D&D 5E Attacking on an ally's space before finishing your move?

[Plaguescarred]

While you can move before and after an action and even break your movement between attacks, it has nothing to do with moving around other creatures. RAW you can’t willingly end your move in a creature's space, even if you can move through it.

 

[Mannahnin]

In practice I'm a little more forgiving about two creatures sharing a space than the rules strictly allow; my usual exception is for one standing and one prone beneath them. I will also typically allow a creature to move into the space of an invisible foe, assuming it isn't an especially large/bulky/immobile invisible creature; as part of that I assume that the invisible person ducks to the side a bit to not give away their presence.

But as others have noted, moving into the same space as another creature and attacking from there fails for me on two counts:

1. It creates really weird and unnatural game states, where (for example), a big plate-armored fighter can stand in and block a doorway and have his whole party sequentially move into his space, attack, and move back again in the space of six seconds. That seems exploitative. It'll seem even weirder to the players if I have a full dozen or more enemies do it.

2. It breaks my suspension of disbelief. I know how much space I need to swing a sword. Having a person literally shoulder to shoulder and impinging on the space for my arms to swing will make it harder for me to attack.

To be fair, with certain weapons and training, full 5' squares per combatant would definitely not be needed. If me and my shield buddy were fighting in shieldwall with short, stabbing swords or spears, we'd probably only need 3' of frontage or less each. OTOH, with a claymore or great axe, I'd need a great deal more than 5' total frontage. 5' per combatant is a nice simple rule to keep it easy.

 

[Plaguescarred]

Taken that the location of an invisible creature is usually known unless it's hidden, and that an enemy's space cannot be entered unless it's two size larger or smaller, it seems like being aware or not of the presence of another creature is not a factor allowing entrance RAW. I assume the creature's movement would bump into something before it can enter the space and therefore know a hidden creature occupies it.

 

[Mannahnin]

Taken that the location of an invisible creature is usually known unless it's hidden, and that an enemy's space cannot be entered unless it's two size larger or smaller, it seems like being aware or not of the presence of another creature is not a factor allowing entrance RAW. I assume the creature's movement would bump into something before it can enter the space and therefore know a hidden creature occupies it.

Right. Hence my caveat that my ruling is more forgiving of space-sharing than the rules strictly allow.

For my taste, allowing monsters and PCs to automatically detect a hidden invisible creature by attempting to enter their space is an undesirable outcome of the RAW, unrepresentative of the fiction of invisibility which I prefer to use.

 

[Zaukrie]

Zero percent chance I'd allow this.

 

[Plaguescarred]

Right. Hence my caveat that my ruling is more forgiving of space-sharing than the rules strictly allow.

For my taste, allowing monsters and PCs to automatically detect a hidden invisible creature by attempting to enter their space is an undesirable outcome of the RAW, unrepresentative of the fiction of invisibility which I prefer to use.

I hear you, i just find unlikely to have 2 medium creatures sharing a 5 feet space without one noticing the other. As you originally said "assuming it isn't an especially..immobile", don't you think an hidden invisible creature would have to move out of the way in order to remain undetected? And thus not be immobile and possibly make noise which may reveal it's presence?

 

[Oofta]

In practice I'm a little more forgiving about two creatures sharing a space than the rules strictly allow; my usual exception is for one standing and one prone beneath them. I will also typically allow a creature to move into the space of an invisible foe, assuming it isn't an especially large/bulky/immobile invisible creature; as part of that I assume that the invisible person ducks to the side a bit to not give away their presence.

But as others have noted, moving into the same space as another creature and attacking from there fails for me on two counts:

1. It creates really weird and unnatural game states, where (for example), a big plate-armored fighter can stand in and block a doorway and have his whole party sequentially move into his space, attack, and move back again in the space of six seconds. That seems exploitative. It'll seem even weirder to the players if I have a full dozen or more enemies do it.

2. It breaks my suspension of disbelief. I know how much space I need to swing a sword. Having a person literally shoulder to shoulder and impinging on the space for my arms to swing will make it harder for me to attack.

To be fair, with certain weapons and training, full 5' squares per combatant would definitely not be needed. If me and my shield buddy were fighting in shieldwall with short, stabbing swords or spears, we'd probably only need 3' of frontage or less each. OTOH, with a claymore or great axe, I'd need a great deal more than 5' total frontage. 5' per combatant is a nice simple rule to keep it easy.

I could easily see special training and specific weapons for PCs or NPCs to do a shield wall, but in general it seems like you need more than a couple of people doing it to make it worthwhile. It might be cool now and then but I'm not sure D&D combat is detailed enough to really do it justice.

Maybe impose disadvantage on attacks and, as you say, allow more than one combatant per 5 feet?

 

[Stalker0]

Anything the PCs can do, the enemy can do. Can you imagine a PC trying to hold a choke point while every single opponent jumps into the same square to attack them?

One well-constructed use of this - I can quickly construct one on paper that will have a single PC taking full attacks from 14 enemies per round, repeating every round, and I'm not even trying - and the PCs will not want this option to happen.

Technically, even if you don't allow the same square, there is nothing to stop monsters from moving in, attacking, and moving out again, allowing the massive focus of enemies onto a single target. The only thing that stops it if you are able to stop the movement of a creature, and then he is blocking the square for everyone else.

I am sure that by allowing this you get more monsters able to do it at once, but the technique already exists.


From my standpoint, I have never allowed people to share space and attack, but frankly I had assumed that was the RAW. Now rereading it I can understand the interpretation of allowing it, but it never crossed my mind to do so until this thread.

 

[Stormonu]

I really wish D&D had gone with 3-foot squares instead of 5-foot. At least then the fighting space/reach would make a lot more sense. Right now, the game as tracts that a single person is “threatening” an area approximately 15 feet across, and considers it as “not moving”. That’s a big area - and half the distance of a single down in football.