large increase in the number of rolls.
You are spending your reaction for a 50% chance to have advantage and 50% to get an attack, it looks extremely chancy to me.
Well, the increase in rolls is as it should be, IMHO. You should not automatically succeed, which means you need to roll, and it should be against an ability of the enemy. You could roll against the enemies "passive Dex" (10+Dex), or against their Dex score maybe.
You are right about the 50/50 though (ish). It would probably be better to drop either the use of the reaction or the OA. Then you are either using your reaction for a chance to flank, the negative consequence of failure being that you've used your reaction for no effect, or you get a free attempt at flanking but the negative consequence of failure is an OA.
It reminds me of the old days when there was rear AC, flat footed AC, etc. I think advantage is too much of a gain. maybe a +2 to hit (not sure of math of advantage or even a +1 to hit. But really, do not like the overall aspect of gaining advantage that easily as said a quite a few time already.
Once again I think it benefits to say, that absolutely yes, the flanking rule makes it WAY to easy for players to get advantage.
BUT! It also makes it incredibly easy for ENEMIES to get advantage too. Because of this, Fights definitely take on a different feel. Players basically hit ALL the time, but so do enemies. It turns the fight into a battle of positioning where hit points are flying away on both sides.
My biggest issue with it is player attitude and how this rule breeds sore-losers lol. It starts to make melee players view a normal attack roll as a penalty rather than the standard and view disadvantage as an "OH NO!" It makes classes like rogue and paladin DESPARATE for crits (I can't tell you how bad it bugs me to hear someone complain about a hit because "Awwwww... I didn't even crit!" )
But then again, My monsters' crit rate is crazy high because if I have like 10 dudes rolling advantage all the time, they're going to crit a lot too.
From what I've noticed by making sure to use it on both sides is that it makes combat VERY high risk/High reward because yes it makes players do more damage, but it does equally so (if not more) for enemies
Flanking as it is written in the DMG is absolutely idiotic. It compete destroys the economy of granting advantage to an attack roll. One only has to measure the variety of advantage granting actions, that require an ACTION, to see that moving into a position for advantage is ridiculous.
I don't blame anyone for using an optional rule offered in the DMG, that's WotC fault. But there's an extremely long list of actions, spells, even status effects that are directly degraded by granting advantage by positioning.
Would you ever, one, use inspiration to grant advantage on your next SINGULAR attack when you can simply save it for an ability check or save and perhaps even prepare to attack as a reaction when your ally flanks your opponent, if you don't have the ability to multihit.
Would you ever, two, use your bonus action to hide to gain advantage for a sneak attack when you can not only execute sneak attack simply because your foe is adjacent to your ally but you also get advantage just for standing across from them?
Would you ever, three, use your action to grant help, expending positioning and your ACTION to grant your ally advantage on a SINGULAR attack?
Those are just examples of where it completely usurps the choices players have with something dramatically overpowered. There's a ton of lesser offense like spending your action to shove a foe prone, if you win a skill challenge, in order for melee units to gain advantage. The added benefit of reducing an opponents movement and giving them disadvantage is partially offset by the fact that ranged attacks will also have disadvantage on the target, and they can get up every turn without an action, costing one player an action each turn to keep that advantage, if they don't waste their action completely on a failed check.
The myriad of spells that grant advantage on targets dramatically lose value as well, a player who invested in the Warlock feature devil sight and casts darkness with concentration to get advantage, often for himself alone, becomes comical when party members can simply use movement and positioning to gain advantage for two members with no actions, no spell slots, and no concentration.
Some kind of positioning rule and better melee action diversity is desirable because dry melee characters can be a little simplistic. But I would rather rob the battle master subclass of its unique attacks and make them available to melee combatants rather than give the players a completely balance wrecking positioning quality like flanking from the DMG.
Some more rational alternatives would be using your bonus action to grant help to your allies next singular attack, or subtracting 1 AC for each foe adjacent to the target and adding 1 AC for each ally adjacent to the target. Or simply granting minus 2 AC for flanking like many experienced DMs do.
