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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Gryphon" data-source="post: 2114147" data-attributes="member: 17286">Not true, that is your interpretation of the text. Firstly please use the correct terms flanking is not a condition (check the DMG), it is a combat situation. Of course flanking is not dependent upon combat placement alone. It is based on combat placement and being able to make a threatening melee attack (whether you make it or not). In all of the graphic example provided on the page of the flanking action is shows which character would receive a +2 flanking bonus provided they attacked the target in question. Now obviously all of the characters which receive the +2 flanking bonus are threatening the creature in question otherwise they couldn't be providing a flanking bonus to their opposite character. Therefore by example all creatures that are flanking a creature must also threaten it. And before you say it, it doesn't matter whether the examples only show melee situations or not as they do all show flanking situations.  Your analysis of my previous diagram is irrelevant as far as I am concerned. You are flanking as long as you would receive the +2 flanking bonus if you attacked the target, whether you use it or not is up to you. Now that's a fine differentiation as everyone who is flanking has the +2 flanking bonus, but if they decide not to attack a creature they flank then they obviously won't be able to use that bonus. The same thing if I was prone. The modifiers only come into effect if they are triggered by an action which they are linked to. If I don't try to make a melee attack while I'm prone I won't use the -4 melee modifier, and if no one fires/throws a ranged weapon at me I won't use the +4 AC modifier. Example:__P____2X3_O___1____ Now if we work from the examples shown in the PHB characters 1-3 all have a +2 flanking bonus (1+2 vs. O, 2+3 vs. X). If 2 attacks P he can't use the +2 flanking bonus he could have used against X or O, but that doesn't mean that X or O are no longer flanked as they are still threatened. (Note: this example doesn't include formians <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />) Therefore formains aren't immune to flanking under my reading of the flanking rules either as as long as they are all threatened (which can only happen in melee combat in the core rules) they are all flanked. Also note the first part of the flanking text says "When making a melee attack, ...". It doesn't say you must make a melee attack against the target to be flanking it (threatening it is enough to flank it), but what it does say is when you do make a melee attack against a creature you are flanking you gain a +2 flanking bonus.</blockquote>

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