Did Larian say why they removed Backstab advantage? Did they say if it will be a toggle-able feature in an options menu?

I'm rather disappointed backstab advantage was removed by height advantage was kept, of the 2 I would have prefered to keep backstab advantage.

To me backstab was their take on the optional Flanking rules for 5e, and personally I've never played a game of d&d that didn't have flanking incorporated into it to allow for more strategy and teamwork between players/characters.

While I'd rather see flanking give a +2 bonus to hit while flanking (allowing it to be the effective equivalent for offence as half-cover is defensively), not having any flanking mechanic in the game seems like a big loss tactically, and it removing it removes some of the threat lower level creatures and characters can have against high level creatures and characters.

For example by the time your in plate and have a shield you 20 AC is going to be nigh-unhittable for your average goblin warrior, but with flanking they can team up against someone and have a more likely chance to hit, and the same goes for the party fighting against threats they normally probably shouldn't be facing, it increases the overlap between threat levels which is a good thing, and gives the GM (in this case Larian) more mileage out of low CR creatures than they would otherwise have.

Flanking involves multiple attackers on the same target. Backstab in the game was achieved simply by... walking slowly around the target at any given moment.
It was a stupid mechanic that won't be missed, especially since any characters on the battle board are supposed to guard around themselves at 360 degrees when not flanked.

Let's hope height advantage is next.

^^^ +1 to this. Good riddance.

I mean you say it won't be missed but like...I miss it =p

100% I would prefer an actual flanking mechanic, ie that requires 2 people to be opposite each other

but I would also like to see the "threatened" debuff apply to melee range and not an arbitrary aura around them.

And I would prefer backstab to no flanking at all

Height Advantage/Disadvantage I agree needs to go...it turns every fight into a goofy mad scramble for the high ground...I think instead they should give half-cover to to the creatures on the high ground instead of advantage on attack rolls

With backstab providing advantage gone, I'm actually looking forward to playing melee classes again.

The super mario meta was too repetitive in the decision making the player had. Fighter now has actual choices to make with the changes to disengage and backstab. Rogue is also more valuable, and offers a contrast to fighter and ranger.

Fighter and ranger should have never been getting backstab advantage to begin with.

There are a lot of gameplay/balance changes in this patch, so I'm going to replay the whole EA with an open mind.

why do you think rangers and fighters shouldn't have been getting a flanking benefit?

Um, isn't backstab still there? Seems only giving backstab advantage is gone, but backstab itself--with all its benefits--is still very much there.

Do you mean Sneak Attack - the Rogue Class feature?

"Backstab" in BG3 is the dice roll advantage you used to get. There is no other inherent benefits to it.

I have mixed feeling with flanking:
5e's flanking turns into everyone has advantage, and that's boring. The risk of combat goes away, and initiative order settles combat outcomes.
Flanking providing +2 to hit is alright, but can still have a domino effect.
Also with how many encounters the party is outnumbered in BG3, flanking would work against the player more often than for the player.

Cover or a homebrewed "flanked" would be more appropriate for BG3. Flanked being something like... if the character has an enemies on two or more sides -1 AC and 1/2 movement.

Flanking requires two people on both sides of a enemy, this is pretty average (optional) mechanic on multiple editions of d&d. For a rogue to get sneak attack requires advantage; push, disengage, and what not will get you out of it. Flanking also requires you to be near the target, archers and spellcasters are not going to be near a target, along with the party only being four total.

I'd take this any day over leap frog backstab.

example: when surrounded by a horde of goblins, you should be at a disadvantage or they should have a advantage.

Sorry, I just didn't feel like going through the whole history of flanking to discuss my opinion on flanking in BG3 or 5e.

The rogue can also get sneak attack if an ally is within 5 feet of the enemy

I've never been fond of 5e's interpretation of flanking. It has the same issue as backstab granting advantage, with less frequency.

I don't want to start a new topic so I figured I'd post my question here: Did they get rid of the exception rule for sneak attack inadvertently since they got rid of the backstab rules? I couldn't tell since I had two different fights with two different outcomes.

In an early fight I had Shadowheart within 5 feet of an enemy, so I thought, "sweet, I can use sneak attack" and it worked! I hadn't used any spells at that point, so I don't believe there was anything going on that had any special conditions providing advantage/disadvantage. However, when I got to the fight at the gates, it turned into a different story. We were down to the last enemy, and it was literally surrounded by people (3 people right in its face waiting patiently to attack it), and my sneak attack would not work, it kept on saying, "you must have advantage against target." I checked the description it was using for sneak attack and noticed it did not include the flanking exception that 5E uses for sneak attack in the case you don't have advantage.

So yeah, can anyone say for sure what's going on with Sneak attack now?

I mean yes, the backstab stuff was irritating, but Mecrutio has a point that having no game acknowledgement of any sort of flanking bonus feels like a sideways move. +2 attack bonus for flanking is pretty standard, though as Kingmaker has shown, fighting lots of enemies (often with sneak attack) this will punish the player if they are not careful.

But this is 5e and there is no flat footed or touch AC in 5e, and the flanking rules are in terms of advantage (booo) rather than a numerical bonus, so maybe it will make it to the final thing, maybe not. imo the +2 to hit feel like a better way to do it but my anti-5e bias is now leaking from every pore

You might have something here, I'm testing if my characters are within 5 feet by finding where I have (enemy is too close) with ranged attacks. I'm seeing the same problem where I'm denied sneak attack.

