How to prevent a character controller from "stepping" at incorrect moments?

I am working on moving primitive cylinders around via pathfinding. The way that pathfinding is actuated is through the "move" function associated with characterController components. I have no other colliders or collision-based components attached to the cylinder (no rigidbody, no capsule collider etc.), I just have a character controller component. The problem is that when these cylinders (which are all residing on a plane) collide, I want them to do "combine". That behavior is functional and working, but recently upon collisions the cylinders are opting to "step" over each other rather than collide. I have no need for the stepping behavior or anything of the sort! is there anyway to turn off stepping? its weird to think the unity devs would assume everyone will want stepping to go along with a simple object controller. Any help is greatly appreciated!