To flank or not to flank

[Selion]

I know this issue has been addressed multiple times, the game I'm currently playing (as a player) is using the flanking optional rule. It's not like this breaks the game in some way... just, it seems extremely easy obtaining advantage in combat, and tactical movements have a tendency in composing triplets of characters in a line.
At this point i think we are good the way we are , i wouldn't propose a change of rules that would affect negatively some members of the party.

I'm curious about what you do feel about this optional rule, after years in the game. I know there are house rules which fix the issue (if ever there is a issue), but i'm more interested in official ruling.
Personally, i don't like the rule, but i think it's still better than not having a rule at all, also, i always interpreted the "optional" parts of the handbook (feats, multiclassing...) as the "expert" mode, i'm inclined to consider optional rules as the way developers intended the game to be played, in opposition to core rules, necessary to learn basic mechanics

[Dienekes]

Flanking is too easy to get in a game where opportunity attacks are only achieved by leaving reach and as such are too strong, since they negate a lot of methods and class features used to gain advantage.

That said, it also does promote some tactical movement, which is in my mind a good thing that base 5e does far too poorly without a DMs guiding hand.

In my games, I use Flanking, but I turned it into sort of a parallel to the Cover rules.

Flanking provides +2 bonus to attacks against the flanked target.
Two separate flanking pairs make the target surrounded. Melee attacks against a surrounded target get +5.

That's it. It's still useful, but not as useful as Advantage, and still allows the other means of gaining Advantage to be relevant. And the potential to be surrounded makes facing hordes a lot more terrifying, while also technically being something the players can shoot for, though in my experience they only very rarely achieve it.

[Zuras]

Flanking is mostly a problem because it breaks the game’s balance assumptions about how difficult advantage is to achieve.

Besides invalidating many of the class features tied to gaining advantage, it weakens the already weak (any melee fighter not using Great Weapon Master) and strengthens the already strong (summons, battlefield control and ranged attacks).

Since 5e characters have no built in capacity to control movement, it doesn’t even promote using tactics, because using standard initiative there aren’t any ways to avoid having an exposed flank besides lucking out on initiative order.

I personally dislike it, but if you’re up front about it in session zero and give additional features to melee characters with advantage as a key feature (especially the Barbarian with reckless attack) as well as use side initiative instead of individual initiative it can be fine, especially if you want fear of being overwhelmed by hordes of weak creatures as a part of the campaign mood.

[strangebloke]

Rewarding flanking with advantage is really bad.

Generally, advantage on attack rolls is hard to get. Most things that give it have a significant opportunity cost. You have to get the enemy to fail a save/check(blindness, knock prone), or use a special x/LR ability (fighting spirit), or do something that's risky or difficult (steady aim, reckless attack). Spells that give advantage usually require a failed save AND require concentration.

There are exceptions, usually involving making yourself heavily obscured in some way. Blindsight/Darkness. Shadow of Moil. Though even these usually involve conditions and have counterplay, while also being super strong.

This is good, because advantage sources overlapping feels bad. It's bad to feel like an ability isn't doing anything. Nobody likes being told that the impact of their spell or ability is negligible because "we already had advantage against them."

Getting advantage from flanking is far too easy. Most of the time, every melee character can get it against every other melee character, outside of maybe turn 1. You don't eat an OA unless you leave someone's threatened area, so running around to the back of the melee guy is trivial. This makes melee absurdly dangerous, since monsters tend to be more melee focused, and the optimal counterplay is to simply try to run away and kite / block chokepoints as much as possible, something that's already strongly incentivized.

And... yeah! Flanking also really encourages having pets / summons. More bodies on the field means more flanking, and summons are a lot stronger if they can consistently get advantage. Plus, a big part of what makes pet classes / summoning so good is that they're expendable compared to melee allies. So since melee is a meatgrinder with flanking/advantage, having expendable meatshields is even better. Really hard to justify why a 21 AC fighter should be in melee if even mooks are running around with (effectively) +9 attack mods or better.

In short, flanking makes

weak strategies like melee even more dangerous
other weak strategies like proning basically worthless
strong strategies like summoning and kiting even better.
interesting monster abilities like "they have advantage in the dark" pretty redundant

It's a bad, bad optional rule, and the only way to make it work is by having everything take place in such cramped spaces that flanking is very difficult.

