Flanking question

[talltwin36]

A cleric casts sanctuary and the fighter(F1) he was fighting fails his will save. The fighter turns around and attacks two people(F2 and F3) who had been flanking him. Does the cleric still give F2 and/oir F3 a flanking bonus, even though he is affected by the sanctuary spell and is not attacking? At the moment he is healing/buffing.

msquared

[RandomNPC]

...

thats a good one.

i don't think the spell says anything about canceling flanking, as the cleric can still attack, thus dropping his spell, so i would still worry about defending myself from him.

im not sure what RAW says, but i would allow flanking

[Clementx]

Technically, he is still flanked. This just points out a little rule-hole in Sanctuary- to make it neat, you could require the cleric to voluntarily not threaten if he wants to keep Sanctuary up. It depends on if you think waving your mace around forcing the fighter to consider you a threat, but never trying real hard to break an opening (making an attack roll) violates the intent of Sanctuary.

[talltwin36]

That was my problem with it. He used the sanctuary to get the fighters (F1) attention off of him. The way I worded the spell result was that fighter (F1) just sort of "forgot" about the cleric. He might know the cleric is there, but at the moment he has been "made" to see the fighters behind him (F2 and F3)as more of a threat. The cleric is not doing anything threatening, yet.

I would assume that this would give the cleric a chance to hit the first fighter (F1) with a flat footed bonus since fighter (F1) still knows that the cleric is there.

msquared

[Shhalahr Windrider]

Technically, he is still flanked. This just points out a little rule-hole in Sanctuary- to make it neat, you could require the cleric to voluntarily not threaten if he wants to keep Sanctuary up. It depends on if you think waving your mace around forcing the fighter to consider you a threat, but never trying real hard to break an opening (making an attack roll) violates the intent of Sanctuary.
Threatening a space doesn't require you do "wave your mace around and force your enemy to cosider you a threat." It just requires you to be able to make an attack at a moment's notice. And that's enough to provide a distraction on a battlefield anyway. You have to keep an eye on your enemies, no matter how non-threatening they appear.

[Clementx]

Threatening a space doesn't require you do "wave your mace around and force your enemy to cosider you a threat." It just requires you to be able to make an attack at a moment's notice. And that's enough to provide a distraction on a battlefield anyway. You have to keep an eye on your enemies, no matter how non-threatening they appear.

If threatening creatures weren't constantly making feints and half-swings, then your character wouldn't have to be constantly dodging and, "even threatening the orc with a weapon to keep the orc a little worried for his own hide" PHB 137 description of what it is to be threatened. While it is fluff, it is the general explanation for why you only get one attack roll per six seconds, despite the fact that even a kid can take three or four swings with a baseball bat in that time- it is a reflection of a round's worth of effort. An AoO represents one of your half-attacks that the target was too-distracted to block. In that situation, everyone is constantly seeing their opponent waiting, and swinging "for an AoO" if only to demand a response and ruin their poise.

Now, if you don't have a problem ignoring that explanation, then you don't have a problem with Sanctuary as written. Either way works. If it does bother you, chances are you are already changing combat in subtle ways that aren't explicitly stated, so it doesn't specifically nerf one spell. It does tie into the whole invisible-creature-threatening issue, so it is good to consider what your stance is ahead of time and inform your players, so you don't surprise each other with an illogical situation in the middle of a fight.

[Justin_Bacon]

A cleric casts sanctuary and the fighter(F1) he was fighting fails his will save. The fighter turns around and attacks two people(F2 and F3) who had been flanking him. Does the cleric still give F2 and/oir F3 a flanking bonus, even though he is affected by the sanctuary spell and is not attacking? At the moment he is healing/buffing.

I think the easiest answer would be "yes, he's still flanked". After all, the fighter doesn't know when the cleric might decide to forego the sanctuary and whack him over the back of the head.

I've added the following option as part of my house rules:



Disregard Flanker [Immediate/Free]
You can disregard attacks from an opponent flanking you. When you do, that opponent doesn't get the +2 flanking bonus when attacking you and that opponent does not provide a flanking bonus to any of its allies. Ignoring a flanker, however, provokes an attack of opportunity from that flanker, and you lose your Dexterity bonus to Armor Class against that flanker. You do, however, continue to threaten that flanker. If the flanker is out of attacks of opportunity, you can ignore the flanker (and deny the flanking bonus) with impunity.


You must make the decision to disregard a flanker as soon as the foe moves into a flanking position. You can change your decision as a free action on your turn. (You still have to disregard a flanker you can't see.)


The idea behind this rule was to allow someone to choose not to turn their back on a particularly dangerous opponent, but it makes them incredibly vulnerable to the person behind them.

In the case of sanctuary, however, it nicely handles what you're trying to figure out how to model: The fighter doesn't think it's likely that the cleric will attack him, so he feels free to turn his back on him.

Of course, if the cleric did decide to drop the sanctuary and attack him, the fighter would have left himself wide open.

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net