Flanking is an important concept in Dragon Age: Origin's combat system that encourages tactical positioning on the battlefield.

Whenever a combatant is located in within 60 degrees of a character's back, he receives a Flanking Bonus. With the Combat Movement talent, available only to Rogues, the flanking angle increases to the full back 180 degrees of the target.

Flanking in Dragon Age: Origins is an active act that only grants benefits to the person in the flanking position, not to anyone else fighting the target.

The following table summarizes the different flanking situations.

	Normal Flanking Conditions	With Combat Movement
Flanking Angle	120 degrees	180 degrees
Flanking Bonus	Up to +15	Up to +20

The magnitude of the flanking bonus is directly related to the relative position of the target. Attackers that are directly behind their target receive the full flanking bonus. The flanking bonus is proportionally reduced the more the attacker moves towards the side of their target.

Flanking bonus is granted to both ranged and melee attacks.

Receiving a flanking bonus triggers the following benefits for the attacker:

• The Flanking bonus is added to the characters Attack Rating.
  • Only Rogues receive the full flanking bonus, all other classes get half.
  • 1/5th of the flanking bonus is also applied to the chance of striking a critical hit.
• A rogue who receives a flanking bonus while attacking will always Backstab.

These benefits underscore the importance of tactical positioning in combat. A full flanking bonus of +15 to attack negates the equivalent of 15 points of Dexterify spent by the target to increase defense - that's 5 full levels!

Letting enemies move into a flanking position is a surefire way to die quickly. A number of ways exist in the game to mitigate vulnerability from being flanked:

• The Shield Tactics talent grants full flanking immunity to the user.
• The Shield Block talent grants flanking immunity to the user on the side the shield is on.

A rogue who is in a position to receive a flanking bonus in combat with a melee weapon will execute a special attack called 'Backstab'.

A backstab attack has a unique attack animation and deals damage equivalent to a critical hit. A rogues with the Lethality talent will also receive additional damage based on their Cunning score.

Note that while Weapon Talents can cause critical hits, they will will never trigger a backstab.

The talent Coup de Grace allows the rogue a 360 degree flanking angle on paralyzed or stunned opponents.