Player 1 'grabs and pulls' player 2, then claims it's 'Forced movement, no AtOp'

[DracoSuave]

Allowing someone to pull you is not forced movement. You are a willing target.

The intention of not allowing AtOps on creatures that are being forced to move around seems fairly obvious this was to avoid players exploiting moving creatures around to gain AtOps on top of moving them around the battlefield.

Oh did I mention that being a willing target isn't forcing them to move?

Also, why should grabbing your friend, a willing target, be a standard action, especially if they're immobilized. You can open a door with a minor action, which involves 'grabbing' the door handle. Your friend and ally may actually reach out with their hand to make it easier for you to grab them. That would not be a standard action.

So in that scenario, your ally could reach out and grab your hand, pull you while using their move action, you don't take any AtOps, and then you in turn can use your movement and pull your friend as well, negating any AtOps they might take.

All of this sillyness is because you are all claiming forced movement is something it isn't. Also, I think the entire point of the AtOp issue with *real* forced movement is being ignored. It was to avoid an exploit, not create a new one (which is what people here are trying to do).

Willingness to be moved is irrelevant. Go to the PHB and/or RC and point out where the target must not be willing. Meanwhile, I will point to the 'switch places' definition where you shift to their space while they slide to yours. Sliding is by definition, forced movement.

Moreover, it doesn't matter if it's 'forced' or 'involuntary'. It matters if it's a pull. Pulls disallow OAs. Everything else is meaningless semantics.

 

[Oldtimer]

So in that scenario, your ally could reach out and grab your hand, pull you while using their move action, you don't take any AtOps, and then you in turn can use your movement and pull your friend as well, negating any AtOps they might take.

Pulling your ally is a Standard action, not a Move action. Aren't you both supposed to be doing something better? Like attacking the enemies?

All of this sillyness is because you are all claiming forced movement is something it isn't. Also, I think the entire point of the AtOp issue with *real* forced movement is being ignored. It was to avoid an exploit, not create a new one (which is what people here are trying to do).

"Sillyness"? We are merely quoting you the Rules As Written. You don't like the rules? Fine, make up your own.

And, they are called "OAs".

 

[Mirtek]

Allowing someone to pull you is not forced movement. You are a willing target.

It is. Push, Pull and Slide are forced movement. Period.

FYI all powers that let you slide an ally are also voluntarily for the ally, this always "allowed forced movement"

Oh did I mention that being a willing target isn't forcing them to move?

Did someone already mention that the willingness of the target doesn't matter?

Also, why should grabbing your friend, a willing target, be a standard action, especially if they're immobilized.

Because that is how the rules for grabbing creatures work.

That would not be a standard action.

Then it would not be be a grab either. By the rules a grab is a standard action.

So in that scenario, your ally could reach out and grab your hand, pull you while using their move action,

]Except that you can not pull using a move action.

It was to avoid an exploit, not create a new one (which is what people here are trying to do).

Wasting a standard action (or two standard action) by turning them into a "move half speed" is not an exploit by any stretch

I wouldn't necessarily consider this to be house rule actually. Grab is an action you can take to grab hold of an unwilling enemy target. Generally speaking picking up something or taking hold of it is a minor action. I'd argue in the case of a willing ally it isn't reasonable for it it be any harder to grab the ally than it would be to pick up an item from the same square. So IMHO the RAW is minor action to take hold of your ally, and standard action to move him around.

I see the merit of this interpretation.

At the end of the day even with this more generous rulling it would still be wasting a minor and a standard action to gain a "move half speed", still not an exploit

 

[Ninja-to]

Willingness to be moved is irrelevant. Go to the PHB and/or RC and point out where the target must not be willing. Meanwhile, I will point to the 'switch places' definition where you shift to their space while they slide to yours. Sliding is by definition, forced movement.

Moreover, it doesn't matter if it's 'forced' or 'involuntary'. It matters if it's a pull. Pulls disallow OAs. Everything else is meaningless semantics.

Forced movement...

Forced. As in, forced? Not willing? How is this complicated? You don't have a choice, you're forced?

You want to go. Nobody is forcing you. If you are being pulled, but you don't want to be pulled, you are being forced. If you are being pulled, and you want to be pulled, you are not being forced.

How is this not making sense to people?

The semantics *are* important because the whole intention of the no AtOp rule is to avoid exploiting your powers that move creatures around. If mundane pulling or pushing allies was a conceivable action (not talking about powers) for any character to accomplish it would clearly have been mentioned or detailed or even HINTED at somewhere in any book. It is not. Anywhere. Pulling and pushing allies around was not meant to be something that could be done with a mundane grab.

 

[Kzach]

I'm going to stop addressing the original question because I think that has been clarified quite succinctly already. Instead I'm going to address the attitude you're (Ninja-to) conveying in this thread.

It seems to me as if you feel that your role as a DM is to be an adversary, in that it is you versus your players. It also seems as if you feel like you're being cheated in some way and that your players are somehow getting away with something they shouldn't be allowed to get away with and that your authority as a DM is being challenged.

Invoking the 'badwrongfun' rule, I'll first say that if you and your group are having fun, then ultimately it doesn't matter how you DM. Having said that, the spirit of D&D is co-operative and the role of DM is intended as being a facilitator of fun, the glue that binds a group and works with the players, not against them, to create a challenging, evocative, interesting and fun game.

So I ask you this simple question. In reacting the way you have to the input in this thread, and in stating that the player reacted negatively to your assertions, is sticking to your guns and arguing the point ad nauseum helping anyone, including yourself, have fun at the table?

