If anybody got distracted by my Flinstones-esque hair partway through the video, I'd like to formally apologize. To make things right, I'll be giving anyone affected by this mistake a *free* subscription! Go ahead! This one's on me.
I find flanking provides MUCH more interesting movement choices and tactical decisions when I added this custom alteration to the rule: Creatures are immune to being flanked if they have at least one conscious ally who is not prone within 5 ft of them. This is to represent the ally watching your back as you watch theirs. This means if you are caught out with no allies around you can be flanked, but two adventurers can have that epic back to back stand against the horde moment as tons of enemies swarm them, but don't get flanking. It also makes knocking enemies prone important, because it can break up their immunity to flanking. It also makes the choice of when to group together or spread out an interesting one. Grouping together helps defend the group against melee combatants by making you immune to flanking, but if there are casters with AOEs you need to worry about it becomes a choice. Do you spread out to avoid the AOEs or group together to avoid flanking? This has worked really well with the group I run that really enjoys in depth combats, and I'd recommend giving it a try.
Providing a benefit for grouping together in and of itself is massively beneficial as far as making combat more strategic! I feel implementing more trade offs such as this would really help change D&D combat for the better.
Regarding the situation described 10:00 in, at my table, I modify the flanking rules so that you need only be on opposite sides, not EXACTLY opposite. If you're a knight's move away from your ally, that's good enough. All of the party members depicted would have advantage.
I play a homebrew fighter that is designed to analyze the battlefield and strategize their positioning to find an advantage over the enemies. With flanking rules as they are, this basically boils down to "go to these exact squares to get advantage on your rolls" and it really stifles the tactical choices I have to make. This video has really nailed the issue I've been feeling on the head and it has given me some food for thought how to change it, together with the comments. If you're gonna keep flanking as advantage rather than a +2 bonus, I think it could make sense to limit it to once per turn, so if you're playing a class that gets an extra attack, you still benefit from finding a way to gain advantage on your other attacks. Anyway, thank you for the great video!
Your sense of humor, use of physical space, clean editing, transitions, delivery, and choice of topics have been very impressive so far. Glad that the algorithm led me to your channel - you deserve way more subscribers.
Hey man! Ive gotten a lot of your videos recommended recently and so far I'm super enjoying your content. I've been a 5e DM for about 7 years now I believe and I've more or less put the system behind me for a few reasons, but I've recently started work on my own homebrew system and ironically, your videos on 5e are incredibly helpful to make some important design descisions. So thank you! Keep up the good work!
I don't know how to feel about this, but after looking up what a Tumblr Sexyman is, I unfortunately don't think I have the right to disagree with the label.
One of my groups handles flanking by giving flanking creatures a +2 to attack rolls. The DM has been playing a long time, and has played older editions, which is likely where he draws inspiration from for it. I do think it’s easier to keep track of than “dwarves have +2 on constitution saves against poisons” because it applies to every character and is easier to “line up”, as it were. I find we don’t usually all rush to flank, but if it happens, it’s helpful, and it doesn’t make advantage redundant.
I want to offer a pedantic correction, because in this instance I believe it does have value. Flanking does not incentivize tactical movement. It incentivizes tactical positioning, which requires movement until you have the optimal positioning and then requires maintaining that positioning, either by moving or by specifically not moving. Cover opportunities do this as well and are subject to the same criticism. Find cover, then don't leave cover except to obtain better cover or negate an enemy's cover. The biggest argument (imo) against flanking is the tendency for it to create "the conga line of death" which you demonstrated at the beginning, but didn't specifically call out (unless I zoned out while listening). But as you pointed out, many of the issues of over incentivizing positioning can be addressed simply by raising the cost of obtaining and maintaining that positioning (narrow spaces, verticality, dynamic battlefields, environmental hazards, etc). And you are quite right that all these things are beneficial to the game regardless whether you use flanking or not. To me, the best reason to use flanking is tables that want to emphasize the tactics of positioning, because that is what it does well. DMs for such tactics focused tables need to be advised to be wary of the conga line of death and keep their battlefields diverse. Rarely should battles be on open plains. Flying opponents should be common. Snipers in elevated, covered positions should be a staple. Use environmental hazards like traps and lava to make traversal needed for optimal positioning more risky. Have dynamic scenarios like river battles where staying in place is nontrivial. Not all monsters have to be vulnerable to flanking; oozes and other amorphous creatures truly have no forward face and can interact in all directions simultaneously with no effort. Not all enemies are smart to flank even for the adv, if standing next to them or hitting them with melee deals damage to the PC or their equipment. Make PCs reconsider dogpiling by having an enemy caster sacrifice their allies to drop a fireball on the conga line. When the optimal solution is too easy, it will tend to get stale, so you will be tasked to think of interesting and logical reasons to choose a different tactic.
You took the words out of my mouth. Flanking is essential to small unit tactics and what is a DnD adventuring party if not a small tactical unit of specialists like in military special forces. The point of flanking is to put pressure on the opponent while another element is fixing them in place and drawing aggro. You want to put your opponent in a situation that has 2+ outcomes and neither is good for them.
In one of the games I run, I've removed opportunity attacks from enemies unless they have it as a special perk. And it's been AMAZING for getting players to go around the enviourment and interact with everything during combat. Every turn is a lot more fluid and people generally have more chances to do interesting things. When it comes to anything that would cause a disengage or affect opportunity attacks, I instead make it "the first melee attack against you on a turn has disadvantage". Admittedly this part is a bit of a bandaid patch, but as there are no rogues or monks in the campaign, it works out fine. Would love to hear people's alternative ideas to this though.
I did like you did with making opportunity attacks rarer with the fighter being the only class that gets it natively and only elite enemies getting it. it is a fighting style if other characters want to use it. What I did for Disengage was make it that as part of the action you get a free move at a quarter of your movement speed so its still useful if you want a small move with no risk.
