D&D 5E Ending movement in occupied square?

[GMMichael]

This is mostly an issue with minis. With TotM, you can just say they move away.

TotMank you.

. . . an army of undead in a cave*. So what happens when a panicked ghoul moves through undead allies' smoke filled (heavily obscured) squares to escape the cleric but runs out of movement in a tunnel packed with other undead allies before they find a free square?

Besides an "army" fitting into a cave . . . I hear that 5e doesn't require squares. So don't use them, and stopping in a square is no longer a problem.

If the above suggestions (above posters included) don't cut it - the army of ghouls use a portion of their movement to throw the fleeing ghoul back at the cleric. No squeezing needed.

 

[Lanefan]

Flies over is not occupying the same square, but any involuntary movement (falling, being pushed, whatever) still has the same rules. You can't normally occupy the same space so you stop moving before you enter the square or, if coming from above, you randomly get to a legal spot.

So if I'm hovering ten feet above someone and fall, I'm going to fall five feet to one side even though I've no horizontal momentum?

No. What's wrong with the falling person simply landing on top of whoever is below?

Despite the rules' best and most foolish attempts, characters (and their foes) don't live in 5-foot diameter bubbles.

 

[Oofta]

So if I'm hovering ten feet above someone and fall, I'm going to fall five feet to one side even though I've no horizontal momentum?

No. What's wrong with the falling person simply landing on top of whoever is below?

Despite the rules' best and most foolish attempts, characters (and their foes) don't live in 5-foot diameter bubbles.

They fall and get pushed to the side if you follow the literal rule. In my game I might rule that the person falling is prone and both are squeezing.

 

[ECMO3]

An easy answer is that the smoke does not matter and that RAW says they cannot end up in the same space, so the ghoul needs to stop moving before that. Some of the OPs words are confusing so forgive me, but if the ghoul is turned by the cleric and fleeing through the PCs' spaces is should just stop when it runs into a PC's space. Ultimately it should be moving away from the cleric which could have it move past a PC of bump into one passing through the space. This should trigger an opportunity attack, which would end the turned part. I guess the ghoul would be pushed back to the last square where the opportunity attack happened, but that may be last edition talking.

If it is a smoke filled heavily obscured area and you would typically not get an AOO since you would not be able to see the Ghoul.

Also I think he was talking about ghouls moving through allies (other ghouls) squares. So for example a hallway filled with Ghouls and smoke you turn the one in the front and he moves away through his allies squares (as difficult terrain) and runs out of movement before he reaches an open square.

There are a lot of ways to do this, I don't think anything specific in the rules. You could shunt him to the nearest open square or shunt him back to the last open square he moved through or finally keep them occupying the same square for now.

The part about the ghoul being a halfling and the others are giant ghouls should not matter since they are not halfling and giant anymore- they are now undead and do not get the cool abilities of being halflings. The DM can allow it and it could be cool though.

Any creature can move through a creature two sizes larger so a small Ghoul (halfling) could move through a large or giant Ghoul (giant ghoul). If the Ghouls are allies though she can move through regardless of size. If they are not allies there would need to be two sizes apart.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

Initiative is an abstract that sometimes creates weird action results.

Yep. Model a real-time situation with a turn-based game is always going to throw up strange interactions.

I'd have all the turned ghouls on the same initiative all move at once, and describe it as the entire mob scrambling backward in fear, frantically pushing past their non-turned allies.

For heavy obscurement and forced movement I would use the squeezing rules. If a fleeing character who is not in complete control of themselves (e.g. turned, frightened, dissonently whispered) ends their move in an occipied space then they stay in that occupied space, getting in the way of whoever was already in that space.