Two "Crowded Hallway" Scenarios... how would you handle this?

[The Rot Grub "The Rules Lawyer"]

I've had situations similar to this come up in my games, and I want to know how other people handle it.

Let's assume a party is fighting a single graveknight that blocks a 5-foot wide hall and is blocking access to a large room. A Fighter is already engaged in melee with it.

All of the other party members are somewhere behind the Fighter.

1. The Barbarian wants to Shove this creature back. Can she do so? The Core Rulebook says "You can’t end your turn in a square occupied by another creature, though you can end a move action in its square provided that you immediately use another move action to leave that square." The Shove action does not have the Move trait.

2. The Rogue wants to Tumble Through the creature. When you fail to Tumble Through, then "your movement ends." So what happens to her? Does she immediately fall prone in the Fighter's space? What if she has more actions and wants to try to Tumble Through again... can she? And what if she has only one action left and failure would leave her in the Fighter's space?

For both characters, I've been letting people try what they wish, but if they fail then they are "teleported" to the closest logical space. (Even if this is several spaces back.)

[breithauptclan]

The Rot Grub "The Rules Lawyer" wrote:

For both characters, I've been letting people try what they wish, but if they fail then they are "teleported" to the closest logical space. (Even if this is several spaces back.)

That is the most reasonable solution that I have come up with too.

The actions that the players want to do need to make some sense and would need to at least have the possibility of working assuming that their checks succeed.

Then the game mechanics and dice rolls are run through. Then only after that is the narrative of the actions described.

So there really isn't any teleporting going on in the narrative - only in the game mechanics phase.

[Nefreet]

If the ceiling is high enough, I would also allow a Leap or Long Jump to the other side, treating the Grave Knight as occupying a five foot "cube" of space.

[The Raven Black]

The Rot Grub "The Rules Lawyer" wrote:

I've had situations similar to this come up in my games, and I want to know how other people handle it.

Let's assume a party is fighting a single graveknight that blocks a 5-foot wide hall and is blocking access to a large room. A Fighter is already engaged in melee with it.

All of the other party members are somewhere behind the Fighter.

1. The Barbarian wants to Shove this creature back. Can she do so? The Core Rulebook says "You can’t end your turn in a square occupied by another creature, though you can end a move action in its square provided that you immediately use another move action to leave that square." The Shove action does not have the Move trait.

2. The Rogue wants to Tumble Through the creature. When you fail to Tumble Through, then "your movement ends." So what happens to her? Does she immediately fall prone in the Fighter's space? What if she has more actions and wants to try to Tumble Through again... can she? And what if she has only one action left and failure would leave her in the Fighter's space?

For both characters, I've been letting people try what they wish, but if they fail then they are "teleported" to the closest logical space. (Even if this is several spaces back.)

I would ask the Fighter to withdraw and free their square before the Barbarian can move to occupy it and Shove the Graveknight. Indeed because Shove is not a move action.

For the Rogue, I do the teleporting back thing.

[Ascalaphus]

These door breaching situations are quite common, especially with initiative modifiers usually stacked a bit against the PCs. Someone opens a door, enemies close in, half the party has difficulty getting into the fight.

I agree with The Raven Black's take on the strict rules. This is a case where the players need to have the tactical insight that the barbarian's first attack is better than the fighter's third. Alternatively, the fighter might chance a Shove as a second attack.

But I'd also be open to some slightly less regular approaches;
- If the graveknight can be tripped, I'd be willing to let people jump over his prone body more easily.
- The party might bind together into a maul and drive the knight backwards into a bigger area.

A lot of responsibility does fall on the front PC though.

Also, even a low level Hydraulic Push stays quite handy at higher levels.

[Leomund "Leo" Velinznrarikovich]

I'd also allow multiple aid anothers to aid a shove attempt with the PCs in line.

[xcmt]

I love these kinds of simple setups because it forces a party to think tactically about how teamwork and synergy can help defeat a mundane obstacle, and dissuades selfish action planning, both of which seem to play into PF2's strengths. I'm another vote for strict rule interpretations.

1) At my table, no, the Barbarian doesn't have room to plant himself in front of the Graveknight to prepare a shove because his Fighter buddy is occupying too much room and waving his weapon around menacingly. He's stuck behind the Fighter unable to engage with the Graveknight until somebody's placement changes.

2) The Rogue remains on his or her feet, in the Fighter's square, and can spend more actions to Tumble Through until he has no more actions, at which point he expends the remaining movement of his final Tumble action to retreat backwards to the closest available square. Thematically it's like the entirety of the Tumble check sequence is trying to get through not just the Graveknight but also the conga line of martials blocking the way, and failures represent an inability to navigate the entire blockage.

As others have mentioned there's maybe a hundred different ways to work around this, whether it's utilizing other movement skills, some magical assistance from the back lines, the Fighter opening up space somehow, etc.

[Claxon]

Leomund "Leo" Velinznrarikovich wrote:

I'd also allow multiple aid anothers to aid a shove attempt with the PCs in line.

Absolutely! I'm not sure exactly how I would run it mechanically, but I'm imagining like a line of individual in riot gear with the 1st person having a riot shield and forming up together and using momentum to shove/knock someone over.