Can you move diagonally around enemies / walls?


Rules Discussion


Say you have a 15-ft. by 15-ft. area, so 3 spaces square. In the middle space is a perfectly cubic shape taking up the entirety of its space, and your character is standing against adjacent to the cube along one its flat sides (not at a corner).

Could you Step from your current space diagonally into another space adjacent to the square? For example, could you Step from the space to the east of the square into the space to the north of the square?

Following that same example, does the answer change if the cube is instead replaced by a hostile creature?


I would say no and rule that it is covered by the "you cannot move through an enemy's square" rule. As it objectively would require you to move through part (half) of the square to move on a diagonal.

As for terrain, that is up to the GM but also covered by a similar rule regarding objects imo. So for a wall I would again say no.

Pages referenced 474-475.

This is what tumble is for :)


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In one of the last Band of Bravos episodes, Jason Bulmahn ruled and explained that you can move diagonally around (cutting the corner) a creature but not a solid obstacle like a wall corner.

The situation there where 2 enemies diagonal adjacent and a PC that wanted to move diagonally between them. The GM allowed that and explained the above.

Maybe it was just to let the game flow as it is kinda a corner case (ha!). A ruling that requires Tumble to go diagonally around a creature is also sound. But cutting corners around a wall is not possible, I#d say.


I think things get rather interesting if you have a mix. For example most GMs won't have a problem allowing movement in between two diagonally adjacent trees or regular humanoid enemies. Most GMs would also not have a problem not allowing movement in between two adjacent walls, boulders or other solid objects that almost or entirely fill their respective spaces. But how about one solid object and one regular enemy?

If I am not entirely mistaken our "house rule" at this point was to allow diagonal movement in between two "soft targets" but disallow diagonal movement as soon as even one hard target is involved. We reached this decision primarily to allow single creatures to "hold" doorways and the like.


I wager a part of the reason the rules on objects have so much GM leeway is to allow for storytelling and logic over pure rules readings when it comes to things like this. (it calls out a pillar in the example)

As for getting past enemies, I still encourage using acrobatics and tumble to get through enemy spaces, if only to give it more use at the table (heck, even giving a DC adjustment of easy/very easy because you aren't looking to get past them directly could be warranted). But it shouldn't harm much either way. From a purely verisimilitude side of things, moving on a diagnonal between two foes should not be much easier to do than moving between two foes (on the line), a little... but to a very minor degree imo.

It should probably be different per creature/body type someone is trying to run past too.
I have been known to ignore the "freely move through gargantuan sized creatures" rule when I have considered that it didn't make sense (a home made colossal slug with a wooden vessel on its back comes to mind :) )

Sovereign Court

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Creatures usually don't take up their whole square. Really, go out on the street and draw some 5ft squares and go stand in them with your friends, and observe that you can still move diagonally through the squares.

Now try the same but at a street corner; a lot harder to go through that brick wall.

So in general I would say, creatures don't have hard corners. Exceptions exist though, like the gelatinous cube.


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This might be a house rule, but I'd allow moving diagonally past an isolated creature, but not between two creatures. Basically, I don't think holding a line diagonally should be harder than holding one horizontally or vertically.


Staffan Johansson wrote:
This might be a house rule, but I'd allow moving diagonally past an isolated creature, but not between two creatures. Basically, I don't think holding a line diagonally should be harder than holding one horizontally or vertically.

Well mathematically speaking it is square root of 2 as difficult (also see movement rules)...


Large creatures? Yes. Wall? No.


House-rules aside, yes, you can walk diagonally around a hard corner (unless anyone can supply a RAW quote to the contrary).

It's a perfectly reasonable house rule to disallow it, but I prefer not to add rules without a compelling reason.

Realism-wise, since a human doesn't take up an entire five-foot square, the route travelled as you walk around a nearby corner is going to be a gentle curve, a lot closer to a straight line than it is to a five-feet-that-way, then five-feet-that-way movement.

