Ranged Touch into melee

[seans23]

Do you suffer a -4 penalty when making a ranged touch attack into melee?

Shooting or Throwing into a Melee

If you shoot or throw a ranged weapon at a target engaged in melee with a friendly character, you take a -4 penalty on your attack roll.

 

[Caliban]

Do you suffer a -4 penalty when making a ranged touch attack into melee?

Yes. Complete Arcane covers this in the "Weaponlike spells" section.

 

[blargney the second]

And cover can apply as well if they don't have a clear shot.

 

[frankthedm]

And here is an example of how it might look like someone has cover when they don't due to how D&D is a slave to the grid.

The Mage does not have cover from the archer, though the archer has cover from the mage.

 

[Hypersmurf]

That doesn't strike me as a 'slave to the grid' problem.

Imagine the mage is in a corridor, and the archer is hiding around a corner instead of a samurai. It makes sense to me that he'd have cover but the mage would not.

-Hyp.

 

[Bad Paper]

waitaminute. I thought the -4 thing had to do with timing, not with soft cover. The shooting-into-melee penalty applies even if the shooter is perpendicular to the plane drawn between the two melee combatants. Hence:


M.M
...
...
.A.


(for simplicity, pretend the two meleers M have reach, and each written character is a 5' square)

The archer A gets a -4 simply because the Ms are in melee. If A moves into their plane, behind one of them, then one M also provides soft cover for the other, resulting in an additional -4 penalty...right?

 

[AngelBob]

Absolutely, good sir. If your in melee, your a -4 to hit with any ranged due to the movements and timing issues.

He was discussing cover, not firing into melee.

 

[Hypersmurf]

waitaminute. I thought the -4 thing had to do with timing, not with soft cover.

Right. The thread moved on to other things

-Hyp.

 

[frankthedm]

This covers both issues...

 

[Dross]

This covers both issues...

Although IIRC, when you are closer to the cover than your opponent, your opponent does not receive said cover bonus.

Just something else to be aware of I guess.