Movement and Position

During a pitched battle, heroes and monsters are in constant—almost nauseating—motion. The recon darts through the blinds, looking for a setup for cross. The sniper keeps a distance and looks for high value targets, while zerglings rush in to swarm and overwhelm them all. You can increase your effectiveness in battle by learning how to use movement and position to your advantage.

Creature Size and Space

Each creature falls into one of six size categories, which correspond to the number of squares a creature occupies on the battle grid. A creature's space is an expression of the number of squares it occupies. Creatures smaller than Small or larger than Medium have special rules relating to position and attacking.

Special Rules for Size

• Tiny: Only rarely will you find Tiny creatures in battle. Four individual tiny creatures can fit in a square, but a swarm of tiny creatures might consist of hundreds, or even thousands of them in a square. Most Tiny creatures can't attack, and if they can, they attack melee targets in the square they occupy rather than adjacent squares. They can occupy a square with a larger creature.
• Small: Some player characters can be the Small size category, and many swarming monsters are this size. Small creatures occupy the same amount of space as Medium creatures. However, Small creatures cannot use heavy weapons.
• Large, Huge and Gargantuan: All too often, the most enormous monsters of battle grow to enormous size. Very large creatures take up more than 1 square. For example, a Zerg Roach takes up 2 squares by 2 squares. Most Large and larger creatures have melee reach—that is, they can make melee attacks against creatures that aren't adjacent to them. Creatures with such reach have a listed value for it.

Speed

Your speed is measured in squares on the battle grid, with each square representing a 1.5m square in the game world. A character who has a speed of 6 can move up to 6 squares (or 9 meters) on the battle grid by using a move action. Your speed is determined by your species and occasional other factors.

Tactical Movement

During your turn, you can use a move action to move some distance across the battlefield and still use a standard action to launch an attack. See "Actions in Combat" [pp] for various move actions you can use in combat. All move actions are governed by the following rules.

Diagonal Movement

Moving diagonally works the same as other movement, except you can't cross the corner of a wall or another obstacle that fills the corner between the square you're in and the square you want to move to. You can move diagonally past most creatures, since they don't completely fill their squares.

Occupied Squares

A creature is considered to occupy the square or squares within its space.

Moving through occupied squares

• Ally: You can move through a square occupied by an ally.
• Enemy: You normally can't move through an enemy's space unless that enemy is helpless or two size categories larger or smaller than you. Moving into a non helpless enemy's space provokes an opportunity attack from that enemy. Some powers let you do this without provoking an opportunity attack.
• Ending Movement: You can end your movement in an ally's square only if the ally is prone. You can end your movement in an enemy's square only if the enemy is helpless. However, Tiny creatures can end their movement in a larger creature's square. If you don't have enough movement remaining to reach a square you are allowed to be in, your move ends in the last square you could occupy.
• Standing Up: If you're prone and in the same square as another creature, see "Stand Up" [pp] for how to stand up.

Terrain and Obstacles

Battle will find you anywhere, with all of life's little objects strewn about it. Each battleground offers its own combination of cover, concealment, and poor footing.

This section explains how terrain affects movement. For information about how it affects vision and defense, see "Cover and Concealment."

Difficult Terrain: Rubble, undergrowth, shallow moors, steep stairs, and all sorts of other impediments are difficult terrain that hampers movement.

• Costs 1 Extra Square: Each square of difficult terrain you enter costs 1 extra square of movement.
• Large, Huge and Gargantuan Creatures: If such a creature enters two or more squares with different types of terrain, count that square of movement according to the most difficult terrain. Count only squares it it entering for the first time, not squares it already occupies.
• Ending Movement: If you don't have enough movement remaining to enter a square of difficult terrain, you can't enter it.
• Terrain Walk: Some creatures have a special ability to ignore difficult terrain in specific kinds of environments. Most powers that let you create difficult terrain allow you to walk it freely.

Because difficult terrain costs 1 extra square of movement to enter, you can't normally shift into a square of difficult terrain. On the other hand, if a power lets you shift 2, you can shift into a square of difficult terrain.

Blocking Terrain: Walls of steel or stone, pylons, vats, permanent or semi-permanent obstacles that obscure vision and bar the way.

• Can’t be entered: You cannot normally enter a square that contains blocking terrain.
• Terrain Walk: Some creatures have a special ability to ignore blocking terrain in specific kinds of environments.

