Facing House Rule

[Tusalu]

I just want to present a house rule I've been using in my D&D. I noticed the Unearthed Arcana rule for combat facing, but wasn't entirely satisfied with it, so I made my own with my gaming group.

Basically the direction a character is facing matters in battle. This has a number of effects:
- Flanking still exists but only provides a +1 bonus.
- Attacking a character from the side gives a +1 attack bonus.
- Attacking from behind gives +2, and because you only have line of sight in front of you it's possible to catch someone flat-footed by sneaking behind their back, even in combat, with Move Silently.
- Shields only apply to the front and one side, but have +1 AC bonus to balance this.
- It's possible to attack sideways or behind you, but with a -2 modifier to attack. Attacking behind you also involves total concealment as it is out of your line of sight.
- It's possible to move sideways or backwards but this costs double movement except for 5-foot step and full withdraw.
- Turning up to 90 degrees takes 5 ft of movement.
- Each character can turn up to 45 degrees as an immediate action once per round.
- Reflex save DC's of effects from behind or sideways are modified with a bonus equal to the attack bonuses.

In practice we experienced that this didn't disturb the action much, even though only two or three players really learned the rules (but then they are probably about the only ones who really knows the combat rules to begin with), but they helped the others count movement and such.
Attacks of opportunity became more difficult, because you only properly threatened half the normal area, but I've been considering making various feats to help you fight and AoO behind you.

[MesiDoomstalker]

I just want to present a house rule I've been using in my D&D. I noticed the Unearthed Arcana rule for combat facing, but wasn't entirely satisfied with it, so I made my own with my gaming group.

Basically the direction a character is facing matters in battle. This has a number of effects:
- Flanking still exists but only provides a +1 bonus.
- Attacking a character from the side gives a +1 attack bonus.
- Attacking from behind gives +2, and because you only have line of sight in front of you it's possible to catch someone flat-footed by sneaking behind their back, even in combat, with Move Silently.
- Shields only apply to the front and one side, but have +1 AC bonus to balance this.
- It's possible to attack sideways or behind you, but with a -2 modifier to attack. Attacking behind you also involves total concealment as it is out of your line of sight.
- It's possible to move sideways or backwards but this costs double movement except for 5-foot step and full withdraw.
- Turning up to 90 degrees takes 5 ft of movement.
- Each character can turn up to 45 degrees as an immediate action once per round.
- Reflex save DC's of effects from behind or sideways are modified with a bonus equal to the attack bonuses.

In practice we experienced that this didn't disturb the action much, even though only two or three players really learned the rules (but then they are probably about the only ones who really knows the combat rules to begin with), but they helped the others count movement and such.
Attacks of opportunity became more difficult, because you only properly threatened half the normal area, but I've been considering making various feats to help you fight and AoO behind you.

I would make it Move Silently/Hide to sneak behind as the situation warrants. Hearing is only an issue once your out of sight, but if you were in sight you have to sneak out of sight first.

Does turning 90 degrees count as a 5 ft. step? if not does it provoke AoO like other movement?

I wouldn't say attacking behind is total concealment, you can still look behind you (as a free action I would say) though it isn't perfect so still give the person some concealment as neccesary.

I would of made sideways attack -1 and behind -2. Its far easier to slash to your left than to slash behind you.

I'm assuming area effects like cones work similar to UA version?

[Tusalu]

That's interesting. We didn't actually use the concealment thing, that is an updated version I planned to introduce for next time. Instead it was -2 sideways and -4 behind.
And you can use your 5-ft step to turn.

Also a minor thing I didn't mention is that attacking with a right-handed weapon to the left square of three in front of you gives a -1, and vice versa. But no penalties for two-handed attacks.

And it didn't come up in the given game, but Cleave would probably have none or decreased penalties to attack in unusual directions.

[navar100]

First impression:

It makes melee fighting worse off.

Shields become useless because you get nothing from it for half of your surroundings. While having a high AC helps by normal rules, generally speaking you're still going to hit. If shields aren't even going to give their full benefit for all attacks now, why bother using them.

You're adding pluses and minuses that will have significant effects over time, especially the minuses. Meanwhile, archery remains the same. Spellcasting remains the same with reflex save spells becoming harder to resist.

Realism can only go so far before combat fails to function. D&D combat is not supposed to be realistic. There is no need to make it more complicated than it already is.

[DiBastet]

Well, if you people work okay with it, then fine. Hoewever, since the whole point is more realism, but also you don't want to break things, I would recommend that all spellcasting becomes full round action.

Melee loses with this houserule, so casting could lose a little too.

Ps: Also make Concentration like pathfinder. Instead of a skill, you roll your CL for concentration, keeping the same DCs.

[Doug Lampert]

Realism can only go so far before combat fails to function. D&D combat is not supposed to be realistic. There is no need to make it more complicated than it already is.
True as far as it goes, but it's worse than that. This is a LESS realistic rule than what we've got. It's not realistic to change facing only once per 6 seconds. Not at all.

It is STUNNINGLY not realistic to allow a foe to move arround me faster than I can turn in place. I mean, this is seriously crap from a realism PoV.

For facing to be at all realistic I need to be able to change facing as a FREE action that I can take on other character's turns.

In which case I'm always facing the foe attacking me and you need to introduce a flanking rule to give flanking some advantage (maybe turning directly away from someone provokes), but this still completely screws the rogues.

Anyone who defends a facing rule in combat which allows changes in facing only at six second intervals on the basis of realism fails reality forever! And if the opponent gets six seconds of actions between my turns and I can't easily change facing during that time then the rules are in fact saying that I can only change facing at six second intervals.

DougL