[Skrum]

I'm in the same boat with the group I play with. We've been going for over a year and we play with the optional flanking rules. A few months ago a few of us starting chatting about how easy advantage warps the game, and came to the general consensus that it was bad. But....it's been too long at this point to change. There's too many players, too many characters built with flanking advantage in mind, that I'd be shocked if it was changed at this point.

But if I could change it, 100% I would. Flanking should give +2 to the attack. That's a perfectly reasonable bonus without massively devaluing the class features and spells that give advantage.

[Samayu]

We tried it once. We abandoned it mainly because whichever side has the most combatants is likely to gain more from flanking, and that was usually the other side.

I don't think flanking is an "expert" rule that was made optional due to the extra complexity, I think it was something they didn't want to include but so many players thought flanking was important, that they decided to include it.

[animorte]

I don't think flanking is an "expert" rule that was made optional due to the extra complexity, I think it was something they didn't want to include but so many players thought flanking was important, that they decided to include it.

Oh, you mean basically the exact same thing they said about multiclassing?

[Yakk]

Have flanking kick in only at the end of the flanked creature's turn. And apply to all attackers. Ie:

Flanked
You are flanked if you end your turn with creatures surrounding you on both sides. You remain flanked until the end of your next turn. While flanked, attacks on you have advantage.

This is much harder to get, but is still worth threatening. The effect is a bit larger (you are flanked, foes don't flank you) so you grant advantage to everyone (you are too distracted defending on both sides and are trapped and can't get out).

It does away with congo-line flanking as well -- leaving the flank doesn't make the foe unflanked, and you want to get out of it yourself.

[Mastikator]

I don't use it on my group that I DM, much to the surprise of many of my players. Mostly because I nabbed these players from two other groups that I am a player in (nabbed the forever DM too), he loves flanking and uses it in those games.

I agree with the reasons why- stated in this thread by other members of this forum.

I have noticed that the game is IMO better without flanking, it's less deadly and more tactical options become useful. Flanking takes away from the tactical aspects more than it gives, it's a net tactical loss. IMX people who don't think about the many tactical options think that DnD doesn't have tactics, and so think that flanking finally introduces it. And IMX that is only true if nobody is using the many tactical options that flanking makes redundant/worthless. Playing in a flanking game further reinforces that idea when all tactical options that can be used are viewed as not worth doing, nevermind that it's flanking making them not worth doing:/

Not everyone wants to play tactical though, I do. But I've never seen anyone be annoyed by people playing tactically.

[Dork_Forge]

I use an altered flanking, advantage is already easy to get and this doesn't achieve the desired effect IMO.

I just use the flanking = +1 attack rolls version. It's simple, stacks with advantage, makes the game more tactically interesting than the default version.

[LudicSavant]

I think flanking is a very poorly considered rule in this edition and would advise against using it.

[Kane0]

I use Flanking with +1 instead of Advantage, much happier with it. You can also rule that any advantage overrides the +1 instead of stacking with it too.

[KirbyDerby]

One issue with flanking is that in a lot of encounters, there are going to be more enemies than melee PCs. Since most monsters are more dangerous in melee than at range, they'll be very happy to take advantage of flanking and deal tons of damage to the frontliners. This makes melee an even more dangerous position to be in than normal, and makes melee builds even worse than they already are.
Flanking also makes horde summoning spells even better, which is a problem since these are some of the best damage spells in the game.

[stoutstien]

My current rules for tactical melee combat
-AOs trigger when you enter someone's reach, rather than leaving, unless you have an ally flanking the target or you are reduce to half movement speed.
- moving within threatened space is considered DT unless you have an ally flanking.
-ally must be upright, visible, and able to react to count for flanking. No prone, grappled, restrained, and so forth.

Each weapon dominant class gets some unique way to interact with these rules at lv 5.
Fighter continue to get AOs when target enters reach

barbarian can move with a target (up to half movement speed) as part of AO reaction to follow a fleeing target
rogue get AOs when an enemy misses them with an attack made within 5ft

rangers ignore DT from being flanked and don't need to reduce speed to enter reach without AO.

Monks generate the flaked condition without needed an ally and ignore all restrictions to prevent it.*yep a monk in a fog cloud is still impending thee enemy*

Eventually I'm going to name these features so I can use them as NPC tags but it's back logged with other projects.

