Forced Movement

[eamon]

I was about to bring up the Dominate example as well.

It's not a particularly convincing example, however: Dominate is a special case because it's not clear exactly what category a dominated creature is in. The article chose the path of simplicity (which was a mistake, I think).

I've yet to see anyone want to try to play with the definition of Ally vs Enemy for any reason other than to gain some additional advantage that appears not to be intended by a power, or avoid a disadvantage or limitation that does seem intended.

You say this as if it were necessarily a bad thing! Of course players try to use powers & other abilities to their own advantage - that's the expectation and the intent. As to using abilities & powers in unforeseen situations: using abilities creatively as if they were real within the game world is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. There's a difference here between unforeseen situations (fine, generally), and usages that actively counter the intentions behind the design.

Since as far as I can tell there is no balance issue here (in the sense that either interpretation is hardly going to be overpowering), I'd rule according to common sense: if a character can prevent that orc from being pushed into his square, he can prevent his friend from being pushed into his square.

 

[Kingreaper]

I completely disagree because this isn't about willingness, it's about the sudden change in categorization of ally vs. enemy.

Think about the logic: WHY can you pass through an ally's square?
Because they let you.

That sure sounds like it's about willingness to me.

Why would they let you through when you DON'T WANT TO GO THROUGH?

 

[DracoSuave]

Think about the logic: WHY can you pass through an ally's square?
Because they let you.

That sure sounds like it's about willingness to me.

Why would they let you through when you DON'T WANT TO GO THROUGH?

By the same logic, your enemies would automatically want to become your allies so that you could always be pushed/pulled into the center of the 8 monster dogpile flank-fest.

This would make the allies/enemies rule regarding forced movement to say one thing on paper, and do exactly the opposite in practice.

When a given interpretation of the rules requires one to, in practice, do the exact opposite of the rule each and every time, then one's rules interpretation is obviously bunk.

The only question that needs be asked is: 'Is this guy a willing recipient of the pushee's powers?' If the answer is yes, they are an ally. If not, an enemy. That is the rule, as written, as intended, and as it should -always- be applied. Whether or not the pushee is being pushed will not change the answer to that question in any way that actually makes sense when you -BOTHER- to apply it.

This isn't even a grey area. The only thing -making- it grey is some rules-twisting player who wants the rule to do the exact opposite of what it's supposed to, just for a bit of momentary convenience, because he doesn't want a push power to work -exactly as it should work-, because it's inconvenient. That's not 'rules interpretation.' That's 'shinanegans' and should not be entertained by a respectable DM, or by a respectable group of players.

 

[Kingreaper]

Except that there's a perfectly sensible reason, in-universe, why you wouldn't let an enemy be pushed past you: If you do, you're leaving yourself completely open to their attacks.
There's not such a reason for why you WOULD let an ally be pushed through you.
In addition: Being an ally would logically seem to require willingness on BOTH sides; while you might declare yourself an enemy warlord's ally before you spend an Action Point, that doesn't mean he'll agree with you, does it?
No. For Ally status to exist it's pretty clear that both parties have to agree to it.

You seem to be assuming that no-one ever cares for verisimilitude, and only wishes to manipulate the game for max advantage. That is not so.

EDIT: Is there, somewhere, a more thorough definition for "ally" that I'm missing. Because that seems to be the main point of disagreement, the only definition of ally I've seen in 4e is a willing recipient, with it being contextually clear that the other side of an "allies" power has a choice as well.

 

[Amaroq]

No, the only definition for Ally I see is the one on PHB p57 defining Target in terms of powers.

As for thinking of "why CAN I move through my ally's square?", I think that's approaching it backwards. a 5'x5' square is huge when you consider the width of a person; you could easily put four people into a 5'x5' square IRL, so passing through one's friend's squares seems, to me, to be the "default" behavior: a human being doesn't fully occupy a 5'x5' square, so you can pass through one even if its occupied.

So, why CAN'T one move through an enemy's square? Because said enemy is doing his level best to kill you with whatever lethal weaponry he can bring to bear: axe, claw, etc., AND you're doing the same to him.

If you're looking at it that way, then an ally not being able to stop your forced movement makes perfect sense: the ally isn't willing to kill you or bring lethal weaponry to bear, so even if he attempts to stop you, the power which is pushing you pushes you through whatever non-lethal means he might wish to use to stop you.

So, why can't the enemy decide to allow me through into the center of that 8-monster dogpile? Because I'M still his enemy, still trying to kill him, etc, and if I get that close to him, I'm going to try my level best to kill him .. so he can't afford to let me get that close.

. . .

But all that's arguing "fluff" explanations of an issue that still seems very simple to me:

My friend and I are flanking a bad guy. I hit the bad guy and push him two squares. My friend can't simply "let" the bad guy through because its better for us, because I'm not allowed to force-move the bad guy into a square that he can't walk into of his own accord. Full stop.

One of my other allies comes up adjacent to me, then gets pushed two squares. He can be pushed into my square, because that's a square that he's allowed to walk into of his own accord. Full stop.

