• Movement through crowds

  A crowded street, plaza, concourse, or corridor is difficult terrain.

  If it’s truly jammed (festival crush, riot core, evac bottleneck), treat it as greater difficult terrain.

  Parting the crowd

  • PCs can try to make the crowd open a path using:

    • Diplomacy (persuasion, authoritative directions)

    • Intimidation (bullying, flashing weapons, uniforms)

    • Performance (drawing attention, leading chants, stage presence)

• Panic and fleeing

  • When exposed to an obvious danger (fire, rampaging creature, gunfight, decompression alarm), the crowd tries to move away as quickly as possible.

  • A fleeing crowd typically moves at the Speed of an average member (usually 25 feet per round), slowed by its own mass.

  • This chaotic movement can trample or leave behind slower creatures—great narrative cover for secondary damage, separation, or lost NPCs.

You can layer this over other terrain (streets, stairs, plazas, station corridors) to quickly establish complex movement conditions.