[da newt]

Overall, I'd have to agree that using the optional flanking rule does make ADV much less special as it's very easy to create. I've played in games using it quite a bit, and while I think it would be better suited as a +2 than ADV, I also think many of the gripes against it are overstated. It doesn't ruin anything.

It allows the melee PCs to hit more consistently and Crit more often which can help them feel more powerful / useful. It also encourages teamwork and focus fire, which I think is a benefit. Yes it does take a bit away from reckless, and yes it makes GWM more effective, and is a boon to EA, but overall I think it benefits the PCs.

If you allow your druid to conjure animals of their choice and specifically control their summons movements, it can get silly.

I prefer a flat +2, but I'm happy to play a table with it or without it too. AL doesn't allow flanking.

[PhillipJokar]

The last group I had flanking in quickly changed their mind when enemies used it against them.

[Zuras]

Overall, I'd have to agree that using the optional flanking rule does make ADV much less special as it's very easy to create. I've played in games using it quite a bit, and while I think it would be better suited as a +2 than ADV, I also think many of the gripes against it are overstated. It doesn't ruin anything.

It allows the melee PCs to hit more consistently and Crit more often which can help them feel more powerful / useful. It also encourages teamwork and focus fire, which I think is a benefit. Yes it does take a bit away from reckless, and yes it makes GWM more effective, and is a boon to EA, but overall I think it benefits the PCs.

If you allow your druid to conjure animals of their choice and specifically control their summons movements, it can get silly.

I prefer a flat +2, but I'm happy to play a table with it or without it too. AL doesn't allow flanking.

Flanking doesn’t ruin the game in any way, but it does really hurt barbarians. Advantage against them penalizes their modest AC more, and their whole schtick of charging into melee gets more dangerous.

As far as encouraging teamwork, how? In my experience, even if players know how to work together, 5e has almost zero non-spell ways to control enemy movement, so teamwork is entirely at the mercy of your places in initiative order. Sure, flanking makes charging into combat even more inadvisable, but punishing bad tactics is not the same as rewarding good tactics.

In my opinion, flanking is a purely negative change unless you are using some sort of variant on standard initiative to allow tactical planning to work.

[Guy Lombard-O]

I basically hate everything about advantage flanking, to the point where I campaigned hard against it in one of my games, finally getting it banned, and managed to get it reduced in the other game I'm playing.

For all the reasons Strangebloke laid out and others espoused, it simply makes the game less fun. It reduces too many class features, spells, tactical strategies and teamwork (like grapple-proning enemies for your party's strikers to finish off...now that's teamwork!), while promoting itself to the sole and virtually automatic method of melee "tactics".

[Demonslayer666]

We played with advantage flanking in a game and it seemed broken. I didn't like it, and I feel like others thought it was pretty cheesy.

I play it as +2 in my game instead of advantage.

[Segev]

"Pack tactics" is a mechanic on several monsters, and the same mechanic is used by a few class features without being labeled as such, and is basically advantage flanking but done better in the 5e ruleset and paradigm. Since it is a feature, it makes sense that it would be more powerful. Making it something universal via the DMG Flanking rules is...probably not a good idea.

[KorvinStarmast]

Flanking is mostly a problem because it breaks the game’s balance assumptions about how difficult advantage is to achieve.

Since 5e characters have no built in capacity to control movement, it doesn’t even promote using tactics, because using standard initiative there aren’t any ways to avoid having an exposed flank besides lucking out on initiative order. Bingo. We had it in one game. I'll never play with it again.

I think flanking is a very poorly considered rule in this edition and would advise against using it. +1

"Pack tactics" is a mechanic on several monsters, and the same mechanic is used by a few class features without being labeled as such, and is basically advantage flanking but done better in the 5e ruleset and paradigm. Since it is a feature, it makes sense that it would be more powerful. Making it something universal via the DMG Flanking rules is...probably not a good idea. +1

[Psyren]

One of our tables used flanking = advantage and the melee tended to struggle and need more healing when there were lots of monsters. The DM also ended up using higher AC monsters for climactic battles, which made the ranged and casters have a much harder time hitting since they weren't getting advantage all the time.

I think the +1 rule is a much better compromise that still rewards tactical positioning.

[LudicSavant]

I think the +1 rule is a much better compromise that still rewards tactical positioning.

IMHO, tactical positioning is heavily rewarded even with no flanking rule at all.