Obviously, you can do whatever you want in your game, I let players use MM creatures for PCs rather than the RAW PCs, but optional flanking from the DMG is some of the most indolent design writing ever.
It reminds me of the old days when there was rear AC, flat footed AC, etc. I think advantage is too much of a gain. maybe a +2 to hit (not sure of math of advantage or even a +1 to hit. But really, do not like the overall aspect of gaining advantage that easily as said a quite a few time already.
Have you read the optional Facing rules for D&D 5E? They are just as bad as the flanking optional rule.
I've been thinking about this, and here's a rough draft of a homebrew Flanking rule which makes a little more sense to me:
If you begin your turn within 5ft of an unfriendly creature, and that creature has another creature within 5ft of it which is unfriendly towards it, you may use your reaction to Flank it. Roll a Dex check contested by the enemies Dex check. If you succeed, you gain Advantage on all attacks made against the creature until the end of your turn. If you fail, the creature may use its reaction to make an Opportunity Attack against you.
You have to use your reaction to do it, you must start your turn next to it, you have to succeed at a contest, and you suffer consequences if you fail.
Perhaps a simpler method would be to simply suggest that moving WITHIN a creature's reach provokes an Opportunity Attack from that creature.
That would add a cost to trying to manoeuvre to get into a flanking position.
3e and 4e used moving more than 5' as a trigger for opportunity attacks, and it was still pretty easy to achieve flanking. Strong positional benefits just don't interact well with turn-based movement unless the turns are very short and thus a pain to resolve (crpgs can use continuous movement models that aren't practical in a tabletop game, and properly managing collision is still a major problem).
I've been thinking about this, and here's a rough draft of a homebrew Flanking rule which makes a little more sense to me:
If you begin your turn within 5ft of an unfriendly creature, and that creature has another creature within 5ft of it which is unfriendly towards it, you may use your reaction to Flank it. Roll a Dex check contested by the enemies Dex check. If you succeed, you gain Advantage on all attacks made against the creature until the end of your turn. If you fail, the creature may use its reaction to make an Opportunity Attack against you.
You have to use your reaction to do it, you must start your turn next to it, you have to succeed at a contest, and you suffer consequences if you fail.
This is very complicated, and as someone else said you can cut the knot by simply saying they get an AOO if you move at all while in their range.
Personally, I think forcing your ally to use their reaction to Flank on your turn helps balance it, but then that defeats the purpose of the Help action and has now turned it into a reaction, so I dunno. (The Help action is reason enough not to use Flanking rules as is.)
Once again I think it benefits to say, that absolutely yes, the flanking rule makes it WAY to easy for players to get advantage.
BUT! It also makes it incredibly easy for ENEMIES to get advantage too. Because of this, Fights definitely take on a different feel. Players basically hit ALL the time, but so do enemies. It turns the fight into a battle of positioning where hit points are flying away on both sides.
We use it for a related reason - it makes combat dynamic, quick, and brutal. The DM uses it as often as the players do.
For BBEGs, we often have an associated cost to flanking via damaging auras, lots of forced movement, or reactions that occur when the creature is flanked.
I don't feel that it's unbalanced melee combatants - spellcasters have always been very strong and ranged attackers tend to be naturally accurate through Archery or Steady Aim. If anything, flanking allows melee to stay relevant in early levels when their weapons get resisted and in later levels when casters are wrecking whole encounters with a single spell.
I do think movement while engaged in 5e is too easy and I wouldn't be opposed to adding some hindrances there. For example, moving out of a square that is within the range of two enemies will draw an OA from one of them (essentially you can only face one of them as you circle around). Or that moving around a creature within its reach requires extra movement.
We use it for a related reason - it makes combat dynamic, quick, and brutal. The DM uses it as often as the players do.
For BBEGs, we often have an associated cost to flanking via damaging auras, lots of forced movement, or reactions that occur when the creature is flanked.
