Can you use forced movement abilities on allies?

[Pbartender]

You are. Mistaken that is.

And you're also reading crunchy things into normal random sentence variations: the WotC designers aren't writing legal code, and you shouldn't scrutinize each and every comma.

Don't say that... They may not be writing legal code, but they do need to be precise in the wording of their rules. When the wording is ambiguous, the only resort is to scrutinize the grammar to glean some insight into the intent.

Read up on forced movement; it'll tell'ya all forced movement is "up to X".

You are correct...

Page 285, PHB states, "Distance in Squares: The power you’re using specifies how many squares you can move a target. You can choose to move the target fewer squares or not to move it at all. You can’t move the target vertically."

I must have missed that when I double checked it this morning.

The "can" issue, however, can be important for other powers... For example, most Leader powers that allow a player to use an healing say "can" in order to let the target PC have the option of not using an expendable resource. If that "can" wasn't there, they'd technically be forced to use the healing surge whether they wanted to or not.

 

[lukelightning]

I now picture a suicide squad of halfling warriors, with a wizard in the back who thunderwaves them and they go flying through the air, screaming like psychos at the enemy in front of them.

Why halflings? Because a horde of halflings launching through the air sounds funnier.

What about a feat that is sort of the opposite of dwarven immovability? Something like "easy to push around": when affected by an allies power that moves you, you can move one extra square.

 

[Mirtek]

The "can" issue, however, can be important for other powers... For example, most Leader powers that allow a player to use an healing say "can" in order to let the target PC have the option of not using an expendable resource. If that "can" wasn't there, they'd technically be forced to use the healing surge whether they wanted to or not.

Even then it's not really important because the ally could just chose to cease being an ally.

The only way to force an ally to do something against his will is to hit him with a enemy/creature power, otherwise he'll just refuse being your ally at this time

 

[Goumindong]

Fairly simple question. Can you use a power that forces movement (such as a Warlord's Opening Shove) on an ally?

If so, what happens with the free attack granted by it?

Regardless of the answer to that question, is there another (or an easier) way for PCs to force movement on allies, such as pulling them out of a dangerous square or pushing them into a flank?

Not only can you do this, but its encouraged.

Evidence: See "Agile Opportunist" from Martial power. Whenever you're pushed, pulled, or slid adjacent to an enemy you may make an opportunity attack against that enemy.

When you combine this with the ability of a wizard to push "up to x", and the push rules of "any square farther away", thunderwave, especially with a good wisdom, arcane reach, and the blast 4 feat, and war wizardry, becomes one of the most potent control powers in the game bar none, able to rearrange the battlefield as necessary, grant multiple OA's to your damage die based striking and defending classes[rogues miss out a lot on this due to their low damage die] all while suffering minimal problems for hitting an ally. (Another good suggestion is, if you're going to be hitting allies often, to have a implement with no critical property[plenty exist] as backup so you can thunderwave allies with fewer negative side effects in the form of possibly critting allies)

 

[MarkB]

Fairly simple question. Can you use a power that forces movement (such as a Warlord's Opening Shove) on an ally?

If so, what happens with the free attack granted by it?

Regardless of the answer to that question, is there another (or an easier) way for PCs to force movement on allies, such as pulling them out of a dangerous square or pushing them into a flank?

The bag o' rats rule from the DMG requires that a power's target be a legitimate threat to you in order to trigger secondary effects from attacking them. So in the case of Opening Shove, I'd say you'd be able to push your ally on a successful hit, but you would not then be able to trigger the free shift or attack for another ally.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

It's total cheese; I don't allow it in my games.