Posted By Vrecknidj on 07/18/2007 12:43 PM
From the SRD:

Shooting or Throwing into a Melee

If your target (or the part of your target you’re aiming at, if it’s a big target) is at least 10 feet away from the nearest friendly character, you can avoid the -4 penalty, even if the creature you’re aiming at is engaged in melee with a friendly character.

Posted By Skyscraper on 07/18/2007 1:34 PM
Two things.

1) i still find it weird that you'll suffer -8 against a creature engaged in melee with your ally if your ally further provides cover for it (-4 for the melee, -4 for cover). That's twice -4 because of the same creature, it appears steep to me.

Say your archer fires at a colossal red dragon from behind a medium-sized human ally. Couldn't he simply fire above the human at the 90% of the height of the dragon that protrudes above the human, and avoid cover penalties? That's assuming that he would suffer from cover penalties according to the otherwise "horizontal" cover verification rule.

Posted By gss_000 on 07/18/2007 3:12 PM
No matter where I, the archer, am placed, one of the corners will not have cover from me.

Posted By zenthrus on 07/18/2007 7:48 PM
True in virtually any situation. 

If, however, a situation did happen to come up (summoned monsters, followers, etc.) then simply draw a line from any corner of the archer's square to the top of the colossal red dragon's crest. Odds are extremely good that your allies will never be blocking such a line of effect

Posted By gss_000 on 07/18/2007 3:12 PM
Yes, in this case your ally would not provide cover, but you don't have to invoke vertical scale here. Even if I was one square behind my friend, and decided not to take a 5' step away, I still can choose a corner of my square and choose one of the dragon's square for which I have an unobstructed path. I don't have to do it for every square, I just have to find one. No matter where I, the archer, am placed, one of the corners will not have cover from me.

Posted By gss_000 on 07/18/2007 3:03 PM

But they are two different types of penalties, so they have to stack because they represent different circumstances to block your shot.  One is because you are hiting a small area, and the other because you don't want to hit your ally.  The two do not cancel each other out and both make it very difficult so should be extreme.  Play a shooter game in an arcade and se how the 2 situations complicate matters (here allies would be hostages).Â

Now, this would be a problem if you couldn't move around and had to stay static in a line. But if you set up like this:


                                                       Friend    Monster
                                                                      /\
                                                                       |
                                                                       |

                                                                     Archer


There would be no cover bonus, so .  Plus, it seems steep, but one feat can eliminate the -4 for shooting into combat and another can eliminate the -4 for cover.  Since there are so many ways to get around the penalties, it's not really steep.

Posted By Skyscraper on 07/19/2007 9:15 AM


No, becaue you are just chosing the right path.  This can be done very quickly and really is more an exercise for those who maintain a strict reading of the rule. Many DMs, myself included, wouldn't allow creatures or objects 2 size smaller than the PC, like the house cat in your example to provide cover between opponents.  As you say, it doesn't make sense so it is easily not applied.Â

Take a first level ranger firing into melee at an AC 15 opponent. Assuming the ranger as a conservative +3 attack bonus with the bow, if the opponent is engaged in melee against his ally and the ally also provides covers, his chances drop to 5% (20 only) to hit his target. You're telling me this is not steep?

So -4 penalty for the covering ally. Fair enough. The ranger already has to take the covering ally into account, why get another equivalent -4 penalty because this ally is further engaged in melee?

Posted By gss_000 on 07/19/2007 3:48 PM
I think it's nice that the penalty automatically means we miss the person instead of potentially harming a friend.

Posted By zenthrus on 07/19/2007 4:29 PM
Ditto. The penalties stacking are reasonable because there is no penalty for failure beyond missing the target. In our group's experience those penalties REALLY make a difference in seperating "archers" from average Joes with bows (or wizards/sorcerers without sufficient feats).

Posted By zenthrus on 07/19/2007 4:29 PM
Joes with bows

Posted By Skyscraper on 07/19/2007 6:47 PM
but doesn't really address what i feel lacks in realism.

Posted By zenthrus on 07/19/2007 10:08 PM
If there isn't enough realism in Dungeons and Dragons you could always try a different system. It is, after all, a fantasy game (rather than a sim).