I don't feel that it's unbalanced melee combatants - spellcasters have always been very strong and ranged attackers tend to be naturally accurate through Archery or Steady Aim. If anything, flanking allows melee to stay relevant in early levels when their weapons get resisted and in later levels when casters are wrecking whole encounters with a single spell.
I cannot agree more about the fact that melee attackers get "left behind" in many ways. I do not feel, however, that giving automatic advantage (which is what the DMG Flanking rules often amount to) is the right way to go about it. If we want to fix the martial/caster imbalance, we should do that properly, not use a sticking plaster.
My own main problem with the way the rules treat martial characters in general is that it gives very few options: When most get into melee, every turn will most likely be "I hit them with my sword". There are the odd few exceptions to this, but there are few viable options.I don't accept that the DMG flanking rules give any more options or make the players think tactically. Just making that one option more powerful actually discourages them from using any others and makes combat feel even more samey. Combat for martial characters just becomes "Get 2 chars up there, say you are moving to flank, hit em till they die".
The flanking rules also makes other things much less useful. Because I am more familiar with it than anything else, I will use the Barbarian Reckless Attack as an example. If you can get advantage pretty much at will with no penalty as soon as there is an ally nearby, this becomes useless 9 times out of 10. So, the barbarian (one of the melee character types you are trying to help out with this rule) has lost half of his Level 3 class ability almost entirely.
This is very complicated, and as someone else said you can cut the knot by simply saying they get an AOO if you move at all while in their range.
Personally, I think forcing your ally to use their reaction to Flank on your turn helps balance it, but then that defeats the purpose of the Help action and has now turned it into a reaction, so I dunno. (The Help action is reason enough not to use Flanking rules as is.)
I don't think just giving Opportunity Attacks when moving in range helps much. It would still allow just a single OA when they move into position, followed by automatic advantage for the rest of the combat (unless the enemy moves and prompts an OA from all the allies Flanking him).
As for the "complexity", yes, it is a little complicated. However, given that this focusses on melee combatants which tend to have the shortest and simplest turns of anybody in combat, I don't really think that adding a small extra ability like this is that much to ask.
If the complexity really bothers anyone, the alternative is just to ignore the everybody gets advantage in melee automatically flanking rules entirely.
I think that most of these problems come from playing on grids. When it was absolutely mandatory in 3e and 4e and people got what I call "bad habits" of thinking only in squares, flanking, etc. was interesting tactically.
However, in 5e, the standard way of gaming is Theater of the Mind, and this is what we use for a very large part of our combats. Yes, we use Foundry (and Roll20 before), but the most used maps are large scale ones, or large tactical for units manoeuvering and armies, or infernal war machine combat).
If you use Theater of the mind, the simple AoO rule is the right one, because it's quick, streamlined, and very easy to remember, it's just remembering who is engaging who in melee combat. It's not a question of actual positioning, which is why the flanking and facing rules, which were strapped on on an already extremely simplied OPTION of playing on grids are so poor.
If you want to respect the spirit of the game, flanking because two people are engaging one would not be unrealistic, without it being even a question of being on opposite sides. the problem is that D&D, once more, is not a realistic game, and it's not meant to be.
In real life (for example in LARPs), 2 vs. 1 is almost an instant death sentence for the guy alone. More realistic games like RQ make it really clear as well, you have at most 2 parries, and if you parry twice you do not attack. So unless you can soak one attack completely, you might hit one of the adversaries, but the other one will hit you.
But this is not the spirit of D&D. D&D is made to simulate Rand al'Thor who can face 5 opponents at the same time and use their weaknesses against each other. It's made to engage with a giant with tough skin who does not care if your toothpick (to him) scratch him a bit as long as he can SMASH YOU !
So the problem is that not only does flanking create bad overlap with other powers, making the game poorer rather than richer tactically, but it does not even properly simulate the genre.
Firstly, I appreciate your points. I agree with most, and those I don't, I don't have a strong opinion of.