@@ak318 I think the problem with making it less movement than a dash, is that rogues and monks will never use it, since they can both dash as a bonus action. Same applies to everyone else who can choose to use an action to either disengage or dash, they might as well just choose the option that gives more movement if both cost the same.
@@glonx639 but then if disengage gave full movement no one would ever use dash because disengage would be dash + all movement doesnt trigger opportunity attacks
I use the flanking is a +2 rule. My main problem with it being advantage is exactly what you said about taking away from other classes abilities and the fact that +2 now stacks with other abilities promoting teamwork. The additional rule I use is if a creature has more than 2 eyes, tremorsense, blindsense, etc they are immune to flanking.
There are lots of homebrew alternatives that work, but my favorite is to not worry about it and give numerical bonuses when the player does a smart based on the circumstance. Got behind someone with a shield? Negate the shield's bonus to AC. Readying an attack to hit simultaneously with an ally, so the oponent is unbalanced? Cool, +2 to hit. Spilling oil on the ground before attempting a topple? Awesome, they get -4 to their save
You challange norms about the game and I really like this about your channel. Its both informative and chatartic to listen too. Also entretaining to watch. On the topic I agree that advantage and disadvantage are too common as they are the majority of buffs and debuffs in the game. Especially advantage. I wished we had more modifiers to play around with. An advantage is less valuable in cases of very high dc or ac or alternively very low ones. An enemy monster will easily hit the 12 ac wizard with or without disadvantage. He will also easily succeed on his con save against a spell with his high +9 modifier. This is where modifiers can come in and swing these situations in favor or against the party. Not to mention can stack on top the existing advantage system. I understand the math is something not everyone desires. To me 5e is way too simple and lacks tactics and strategy that I wish I could utilize.
DnD: flanking is complicated! here's advantage! GURPS: you were stabbed from the front left, and you're using your sword in your right hand so that's a -2 to parry, you were shot from behind, no defense, and you have periferal vision as an advantage, so you're able to dodge that attack from your back right just fine.
I will say, even though flanking is pretty yes-or-no, it’s important to note that forced movement is getting more and more prevalent. So there’s counterplay if nothing else. Also I would like to say that Pathfinder 2e has some cool counterplay to flanking like Quick Reversal, so if this was reimplemented as a mainstay that could make the mechanic way more interesting.
1: The way I homebrew flanking is instead of being always active it lets character use reactioin to grant advantage to creature attacking from other side of the opponent and they don't need to be exactly opposite side allowing for 3 way surrounding. 2: I also think the +2 to attack way is fine and DnD 5e still has similiar bonus with cover giving +2/+5 to AC
Yes, i agree with your points, but our gm, who draws his own maps, extensively uses verticality, chokepoints and terrain haxards, so it never felt like a simple decision.
I've been DMing for about 6 months. I've used flanking once. The very first combat we ran, I got two of my guys to flank one of the PCs, because I knew it would scare the shit out my players. I was right. It did. After that, I explained how the mechanic works to my two martials, and internally decided it was "If the players use this, then so will I." For the most part, it just hasn't really come up because my Rogue and my Bloodhunter play so differently that they rarely end up flanking anyone.
I don't usualy use flanking, but in my last season I had some monsters who could use it. The situation was also a bit special because one of the party members was in a ballroom dance battle with the bbeg. Not wanting to offend them, they were forced to keep eye contact with them, making them susceptible to flanking. It was fun for the players because they could avoid being flanked with carefully timed spins, exposing their back to different directions.
🥳🫂👍🏿 Thank you for sharing - I’m on a quest to collect every house rule on UA-cam and beyond - this video is number 2,481 on my playlist - looking forward to hearing about any others you use ❤
I would consider giving higher crit chance for flanking. It makes sense in a similar way to how the advantage does, but utilizes a relatively rare mechanic, which isn't undermined by the existing abilities granted to champion fighters or hexblade warlocks
@LoudYapper sure, and that's an excellent point, but you could still do my plan to make advantage even nicer to earn in other ways, since they would stack for crit chance
i'd like to dedicate this comment to Flames McGillicutty. excellent outro segue. a cool video as always! i end up playing spellcasters a lot so i'm rarely thinking about flanking, but it's neat to learn more about different views on it anyway :D
Flanking, also known as the "stuck between a rock and a hard place" rule. Also I made that up. Despite my games technically having flanking I don't think it has really come up.
5e kinda has flanking already anyways. An important aspect of flanking is to give rouges a way to sneak attack, and they just gave sneak attack the ability to work when flanking. Pact tactics is similar example but a bit different mechanically, it's in the game in some forms. Flanking was a slight buff, that was really important to certain characters types, so they just gave those characters similar abilities. I think a better homebrew rule would be if you are flanking your opponent, you get the finesse property on your weapon. This could be use to let the low strength higher dex characters get in and poke at weak spots with some heavier weapons like a long sword. It doesn't step on the toes mechanically of other many other abilities, and adds some tactical layering, mostly by adding an option to some characters who don't normally swing heavier weapons around. If you are an archer stuck in a small room, you have options with risk/reward if you have to pull your longsword.
solid video mate you're a natural. also why not just give players multiple advantage dice? to be honest i don't play 5e so if it turns into counting out 10 different sources of advantage every turn i get why you wouldn't want to open that can of worms. rules light systems are rising in popularity so as game designers we will have to cull more and more to keep up with the high dopamine needs of a modern audience. flanking is something a lot of new players will try so I always allowed for it. (for context i get a lot of new people who have never played dnd) the heros in the movies never fight the dragon head on, wouldn't be much of a dragon if you could! GM: your alone and see two goblins ahead of you player: can i flank/sneak attack a goblin as a dwarf in heavy armor? GM: yes you can player: i want to flank the goblin! GM: ok beat the goblins AC and you will get a crit! fail to hit the AC you MISS! and the goblin attacks you during your turn... player: rolls 16 GM: you charge the goblins! focusing your attack on one before fainting in the last moment, striking the second goblin in the cranium with your War hammer! in my games players will rarely exceed 10hp so it's a big gamble would you use this rule set? whoever you are let me know, lets pump the algorithm a bit. i like Thomas his alright
In the version of Warhammer Fantasy I played, if two attackers were around a target, they all got (the equivalent of) +2. If 3 were against one, it would +4 And if it was 4 vs one, all of them got +6. I really liked how Grim and Horrible it made being outnumbered... But that was a different style of game.
