How to handle multiple people in the same square?

[Dr Tenebrous]

Every so often, I get a situation where either the PC's or the villians will have two or three people in the same square. For example, in a 5' wide corridor, a monster surprises the mage at the rear of the party, and does lots of damage. Do initiative, and everybody but the mage beats the monster. Fighter one decides to bull rush it, to get it away from the mage. Per the rules, he moves through the other players squares, including the mage, just fine. However, he blows the bull rush roll, and gets pushed back 5 feet into the mages square, where he falls prone. Fighter two does the very same thing. So now you have one square with three people in it, one standing and two prone. What will this do to the mage's AC? If he wasn't flat-footed, how would it affect dex bonus to AC? When it's the mages turn, how might this affect his combat or movement?

Let's make this even more fun by paralizing the mage. Fighter one stands up, and boldly attacks the monster. The mage is standing frozen in the square, and fighter two is still underfoot. How would this affect things?

Another situation would be a party of six in a 10' wide corridor (2 abreast, 3 deep), who are facing a gelatinous cube right in front of them. They boldly attack, but neglect to fall back. The cube then moves forward and attempts to engulf, but they all make their saves, and are pushed back. So you end up with three people in each of the 5' squares in front of the cube, all presumably standing upright. How would this affect a character that decides to do a melee attack?

I've managed to wing it reasonably well when these sorta things come up, but would like to see if anybody has any suggestions for general rules to cover this stuff. (Or can tell me if I missed them somewhere in PHB or DMG).

 

[Tom Cashel]

I'm not sure of the exact name, but it's a Conditional Modifier or something like that. Anywhere from -3 to +3.

I'd toss the wizard a -1 to Dex bonus for AC, for each prone character occupying their square. Not really too harsh, since they can 5-ft. step to leave that square and regain maneuverability.

 

[AGGEMAM]

I'll give it a go ...

Only one person can stand in any square at any given time, and the one person who occupied the square standing first is the one standing.

That means in your situation that the fighters who fell prone must either crawl out of the square (being prone does not prevent movement), or stand up from prone and move into an unoccupied square immidiately or fall prone again.

In the GC situation I would rule that ALL the characters being pushed into the same square falls prone in that square (The first character after that can then stand up and the situation is now the same as before).

Hope it helps.

 

[kreynolds]

AGGEMAM, mind giving your input on this thread?

 

[shadracht]

In my campaign, PC's occupying the same square, even during transition, take AOOs for pretty much everything they do. Hard to be at normal defensive stance when there's someone standing RIGHT next to you.

 

[shurai]

But they could be standing upwards of three feet away.

 

[Targos]

I don't think theres any printed rules for this, but it comes up. I might treat it similar grappling. Those in the crowded square don't have room to effectively dodge and lose their dex bonus to those outside of the crowded square. They can only effectively use light weapons while crowded in such a manner and don't threaten the squares around them. (One might make an acception for something a phalanx of pikemen, but that should require special training.) Thats just off the top of my head, but if I had to wing it I probably would do this.