However, kudos on bringing the Dragon Reborn, good ol' Rand al'Thor, into it. I think it may be time for me to reread the Wheel of Time again, as soon as I finish Polgara the Sorceress. Glad you reminded me of this series (even though it's only been a few months since I last read it). Thanks :)
IDK if it has been stated yet, but advantage dramatically increases crit chance and reduces crit failure, while improving hit only increases hit chance. The effects of unlimited advantage on as many attacks as the user has is outlandish, once you include something like an effect on 20 roll, a character with extra attacks and ongoing advantage is going to trigger that additional effect regularly rather than seldomly. Champions just walk all over these options.
I got into D&D combat through playing X-Com (Which also uses a flanking rule) and I enjoy using it.
It allows martial heavy parties to more easily deal with high ac enemies such as Helmed Horror's, Gorgons and NPC's wearing heavy armour and shields.
If you play enemies smart, it makes encounters against lots of low CR enemies still dangerous at higher levels as they can swarm and flank party members who break away to fight on their own.
Unless a party is only fighting 1 enemy in an encounter, flanking is a reward for risk taking, you give yourself advantage but make it a lot easier for an enemy to flank you, as being behind an enemy usually means you're closer to the rest of the enemies.
I've seen people saying it devalues spells like Faerie Fire, but that spell lets you have advantage on ranged attacks as well as melee, another example Darkness isn't just about giving you advantage it makes your enemies have disadvantage.
It makes movement more relevant in combat against melee based enemies that don't have access to radius/line abilities. Without flanking in these scenario's a melee based character only needs to move to get to the 2nd creature after downing the first one. If you're a melee character who doesn't have access to abilities like Sentinel, Maneuvers, Sneak Attack etc, your turns when fighting against tanky enemies will be mostly spent standing still and attacking.
Now I get some arguments. Having an easy way to get advantage does allow the potential for abusing certain mechanics, and I thankfully haven't had to deal with this in any of my games. Ultimately though I find it fun, my party find it fun, and that's all that matters when playing D&D.
Does anyone here who uses Flanking do anything to compensate those with devalued features? E.g. Reckless Attack
Thinking on it, my barbarian used Reckless ALL THE TIME... I think it was mainly because I made sure that in a fight it wasn't usually: clear threat + minions but rather multiple equal threats. So while yes, the optimum damage strat would be all focus fire one guy and use flanking, many times, the barb (bear totem with sentinel) would go on his own to tie down another threat while the rest of the party just wailed on the other.
So in my game it was less of me (the DM) adjusting and accounting for these abilities and more of the players being like "Well, I have a way to get advantage on my own so I'm going to take advantage of it (see what i did there >.>)
I've seen people saying it devalues spells like Faerie Fire, but that spell lets you have advantage on ranged attacks as well as melee, another example Darkness isn't just about giving you advantage it makes your enemies have disadvantage.
I can see why people don't like the flanking rule, but in my experience it hasn't been abused by any means, and I think it gives my players more options which in general is a good thing. My players also really like tactical combat so its another way they think about positioning, using the terrain like fighting in choke points, and coordinating (at least till everything falls apart and its mayhem).
I can see why people don't like the flanking rule, but in my experience it hasn't been abused by any means, and I think it gives my players more options which in general is a good thing. My players also really like tactical combat so its another way they think about positioning, using the terrain like fighting in choke points, and coordinating (at least till everything falls apart and its mayhem).
I'm all for giving players, especially of melee characters, more options. I just don't think the flanking rule as presented in the DMG is a good one to give them. It makes most other options bad ones, and generally leaves players looking for flanking above all else, because getting advantage for multiple characters from flanking is more powerful and easier/cheaper than most other options.
I just don't think the flanking rule as presented in the DMG is a good one to give them. It makes most other options bad ones, and generally leaves players looking for flanking above all else, because getting advantage for multiple characters from flanking is more powerful and easier/cheaper than most other options.
Fair enough, do whats best for your table! Obviously my experience is anecdotal to everyone else. I just haven't had that same experience, but then again its all situational. They tend to trying flanking more if they're facing a singular tough creature, but those fights are few and far between. You may be right that flanking makes other choices sub-optimal, however, there is a difference between what is the 'best' option and how your players actually act at the table. My players don't usually do what the most optimal choice might be, they do whats the most fun in the situation. So maybe I'm just lucky.