 

[OnlineDM]

You asked for people's thoughts. They're pretty clear. You disagree with them. Fair enough. Can we move on now? I think we've established how the rules as written work, and you don't think they make much sense, so house rule it and go from there.

Anything else after that is not a discussion of the rules of the game; it's a discussion of alternate rules, which is fine. But it's not "I'm right and you're wrong." It's "I think it's silly that the rules work the way they do, so here's how I'm going to handle it at my table." No one can complain that you're wrong on that - it's your table.

 

[Mirtek]

If mundane pulling or pushing allies was a conceivable action (not talking about powers) for any character to accomplish it would clearly have been mentioned or detailed or even HINTED at somewhere in any book. It is not. Anywhere. Pulling and pushing allies around was not meant to be something that could be done with a mundane grab.

It mentioned right in the rules of moving a grabbed creature (RC page 243 (grab action targets "creatures" and not "enemies" and 244 (use standard action to move grabbed target))

Also see: RC, page 211: to move a target forcibly, whether the target is willing or unwilling

And this is in no way an exploit but rather a very crappy trade of standard actions vs. provoking an OA.

It can become an exploit if you house rule it to work different from the RAW, e.g. allowing the grabber to pull his ally with his move action instead of another standard action, but then it's not a fault of the RAW but of your own house rules

 

[DracoSuave]

Forced movement...

Forced. As in, forced? Not willing? How is this complicated? You don't have a choice, you're forced?

Forced movement is defined as any push, pull, or slide. As an example, there are powers that let you shift, and then slide the player. The player is under forced movement, and therefore benefits from not provoking OAs.

You want to go. Nobody is forcing you. If you are being pulled, but you don't want to be pulled, you are being forced. If you are being pulled, and you want to be pulled, you are not being forced.

Convenience does not stop the push, pull, or slide from being a push, pull, or slide. Forced movement is any push, pull, or slide. Therefore it's still forced movement.

Defined game term is defined.

How is this not making sense to people?

Because you're taking a defined game term literally, and redefining it to suit your argument. Game terms are not literal.

The semantics *are* important because the whole intention of the no AtOp rule is to avoid exploiting your powers that move creatures around.

Citation needed. There are plenty of powers which explicitly slide your allies.

If mundane pulling or pushing allies was a conceivable action (not talking about powers) for any character to accomplish it would clearly have been mentioned or detailed or even HINTED at somewhere in any book.

Page 42

It is not. Anywhere. Pulling and pushing allies around was not meant to be something that could be done with a mundane grab.

But you've allowed movement to occur outside of that anyways. So, you have to define what sort of movement that is.

If it's a regular move or a shift, the one moving decides the location to go to. Otherwise, it's forced movement.

Really, that's the real question: Who decided where the move would go. Was it the player going 'I want to move you from here to there' or was it a 'I want to let you move where you like.'

The former is forced movement, as the one moving is not given the choice of where to move to or whether to move at all. It being beneficial to him is completely irrelevant to that primary point.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Also, this is *not* 'forced movement' if the friendly player is allowing it to happen, is it?

I don't believe this is what was intended by the 'forced movement' rules. Just as movement rules are different for allies and enemies (eg you can move through allied squares, not enemies) I disagree that a regular yank on a collar grants all the benefits of forced movement.

When you slide your allies, it is still considered forced movement, and when you do so it is usually for benign and beneficial reasons. Draco is 100% correct here (as usual).

This is a perfectly legit player move in the situation you describe, though, as pointed out, it would take two standard actions to do it, so the pulling character would need to use an AP to get it done in one turn. Seems fair. I might have even allowed it for a standard action + move action.

 

[Ninja-to]

I'm going to stop addressing the original question because I think that has been clarified quite succinctly already. Instead I'm going to address the attitude you're (Ninja-to) conveying in this thread.

It seems to me as if you feel that your role as a DM is to be an adversary, in that it is you versus your players. It also seems as if you feel like you're being cheated in some way and that your players are somehow getting away with something they shouldn't be allowed to get away with and that your authority as a DM is being challenged.

Invoking the 'badwrongfun' rule, I'll first say that if you and your group are having fun, then ultimately it doesn't matter how you DM. Having said that, the spirit of D&D is co-operative and the role of DM is intended as being a facilitator of fun, the glue that binds a group and works with the players, not against them, to create a challenging, evocative, interesting and fun game.

So I ask you this simple question. In reacting the way you have to the input in this thread, and in stating that the player reacted negatively to your assertions, is sticking to your guns and arguing the point ad nauseum helping anyone, including yourself, have fun at the table?

Ok I have no idea what you're talking about here. My authority as a DM? Um yeah, what are you talking about? What does this have to do with clarifying this problem?

I'll guess at what you're getting at. You think that because my player argued I feel somehow threatened in my authority as a DM. What I didn't mention is that of the 5 people a the table, he was alone in his opinion. Every other player disagreed with him, not only me. My 'authority' had nothing to do with me posing this question.

To further that, the action couldn't have happened anyway even by everyone's interpretation here, because two standards would be required.

My point is I disagree with both the assertion that a willing target requires a standard action to grab, as well as everything else I've already repeated which I'll stop bothering with.

My role as a DM is not to be an adversary. I want the rules to A) Make sense and B) Be fair and of course C) Be correct.

A, B and C to me are all not the case. I don't have the Rules Compendium book, and this may have been directly addressed in that and I just saw a quote from Mirtek on it and will check. If that is the rule as written then *that* it what I was looking for someone to provide.