Moving the Bad Guys Around

[Zephrin the Lost]

My newly-minted 1/2-elf rogue has several abilities that allow him to slide foes around the battlefield. My question is, assuming a lack of cliffs or lava, what is the best use of this ability? My understanding is that slides do not provoke OA, so even if I slide a foe past our defender, he can't get a free swing at it. If said foe were marked by the defender, would the slide cause damage or provoke the interrupt attack?

--Z

 

[Blackbrrd]

Push/Pull/Slide never provokes OA.

The best use is probably to put your foes into a 3x3 or 5x5 area for the cleric/wizard to burst/blast. Either that or just move them close to your friendly defender.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

My newly-minted 1/2-elf rogue has several abilities that allow him to slide foes around the battlefield. My question is, assuming a lack of cliffs or lava, what is the best use of this ability? My understanding is that slides do not provoke OA, so even if I slide a foe past our defender, he can't get a free swing at it. If said foe were marked by the defender, would the slide cause damage or provoke the interrupt attack?

--Z

There is no general hard rule where to slide an opponent. It depends on the situation, and typically it requires team work to pull things off.

For example, if you work together with your Wizard, he might have a few powers that leave zones or at least continue to affect certain areas. Move your opponent into on of these zones. Similar, if you know the Wizard has a few area spells ready, try to get your foes closer together, while staying out of the affected area yourself.

Shove an enemy between two allies (preferably a Rogue) so that he is flanked. Or pull him away from one of your weaker allies (the Wizard, or any of the Strikers). Move them to make space for another character, so the character can move out of a flanked position or can get closer to a weaker enemy. Move the enemy simply away from you so he has to move back to you. Or move him closer if he doesn't want to be in melee with you.

 

[generalhenry]

also note that monsters get to make a saving throw if you try to push them off a cliff.

 

[Zephrin the Lost]

All great advice! I am thrilled that my rapier-wielding dashing swordsman will have such control over the field. Can't wait to try this stuff out!

--Z

 

[DracoSuave]

All great advice! I am thrilled that my rapier-wielding dashing swordsman will have such control over the field. Can't wait to try this stuff out!

--Z

There's the tried and true tactic of doing both wizardy shinanegans AND flanking mumbojumbo with a defender...

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

A great thing to do is have the Paladin mark a foe with his challenge and then another PC slide that foe in such a way that it most either accept attacks of opportunity in order to get back in contact with the paladin or attack someone else and take the damage.

It works better in big party and is deadly if you have both a Paladin and Fighter, and do it against a melee only enemy.

Slide him next to the fighter and the enemy can either attack the high AC fighter with a -2 to hit and take automatic 7 hp of damage, or he can go back to the paladin and risk an AoO from a fighter, the best in the games.

Both are horrible choices.

 

[BASHMAN]

Picture it:

Your fighter and cleric are both at less than 5 hp, standing next to a Burning Skeleton. On their intitiative, they will take 5 damage BEFORE they get to take their turn to do any healing, etc, and go down. You have the power to move that creature away from them so that they both get to take their second winds and use a healing word. You just saved your 2 meat shields with one action.

 

[Blackbrrd]

The wizard has some great area/zone spells you can slide the monsters into.

Wizard examples:
Freezing clound (level 1 daily)
Stinking cloud (level 5 daily)
Winters wrath (level 7 encounter)
Wall of fire (level 9 daily)
Storm cage (paragon path level 11 encounter)

For instance if you slide a monster into a wall of fire it gets 3d6+int damage. If it starts it turn there it takes 3d6+int damage. So, let us say you are a rogue and use positioning strike to slide the targets 2-3 squares into the wall of fire. The target will take (typical) 1d4(dagger)+dex+weapon enchant+sneak attack+3d6+int+implement+feat when it enters, and 3d6+int+implement+feat when it starts it turn in the wall. That is roughly 2.5+5+2+7 (10.5+5+2+3)x2 = 16.5 from the sneak attack and 41 from the wall of fire, for a grand total of 57.5 damage. Nasty. +


W

 

[Ahrimon]

We used to great effect. The dragon they were fighting moved back out of range onto difficult terrain which would have forced the PC's into a bad situation to re-engage. The rogue bravely went forward and slid the dragon right back into melee range of the party. It was pretty impressive.