Edit:
From what I'm seeing, the enemy needs "threatened" status or you need to have advantage to get Sneak Attack. "Threatened" doesn't provide it all the times that it should. It seems they need to be threatened AND have been hit with a str/dex weapon (at least not a spell like firebolt) to allow for Sneak Attack.

So it's basically bugged? I took a screenshot and it has the threatened status. I was also using melee sneak attack as that's the type of rogue I'm playing.

It seems like the condition is "threatened", another ally is within 5 feet, and has been damaged with a weapon. So far that's been consistent.

As is, it's a slight nerf to rogue.

This ^^ - I was so glad to find it buried in all the other patch notes: "Backstabbing characters no longer provides Advantage on attack."

Someone else I was talking to on Reddit clarified it has to be a party member. Any other enemies of the target that are threatening it don't count. For the scenario I encountered this makes sense. I hope they fix it since both descriptions of Sneak Attack (5E and BG3) do not specify that it must be a party member that is near the target.

I got Sneak Attack in front of the grove with neutrals nearby, granted it was Wyll before he joins.

Never mind then. The one where I wasn't granted sneak attack was the gate fight. It was the Worg, who was being threatened by 3 neutrals. Wyll was also included in that lineup.

So, you are saying the mechanics were changed from non-5E solo-flanking rules to another version of not-exactly-5E rules? I wonder why they just resist going for straight 5E rules as written and see what happens. At least disengage is now a full action, but bonus shove every turn is still very silly. With the AI improvements, enemies started shoving after their attack as well. I'm just hoping that more players get annoyed with this constant shoving against their characters and demand it to be changed into a full action.

And a related question: why is it so hard to make sneak attack automatic on the first eligible attack? Separate action icons for melee and ranger sneak attack is just cumbersome. I understand this is early access, so hopefully the user interface and quality of life changes are coming later.

Thank you, yes, that's what I meant. I keep seeing the two as the same thing.

Interesting didn't know this one.

Currently it is is a not-exactly-5e-rules state. As mentioned before it could be a bug (modest oversight with all the changes from patch 4 to patch 5). Rogue still plays a lot better than in patch 4.

I considered backstab an accurate mechanic, if you are attacked from behind you will not be able to see the hit coming right? So having better chance to hit when hitting someone from behind was a good thing, it made sense. What has removing the backstab added to the chance you have to hit an enemy? Height also make sense, for long range having the highground is beneficial, for melee it is easier to attack someone higher than lower. The person above you would have to crouch to hit meanwhile it's fairly easy to swing your sword at their legs, it's harder to defend from melee attack when you are higher up unless you get out of range but then you can't really deal damage anymore.

So yeah.. I will miss backstab :V

The thing about this is that in DnD, each round is basically represented by 6 second intervals. It's the same principle behind swapping from real time into turn-based mode when you need to get past certain obstacles in BG3. In a fight, it is assumed that an enemy will be aware of their attackers in melee range at all times and will defend themselves appropriately. Sure, it makes sense that you have a higher chance of hitting someone from behind. But it makes far less sense for them to simply stand there and let you circle behind them unless they're blinded. This is why people argue for an alternate flanking rule, because at least it means that the target is being distracted by someone else long enough for the attacker to find an opening.

The problem isn’t that those “didn’t make sense”, but that those are cannibalising and overpowering existing gameplay systems.

It makes sense for positioning to impact your chance to hit.

But it doesn’t make sense for positioning to impact that greatly chance to hit, if there are limited resource skills and spells that are to provide such boost.

Not getting encouraged to circle around the enemy that I want to hit is just welcome removal of tedioum.

More accurately, if another enemy of the target (not necessarily one of your allies) is within 5 feet of it and that enemy is wielding a melee weapon. A creature that's wielding a bow or crossbow won't count.

You can confirm that the condition is met if the enemy has the Threatened status.

I also saw people on reddit claiming (with screenshots) that the Sneak Attack mechanic is sometimes buggy in the new patch, but I myself haven't run into problems yet.

It definitely has some bugs, it's usually after an enemy has been hit with a spell (from what I've seen). The game won't let you get sneak attack through Threatened. There is a workaround if you have shared initiative where you can hit the enemy with a weapon, and then you can get sneak attack on the turn.

Holy shit, thank god it's gone.
No more dancing combat.
maybe BG3 will actually get good in the end!

I didn't have strong feelings about it, but I'm personally glad backstab advantage is gone. Since you can't easily change what direction your characters end their turn on without using movement, this seemed very luck based/easily exploitable by the AI. If there were some sort of "pivot" like there is in the Final Fantasy Tactics series, I would think otherwise.

It's by no mean confirmed but it is suspected that distance of 5feet is calculated from centre of character model - making backstab not trigger against larger enemies, and not registering for smaller if someone is not standing quite close enough to them.

Would be glad if highground advantage is removed too.

We are all just waiting for it, really.

NO we dont ... certainly not "all of us" :P

I wouldn't mind flanking as advantage, but not backstab or high ground. Flanking makes sense. If you are fighting someone, and another enemy comes at you, it is VERY hard to defend against both.

So there is strategy in flanking. Backstab, no. That's jist dance around behind an enemy every round, which you can usually do easily, and get advantage. No enemy is going to let you dance around behind them every round in 1v1 combat.

That said, if they just remove high ground advantage, I'd be happy. We don't need flanking advantage. Combat is fine without it.

Just need to create another 1000 topics for Larian to reconsider this genius of a homebrew.