Think of “flanking” as a bonus that affects the allies opposite from one another.
The numbers are somewhat annoying to remember, but over time it’ll become easy to see. As long as there are that number of hexes – adjacent to the enemy and between you and the ally – you’re flanking. Though, this usually means the side that has more hexes between you and an ally. You actually count in the direction of the side that benefits you the most. This is significantly more complicated since it requires counting. Against a Gargantuan creature, they must have at least 6 hexes between them. Against a Huge creature, they must have 5 hexes between them. With a Large creature, the allies flank if there are 4 hexes between them. Against a Medium or smaller creature, the allies flank if there are 2 hexes between them. On hexes, count around the enemy from one creature to its ally. When a creature and at least one of its allies are adjacent to an enemy and on opposite sides of the enemy’s space, they flank that enemy, and each of them has advantage on attack rolls against that enemy. This will be important to note later, since this optional rule is rather vague if you just go by the DMG.įor those of you who prefer hex maps… Flanking on Hexes Note here that this only gives bonuses on melee attack rolls. Just remember opposite sides of the square count, and opposite corners count. Larger enemies are a bit more complicated, since there are more positions you can possibly flank on. For medium and small enemies, this is easy enough. If the line passes through opposite sides or corners of the enemy’s space, the enemy is flanked.īe on the opposite sides of an enemy. When in doubt about whether two creatures flank an enemy on a grid, trace an imaginary line between the centers of the creatures’ spaces. When a creature and at least one of its allies are adjacent to an enemy and on opposite sides or corners of the enemy’s space, they flank that enemy, and each of them has advantage on melee attack rolls against that enemy. Now, let’s talk about the nitty-gritty what does it mean to flank? The DMG offers two ways to gain the flanking status, with the two main map types people use: Flanking on Squares Also, a big guy is still flanked, even if you’re only flanking the front or back of him. A Large or larger creature is flanking as long as at least one square or hex of its space qualifies for flanking.īasically, you need to be somewhat threatening in order to flank.
A creature also can’t flank while it is incapacitated. The rest of the paragraph goes over edge cases Ī creature can’t flank an enemy that it can’t see. Do remember that getting advantage on a target twice does nothing either flank or do something else, not both. Now the Fighter or Monk can get a resourceless option to roll their dice twice. For a lot of classes, there’s no easy way to get this on an enemy, without an allied spellcaster. Slightly more importantly, this is a way for you to get advantage. This isn’t a problem for most campaigns, since anything suffices for tokens on maps – you just need some way to track position. Theater of the mind is not quite restricted enough for flanking to be realistic, since anyone can say “I enter flanking” without actually noting their position with an enemy. If you regularly use miniatures, flanking gives combatants a simple way to gain advantage on attack rolls against a common enemy.įirst off, flanking is miniature-only.
The first sentence about flanking already gives a lot of essential info: To start, let’s talk about the situations where flanking is possible and what flanking does. Do We Recommend Using Flanking 5E Rules?.