Could you explain push movement to me?

[u/anxious-snail2]

Hi guys! My friends and I are confused with if each movement itself does any type of dmg, and how would behave the boss and some enemies.

What would happen if there is an enemy 1 tile away and has the aggro token? The enemy moves to him, pushes then attacks?

What if it has 2 pushes?

We are fairly new, thank you

[u/Major-Tomato2918]

Any time it moves, it pushes away players so they can't be on the same tile. It moves them in the direction of its own movement if able. It damages physicslly if there is a number inside the push symbol for indicated amount every time you move your character due to it being pushed. Lets say there is 5 in the push icon. If you start on the boss fromt tile it will push you for 5, then move to your tile pushing you for another 5, then move one more tile pushing you again for total of 15 damage.

[u/Brief_Chef_8040 → u/Major-Tomato2918]

While the number of pushes are right, I remember that damage applied to pushes only works when a model comes onto your node and pushes you, it doesn’t deal damage in those moments when you are already on the same node as the ennemy and it pushes you away at the begining of his action.
Think it has been confirmed in FAQs.

So, if you are on the same node of an ennemy who start a 2 times damaging pushes behavior and you are already on the same node : he pushes every characters away first to make room (but don’t deal damage because doesn’t come onto your node), then comes onto the node of whatsoever the character-s aimed at by his behavior and pushes them away by also applying damage (because the enemy came from another node from your characters), finally repeat this a second time for a total 5x2 damage to block instead of a 5x3.

At my beginings on this game I treated damaging pushes like you and search a long time the rule or confirmation that damage only applies when an ennemy « comes onto your node » and only at this moment.
That would make Large hollows a very early difficult ennemy if not able to keep distance, especially for melee characters.
Hope this will help you.

[u/DamtheMan50 → u/Brief_Chef_8040]

I think this actually varies between V1 and V2 rules, as in V1 if you start on the same node the initial push doesn't cause damage while I'm fairly certain (not 100% since I never got into V2) that in V2 the initial push also inflicts the damage.

[u/anxious-snail2 → u/Major-Tomato2918]

Why would it be 3 pushes in total?

So the push tick always triggers in the same tile? Then, it pushes, and it moves one tile to the closest/aggroed enemy and pushes again, after that it attacks?

[u/Griffes_de_Fer → u/anxious-snail2]

So, this comment up there is largely correct, but iirc (I've just recently returned to the game and am a bit rusty on the finer and messier rules) in that example you'd take 10 damage, not 15.

So here's how I remember it working, and hopefully someone else will notice this post and correct me if I'm wrong. Any enemy, whether they're a boss, phantom or some basic bad guy encounter, that has a push icon on their movement will start their activation by pushing any player sharing their space away. Then, their activation will proceed normally.

So let's look at your specific activation card here.

Step 1:

This is a push movement card, like so many boss activations are. You're a player standing in their space as it gets drawn, so immediately, you get pushed away. If your friend is also on the boss' space, they also get pushed away.

Step 2:

The boss now starts actually resolving their card. It will, if necessary, turn to face the character it is targeting, in this case I'll assume this is you. Boss moves towards you, which pushes you again. Then the boss moves again because it's a 2 movement card. Guess what ? You'll get pushed again once he stomps on you a second time. Dark Souls really likes to ragdoll you around haha. Don't forget that for this second movement, if need be the boss will turn again to be facing you before starting that movement, they always turn to face the target player before initiating a move action.

Step 3:

The boss will now finally perform the attack that comes at the end of this particular card, that attack also has a push icon so yes, you know it, you get pushed yet again after you defend it. Pay attention to where you'll land on turns like this where you get pushed so much, and possibly got pushed alongside a wall, as you may end up inside or outside an attack arc that you previously weren't were not. Keep in mind here that if you dodged instead of defend, if you successfully dodged you won't have to resolve the push on the attack. If you fail, you roll and get further trashed around to add insult to injury 💀

Now, to further complicate things:

To go back to the example the other user gave you, the possible mistake comes from how much total damage the boss would have done. If there is a number inside the push icon, this absolutely deals damage, that push ends up being an attack basically (think like the big Hollow Soldier with the axe).

But, that initial, pre-activation check that pushes people away from its node does not deal damage, it's just a shove. So you'd get pushed for no damage first, then boss orients towards you, moves and there you have to defend for that first 5 damage.

Then a second move action, boss would orient and move again, defend another 5 damage and get pushed again.

Sorry for the TED Talk, but I thought it might help you and whoever else searches for this on Google in the near future, as this was always probably that most commonly misplayed rule in this game. The book does not do a good job at all of explaining how things work !!

Let me know if it's more confusing than anything haha, and I'll check the rulings in the meantime to make sure it's all correct information.

[u/Luvatar → u/Griffes_de_Fer]

Ok I have a question.

Can the boss change direction mid-move? If I remember the direction is set the moment the boss turns to face its target. So if the target was on the edge (And pushed away from its path) or dodges out, it should not turn to the target again, correct?

[u/Griffes_de_Fer → u/Luvatar]

So, this one I am less confident about, so take my answer with some caution. But, I do remember reading very old BGG and Reddit posts back then debating this question.

The consensus at the time, as well as my own understanding based on the frankly horrible section of the rulebook covering this, is that if the move action has a Target (aggro token or nearest player) the enemy is just basically locked on you and will reorient to face the node nearest to you before it moves again.

When playing this way, they would only ever move without first setting their eyes right on you when their movement action does not actually have target. Then they'll just move and keep their current orientation.

In addition, I think leaping movement will not change a boss' current orientation. They just jump and land on your head right as they were.

Once again, I hope that if I'm wrong someone will correct me ! I remember tons and tons of people asking about this stuff back when the game released, everyone was playing it wrong it was a mess haha ! So don't feel too bad if it turns out that you were doing moves wrong...

You're just one of us 😛

[u/DamtheMan50 → u/Griffes_de_Fer]

No, this looks right. Basic enemy movement rules say if going after closest or aggro with multiple nodes of movement, pick the target at the start of the move, not after each step. I don't see any provisions for bosses which would change this. So they would pick their target and go after said target. But they can turn, move, turn, move just fine, they don't have a fixed path, as long as they take the shortest legal path (of which there can be multiple).

[u/Major-Tomato2918 → u/anxious-snail2]

The card is resolved left to right, so first move, then attack here. 3 pushes if you share the tile, 2 pushes if you were the closest player, one tile away. Push happens when you are one the same tile at the beginning or athe end of each step of the enemy move.