I’m using +2 to attack rolls. Considering more, maybe +3 if beset on several sides. I don’t like how you can walk around a monster within melee though, like a full circle around the monster, before hitting it. It doesn’t usually happen of course but it could be done. I like the idea (I think I remember something about this in 3.5) of being able to move 5 feet within melee but anything after that is a possible AoO. That being said, in one game I have adv/disadv and another +2. We’ll see how it goes. My fear is that PC will focus on flanking above everything else, which while within my rules, is kind of lame.
I've been thinking about this, and here's a rough draft of a homebrew Flanking rule which makes a little more sense to me:
You have to use your reaction to do it, you must start your turn next to it, you have to succeed at a contest, and you suffer consequences if you fail.
Well, the increase in rolls is as it should be, IMHO. You should not automatically succeed, which means you need to roll, and it should be against an ability of the enemy. You could roll against the enemies "passive Dex" (10+Dex), or against their Dex score maybe.
You are right about the 50/50 though (ish). It would probably be better to drop either the use of the reaction or the OA. Then you are either using your reaction for a chance to flank, the negative consequence of failure being that you've used your reaction for no effect, or you get a free attempt at flanking but the negative consequence of failure is an OA.
It reminds me of the old days when there was rear AC, flat footed AC, etc. I think advantage is too much of a gain. maybe a +2 to hit (not sure of math of advantage or even a +1 to hit. But really, do not like the overall aspect of gaining advantage that easily as said a quite a few time already.
Once again I think it benefits to say, that absolutely yes, the flanking rule makes it WAY to easy for players to get advantage.
BUT! It also makes it incredibly easy for ENEMIES to get advantage too. Because of this, Fights definitely take on a different feel. Players basically hit ALL the time, but so do enemies. It turns the fight into a battle of positioning where hit points are flying away on both sides.
My biggest issue with it is player attitude and how this rule breeds sore-losers lol. It starts to make melee players view a normal attack roll as a penalty rather than the standard and view disadvantage as an "OH NO!" It makes classes like rogue and paladin DESPARATE for crits (I can't tell you how bad it bugs me to hear someone complain about a hit because "Awwwww... I didn't even crit!" )
But then again, My monsters' crit rate is crazy high because if I have like 10 dudes rolling advantage all the time, they're going to crit a lot too.
From what I've noticed by making sure to use it on both sides is that it makes combat VERY high risk/High reward because yes it makes players do more damage, but it does equally so (if not more) for enemies
Flanking as it is written in the DMG is absolutely idiotic. It compete destroys the economy of granting advantage to an attack roll. One only has to measure the variety of advantage granting actions, that require an ACTION, to see that moving into a position for advantage is ridiculous.
I don't blame anyone for using an optional rule offered in the DMG, that's WotC fault. But there's an extremely long list of actions, spells, even status effects that are directly degraded by granting advantage by positioning.
Would you ever, one, use inspiration to grant advantage on your next SINGULAR attack when you can simply save it for an ability check or save and perhaps even prepare to attack as a reaction when your ally flanks your opponent, if you don't have the ability to multihit.
Would you ever, two, use your bonus action to hide to gain advantage for a sneak attack when you can not only execute sneak attack simply because your foe is adjacent to your ally but you also get advantage just for standing across from them?
Would you ever, three, use your action to grant help, expending positioning and your ACTION to grant your ally advantage on a SINGULAR attack?
Those are just examples of where it completely usurps the choices players have with something dramatically overpowered. There's a ton of lesser offense like spending your action to shove a foe prone, if you win a skill challenge, in order for melee units to gain advantage. The added benefit of reducing an opponents movement and giving them disadvantage is partially offset by the fact that ranged attacks will also have disadvantage on the target, and they can get up every turn without an action, costing one player an action each turn to keep that advantage, if they don't waste their action completely on a failed check.