Another drawback of flanking is that it doesn't work very well if you're playing without a battle map. If you want to play theatre of the mind, you don't want to keep track of whether the ogre is between you and the door, or is more like 45° to the left. If I were making changes, I would say: A creature is outnumbered if it has more than one adjacent enemy. When a creature which is not outnumbered attacks a creature which is outnumbered, it gets a bonus of some sort. This would add a layer of decision making. On your turn, do you break free to get an advantage, or do you get into the thick of it and keep your enemies tied up so they don't get a bonus against your allies? Plus, there's design space: feats/features like "you are not outnumbered unless 3 enemies are nearby", "allies adjacent to you are never outnumbered", or "you get the bonus for attacking an outnumbered opponent even if you are outnumbered" It's also more in line with 5e's idea that walking around someone in a circle is perfectly safe, but walking away from them is dangerous. But that never made any sense to me, honestly.
I think the verisimilitude argument actually comes from the relative lack of options many martial characters have in combat, looking for mechanical benefits to thematic choices, and then thinking through what seems logical. That said, totally agree that it's a poorly written bonus option for 5e, since that's just how the system is designed. My wife has incorporated an alternate version of the homebrew rule you mentioned at the end. She dropped it to a +1, but expanded it to anyone standing on sort of opposite sides, rather than just directly opposite. I won't list the geometry here, but essentially if you have more than two creatures surrounding the same opponent, chances are they're all benefiting, rather than just a couple. In my opinion, it's felt rewarding without being problematic so far, but we also aren't playing a combat intensive campaign.
Another reason I personally dont use flanking is is makes the second condition for sneak attack almost obsolete, and kinda steals the rogue's flavour, so only rogues know how to exploit weaknesses like this because it's how they sneak attack.
My simple fix is that it doesn't work on monsters with more than 1 head, or a Passive Perception of 15 or higher. Aka it becomes kinda situational at higher levels, but still works often in the lower ones.
Great video. Though honestly I've never seen people using the optional flanking rule in 5e in any of the groups I've played in since 2014; and since they've dropped it entirely in 2024 I'm guessing it was not very popular in general. I do think the Level UP 5E rules where you get a +1d4 to attack when you flank, or the PF2 rules where you get a bonus to attack do encourage tactical movement though. And I think the number one rule that inhibits tactical movement in 5E is that every creature and PC gets an AOO. PF2 combat is less static simply because AOOs are rare.
Everything getting AOO as a default is definitely part of the problem, but I think the other problem is that movement is completely free. Sure, you can try and shove people away but if the penalty to moving them away is that you're just moving them and not getting any extra bonuses (Whether it's now they have to move past an ally who can AOO or "Oh no, they're in the lava pool and have to move out to not die from lava!" or anything like that), they that shove practically did nothing but make it so that a creature who would otherwise stand still and attack now simply just goes back to moving up to you and still attacking with no penalty. One of the points lightly brushed upon with Flanking is the resource cost it has (or rather, that it lacks) compared to other sources of advantage in a system with over 140 sources of advantage before considering any 2024 rules shenanigans. Do note that these sources are not all for combat but the fact that 140 sources exist is wild considering how Advantage is such a catch-all.
@@Miniman6347 That's one aspect of PF2 I think actually works well: movement costs one of your three actions. So forcing a creature to spend an action moving, even if it is just 5', has the real pay off of eliminating one of its attacks vs the 5E method of standing still and just slogging away bc 1. you are penalized for moving (AOOs) and 2. unless you can move faster than your opponent, forcing your opponent to move doesn't penalize the opponent. So 5E fights tend to be pretty static unless you have mobility and more than 30' move speed.
Flanking is bad because it heaps extra benefits onto focused fire. The action economy already does this by default, since each enemy dropped stops dealing damage. So even in a +2 system, flanking is redundant with the incentives in the action economy.
best argument I've heard against flanking it's it invalidates certain class abilities that rely on being able to self-apply advantage to keep up with other class's damage the Barbarian gets very few damage increases, so Reckless Attack is what allows it to keep up. If everyone got advatage, then the Barbarian becomes bottom of the pack.
Except not every class is looking for melee attack rolls, which means Adv doesn't affect all classes equally. And any class already can get adv if they have a familiar, companion, or hireling use the Help action. The fact is that adv to attack was never all that hard to get to begin with, especially because DMs are encouraged to dispense advantage ad hoc to reward creative and clever solutions. All Reckless Attack really gives is a mechanical guarantee for adv at the cost of granting adv to returning fire. Flanking is far from a guarantee for adv. Many party members do not want to be in melee. If the party is split up across the battlefield, you probably can't set it up. Tight corridors can force teleportation to set up flanking or make it impossible. It's not a blank check to always have adv. It does make Reckless Attack less of a bread and butter choice every turn and more of a hail mary when forced to stand alone.
@PlehAP most of those are pretty DM dependent, and I wouldn't say they're designed that way. You can never guarantee help from a companion or hireling, and the DM could just not give them out. Numerically it's pretty evident other classes having consistent advantage was not the baseline calculation. At 16th level, a Fighter with 3 Greatsword attacks, Rogue with Sneak Attack, Monk Flurry, and Barbarian Reckless (no rage) are all within 2 points of damage of each other. With rage Barb pulls ahead, but by 20th level the Fighter outpaces by just having 4 attacks
@kori228 companions and familiars are RAW options the DM would have to explicitly ban. Find Familiar is a spell. Artificers can get a Steel Defender. Rangers have a couple companion options. DMs can ban these things, but it shouldn't be assumed that they would.