[Psyren]

IMHO, tactical positioning is heavily rewarded even with no flanking rule at all.

Oh for sure, but I can understand people intuitively thinking they should get some numerical bonus for surrounding a foe too.

[questionmark693]

As somebody who is only grudgingly moving away from 3.5 to 5e - it's nice to see everybody changing the 5e flanking rule back to the 3.5 flanking rule (+2 to attack roll)!

[Danielqueue1]

I like the concept of the rule. I have been a player in several games with it and the ones I liked were house ruled rather than what is found in the PHB. My favorite in actual play (annoying to initially figure out) had a bunch of extra rules that made it a lot more tactical than the conga line. All flankers must be able to melee attack without disadvantage, stricter positioning requirements, must be within 1 size category of target, summons don't interact with it, and most importantly an ally adjacent to a hostile negates their participation in the flank (both ways).

It became something to punish exposed targets or to push, shove and knock enemies back to accomplish. Pack tactics, reckless atrack and other features were still valid with far less strict requirements. That being said the house rule was long, and the list of "obvious rules patches" was even longer. I would not recommend it outside that specific table.

[NRSASD]

I have a house rule: +2 to hit when attacking the target’s back. Assuming they’re aware of you, you can only get a back attack when someone is flanking the target. I find this rewards good positioning and formations without stepping on advantage’s toes.

[wuaffiliate]

I'm in the same boat with the group I play with. We've been going for over a year and we play with the optional flanking rules. A few months ago a few of us starting chatting about how easy advantage warps the game, and came to the general consensus that it was bad. But....it's been too long at this point to change. There's too many players, too many characters built with flanking advantage in mind, that I'd be shocked if it was changed at this point.

But if I could change it, 100% I would. Flanking should give +2 to the attack. That's a perfectly reasonable bonus without massively devaluing the class features and spells that give advantage.

This is 100% the boat I am in at the moment! Thankfully my Curse of Strahd campaign is in its twilight, they are inside the castle trying to survive long enough to fight Strahd, and when that's over I'm moving to +2 hit variant on flanking.

It really does break balance and cheapen literally anything that gives advantage, but it's just not fair to swap it out mid campaign with many building characters with the mechanic in mind.

[Keravath]

I have a house rule: +2 to hit when attacking the target’s back. Assuming they’re aware of you, you can only get a back attack when someone is flanking the target. I find this rewards good positioning and formations without stepping on advantage’s toes.

So does that mean that characters on both sides of a target both get back attacks since the target is "flanked" on each character's turn?

---

Overall, I agree with everyone else :)

- flanking from the DMG is too easy to achieve
- giving advantage for flanking shifts the balance on the effectiveness of both characters and opponents substantially. Their offensive potential goes up (usually about the equivalent of +3 to +5 to hit from advantage depending on the number needed to roll to hit)
- easy advantage invalidates a number of class features like Vengeance Paladin Vow of Enmity, or Samurai fighter ability to get advantage, or rogue Steady Aim. These features are likely to see a lot less use in a game with flanking
- overall combat balance shifts towards the side with more creatures - the side with more creatures can flank more targets and shifts the combat balance - action economy already favors the larger group and flanking makes that worse. Since the party is often smaller in number than the opponents, this shifts encounter balance substantially.

DMG flanking is a rule I would never use and would encourage not be used in a game I was playing in.

In terms of other options, the +1 to hit when attacking a target with hostiles on opposite sides seems like it would be fine.

I would avoid using +2 (as in 3.5) due to bounded accuracy in 5e. A +1 in 5e means more than the +2 likely did in 3.5 where weapons and armor could be +5 and there were likely a lot of other modifiers for to hit rolls from feats, spells and other sources.

[sithlordnergal]

I've played one game with flanking rules involved, and it threw off the balance entirely. The Monk and Paladin were always flanking, and it trivialized encounters. Now the DM never bothered with trying to flank, but I can see how if both sides tried to flank you'd quickly just spiral into people trying to flank each other on both sides. I've banned it ever since

[LudicSavant]

I'm in the same boat with the group I play with. We've been going for over a year and we play with the optional flanking rules. A few months ago a few of us starting chatting about how easy advantage warps the game, and came to the general consensus that it was bad. But....it's been too long at this point to change. There's too many players, too many characters built with flanking advantage in mind, that I'd be shocked if it was changed at this point.