Most importantly, if you don't like a rule (and you're the DM) just house rule it otherwise.

Posted By gss_000 on 07/19/2007 3:24 PM

Posted By Skyscraper on 07/20/2007 8:15 AM
i don't see  that anyone has actually replied to that particular point: the answers i get are that to get around that you can get a feat to avoid the penalties, the penalties are good to distinguish "archers" from the others, penalties stacking is good because there is not penalty for missing your target (such as hitting your ally), you can move the archer on the battle map to not have the melee ally provide cover for your target, and a penalty for a melee ally and a penalty for an ally cover are both logical (which makes sense, but little or no mention of the cover and melee ally being the same). None of these seem to address the point i make, unless of course i've missed something which is quite possible.

I understand what everyone is saying, but i feel just about every argument you give me validates why each rule (cover and melee penalties) applies independently. My point is that if you're already avoiding your ally as the cover, you're also avoiding him as a melee opponent of your target, thus why i feel that the double penalty is too much.

Posted By zenthrus on 07/20/2007 1:31 PM
Ummm....that's quite a list of reasons for the mechanic to work.

Here's another. You're firing an arrow into a melee. In that melee, two opponents are battling. This means that they are moving frequently (circling each other, feinting, dodging, parrying, etc). You choose one of the two combatants to fire at. Since you apparently don't wish to strike the other your odds of successfully hitting your target are decreased (since both melee combatants are constantly moving and thus the person you don't wish to hit is frequently getting in the way of your shot).

Now to complicate that shot you add the fact that one of the combatants is your ally. Even worse, that ally is standing directly between you and the target. So, instead of merely having two people moving/adjusting/whirling around, you ALSO have to account for the fact that more often than not your ally's entire body (not just an arm or leg which would be the case when firing from the side) is blocking your line of attack.

Set the situation up with a couple of friends (or go to a local LARP event that allows archery) and you can visually SEE the difference between firing at two people fighting from different angles. A shot which has to pass directly over (or under) your ally to get at an enemy (when both your ally and your enemy are moving around a lot) is MUCH harder than just firing at the melee from the side.

Another option is play Halo2 multiplayer. Have an ally stand directly in front of you and try firing at an enemy. More than 1/2 the time you'll kill your ally (or at least aid in the kill) unless you're crazy good at positioning your reticule to compensate for your ally's body mass. Compare that to entering an existing battle from the side. You have a MUCH cleaner shot at your target of choice (but it's still a pain in the buns since all combatants are moving around like crazy).

So, from a realistic perspective I would say that NOT taking both penalties is unrealistic. Having feats that allow you to bypass one of the penalties isn't terribly realistic.

My comments about lack of realism were specifically to address the repeated arguments about line-of-effect vs. Large (or larger) foes and smaller allies providing cover. Even then, the rules account for very large creatures and smaller allies providing cover with the "any part of the target is 10 feet from the obstructing ally" bit.

I have yet to play with any D&D group which finds the two stacking penalties to be unreasonable. There are always complaints about it (I have a what penalty to my shot?!?) but not about the mechanics.

Posted By gss_000 on 07/20/2007 2:38 PM


Continuing in the discussion.

I think we have to reestablish what we are talking about before we get too confused. Cover is an +4 AC bonus representing the limited area you can now hit, melee imposes a -4 to hit so you miss your friends. I think we were moving off track and confusing matters because of this.

Now, nothing in the cover rules says if you miss because of cover you miss the cover. That would be appropriate if it was a penalty to attack, but it's a bonus to defense. Because of this, if you miss because of the cover, it's more likely that you hit the cover. That's essentially what the AC bonus represents. A person wouldn't lose cover because someone is standing closer to him.

The penalty to hit is the only one of these two caused by avoiding trying to hit someone (and only if they are adjacent). The effect is the same as if they were two penalties, but viewing them as that only confuses matters. This is why the two can happen at the same time because one is a bonus and the other a penalty. Which one would you remove?

Posted By zenthrus on 07/22/2007 2:19 PM
You could always rule that if your shot misses by 4 or less (the bonus that ally cover would have granted) the shot instead hits the ally. IIRC that's how it worked in 3.0.