100%, Flanking takes away most of combat's strategy. I played at a LGS, and there was Flanking as a houserule. There was no reason why I would do anything like Pack Tactics, Mounted Combatants, Hiding, etc as you mentioned. It was just... Dumb. It killed 90% of strategy. It made the game super boring, especially when there aren't any ways to stop the flanking.
I agree with adv disadv being way to punishing to many a feature. Why ever cast feary fire if you can just flank. On the other hand many times monsters need the accuracy boost against double shielded frontliners. As such i use the flat bonus of +2 to give most of my minions. Being swarned gives them a 15 %chance to hit. (24+ ac frontliners lv 9. 3 of them) This bonus can double and even tripple. If the flanked creature is cought in the midlle and inside of a triangleX2 or squareX3. Max +4 on hexes +6 on squares. This is mainly a rule for the dm so the party does not let itself be swarmed . There came a time when they simply started to ignore anybody not having +7 or more to hit. I didnt want that because i did not want to resort to rondel dagger anti knight tactics to get any use out of minions. (Shove prone grapple and disarm then start stabbing) I do not recommend this rule if your party does not have 22+ ac on everybody they expect to be hit on the frontline or want to have deadly swarms. Ac is a big part of survivability giving the monsters such a powerfull bonus that stacks with adv will lead to 17-19 ac pcs dying too fast. I had pc go from 50 to 3hp in a single round with 20 ac against ghouls 6.
Hitchance went from 36(+4 adv) to 75%(+10 adv) hp effictivity dropped from ~ 300 % to ~130 %. This is ver powerfull but absolutely needed if you want to hit anybody with 24 plus ac more then one a combat.(oh wait they just silvery barbs it)
One table I play in gives a +2 to attacks from directly flanking opponents and a +1 for each adjacent ally (so everyone gets +3 if there are 3 people adjacent to the target), and gaining advantage if there are 4 people or more. My personal feeling on the verisimilitude thing is that I don't like when the game nerfs what you can do in real life, which is why I have a problem with the idea that a 20th level fighter can only attack 4 times in 6 whole seconds if they're not dual wielding and don't action surge (they can't use action surge EVERY turn). I haven't found a balanced way to fix this yet tho so I just cross my arms and scowl about the fact that with I can outpace a 20th level fighter even though I have very little swordsmanship experience. Either way, I don't like the game nerfing stuff you can do in real life since it's a fantasy game and you can argue you're supposed to feel MORE powerful than you in real life, not less.
It is a far to easy way to get advantage with this flanking Just add a +2 if the creature is flanked not more don’t make the feature of packtakticks in invallied And have you ever seen owl familiar abusing the bonus action to grand permanent advantage Monsters are to weak already
Funny part about flanking is that the 5-foot tokens have no "front and back", and in case someone tried to run behind you mid combat, you can just turn to be sideways towards both, using the shield in one arm to fend off against one and the weapon for the other, which could justify just ignoring the advantage part and not using the rule. Then, even if you add a third creature, you still have armor on your back, not like armors protect from just the front. The DM I play uses flanking but instead of advantage or +2 to hit, he just gives a -1 AC to the flanked creature from the flanking attackers, and it's negligible enough that even when swarmed, martials are not overwhelmed, and it's still a little something players can use.
3.5 player here. flanking is a +2 bonus. +10% flat hit is reasonable, and the number of class features that rely on it is basically none. it also doesn't nullify any features or actions. that's the problem with 5e. it's too reductive. everything is just advantage or disadvantage, and you can't stack bonuses. this means that instead of coming up with strategies that compound the party's strengths, you just look for the lowest hanging fruit of advantage, and exploit that as much as is reasonable while inflicting disadvantage, and try to exploit action economy where possible. the solution is to play 3.5e. it's got the exact same 3 action structure of 5e(move, standard, and swift), but there's so much more for customization in characters. moreover, it's got a rich history of discussion,guides, and exploration, and finally: it's not going to give money to WotC. fuck WotC.
I think Flanking is too strong. Giving advantage to every attack (plus making most advantage related bonuses useless) is way too strong. In the campaign I'm running I've made (dis)advantage stack with a +-2 for each extra (dis)advantage. Still I don't want to add flanking as seems too strong. DC20's Almanac of all things expands on the flanking mechanic a bit.
Campaigns that cared too hard about "making sense" are amongst the worst I have ever played in. Imagine you are playing a fairy barbarian and your character is constantly getting new nerfs to make your character make more sense. You get a penalty to carrying capacity, because you are a little fairy, you are not as strong as other races. You can't use Danger Sense, because it is just an unrealistic that you can sense danger slightly faster. Damage you resist with Rage is rounded up, because a fairy is just not as tough. Using a Grapple/Shove ended your Rage, because you are not hurting the enemy. Having to beg to use your character feats is not worth the verisimilitude.
It sounds like your problem is that you are only playing with flat open maps with no verticality, choke points, or difficult terrain. I suggest you make your maps more strategic by playing some Baldur's Gate or Solasta.
I love when people use this disingenuous argument "omg the featureless whitebox" Because it makes the exact same assumption you are accusing the "whiteboxers" of, but in reverse. That you can always justify having interesting terrain or prep a map for any encounter that might happen, and also multiple, very different maps, than that, just so your players don't just learn one of the maps and get tired of the same obstacles etc.
@@xolotltolox7626You can make an interesting array of maps for different terrain types in enough number that your players don't notice any repetition. It's how it used to be done before people stupidly switched to miniatures for everything.
If anybody got distracted by my Flinstones-esque hair partway through the video, I'd like to formally apologize. To make things right, I'll be giving anyone affected by this mistake a *free* subscription! Go ahead! This one's on me.
The big issue with flanking is that it is advantage, because 5e is completely and utterly allergic to just giving you flat bonuses
I find flanking provides MUCH more interesting movement choices and tactical decisions when I added this custom alteration to the rule:
Creatures are immune to being flanked if they have at least one conscious ally who is not prone within 5 ft of them. This is to represent the ally watching your back as you watch theirs.
