Blocking Movement of Large Monsters

[Paul Strack]

I was prepping a fight with a Large Solo, and realized that it is relatively simple for the PCs to position themselves so that the monster can't move:

  X
XOO
 OOX
 X

If 4 PCs position themselves around the monster, the monster has no direction in which it can move without entering an enemy square. Thus, it can't move.

Bigger creatures don't have this problem, because you can enter an enemy square if you are two size categories bigger, but Large creatures fighting Medium creatures are stuck.

Is there a flaw in my reasoning?

 

[fafhrd]

Squeeze, bullrush, grab and move?

 

[James McMurray]

Are those four PCs defenders? It would be an odd party makeup that resulted in four PCs willing and able to stand adjacent to a solo for any length of time.

What kind of monster is it?

 

[scarik]

In my experience any Large creature that cares about being held in place can fly or teleport or otherwise never end up there.

The basic big creature is a Brute and would love to have a non-Defender just stand there while he smashes its face in.

 

[Nail]

I was prepping a fight with a Large Solo, and realized that it is relatively simple for the PCs to position themselves so that the monster can't move...

Yep!

So what?

We did something similar last session: Trapped an ochre jelly in an area were we could pound on it. Of course, that only worked until it was bloodied....

Solos are meant to take being surrounded. Don't sweat it.

 

[Paul Strack]

This is not an issue I am especially "worried" about. It is an odd combat situation, and one that the monster can generally get around (via flight, bull rush, etc.) It does like a weird quirk of the rules that it takes 8 PCs to block a medium creature but only 4 to block a large one.

This could come up in a real fight, even with a party without a lot of defenders. For example, your defender could mark the target to allow melee strikers (rogues, rangers) to join the fighters on the front line. Also, one of the PCs could be replaced by blocking terrain.

Anyhow, I thought it was interesting, tactically.

 

[Starfox]

This used to be a big issue in 3E, but the Solo and Elite roles should mitigate it greatly. Still, I can see that its a problem. In 3E, I made a house rule to let larger creatures walk through the space of smaller ones, might have to do that in 4E too if it proves troublesome.

 

[James McMurray]

It does like a weird quirk of the rules that it takes 8 PCs to block a medium creature but only 4 to block a large one.

It takes 12 of them, because the large creature can squeeze.

 

[Rafe]

I agree that the solo brute would be happy to pound on someone standing next to him. Even if there's a defender, take the -2 and smash a squishy. Squeezing isn't a good option since it can only move half speed, takes -5 to attack and grants everyone combat advantage and an OA.

If surrounding it is the tactic the players want to take, have the brute use its action point, also. Pound the hell out of one PC and then proceed to do so to the others.

Also bear in mind that moving right up a Large creature likely provokes OAs from it since it may have reach. That makes for a lot of OAs, since anyone can take only one OA per combatant, but as many as are provoked during a round. So if a Fighter moves up, it takes an OA. If the Rogue then does so, he/she takes an OA. Etc.

With all that in mind, I'd be all for having the solo brute just stand there and let the party get pounded before even making attacks. So it can't move... why does it need to?

 

[deleteme123456]

I agree that the solo brute would be happy to pound on someone standing next to him. Even if there's a defender, take the -2 and smash a squishy. Squeezing isn't a good option since it can only move half speed, takes -5 to attack and grants everyone combat advantage and an OA.

If surrounding it is the tactic the players want to take, have the brute use its action point, also. Pound the hell out of one PC and then proceed to do so to the others.

Also bear in mind that moving right up a Large creature likely provokes OAs from it since it may have reach. That makes for a lot of OAs, since anyone can take only one OA per combatant, but as many as are provoked during a round. So if a Fighter moves up, it takes an OA. If the Rogue then does so, he/she takes an OA. Etc.

With all that in mind, I'd be all for having the solo brute just stand there and let the party get pounded before even making attacks. So it can't move... why does it need to?

It may have reach but not a whole lot of creatures have threatening reach, so the only OAs are for exiting adjacent squares, not entering them.

If the brute has a fighter with a mark on it, it's going to be pretty hard to hit the squishy, because you're going to take a beating when the fighter takes his OA with +WISMOD. To that end we ruled in our game that a 2-attack action (like most solos have) that includes the fighter for one of the attacks is good enough to satisfy the mark so the fighter doesn't get the OA, but I've yet to see any RAW or CS response that supports this interpretation.