Blockades

Many demo powers can create blockades. A blockade is a temporary construct made from the demo's ammunition and the damaged environment that occupies a square. Blockades are blocking terrain. A creature adjacent to a blockade can spend a standard action to clear it, at which point it is no longer blocking terrain and becomes difficult terrain. A second clear makes it normal terrain. Any creature occupying a blockade square when it is created is pushed until it no longer occupies a blockade square. This push amount cannot be reduced.

Double Move

On your turn, you can move twice if you take a move action instead of a standard action. If you take the same move action twice in a row—two walks, two runs, two shifts, two crawls—you're taking a double move.

Double Move

• Same Move Action: To double move, you have to take the same move action twice in a row on the same turn.
• One Speed: When you double move, add the speeds of the two move actions together and then move.
• Occupied Squares: When you double move, your first move action can end in an ally's space, because you're not stopping. Your second move action can't end in an ally's space, as normal.
• Difficult Terrain: When you double move, you can sometimes move over more squares of difficult terrain than normal, because you add the speeds of the two move actions together and then move. For example, if your speed is 5, you can enter only 2 squares of difficult terrain when you walk. If you double move by walking twice in a row, you can enter 5 squares of difficult terrain, not 4.

Inertia

From a precipitous drop, sudden acceleration, or otherwise basic kinetic force, you might find yourself suddenly stopping.

Sudden Stops at Speed

• Inertia Damage: You take 1d10 damage for each 200kgm/s of your momentum before the impact with a rigid surface.
• Velocity at Impact: Generally speaking, your mass is well known and not greatly variable. For constant acceleration due to gravity and starting from rest, use v=(2ad)^.5 or v=(19.6Gd)^.5 to determine your velocity.
• Prone: You fall prone unless you took 1 or less damage.
• Acrobatics: You can use an Acrobatics check to reduce the damage you take.

Forced Movement

Certain powers and effects allow you to pull, push, or slide an enemy or shift an ally.

Pull, Push and Slide

• Pull: When you pull a creature, each square you move it must bring it nearer to you.
• Push: When you push a creature, each square you move it must place it further away from you.
• Slide: When you slide an enemy, there's no restriction on the direction you can move it.
• Shift: When you shift an ally, there's no restriction on the direction of the shirt, but the ally chooses where to go (if anywhere).
• Two-dimensional: Forced movement is normally two-dimensional; all the squares of the movement must be on the same horizontal plane. Forced movement can become three-dimensional when the target is flying, is moved through a substance such as water, or is on a non-horizontal surface, such as an incline, that supports it. This means an earthbound target cannot normally be pushed to a square in the air, but a hovering target can be. Similarly, a target can be pulled down a flight of stairs, and it can be slid in any direction underwater.

Whether you're pulling, pushing, sliding or shifting a target, certain rules govern all forced movement.

Forced Movement

• Line of Effect: You must have line of effect to any square you pull, push, or slide a creature into. You must have line of effect to your ally to shift that ally.
• Distance in Squares: The power you're using specifies how many squares you can move a target. You can choose to move the target fewer squares or not to move it at all. You (generally) can't move the target along the z axis.
• Specific Destination: Some powers don't specify a distance in squares but instead specify a destination, such as "adjacent."
• No Opportunity Attacks: Forced movement does not provoke opportunity attacks, but may trigger reaction abilities.
• Difficult Terrain: Some powers ignore terrain, but most don't.
• Not a Move: Forced movement doesn't count against a target's ability to move on its turn. A target's speed is (usually) irrelevant to the distance you move it.
• Clear Path: Forced movement can't move a target into a space it couldn't enter by walking. The target can't be forced into an obstacle or made to squeeze into a space.

Teleportation

Some powers allow you to teleport—to move instantly from one point to another. Unless a power or a ritual specifies otherwise, teleportation follows these rules.

Teleportation

• Line of Sight: You have to be able to see your destination.
• No Line of Effect: You can teleport to a place you can see even if you don't have line of effect to it.
• No Opportunity Attacks: Your movement doesn't provoke opportunity attacks, but may trigger reaction abilities.
• Destination: Your destination must be a space you can occupy without squeezing.
• Immobilized or Restrained: Being immobilized or restrained doesn't prevent a target from teleporting. If a target teleports away from a physical restraint, a monster's grasp, or some other immobilizing effect that is located in a specific space, the target is no longer immobilized or restrained. Otherwise, the target teleports and is still immobilized or restrained in the new space.

Phasing

Some creatures can travel short distances through the Archonosphere. Movement of this kind is often called phasing, and some powers allow you to phase. When you are phasing, you ignore terrain, and you can move through obstacles and other creatures, but you must end your movement in an unoccupied space.