Sovereign Court

Interesting. Looks like Pathfinder 2 doesn't actually have any rules for hard corners at all. Compare the text:

Pathfinder 2E CRB p. 473 wrote:

Because moving diagonally covers more ground, you

count that movement differently. The first square of
diagonal movement you make in a turn counts as 5 feet,
but the second counts as 10 feet, and your count thereafter
alternates between the two. For example, as you move
across 4 squares diagonally, you would count 5 feet, then
10, then 5, and then 10, for a total of 30 feet. You track your
total diagonal movement across all your movement during
your turn, but reset your count at the end of your turn.
Starfinder CRB p. 256 wrote:

When measuring distance, count the first diagonal as 1 square,

the second as 2 squares, the third as 1, the fourth as 2, and so
on. You can’t move diagonally past a hard corner (such as the
corner of a building or starship or the side of a doorframe), but
you can move diagonally past a creature (even an opponent) or
less rigid objects, such as plant life.
Pathfinder 1E CRB p. 193 wrote:

Diagonals: When measuring distance, the first diagonal

counts as 1 square, the second counts as 2 squares, the
third counts as 1, the fourth as 2, and so on.
You can’t move diagonally past a corner (even by taking a
5-foot step). You can move diagonally past a creature, even
an opponent.
You can also move diagonally past other impassable
obstacles, such as pits.


Matthew Downie wrote:
House-rules aside, yes, you can walk diagonally around a hard corner (unless anyone can supply a RAW quote to the contrary).
Movement in Encounters wrote:

Objects

Because objects aren’t as mobile as creatures are, they’re more likely to fill a space. This means you can’t always move through their spaces like you might move through a space occupied by a creature. You might be able to occupy the same square as a statue of your size, but not a wide column. The GM determines whether you can move into an object’s square normally, whether special rules apply, or if you are unable to move into the square at all.

Depends on how you read "move through their space" as it is not defined by the rules.

Assuming most groups use it to mean entering/moving through a square at some point in movement (to avoid teleportation) that means moving at a diagonal would be moving through a square partially as well unless diagonals result in teleportation :)

Of course this is not hard clean cut RAW, but it is RAW supporting
"GM decides based on terrain" imo.


PF2 does seem to have made very subtle, easy to miss changes to some basic movement assumptions just by not saying the same thing as other versions do.

For extra illustration of this: did you all notice your allies' spaces aren't difficult terrain when you move through them?


thenobledrake wrote:
For extra illustration of this: did you all notice your allies' spaces aren't difficult terrain when you move through them?

It wasn't in PF1e either?


The Gleeful Grognard wrote:
thenobledrake wrote:
For extra illustration of this: did you all notice your allies' spaces aren't difficult terrain when you move through them?
It wasn't in PF1e either?

That very well may be true, but it is a common occurrence in other similar games to the point that everyone I've played PF1 and PF2 with thought it was true of the both of these editions.

Sovereign Court

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:
Matthew Downie wrote:
House-rules aside, yes, you can walk diagonally around a hard corner (unless anyone can supply a RAW quote to the contrary).
Movement in Encounters wrote:

Objects

Because objects aren’t as mobile as creatures are, they’re more likely to fill a space. This means you can’t always move through their spaces like you might move through a space occupied by a creature. You might be able to occupy the same square as a statue of your size, but not a wide column. The GM determines whether you can move into an object’s square normally, whether special rules apply, or if you are unable to move into the square at all.

Depends on how you read "move through their space" as it is not defined by the rules.

Assuming most groups use it to mean entering/moving through a square at some point in movement (to avoid teleportation) that means moving at a diagonal would be moving through a square partially as well unless diagonals result in teleportation :)

Of course this is not hard clean cut RAW, but it is RAW supporting
"GM decides based on terrain" imo.

I'm fairly sure that moving through a space has a rules meaning - otherwise how could you tell if someone is moving through your threatened squares to provoke an AoO?

The rules for diagonal movement don't say anything about side treks into other squares that lie alongside your route.

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