This means if you are caught out with no allies around you can be flanked, but two adventurers can have that epic back to back stand against the horde moment as tons of enemies swarm them, but don't get flanking. It also makes knocking enemies prone important, because it can break up their immunity to flanking.
It also makes the choice of when to group together or spread out an interesting one. Grouping together helps defend the group against melee combatants by making you immune to flanking, but if there are casters with AOEs you need to worry about it becomes a choice. Do you spread out to avoid the AOEs or group together to avoid flanking?
This has worked really well with the group I run that really enjoys in depth combats, and I'd recommend giving it a try.
That's also a great way to keep people from doing the ol' "conga line," too!
Providing a benefit for grouping together in and of itself is massively beneficial as far as making combat more strategic! I feel implementing more trade offs such as this would really help change D&D combat for the better.
Regarding the situation described 10:00 in, at my table, I modify the flanking rules so that you need only be on opposite sides, not EXACTLY opposite. If you're a knight's move away from your ally, that's good enough. All of the party members depicted would have advantage.
I play a homebrew fighter that is designed to analyze the battlefield and strategize their positioning to find an advantage over the enemies. With flanking rules as they are, this basically boils down to "go to these exact squares to get advantage on your rolls" and it really stifles the tactical choices I have to make. This video has really nailed the issue I've been feeling on the head and it has given me some food for thought how to change it, together with the comments. If you're gonna keep flanking as advantage rather than a +2 bonus, I think it could make sense to limit it to once per turn, so if you're playing a class that gets an extra attack, you still benefit from finding a way to gain advantage on your other attacks.
Anyway, thank you for the great video!
Your sense of humor, use of physical space, clean editing, transitions, delivery, and choice of topics have been very impressive so far. Glad that the algorithm led me to your channel - you deserve way more subscribers.
Thank you!
Hey man! Ive gotten a lot of your videos recommended recently and so far I'm super enjoying your content.
I've been a 5e DM for about 7 years now I believe and I've more or less put the system behind me for a few reasons, but I've recently started work on my own homebrew system and ironically, your videos on 5e are incredibly helpful to make some important design descisions. So thank you! Keep up the good work!
I love the tumblr sexyman dnd advice channel
I don't know how to feel about this, but after looking up what a Tumblr Sexyman is, I unfortunately don't think I have the right to disagree with the label.
One of my groups handles flanking by giving flanking creatures a +2 to attack rolls. The DM has been playing a long time, and has played older editions, which is likely where he draws inspiration from for it.
I do think it’s easier to keep track of than “dwarves have +2 on constitution saves against poisons” because it applies to every character and is easier to “line up”, as it were.
I find we don’t usually all rush to flank, but if it happens, it’s helpful, and it doesn’t make advantage redundant.
I want to offer a pedantic correction, because in this instance I believe it does have value.
Flanking does not incentivize tactical movement. It incentivizes tactical positioning, which requires movement until you have the optimal positioning and then requires maintaining that positioning, either by moving or by specifically not moving. Cover opportunities do this as well and are subject to the same criticism. Find cover, then don't leave cover except to obtain better cover or negate an enemy's cover.
The biggest argument (imo) against flanking is the tendency for it to create "the conga line of death" which you demonstrated at the beginning, but didn't specifically call out (unless I zoned out while listening).
But as you pointed out, many of the issues of over incentivizing positioning can be addressed simply by raising the cost of obtaining and maintaining that positioning (narrow spaces, verticality, dynamic battlefields, environmental hazards, etc).
And you are quite right that all these things are beneficial to the game regardless whether you use flanking or not.
To me, the best reason to use flanking is tables that want to emphasize the tactics of positioning, because that is what it does well.
DMs for such tactics focused tables need to be advised to be wary of the conga line of death and keep their battlefields diverse.
Rarely should battles be on open plains. Flying opponents should be common. Snipers in elevated, covered positions should be a staple. Use environmental hazards like traps and lava to make traversal needed for optimal positioning more risky. Have dynamic scenarios like river battles where staying in place is nontrivial. Not all monsters have to be vulnerable to flanking; oozes and other amorphous creatures truly have no forward face and can interact in all directions simultaneously with no effort. Not all enemies are smart to flank even for the adv, if standing next to them or hitting them with melee deals damage to the PC or their equipment. Make PCs reconsider dogpiling by having an enemy caster sacrifice their allies to drop a fireball on the conga line.
When the optimal solution is too easy, it will tend to get stale, so you will be tasked to think of interesting and logical reasons to choose a different tactic.
You took the words out of my mouth. Flanking is essential to small unit tactics and what is a DnD adventuring party if not a small tactical unit of specialists like in military special forces. The point of flanking is to put pressure on the opponent while another element is fixing them in place and drawing aggro. You want to put your opponent in a situation that has 2+ outcomes and neither is good for them.
In one of the games I run, I've removed opportunity attacks from enemies unless they have it as a special perk. And it's been AMAZING for getting players to go around the enviourment and interact with everything during combat. Every turn is a lot more fluid and people generally have more chances to do interesting things.
When it comes to anything that would cause a disengage or affect opportunity attacks, I instead make it "the first melee attack against you on a turn has disadvantage". Admittedly this part is a bit of a bandaid patch, but as there are no rogues or monks in the campaign, it works out fine. Would love to hear people's alternative ideas to this though.
I was thinking about something like the first 5ft of movement costs 2x or 3x more if you want to disengage without wasting your action.
I did like you did with making opportunity attacks rarer with the fighter being the only class that gets it natively and only elite enemies getting it. it is a fighting style if other characters want to use it.
What I did for Disengage was make it that as part of the action you get a free move at a quarter of your movement speed so its still useful if you want a small move with no risk.
@@ak318 I think the problem with making it less movement than a dash, is that rogues and monks will never use it, since they can both dash as a bonus action. Same applies to everyone else who can choose to use an action to either disengage or dash, they might as well just choose the option that gives more movement if both cost the same.
@@MoreInsane96 This is good. I like this.