But if I could change it, 100% I would. Flanking should give +2 to the attack. That's a perfectly reasonable bonus without massively devaluing the class features and spells that give advantage.

Don't get stuck in that 'too big to fail' mindset.

It's never too late to change.

[solidork]

We recently started a game where flanking was on the table, but I successfully made my case that it would be unhealthy. It makes everything else that grants advantage as a bonus worth less; same with things that inflict disadvantage to attackers.

[greenstone]

The last group I had flanking in quickly changed their mind when enemies used it against them.

In my (admittedly very limited) experience, this wasn't the case. Advantage is much, much better for PCs than for NPCs because PCs have sneak attack, smite, maneuvers etc that make crit-fishing valid. Since the only thing crits did for monsters was "auto hit and more dmg", the advantage from flanking didn't make monsters that much more powerful.

[solidork]

In my (admittedly very limited) experience, this wasn't the case. Advantage is much, much better for PCs than for NPCs because PCs have sneak attack, smite, maneuvers etc that make crit-fishing valid. Since the only thing crits did for monsters was "auto hit and more dmg", the advantage from flanking didn't make monsters that much more powerful.

Having done an adventure where we fought legions of Sahaugin and their shark minions, I can safely say always being attacked with advantage is a big deal. We ended the final fight with two people in the single digits and completely exhausted of every resource, it's the hardest pressed I've ever been in 5e.

Also, like - a lot of monsters just straight up do multiple dice for all of their attacks - enough to equal stuff like smites and sneak attack.

[Sorinth]

I don't use the flanking rules for many of the reasons listed but I never liked the alternative +2 to hit that usually get proposed either. I think maybe the good compromise would be something related to damage. For example if you rolled an extra weapon damage die on melee hits that would be quite interesting.

[strangebloke]

In my (admittedly very limited) experience, this wasn't the case. Advantage is much, much better for PCs than for NPCs because PCs have sneak attack, smite, maneuvers etc that make crit-fishing valid. Since the only thing crits did for monsters was "auto hit and more dmg", the advantage from flanking didn't make monsters that much more powerful.

Yeah this was not my experience. The campaign I ran with flanking was way way way more lethal than the campaigns I've run without it.

Flanking heavily advantages the numerically superior enemy in melee, because more of the team with more people in melee will get advantage. PCs will tend to be outnumbered in melee. If there's a lone cleric or monk in melee, they won't benefit at all. If there are two melee PCs, only one will benefit. Conversely, if the enemy are a dozen orcs, something like 93% of the orcs will get advantage. PCs also tend to be pretty reliant on AC for defense, since they start at 15 or so and get up to 26 or more, whereas monsters start at 11 and barely ever get above 19, so the advantage works against the PCs.

If something like GWM is in play, that does change things back in favor of the PCs a bit, but its not really enough to make up for the colossal benefits team monster is getting.

My question is this: did you generally find yourself outnumbered in melee? Because I could see a campaign where the PCs generally outnumber team monster, and in that case flanking would benefit team PC.

[Selion]

I think flanking benefits enemies more, simply because it's so easy for a PC increasing their AC well over 20 in tier 1, as well as reaching 30 at tier 3-4, while monsters have usually low AC and high HP (bounded accuracy)
This kind of PC builds are almost untouchable unless enemies have advantage, so a Eldritch Knight (i selected on purpose a average optimized subclass) with 21 AC (26 if they use shield as reaction) at level 3 is still vulnerable to multiple lesser foes.
If from one point of view this makes reckless attack for barbarians less appealing, the other side of the coin is that HP tanking (which is barbs specialization ) is more balanced with AC tanking if enemies may often obtain advantage, at the same way, if barbs are often hit at disadvantage, then the opportunity cost for reckless attack approaches to zero.

So... it's not a good rule, i already said i don't like it, but it comes with some pros

[animorte]

A good point of observation here could be that flanking can be one of those hard-mode rules. Certainly it will help your PCs, but if you plan on having greater numbers of enemies at any (or several) encounters, the tide can turn rapidly.

I think this is a good comparison of intention within the game design. The d20 vs other, more averaged dice rolling methods. The d20 allows for extreme success and extreme failure, everything of equal chance. Where others remove that, similar to flanking. With it the PCs can dominate or they can get run over. Without, things are a bit more averaged out.