The "I can stop him because I'm not willing to let him into my square" argument re-introduces the 3.5e concept of movement "into a WILLING ally's square". Its perfectly fine with me if you want to play it that way; I just don't think one can claim that its 4e RAW. If it were, they would have kept the "WILLING" adjective from 3.5 in describing movement.

. . .

Discussing it as a house rule, as far as game balance goes, I don't think its unbalancing, as long as your monsters play by the same rules. In fact, I think this is more likely to benefit the monsters than it is to benefit the PC's, just because there tend to be more of them, and they tend to be larger, so the monsters will tend to occupy more squares. I'd rather not "mute" the PC's forced-movement powers by giving the monsters a fairly cheap way to stop it.

This interpretation also seems to require the pushing creature to state where the push goes, and then for the pushee's allies to declare whether they're willing to allow that as a reaction .. if they aren't willing to allow it, the pushing creature can't change the push, so the push should be essentially negated back to the last unoccupied square. At that point, I feel like I'm telling the players "No" to their forced-movement powers, which are, for the most part, Encounters and Dailies, and so are going to be disappointing to have them feel "wasted". At least until we've all got the hang of it, and aren't trying to push people through their allies' squares anymore.

 

[OhGodtheRats]

I'm a bit rules dumb but I figured this was the right thread, recent Ally + Forced Movement debate aside.....Well, hopefully this is the right place.

A while back my DM started using a rule that you can't used forced movement to change the vertical position of an enemy. I think the rule was intended to stop people from using Slide powers to Slide enemies straight up in the air and then they fall, taking falling damage. Cheesy and I get that needed to be fixed. My issue: I can't find the rule errata/fix/clarification and I'd really like to argue against it in my game. Why?
Because as it's being used you can't push or pull enemies if they're on a staircase since each level is another vertical level.
Because a flying enemy hit by a "Pull 5 squares" attack can't be pulled into Melee range because, after all, it's flying on a high vertical level.
There's a bunch of other examples and...I guess I just want to know where I can find the rules as they're written and see if they're being used properly in our game. I have a great DM who's really into using corrected rules and, well, the recent batch of flying enemies and Drow hiding in Spiderholes in the ground being immune to all our forced movement stuff really got under my skin.
-Jared
"who really hopes he's asking in the right place"

Edit: On the Allies thing...we've always said that Allies can move through Allies spaces, but Enemies can't move Allies through Allies spaces. Then again, I kind of dig the alternate ruling that doesn't care so much. It'd mean my Forced Move builds could shuffle enemies around much more easily.

 

[Amaroq]

I think the thing on Vertical movement stems from the original PHB wording in the section on Forced Movement. :

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.

and also

Clear Path: Forced movement can’t move a target
into a space it couldn’t enter by walking.

I think, as you indicated, that that is intended to prevent me from pushing somebody two squares vertically and having him fall for an extra 1d10 damage.

It does very explicitly prevent me from moving a flying creature into a square it could fly into because it couldn't walk into it.

IMHO, that feels very cheesy.

1. monsters are a lot more likely to be flying than the PC's are.

2. The players can't use their Pull powers to get a bunch of flying artillery into melee range.

3. There doesn't seem to be any good "fluff" explanation for it.

For your game, I'd suggest explaining your concerns to your DM, describing the flying-bad-guys encounter as less-than-fun for the melee characters, and asking him to house-rule the vertical movement thing as follows:

A. Drop the final sentence I quoted on p285, trusting that its handled by the quote on p286.

B. Update 286 to "Forced Movement can't move a target into a space it couldn't enter using one of the forms of movement available to it."

That's about what we do: you still can't push an orc 2 squares up in the air (because he can't walk there), but you can pull a flying creature down from height 5 squares to height 3 squares with a "Pull 2" power.

Suggest that he give certain flying bad guys a dwarf-like resistance to this sort of thing: e.g., with these rules, a Dragon might need an additional power which reduces any forced movement applied to it by 2 squares.

From a game-balance perspective, it works well enough with several flying creatures, but it does mean that a single flying bad guy has a real hard time with a 4-PC party, as they can keep bringing him down to them.

 

[OhGodtheRats]

Thanks for the clarity...I really didn't even know where to begin researching this. I'm rules dumb at times and there are some....I don't know how to put this politely..."aggressive" rules folks in our group and, well, I've learned to do my homework before bringing up an issue. Great group but...yeah.

And crapsticks! I was hoping it was more an easily debated issue rather than a "yeah, it doesn't make much sense and seems a bit unfair" one.

Though as kind of a follow-up:
If a power forces an enemy to Shift a number of squares, is that forced movement? I'm looking at Come & Get It from the Fighter scene....I was looking for a Martial power that was the equivalent of a "I harpoon the guy and Drag him to me" and all the "Pulling" Martial powers I ran into right away force enemies to Shift. Does this follow the same rule?

EDIT: Ok, I'm dumb. Reading the OTHER Come & Get it Thread tells me it was errata'd to become a Pull effect. So...err...nevermind.

Thanks for the help!
-Jared
"As a Disclaimer, I admit to being Rules Stupid. No denial here."