Alternative Flanking Rule: Melee Engagement
What is Melee Engagement, and Why?
This alternative Melee Engagement rule is my personal answer to the problems of the optional Flanking rule that can be found in the DMG p. 251.
Flanking, I feel, is something that is necessary for the combats of 5e, as the strategic choices of the martial classes such as the Fighter, the Barbarian or the Monk feel a bit too simplistic without it. Having said that, the Flanking rule that is introduced in the DMG is far from optimal; it is a fast pass to get Advantage on melee attack rolls and usually devolves the combat into a "conga line" fight (a chain of PC-Enemy-PC-Enemy-PC-... in which everyone just gets advantage) or trivializes fights against a single powerful creature as all the PCs need to do is stand on either side of the creature to get an Advantage on their attacks. I feel that Advantage is not something that should be so easily given and certainly not without some kind of cost attached to it, whether it be an action, bonus action, spell slot, etc.
This Melee Engagement rule comes to (I hope) give some added depth to the strategic choices of melee characters and make them pay more attention to their positioning, all while not taking away from the usefulness of features and spells whose purpose is to give that much-coveted, and powerful, Advantage to the attack roll (such as Guiding Bolt, Faerie Fire, Barbarian's Reckless Attack feature, Mastermind Rogue's Master of Tactics feature, Battlemaster Fighter's Distracting Strike maneuver, etc.).
Notes on this Rule
This rule comes to replace the optional flanking rule in DMG p. 251. Not unlike the flanking rule, this rule is meant to be used with a map and miniatures as keeping tabs on who is engaged with who is important and may be harder if your group plays in the Theater of the Mind style.
Melee Engagement
Melee Engagement comes to simulate the focus that a creature has towards another creature in close-quarters combat. Each creature can only be actively engaged in melee with one creature, as it is the current focus of its attention.
Melee engagement starts:
- When a creature makes a melee attack against a creature that is not already engaged, both creatures become engaged with each other.
- When a creature makes a melee attack against a creature that is already engaged, the attacking creature becomes engaged with the defending.
Melee engagement ends for the creature:
- When the creature leaves melee range (read Engagement and Reach)
- When the creature is Blinded, Frightened, Grappled, Incapacitated, Paralyzed, Petrified, Prone, Restrained, Stunned or Unconscious
While multiple creatures of the same side in battle are engaged with a hostile creature, all engaged creatures of that side benefit from a bonus to their attack rolls against that creature as long as at least two of them are flanking the creature from opposite positions (as per the flanking rule). The Melee Engagement Bonus table below shows how many creatures of the same side need to be engaged with a hostile creature in order to receive the benefit. The Medium column of the table also applies to creatures of Small and Tiny sizes.
Melee Engagement Bonus Table
| Bonus to Attack Roll | Medium | Large | Huge | Gargantuan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| +1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| +2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| +3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
The maximum for melee engagement bonus is +3. Therefore, if there are more engaged creatures surrounding the hostile creature than the minimum needed for a +3 melee engagement bonus, then all the engaged creatures still receive the +3 melee engagement bonus to their melee attack rolls against that creature but there is otherwise no greater benefit.
For example, Mer the Human Fighter and Gerkin the Goliath Barbarian are both engaged in melee with the same orc, whose size is Medium. Therefore, both of them receive a bonus of +1 to their melee attack rolls against that orc, as they are keeping the orc's attention split between them.
However, for Mer and Gerkin to receive that same +1 bonus against an adult black dragon, whose size is Huge, they'll need their friends Six the Tabaxi Ranger and Mella the Half-Elven Rogue to also step in and become engaged in melee with the dreadful beast.
Creature Sizes
Size matters when attempting to split the attention of a melee combatant.
A Medium creature is the baseline for this rule and only counts as a single creature. The Creature Sizes to Numbers table below shows how many Medium creatures each size counts as when calculating engagement bonuses.
Creature Sizes to Numbers
| Tiny | Small | Medium | Large | Huge | Gargantuan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
For example. an Ogre and his hunting wolf, sizes Large and Medium respectively, are both engaged in melee with Gerkin. Since Gerkin's size is Medium and the Ogre counts as two creatures instead of only one thanks to his Large size, the Ogre and his hunting wolf both receive a bonus of +2 to their melee attack rolls instead of only a +1.
Multiple Engagements Still Needed
Note that even though creatures of bigger sizes count as multiple "Medium" creatures for the purposes of calculating engagement bonuses, they cannot receive the melee engagement bonus all on their own; they still need an allied creature to also be engaged in melee with the same creature as them to receive the bonus.
For example, if that same Ogre was engaged with Gerkin alone, he wouldn't have received any bonus for melee engagement even though he counts as two "Medium" creatures by himself.
Engagement and Reach
If the PCs are fighting against a creature that has a long reach for its melee attacks (Otyugh, Hydra, etc.) or they themselves have reach for their melee attacks (if they use a glaive, halberd, pike, whip, etc.), there may come a time where one side breaks melee engagement while the other does not.
When a creature leaves its own melee range, it breaks engagement with the creature it was engaged with up until now. However, if it stays within the reach of one of the latter creature's melee attacks, the latter creature may still be considered as engaged with the fleeing creature.
For example, Mer, Gerkin and Mella are engaged in melee with a Large Otyugh, and the Otyugh is engaged with Mer. Mer has a Flametongue longsword and the Otyugh has a Tentacle melee attack with a 10 ft. reach. If Mer runs 5 ft. away from the Otyugh, he breaks his own engagement with the Otyugh as the Flametongue longsword only has a 5 ft. reach, making Gerkin and Mella lose their engagement bonus against the Otyugh.
However, the Otyugh is still engaged with Mer as he is still within range of one of his melee attacks. Therefore, if one of the Otyugh's allies were to come and attack Mer with a melee attack, they would become engaged with Mer and receive the cooresponding bonus to their attack.
Switching Engagement Between Creatures
While a creature is surrounded by multiple hostile creatures, it may be important to specify with which of them it is currently engaged to understand which creature would receive bonuses against which creature.
At the end of a creature's turn, it may choose which hostile creature it is actively engaged with if it is surrounded by more than one hostile creature.
For example, Viol the Elven Bard is surrounded by a human, a half-orc and a gnome, all of which are bandits intent on robbing him. He strikes with one of his rapiers twice against the human and hits with both attacks, after which he attacks once with his second rapier against the half-orc but misses. At the end of Viol's turn he chooses to be actively engaged with the half-orc, focusing most of his attention on him. Now when Six comes on his turn and attacks the half-orc, he will receive the +1 engagement bonus against him.
Keeping Track of Engagement
In order to keep nice, comfortable and orderly track of who is engaged with who, it is highly advised to face your miniatures in the directions of their engagements to the best of your abilities. If you don't have miniatures and are using dice or other paraphernalia in their stead, try to find a way in which it is comfortable for you to keep tabs of it.
That's all! If you have any feedback for this rule, be sure to leave it in the comments.
Created by u/ViolTheBard