[NRSASD]

So does that mean that characters on both sides of a target both get back attacks since the target is "flanked" on each character's turn?

Negative. The target chooses its facing on its turn. So if the target is engaging something to its south, you would only get the bonus if you moved to the target’s north side. And you could lose that bonus if the target turns to face you on its turn.

And yeah, it’s a powerful bonus. When I played with it back in 1st/2nd edition it was +4.

[Lupine]

What I’ve been playing with is having flanking give its bonus if you take a bonus action, and succeed a performance check against their AC, giving other people bonuses.

Makes flanking powerful, but not guaranteed, and sometimes not worth using, if you’ve a better bonus action.

[Keravath]

In my (admittedly very limited) experience, this wasn't the case. Advantage is much, much better for PCs than for NPCs because PCs have sneak attack, smite, maneuvers etc that make crit-fishing valid. Since the only thing crits did for monsters was "auto hit and more dmg", the advantage from flanking didn't make monsters that much more powerful.

Just curious if you were the DM or a player in this game?

The main reason I ask is that the DM can ALWAYS control how easy or difficult encounters will be. If the DM wants to make it easy on the players in a game with flanking then they just use fewer but a bit more powerful opponents so that they still last a while but the players will out hit and out damage them since the players have equal or greater numbers and thus more advantage to use their abilities.

However, if the DM gives the players the same encounter in which the PCs are outnumbered, in games with and without flanking, the monsters typically benefit more than the players since many will have multiattack for significant damage (just look at orcs) and the player hit point pool is unchanged. The PCs drop faster due to the ~doubling or more of the hit rate from the opponents.

Anyway, personal experience is heavily influenced by the way the DM ran the game and the number and type of opponents they choose to include in encounters (as well as the party composition). Baseline, flanking heavily favors the side with greater numbers and is also detrimental to the side with fewer hit points (in both cases these can often be the PCs) but a DM can run the game in such a way as to give any impression they want of the effect of flanking.

[greenstone]

My question is this: did you generally find yourself outnumbered in melee? Because I could see a campaign where the PCs generally outnumber team monster, and in that case flanking would benefit team PC.

That is where my limited experience is, well, limiting me. :-) We always outnumbered the bad guys.

Good points made above, I stand corrected.

[RSP]

We used it for one campaign and didn’t like it, for similar reasons already stated.

Basically, combat becomes a lot more deadly (for both sides), and abilities that provide Advantage are devalued.

[KyleG]

Have flanking kick in only at the end of the flanked creature's turn. And apply to all attackers. Ie:

Flanked
You are flanked if you end your turn with creatures surrounding you on both sides. You remain flanked until the end of your next turn. While flanked, attacks on you have advantage.

This is much harder to get, but is still worth threatening. The effect is a bit larger (you are flanked, foes don't flank you) so you grant advantage to everyone (you are too distracted defending on both sides and are trapped and can't get out).

It does away with congo-line flanking as well -- leaving the flank doesn't make the foe unflanked, and you want to get out of it yourself.

Quite like this idea.
Also read on elsewhere which was being called "outnumbered" i think. Similar concept.

In addition i like the idea of higher level fighters 6+ maybe, gaining something to say they can now handle two melee combatants at once. Perhaps a fighting style.

[RazorChain]

Quite like this idea.
Also read on elsewhere which was being called "outnumbered" i think. Similar concept.

In addition i like the idea of higher level fighters 6+ maybe, gaining something to say they can now handle two melee combatants at once. Perhaps a fighting style.

I liked the perk from Pillars of Eternity that the Barbarians could get, "One stands alone" which gave them immunity to flanking.

[Witty Username]

Flanking is useful as it allows the leveraging of position in a way the game doesn't handle well.
In the normal rules there is little to punish a character for attacking the weakest member. Flanking adds a tool to dissuade and/or punish this tactic by virtually guaranteeing that this tactic will come with the cost of being flanked.
Furthermore, this is one of the reasons I think the "conga line" problem is an exaggeration, monsters that will outnumber the party will tend to have lower health, and so to maintain the line have to commit themselves to sacrifice to benefit from flanking in these situations.

But, then again I have found advantage generating features are more useful in flanking on games rather than less. At least pack tactics and reckless attack. So I may be just weird.

[Yakk]

Quite like this idea.
Also read on elsewhere which was being called "outnumbered" i think. Similar concept.

