Flanking

I would like to add flanking to the game based on the DMG alternate rules. This would mean you gain advantage when flanking an opponent. Of course this also means you can be flanked by enemies. I like this mechanic because it forces you to be smarter about character placement. It will be significantly more risky to just run out alone into a group of weaker monsters. It will be in your best interest to use walls and corners to prevent being flanked. All in all I think it adds some tactics to combat which existed in previous versions of D&D. Since we use battlemaps for combat it should not be difficult to keep track of positions. Let me know if you are for, against, or don't care either way to using flanking in our game. If the majority of you don't want to use the mechanic I will leave it out.

For

Against, reason being that it causes other forms of gaining advantage to become much less valuable/useful.

Gamerbug94 said: Against, reason being that it causes other forms of gaining advantage to become much less valuable/useful. I see your point and I will deal with it by potentially giving creatures that would not normally get a flank advantage the bonus (just like kobolds already get). I would do that to creatures where I think it would make sense (like guards, cultists, etc) and need to be more of a threat.

For

For, because it makes sense and I like it. Against, because then I can't just stand in the middle of a crowd of kobolds and tank the hell out of them :P Seriously though, For. Though, I think a lot of creatures already have 'flanking advantage' when there are more than 1 creature attacking the same target. I also don't mind using this to the parties advantage.

It was annoying because kobolds have it but cultists and guards etc do not. Without something like advantage it was very hard to hit you and it presented a very low challenge. In my opinion someone with human intelligence should have it easier to hit someone from behind when you are actively engaged from the front.

Well, it's a level 1 right now, so most things probably have a +3 to hit modifier. Also, you saw how in basically 1-2 hits, i was either nearly or unconscious. I'll tell you right now that by lvl 8, a 22AC really doesn't mean too much from experience as most things have at least a +4 to hit(most being around +6/7).

Also, food for thought, if I had gone for an Eldritch Knight build, at lvl 3, I would have a 23-24 ac. So, it could be worse ;)

I've played a couple games that use the flank rules before, and found that it doesnt work well. With the rules the way they are in 5e flanking is a bit OP, mainly because its so easy to get into position (No OAs) and it gives a huge bonus, not to mention it obsoletes a lot of conditions/features/spells. If we do end up using flanking for awhile, ill probably swap my build around as it hugely favors melee.