The myriad of spells that grant advantage on targets dramatically lose value as well, a player who invested in the Warlock feature devil sight and casts darkness with concentration to get advantage, often for himself alone, becomes comical when party members can simply use movement and positioning to gain advantage for two members with no actions, no spell slots, and no concentration.
Some kind of positioning rule and better melee action diversity is desirable because dry melee characters can be a little simplistic. But I would rather rob the battle master subclass of its unique attacks and make them available to melee combatants rather than give the players a completely balance wrecking positioning quality like flanking from the DMG.
Some more rational alternatives would be using your bonus action to grant help to your allies next singular attack, or subtracting 1 AC for each foe adjacent to the target and adding 1 AC for each ally adjacent to the target. Or simply granting minus 2 AC for flanking like many experienced DMs do.
Obviously, you can do whatever you want in your game, I let players use MM creatures for PCs rather than the RAW PCs, but optional flanking from the DMG is some of the most indolent design writing ever.
Have you read the optional Facing rules for D&D 5E? They are just as bad as the flanking optional rule.
Perhaps a simpler method would be to simply suggest that moving WITHIN a creature's reach provokes an Opportunity Attack from that creature.
That would add a cost to trying to manoeuvre to get into a flanking position.
:-)
3e and 4e used moving more than 5' as a trigger for opportunity attacks, and it was still pretty easy to achieve flanking. Strong positional benefits just don't interact well with turn-based movement unless the turns are very short and thus a pain to resolve (crpgs can use continuous movement models that aren't practical in a tabletop game, and properly managing collision is still a major problem).
This is very complicated, and as someone else said you can cut the knot by simply saying they get an AOO if you move at all while in their range.
Personally, I think forcing your ally to use their reaction to Flank on your turn helps balance it, but then that defeats the purpose of the Help action and has now turned it into a reaction, so I dunno. (The Help action is reason enough not to use Flanking rules as is.)
We use it for a related reason - it makes combat dynamic, quick, and brutal. The DM uses it as often as the players do.
For BBEGs, we often have an associated cost to flanking via damaging auras, lots of forced movement, or reactions that occur when the creature is flanked.
I don't feel that it's unbalanced melee combatants - spellcasters have always been very strong and ranged attackers tend to be naturally accurate through Archery or Steady Aim. If anything, flanking allows melee to stay relevant in early levels when their weapons get resisted and in later levels when casters are wrecking whole encounters with a single spell.
I do think movement while engaged in 5e is too easy and I wouldn't be opposed to adding some hindrances there. For example, moving out of a square that is within the range of two enemies will draw an OA from one of them (essentially you can only face one of them as you circle around). Or that moving around a creature within its reach requires extra movement.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I cannot agree more about the fact that melee attackers get "left behind" in many ways. I do not feel, however, that giving automatic advantage (which is what the DMG Flanking rules often amount to) is the right way to go about it. If we want to fix the martial/caster imbalance, we should do that properly, not use a sticking plaster.
My own main problem with the way the rules treat martial characters in general is that it gives very few options: When most get into melee, every turn will most likely be "I hit them with my sword". There are the odd few exceptions to this, but there are few viable options.I don't accept that the DMG flanking rules give any more options or make the players think tactically. Just making that one option more powerful actually discourages them from using any others and makes combat feel even more samey. Combat for martial characters just becomes "Get 2 chars up there, say you are moving to flank, hit em till they die".
The flanking rules also makes other things much less useful. Because I am more familiar with it than anything else, I will use the Barbarian Reckless Attack as an example. If you can get advantage pretty much at will with no penalty as soon as there is an ally nearby, this becomes useless 9 times out of 10. So, the barbarian (one of the melee character types you are trying to help out with this rule) has lost half of his Level 3 class ability almost entirely.
I don't think just giving Opportunity Attacks when moving in range helps much. It would still allow just a single OA when they move into position, followed by automatic advantage for the rest of the combat (unless the enemy moves and prompts an OA from all the allies Flanking him).