@@glonx639 but then if disengage gave full movement no one would ever use dash because disengage would be dash + all movement doesnt trigger opportunity attacks
I use the flanking is a +2 rule. My main problem with it being advantage is exactly what you said about taking away from other classes abilities and the fact that +2 now stacks with other abilities promoting teamwork.
The additional rule I use is if a creature has more than 2 eyes, tremorsense, blindsense, etc they are immune to flanking.
There are lots of homebrew alternatives that work, but my favorite is to not worry about it and give numerical bonuses when the player does a smart based on the circumstance. Got behind someone with a shield? Negate the shield's bonus to AC. Readying an attack to hit simultaneously with an ally, so the oponent is unbalanced? Cool, +2 to hit. Spilling oil on the ground before attempting a topple? Awesome, they get -4 to their save
You challange norms about the game and I really like this about your channel. Its both informative and chatartic to listen too.
Also entretaining to watch.
On the topic I agree that advantage and disadvantage are too common as they are the majority of buffs and debuffs in the game. Especially advantage. I wished we had more modifiers to play around with.
An advantage is less valuable in cases of very high dc or ac or alternively very low ones.
An enemy monster will easily hit the 12 ac wizard with or without disadvantage. He will also easily succeed on his con save against a spell with his high +9 modifier.
This is where modifiers can come in and swing these situations in favor or against the party. Not to mention can stack on top the existing advantage system.
I understand the math is something not everyone desires. To me 5e is way too simple and lacks tactics and strategy that I wish I could utilize.
DnD: flanking is complicated! here's advantage!
GURPS: you were stabbed from the front left, and you're using your sword in your right hand so that's a -2 to parry, you were shot from behind, no defense, and you have periferal vision as an advantage, so you're able to dodge that attack from your back right just fine.
I will say, even though flanking is pretty yes-or-no, it’s important to note that forced movement is getting more and more prevalent. So there’s counterplay if nothing else.
Also I would like to say that Pathfinder 2e has some cool counterplay to flanking like Quick Reversal, so if this was reimplemented as a mainstay that could make the mechanic way more interesting.
1: The way I homebrew flanking is instead of being always active it lets character use reactioin to grant advantage to creature attacking from other side of the opponent and they don't need to be exactly opposite side allowing for 3 way surrounding.
2: I also think the +2 to attack way is fine and DnD 5e still has similiar bonus with cover giving +2/+5 to AC
Yes, i agree with your points, but our gm, who draws his own maps, extensively uses verticality, chokepoints and terrain haxards, so it never felt like a simple decision.
I've been DMing for about 6 months. I've used flanking once.
The very first combat we ran, I got two of my guys to flank one of the PCs, because I knew it would scare the shit out my players. I was right. It did.
After that, I explained how the mechanic works to my two martials, and internally decided it was "If the players use this, then so will I." For the most part, it just hasn't really come up because my Rogue and my Bloodhunter play so differently that they rarely end up flanking anyone.
I don't trust you because you're a funny youtuber, I trust you cause you wear a tie.
I don't usualy use flanking, but in my last season I had some monsters who could use it. The situation was also a bit special because one of the party members was in a ballroom dance battle with the bbeg. Not wanting to offend them, they were forced to keep eye contact with them, making them susceptible to flanking. It was fun for the players because they could avoid being flanked with carefully timed spins, exposing their back to different directions.
🥳🫂👍🏿
Thank you for sharing - I’m on a quest to collect every house rule on UA-cam and beyond - this video is number 2,481 on my playlist - looking forward to hearing about any others you use ❤
I would consider giving higher crit chance for flanking. It makes sense in a similar way to how the advantage does, but utilizes a relatively rare mechanic, which isn't undermined by the existing abilities granted to champion fighters or hexblade warlocks
Advantage already gives higher crit chance
@LoudYapper sure, and that's an excellent point, but you could still do my plan to make advantage even nicer to earn in other ways, since they would stack for crit chance
i'd like to dedicate this comment to Flames McGillicutty. excellent outro segue.
a cool video as always! i end up playing spellcasters a lot so i'm rarely thinking about flanking, but it's neat to learn more about different views on it anyway :D
Flanking, also known as the "stuck between a rock and a hard place" rule. Also I made that up. Despite my games technically having flanking I don't think it has really come up.
5e kinda has flanking already anyways. An important aspect of flanking is to give rouges a way to sneak attack, and they just gave sneak attack the ability to work when flanking. Pact tactics is similar example but a bit different mechanically, it's in the game in some forms. Flanking was a slight buff, that was really important to certain characters types, so they just gave those characters similar abilities.
I think a better homebrew rule would be if you are flanking your opponent, you get the finesse property on your weapon. This could be use to let the low strength higher dex characters get in and poke at weak spots with some heavier weapons like a long sword. It doesn't step on the toes mechanically of other many other abilities, and adds some tactical layering, mostly by adding an option to some characters who don't normally swing heavier weapons around. If you are an archer stuck in a small room, you have options with risk/reward if you have to pull your longsword.
solid video mate you're a natural.
also why not just give players multiple advantage dice? to be honest i don't play 5e so if it turns into counting out 10 different sources of advantage every turn i get why you wouldn't want to open that can of worms. rules light systems are rising in popularity so as game designers we will have to cull more and more to keep up with the high dopamine needs of a modern audience. flanking is something a lot of new players will try so I always allowed for it. (for context i get a lot of new people who have never played dnd) the heros in the movies never fight the dragon head on, wouldn't be much of a dragon if you could!
GM: your alone and see two goblins ahead of you
player: can i flank/sneak attack a goblin as a dwarf in heavy armor?
GM: yes you can
player: i want to flank the goblin!
GM: ok beat the goblins AC and you will get a crit! fail to hit the AC you MISS! and the goblin attacks you during your turn...
player: rolls 16
GM: you charge the goblins! focusing your attack on one before fainting in the last moment, striking the second goblin in the cranium with your War hammer!
in my games players will rarely exceed 10hp so it's a big gamble
would you use this rule set? whoever you are let me know, lets pump the algorithm a bit. i like Thomas his alright
In the version of Warhammer Fantasy I played, if two attackers were around a target, they all got (the equivalent of) +2.
