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Message: <blockquote data-quote="NHBaggesen" data-source="post: 4107941" data-attributes="member: 62565">Ok, this is my first post here, and my concern may have been discussed elsewhere, but if so I hope some kind soul will refer me to the post and most bite my head off.Anyway, I'm a bit concerned about the various forced movement abilities in 4e, such as the tide-of-iron, the goblin picador, the force blast of the hobgoblin warcaster and so on. Basically their effectiveness seem to be more or less proportional to the danger of the environment. Certainly showing someone into the fire is way more neat than just shuffling them around a big grassy footballfield, and it fits with the 4e mentality of bringing the environment into play. SO far, so good. But what about the almost iconic fights on bridges, near chasms, on an island in the middle of lava and so on. Heck even on the second florr of a building, if the just is a window to shove someone out off. Then this forced movement can become more or less a death sentence. Sure some abilities will require some setup, since they can only push or pull, but on the other hand we can see from the picador, that sometimes you get moved even on a failure - and if there is just 5 feet to the edge of that chasm you are gone (possibly dragging the goblin with you, but still). In that case you don't even get your 'save'.So you try to figure the environment into your encounter design. But really - how may XP is it to fight near a chasm? That would seem to depend a lot on the other abilitites in play. And even if you try to create something that isn't a total deathtrap but still suspenseful and challenging, there is the issue of all the forced movement abilities possessed by the PCs. I don't mind the cool moments where an impromtu bullrush saves the day, as the hobgoblin boss gets shoved over the edge off the chasm and plummets into the raging river (from where he will return as a recurring villain, obviously - with that kind of death how can he not). But when the players realise their newfound power and decide to push it (pun intended) all your adventures suddenly have to be relegated to the fantasy equivalent of Holland (or a flat place of your choice), and even speed bumbs are looked at with caution.To sum up, it just seems that (depending on the environment) forced movement comes very close to being an effective bypass for hp and other defenses, especially in the case of movement abilitites that work even on a miss. Or is there something obvious I've overlooked (and that we know off - please don't just say "but we haven't seen everything yet").</blockquote>

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