As for the "complexity", yes, it is a little complicated. However, given that this focusses on melee combatants which tend to have the shortest and simplest turns of anybody in combat, I don't really think that adding a small extra ability like this is that much to ask.
If the complexity really bothers anyone, the alternative is just to ignore the
everybody gets advantage in melee automaticallyflanking rules entirely.Firstly, I appreciate your points. I agree with most, and those I don't, I don't have a strong opinion of.
However, kudos on bringing the Dragon Reborn, good ol' Rand al'Thor, into it. I think it may be time for me to reread the Wheel of Time again, as soon as I finish Polgara the Sorceress. Glad you reminded me of this series (even though it's only been a few months since I last read it). Thanks :)
IDK if it has been stated yet, but advantage dramatically increases crit chance and reduces crit failure, while improving hit only increases hit chance. The effects of unlimited advantage on as many attacks as the user has is outlandish, once you include something like an effect on 20 roll, a character with extra attacks and ongoing advantage is going to trigger that additional effect regularly rather than seldomly. Champions just walk all over these options.
I got into D&D combat through playing X-Com (Which also uses a flanking rule) and I enjoy using it.
Now I get some arguments. Having an easy way to get advantage does allow the potential for abusing certain mechanics, and I thankfully haven't had to deal with this in any of my games. Ultimately though I find it fun, my party find it fun, and that's all that matters when playing D&D.
Does anyone here who uses Flanking do anything to compensate those with devalued features? E.g. Reckless Attack
Thinking on it, my barbarian used Reckless ALL THE TIME... I think it was mainly because I made sure that in a fight it wasn't usually: clear threat + minions but rather multiple equal threats. So while yes, the optimum damage strat would be all focus fire one guy and use flanking, many times, the barb (bear totem with sentinel) would go on his own to tie down another threat while the rest of the party just wailed on the other.
So in my game it was less of me (the DM) adjusting and accounting for these abilities and more of the players being like "Well, I have a way to get advantage on my own so I'm going to take advantage of it (see what i did there >.>)
My players haven't used Faerie Fire but the bard loves to use Bane. Honestly I don't think hes skipped over faerie fire because of the flanking rule, I think its more likely that he values the effects of a spell like bane more - being able to choose specific creatures, making them more susceptible to other spells that require saving throws etc...
I can see why people don't like the flanking rule, but in my experience it hasn't been abused by any means, and I think it gives my players more options which in general is a good thing. My players also really like tactical combat so its another way they think about positioning, using the terrain like fighting in choke points, and coordinating (at least till everything falls apart and its mayhem).
I'm all for giving players, especially of melee characters, more options. I just don't think the flanking rule as presented in the DMG is a good one to give them. It makes most other options bad ones, and generally leaves players looking for flanking above all else, because getting advantage for multiple characters from flanking is more powerful and easier/cheaper than most other options.
Fair enough, do whats best for your table! Obviously my experience is anecdotal to everyone else. I just haven't had that same experience, but then again its all situational. They tend to trying flanking more if they're facing a singular tough creature, but those fights are few and far between. You may be right that flanking makes other choices sub-optimal, however, there is a difference between what is the 'best' option and how your players actually act at the table. My players don't usually do what the most optimal choice might be, they do whats the most fun in the situation. So maybe I'm just lucky.
I’m using +2 to attack rolls. Considering more, maybe +3 if beset on several sides. I don’t like how you can walk around a monster within melee though, like a full circle around the monster, before hitting it. It doesn’t usually happen of course but it could be done. I like the idea (I think I remember something about this in 3.5) of being able to move 5 feet within melee but anything after that is a possible AoO.
That being said, in one game I have adv/disadv and another +2. We’ll see how it goes. My fear is that PC will focus on flanking above everything else, which while within my rules, is kind of lame.
DM - And In The Darkness, Rot: The Sunless Citadel
DM - Our Little Lives Kept In Equipoise: Curse of Strahd
DM - Misprize Thou Not These Shadows That Belong: The Lost Mines of Phandelver
PC - Azzure - Tyranny of Dragons