If 3 were against one, it would +4
And if it was 4 vs one, all of them got +6.
I really liked how Grim and Horrible it made being outnumbered... But that was a different style of game.
Another drawback of flanking is that it doesn't work very well if you're playing without a battle map. If you want to play theatre of the mind, you don't want to keep track of whether the ogre is between you and the door, or is more like 45° to the left.
If I were making changes, I would say:
A creature is outnumbered if it has more than one adjacent enemy. When a creature which is not outnumbered attacks a creature which is outnumbered, it gets a bonus of some sort.
This would add a layer of decision making. On your turn, do you break free to get an advantage, or do you get into the thick of it and keep your enemies tied up so they don't get a bonus against your allies? Plus, there's design space: feats/features like "you are not outnumbered unless 3 enemies are nearby", "allies adjacent to you are never outnumbered", or "you get the bonus for attacking an outnumbered opponent even if you are outnumbered"
It's also more in line with 5e's idea that walking around someone in a circle is perfectly safe, but walking away from them is dangerous. But that never made any sense to me, honestly.
I think the verisimilitude argument actually comes from the relative lack of options many martial characters have in combat, looking for mechanical benefits to thematic choices, and then thinking through what seems logical. That said, totally agree that it's a poorly written bonus option for 5e, since that's just how the system is designed.
My wife has incorporated an alternate version of the homebrew rule you mentioned at the end. She dropped it to a +1, but expanded it to anyone standing on sort of opposite sides, rather than just directly opposite. I won't list the geometry here, but essentially if you have more than two creatures surrounding the same opponent, chances are they're all benefiting, rather than just a couple. In my opinion, it's felt rewarding without being problematic so far, but we also aren't playing a combat intensive campaign.
Another reason I personally dont use flanking is is makes the second condition for sneak attack almost obsolete, and kinda steals the rogue's flavour, so only rogues know how to exploit weaknesses like this because it's how they sneak attack.
My simple fix is that it doesn't work on monsters with more than 1 head, or a Passive Perception of 15 or higher. Aka it becomes kinda situational at higher levels, but still works often in the lower ones.
Great video. Though honestly I've never seen people using the optional flanking rule in 5e in any of the groups I've played in since 2014; and since they've dropped it entirely in 2024 I'm guessing it was not very popular in general. I do think the Level UP 5E rules where you get a +1d4 to attack when you flank, or the PF2 rules where you get a bonus to attack do encourage tactical movement though.
And I think the number one rule that inhibits tactical movement in 5E is that every creature and PC gets an AOO. PF2 combat is less static simply because AOOs are rare.
Everything getting AOO as a default is definitely part of the problem, but I think the other problem is that movement is completely free. Sure, you can try and shove people away but if the penalty to moving them away is that you're just moving them and not getting any extra bonuses (Whether it's now they have to move past an ally who can AOO or "Oh no, they're in the lava pool and have to move out to not die from lava!" or anything like that), they that shove practically did nothing but make it so that a creature who would otherwise stand still and attack now simply just goes back to moving up to you and still attacking with no penalty.
One of the points lightly brushed upon with Flanking is the resource cost it has (or rather, that it lacks) compared to other sources of advantage in a system with over 140 sources of advantage before considering any 2024 rules shenanigans. Do note that these sources are not all for combat but the fact that 140 sources exist is wild considering how Advantage is such a catch-all.
@@Miniman6347 That's one aspect of PF2 I think actually works well: movement costs one of your three actions. So forcing a creature to spend an action moving, even if it is just 5', has the real pay off of eliminating one of its attacks vs the 5E method of standing still and just slogging away bc 1. you are penalized for moving (AOOs) and 2. unless you can move faster than your opponent, forcing your opponent to move doesn't penalize the opponent.
So 5E fights tend to be pretty static unless you have mobility and more than 30' move speed.
First!!! Ahahahaha Thanks for showing me this channel Em!
Flanking is bad because it heaps extra benefits onto focused fire. The action economy already does this by default, since each enemy dropped stops dealing damage. So even in a +2 system, flanking is redundant with the incentives in the action economy.
I play Pathfinder 1e (basically the same shit as D&D 3.5), and flanking is just a +2 to hit with melee attacks. idk I think it works out pretty well.
best argument I've heard against flanking it's it invalidates certain class abilities that rely on being able to self-apply advantage to keep up with other class's damage
the Barbarian gets very few damage increases, so Reckless Attack is what allows it to keep up. If everyone got advatage, then the Barbarian becomes bottom of the pack.
Except not every class is looking for melee attack rolls, which means Adv doesn't affect all classes equally.
And any class already can get adv if they have a familiar, companion, or hireling use the Help action.
The fact is that adv to attack was never all that hard to get to begin with, especially because DMs are encouraged to dispense advantage ad hoc to reward creative and clever solutions.
All Reckless Attack really gives is a mechanical guarantee for adv at the cost of granting adv to returning fire.
Flanking is far from a guarantee for adv. Many party members do not want to be in melee. If the party is split up across the battlefield, you probably can't set it up. Tight corridors can force teleportation to set up flanking or make it impossible.
It's not a blank check to always have adv. It does make Reckless Attack less of a bread and butter choice every turn and more of a hail mary when forced to stand alone.
@PlehAP most of those are pretty DM dependent, and I wouldn't say they're designed that way. You can never guarantee help from a companion or hireling, and the DM could just not give them out.
Numerically it's pretty evident other classes having consistent advantage was not the baseline calculation. At 16th level, a Fighter with 3 Greatsword attacks, Rogue with Sneak Attack, Monk Flurry, and Barbarian Reckless (no rage) are all within 2 points of damage of each other.
With rage Barb pulls ahead, but by 20th level the Fighter outpaces by just having 4 attacks
@kori228 companions and familiars are RAW options the DM would have to explicitly ban. Find Familiar is a spell. Artificers can get a Steel Defender. Rangers have a couple companion options. DMs can ban these things, but it shouldn't be assumed that they would.
