A Large or larger creature is flanking as long as at least one square or hex of its space qualifies for flanking.įlanking on Squares.

A creature also can’t flank while it is incapacitated. If you regularly use miniatures, flanking gives combatants a simple way to gain advantage on attack rolls against a common enemy.Ī creature can’t flank an enemy that it can’t see. The rules of D&D 5E are written with considerable care and meant to be taken absolutely literally, so instead of glossing as I usually do, I’m going to reproduce the exact wording of this rule, in its entirety: Optional Rule: Flanking Yeah, D&D is a game in which silly things happen on the regular, but given a choice, I still like to err on the side of verisimilitude, and it’s a simple fact of life that if you’re being attacked by someone in front of you and someone behind you, you’re going to get the tar kicked out of you.īut after getting some negative feedback to my advocacy of the flanking rule (including one Reddit poster who went so far as to say that as far as he was concerned, it invalidated everything else I say!), I decided to put some feelers out to learn why, exactly, some players are vehemently against granting advantage on attacks against a flanked enemy.

Personally, being a longtime player of not just Dungeons and Dragons but also various war games, including quasi–war games like Sid Meier’s Civilization series, I thought using the optional flanking rule on page 251 of the fifth-edition Dungeon Master’s Guide was a no-brainer. I never realized when I began writing this blog just how big a hot-button issue flanking is.

Wizard snake with a gun figure