My change to Facing and Flanking

[LibraryOgre]

This isn't official in our group, but I thought I'd toss it out to see what other people thought.

"If any two opponents are at a greater than 90* angle from each other, all opponents around a creature are considered to be flanking it."

IOW, you don't need to be exactly opposite your buddy; you can be at the 135* spot and still be flanking. If there's another person involved in the fight on your side, all of you get flanking if any of you do.

[Roog]

This isn't official in our group, but I thought I'd toss it out to see what other people thought.

"If any two opponents are at a greater than 90* angle from each other, all opponents around a creature are considered to be flanking it."

IOW, you don't need to be exactly opposite your buddy; you can be at the 135* spot and still be flanking. If there's another person involved in the fight on your side, all of you get flanking if any of you do.

Then you have situations like this, where all Xs flank the big 0 creature.

XXXX
000X
000X
000

If you want something like that, maybe you could consider something like...
"If any threatening opponent of a creature is at a greater than 90* angle from any other threatening opponent, then that opponent is considered to be flanking the creature."

[LibraryOgre]

Let's start with a small/medium creature.

ABC
EFG
HIJ

Now, according to the standard rules, the only acceptable flanking positions on F are AJ, BI, CH and GE. If you have people at ACJ, AJ is flanking, but C is not. If you have people at ACIJ, only A and J are flanking... F apparently grants no advantage to CI, even though they split his attention and defense a even more.

With my Proposal, A can flank with G, I, and J; he cannot flank with H or C, because there's only a 90* separation. However, if you add a third person to the group (A, either GIJ, and one other), then they all flank... someone is at more than 90* to someone else, and so the defender has severely split attention... combat advantage goes to the attackers.

Now, a larger creature.

ABCD
EFFG
HFFI
JKLM

A can flank with any square of GIKLM; to pay attention to both splits the attention a lot... if you face towards BC, A is shield-side, while G is sword-side and only in peripheral vision (if you have stereoscopic vision). If you face CD, A is on your back flank, while G is close to straight on. DG, and you're turning your back on A... you're always leaving yourself exposed to someone, and so either have to keep moving, which is going to affect balance and reactions, or let them team up on you... either way, you're going to be giving combat advantage.

To restate the rule slightly, you have a range of attention equal to the number of squares you face, plus two (one on either side). If you have people outside of that, you grant combat advantage to all of them. PCs can usually pay attention to about 3 squares; if you get more than that, or they're not all in front of you, your attention is over-split, and you're granting combat advantage to everyone.

[AstralFire]

I've personally always houseruled it to "if you're being attacked from two different angles." It's just a +2 bonus (and sneak attack at mid levels) anyway.

[LibraryOgre]

I've personally always houseruled it to "if you're being attacked from two different angles." It's just a +2 bonus (and sneak attack at mid levels) anyway.

That's more or less what this boils down to, but it keeps people from arguing that you get combat advantage in this case:

ABC
EFG

When AB attacks F, that shouldn't do a lot for combat advantage; you can still pay attention to both of them. Even AC isn't too hard.

[AstralFire]

See, I just did ABC are all cool. D&D 3's strong point is strategically, and messing with tactics too much in it gives me a headache.