Tell Me Everything There Is To Know About Push, Pull & Slide

[AbdulAlhazred]

Forced movement is a game term, which refers solely to push/pull/slide and to nothing else that force someone to move. Teleportation is no considered forced movement and does not grant any saving throws at the moment.

However the designers have already stated their intend to add a saving throw in such situations to the teleport rules.

Yup, by RAW you can teleport someone anyplace and there's no save at all. Its very common to house rule this in various ways. It kind of seems like the designers didn't really intend for teleport powers to be quite this powerful but its definitely open to debate, and of course there is the school of thought which says just don't put a bottomless pit in your encounter if you don't like things to be teleported into it...

 

[Stalker0]

Push/pull/slide also breaks grabs.

Slight modification. Forced Movement that takes you out of the grabber range breaks a grab. A monster with reach can still maintain the grab if you are still within there reach.

 

[RigaMortus2]

And there is some debate as if forced movement counts as "moves".
Common houserule is that it doesn't (i.e. moves = willingly moves).

So this would negate alot of the functionality of Storm Pillar then, when used in conjuction with forced movement powers.

I always allowed my Wizard to drop a Storm Pillar near an enemy, then Action Point Thunderwave and push them a few squares through it to rack up some damage.

 

[the Jester]

Jester, think you got your pushes and pulls mixed up in your original post. Reworked it for you in the quote above.

Excellent description, though.

Whoops, cut and paste error! Thanks!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So this would negate alot of the functionality of Storm Pillar then, when used in conjuction with forced movement powers.

I always allowed my Wizard to drop a Storm Pillar near an enemy, then Action Point Thunderwave and push them a few squares through it to rack up some damage.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4t...s-entering-interesting-custserv-response.html

The official answer is "move" requires the enemy to use a move action. "Enter" does not. Thus you can push someone into a Wall of Fire and damage them, you can't push them into a Storm Pillar and damage them.

The reason is pretty simple. Storm Pillar, being an at-will, would be OP if you could trivially use it to cause as much as 3d6+(3*INT) damage. As it stands the power is pretty darn good and there are tons of situations where you can guarantee it will do at least some damage or at worst force an enemy to stand for a whole turn and do nothing.

So, this is the pretty much general rule with forced movement, it doesn't count as a "move" on the part of the enemy, but any square you force someone into is a square they have "entered". Admittedly the terminology is about as clear as mud but it works.

 

[abyssaldeath]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4t...s-entering-interesting-custserv-response.html

The official answer is "move" requires the enemy to use a move action. "Enter" does not. Thus you can push someone into a Wall of Fire and damage them, you can't push them into a Storm Pillar and damage them.

The reason is pretty simple. Storm Pillar, being an at-will, would be OP if you could trivially use it to cause as much as 3d6+(3*INT) damage. As it stands the power is pretty darn good and there are tons of situations where you can guarantee it will do at least some damage or at worst force an enemy to stand for a whole turn and do nothing.

So, this is the pretty much general rule with forced movement, it doesn't count as a "move" on the part of the enemy, but any square you force someone into is a square they have "entered". Admittedly the terminology is about as clear as mud but it works.

Never follow what CS says unless you can back it up with rules quotes.

29. Can you slide a target multiple times (by using a warlock's diabolic grasp or harrowstorm powers) into a wizard's wall of fire for iterative damage?

There are several factors to take into consideration here. First, a target must move into the wall's space—that is, moving into every square of that space does not inflict iterative damage. However, if a target moves into the wall's space, then back out, and then back in again, it will take more damage; but remember, entering each square occupied by the wall costs 3 extra squares of movement (which might be possible with a high-level use of a harrowstorm).
​

The FAQ guys of WotC seem to think differently. Storm Pillar was also changed in an update specifically so you couldn't force move to cause damage.

Storm Pillar
Page 101: In the third sentence of the Effect line,
add “on its turn” after “adjacent to the pillar.” The
intent is that the pillar provides a controlling effect on
the battlefield, and this prevents it from being used in
conjunction with forced movement to deal a disproportionate
amount of damage.

Sorry RigaMortus2, but that tactic of your wizard doesn't work with the update for Storm Pillar. Of course, no one is forcing you to use the updated version at your table.

 

[Alex319]

Of course, you can still use forced movement to push someone into the Storm Pilar to cause damage - all you have to do is ready an action so that it goes off on the target's turn. And all the target has to do to avoid the intended effect of the Storm Pillar is to ready a charge through it to go off on somebody else's turn.

 

[jbear]

Yep, sorry my bad about difficult terrain. Had fuzzy memory of this part of the DMG:

'On the flip side, if a shambling mound pushes a character through thick mud, which might require an Athletics check to move through at the cost of paying an extra square of movement, you might let the character use the mud to slow his or her movement, reducing the distance he or she is pushed by 1 square.'

So a character can use hindering terrain to its advantage to reduce forced movement effects.​

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Of course, you can still use forced movement to push someone into the Storm Pilar to cause damage - all you have to do is ready an action so that it goes off on the target's turn. And all the target has to do to avoid the intended effect of the Storm Pillar is to ready a charge through it to go off on somebody else's turn.

Which is exactly why they have made a consistent differentiation between "move" and "enter" which is a totally consistent ruling they've used for over a year now. Storm Pillar didn't HAVE to get errata. The errata was just a misguided attempt to make it more obvious what was intended from the very start.

WotC's problem is they failed miserably to devise a terminology that clearly distinguished between forced movement and normal movement from the very start. Now they're stuck with this turd of bad terminology which pervades 100's of powers and other related parts of the rules. To REALLY fix it would require an epic sized errata which they obviously just aren't willing to do. So the end result is that we have "move" vs "enter" as a sort of hack. Still, its a consistent hack which they've stuck with for a long time and while its a horribly awkward use of terms it is clear IF you're aware of how they've approached it. Of course for the vast majority of DMs who aren't sitting around reading the Q&A threads on a regular basis its about as clear as mud.

@abbysaldeath, you can complain about it and dismiss CS out of hand all you want. Sit down at an event where the official rules are used and guess what? It will be played exactly as I outlined. Protest it all you want, them's the rules of the game. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Of course you can do anything you want at your table, but the theory that it isn't the rules according to WotC will still be wrong.

 

[eamon]

FWIW, there have been several conflicting CS answers concerning moving vs. entering; most of which pointed towards the fact that there is no distinction. Powers/effects where such a distinction matters such as the aforementioned storm pillar, polearm gamble, and shifting were errata'd. Movement does not imply willing movement - or at least, where it's relevant it explicitly states so (or is updated to state so).

There are no inconsistencies that I know of in considering forced movement a type of movement. You can ready actions on triggers such as "enters an adjacent square" and have that trigger fire regardless of whether the movement was forced or willing. Note, however, that forced movement in general does not provoke opportunity actions of any sort (barring specific exceptions, naturally).

I do not believe there is a rules-based grounding that implies that a "move" implies willing movement, nor do I believe there are any consistency or balance issues which arise from considering the words "move" or "enter" to encompass both willing and forced movement.

In short, that distinction isn't present in RAW nor needed for balance; updates were written presuming the distinction doesn't exist - so I highly doubt it's RAI either.