In addition i like the idea of higher level fighters 6+ maybe, gaining something to say they can now handle two melee combatants at once. Perhaps a fighting style.
You could have it be tied to how many attacks a creature has (including multiattack).

A creature with multiattack 3 can handle 3 foes without a problem; the 4th outnumbers it. Extra attack similar.

A creature could also count as the number of attacks it has when surrounding a foe. So PCs with extra attack "count" as 2 threats.

Maybe you need to double your "combat size" to be surrounded; so a dragon with 3 attacks needs 6 units of foes; 3 level 8 paladins, or two level 11 fighters.

[Psyren]

I liked the perk from Pillars of Eternity that the Barbarians could get, "One stands alone" which gave them immunity to flanking.

3.5/PF Barbarians got flanking immunity too, as early as 5th level.

[Tanarii]

, also, i always interpreted the "optional" parts of the handbook (feats, multiclassing...) as the "expert" mode, i'm inclined to consider optional rules as the way developers intended the game to be played, in opposition to core rules, necessary to learn basic mechanicsIn 5e, almost all the variant rules are things the Devs thought some number of DMs and players would probably want or house rule in, so they tossed something in without worrying too much about play testing or balance. Including Multiclassing and many feats.

They're not "expert" mode, they're "use at your own risk, and strongly consider if you need to modify before doing so" mode.

[Segev]

In 5e, almost all the variant rules are things the Devs thought some number of DMs and players would probably want or house rule in, so they tossed something in without worrying too much about play testing or balance. Including Multiclassing and many feats.

They're not "expert" mode, they're "use at your own risk, and strongly consider if you need to modify before doing so" mode.

I think there's a valid school of thought that the optional rules in the PHB are more thought-out than the optional rules in the DMG, as those latter are often a paragraph or less and framed as tweaks to be further tweaked, while e.g. feats and multiclassing have more than a page devoted to them and are framed as optional but fully-fleshed rules.

[PallyBass]

Coming in from 3.5 edition D&D to 5e we switched to Flanking fairly early and enjoyed it alot as players at first, mostly because we appreciated the simplicity of Advantage and Bounded Accuracy in general and were used to having Flanking exist from 3.5 edition.

However as time went on and I began to play more classes as well as DM a couple of times I came to dislike the optional Flanking rule for making advantage SUPER easy to get, to the point it felt like a guarantee for melee characters and summoners and thus reduced the value/appeal of class features, monster abilities, tactics, or spells that functioned to give Advantage. Grappling also was an awful strategy, because the grappler would often get wailed on by multiple enemies with advantage to hit him/her, and Shoving to Prone was a cute maneuver when compared to flanking with an ally.

I most recently played in a campaign where the DM intentionally did not use Flanking and it felt SO refreshing to have it not be used. All of a sudden Advantage became a big deal, enemies with Pack Tactics or other Advantage effects became scary. Class abilities/ spells that grant advantage became much more valuable. Getting Advantage as a player felt rewarding and empowering, when enemies gained it they felt intimidating and scary. The game felt spiced up when it came into play.

I will not use Flanking rules next time I DM, because I like the spiciness it gives to Advantage (don't overuse your spices is the moral of my story)

[Tanarii]

I think there's a valid school of thought that the optional rules in the PHB are more thought-out than the optional rules in the DMG, as those latter are often a paragraph or less and framed as tweaks to be further tweaked, while e.g. feats and multiclassing have more than a page devoted to them and are framed as optional but fully-fleshed rules.
Maybe slightly more thought out, but even early on actual play demonstarted fairly conclusively they weren't fully fleshed out in terms of balance.

[Segev]

Maybe slightly more thought out, but even early on actual play demonstarted fairly conclusively they weren't fully fleshed out in terms of balance.

There are approximately two "problem feats," and even those are generally considered only problematic because they funnel people into them for particular builds. Multiclassing... honestly, I don't see it being a problem. I understand the arguments about it over-emphasizing front-loaded classes, but before Hexblade, the worst offender were various Cleric domains, and those were generally still not so overly good that they were a dominant build choice. Hexblade is...its own problem on a number of levels.

[gaxmarland]

We tried flanking once that was enough to tell us it was not for us.

[Frogreaver]

I wouldn’t use flanking = advantage but if flanking gave +1 critical threat range and or a bonus due on crits that could be cool.