100%, Flanking takes away most of combat's strategy.
I played at a LGS, and there was Flanking as a houserule. There was no reason why I would do anything like Pack Tactics, Mounted Combatants, Hiding, etc as you mentioned. It was just... Dumb. It killed 90% of strategy. It made the game super boring, especially when there aren't any ways to stop the flanking.
I agree with adv disadv being way to punishing to many a feature. Why ever cast feary fire if you can just flank.
On the other hand many times monsters need the accuracy boost against double shielded frontliners.
As such i use the flat bonus of +2 to give most of my minions. Being swarned gives them a 15 %chance to hit. (24+ ac frontliners lv 9. 3 of them) This bonus can double and even tripple. If the flanked creature is cought in the midlle and inside of a triangleX2 or squareX3. Max +4 on hexes +6 on squares. This is mainly a rule for the dm so the party does not let itself be swarmed .
There came a time when they simply started to ignore anybody not having +7 or more to hit.
I didnt want that because i did not want to resort to rondel dagger anti knight tactics to get any use out of minions.
(Shove prone grapple and disarm then start stabbing)
I do not recommend this rule if your party does not have 22+ ac on everybody they expect to be hit on the frontline or want to have deadly swarms. Ac is a big part of survivability giving the monsters such a powerfull bonus that stacks with adv will lead to 17-19 ac pcs dying too fast.
I had pc go from 50 to 3hp in a single round with 20 ac against ghouls 6.
Hitchance went from 36(+4 adv) to 75%(+10 adv)
hp effictivity dropped from ~ 300 % to ~130 %.
This is ver powerfull but absolutely needed if you want to hit anybody with 24 plus ac more then one a combat.(oh wait they just silvery barbs it)
I just don't run it because I always forget about it lmao
One table I play in gives a +2 to attacks from directly flanking opponents and a +1 for each adjacent ally (so everyone gets +3 if there are 3 people adjacent to the target), and gaining advantage if there are 4 people or more. My personal feeling on the verisimilitude thing is that I don't like when the game nerfs what you can do in real life, which is why I have a problem with the idea that a 20th level fighter can only attack 4 times in 6 whole seconds if they're not dual wielding and don't action surge (they can't use action surge EVERY turn). I haven't found a balanced way to fix this yet tho so I just cross my arms and scowl about the fact that with I can outpace a 20th level fighter even though I have very little swordsmanship experience. Either way, I don't like the game nerfing stuff you can do in real life since it's a fantasy game and you can argue you're supposed to feel MORE powerful than you in real life, not less.
It is a far to easy way to get advantage with this flanking
Just add a +2 if the creature is flanked not more don’t make the feature of packtakticks in invallied
And have you ever seen owl familiar abusing the bonus action to grand permanent advantage
Monsters are to weak already
Flanking nerfs melee characters and makes them easier to hit
Funny part about flanking is that the 5-foot tokens have no "front and back", and in case someone tried to run behind you mid combat, you can just turn to be sideways towards both, using the shield in one arm to fend off against one and the weapon for the other, which could justify just ignoring the advantage part and not using the rule. Then, even if you add a third creature, you still have armor on your back, not like armors protect from just the front.
The DM I play uses flanking but instead of advantage or +2 to hit, he just gives a -1 AC to the flanked creature from the flanking attackers, and it's negligible enough that even when swarmed, martials are not overwhelmed, and it's still a little something players can use.
3.5 player here.
flanking is a +2 bonus. +10% flat hit is reasonable, and the number of class features that rely on it is basically none. it also doesn't nullify any features or actions.
that's the problem with 5e. it's too reductive. everything is just advantage or disadvantage, and you can't stack bonuses. this means that instead of coming up with strategies that compound the party's strengths, you just look for the lowest hanging fruit of advantage, and exploit that as much as is reasonable while inflicting disadvantage, and try to exploit action economy where possible.
the solution is to play 3.5e. it's got the exact same 3 action structure of 5e(move, standard, and swift), but there's so much more for customization in characters. moreover, it's got a rich history of discussion,guides, and exploration, and finally: it's not going to give money to WotC. fuck WotC.
I think Flanking is too strong. Giving advantage to every attack (plus making most advantage related bonuses useless) is way too strong.
In the campaign I'm running I've made (dis)advantage stack with a +-2 for each extra (dis)advantage. Still I don't want to add flanking as seems too strong.
DC20's Almanac of all things expands on the flanking mechanic a bit.
Campaigns that cared too hard about "making sense" are amongst the worst I have ever played in.
Imagine you are playing a fairy barbarian and your character is constantly getting new nerfs to make your character make more sense. You get a penalty to carrying capacity, because you are a little fairy, you are not as strong as other races. You can't use Danger Sense, because it is just an unrealistic that you can sense danger slightly faster. Damage you resist with Rage is rounded up, because a fairy is just not as tough. Using a Grapple/Shove ended your Rage, because you are not hurting the enemy. Having to beg to use your character feats is not worth the verisimilitude.
Yeah why not to use it??
Play Pf2e
It sounds like your problem is that you are only playing with flat open maps with no verticality, choke points, or difficult terrain. I suggest you make your maps more strategic by playing some Baldur's Gate or Solasta.
It sounds like your problem is that you didn’t make it to the 5 minute mark before commenting ;-)
I love when people use this disingenuous argument "omg the featureless whitebox"
Because it makes the exact same assumption you are accusing the "whiteboxers" of, but in reverse. That you can always justify having interesting terrain or prep a map for any encounter that might happen, and also multiple, very different maps, than that, just so your players don't just learn one of the maps and get tired of the same obstacles etc.
@@xolotltolox7626You can make an interesting array of maps for different terrain types in enough number that your players don't notice any repetition. It's how it used to be done before people stupidly switched to miniatures for everything.
Plain and simple, dnd 5e is a trash combat game