Plaguescarred
Hero
This rule is based on positioning, so it has to be determined wether you use Theater of the Mind or Grid Play.
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D&D 5E Firing Into A Melee
- Thread starter Mad Zagyg
- Start date
My take on this is that the designers have removed all the 'feat tax' elements from the game: dual wielding, finesse weapons - they used to take a feat, but no more.
This is just the same, but for bows. It used to take a feat, and every archer bought it. So they just removed the need for it.
This is just the same, but for bows. It used to take a feat, and every archer bought it. So they just removed the need for it.
Ilbranteloth
Explorer
I'm a fan of some sort of penalty for firing into melee. How many times has a movie had a moment where an innocent is used as a shield, or a sniper is trying to take out a specific individual while friendlies are in the way?
On the other hand, these are the heros and perform amazing feats of combat.
So for my campaign, I'm sticking with 1/2 cover for all combatants. I'm also imposing disadvantage on the attack roll, and if they miss, the higher roll is used as the attack roll against a random combatant. Mostly to save an extra die roll later.
The Sharpshooter feat eliminates the cover penalty.
Even when using miniatures (we use a mix), I've never liked the strict miniature approach to 'move into a position where nobody is in the way.' Combatants are always in motion, circling, dodging, parrying and attacking. The miniatures on the board give the illusion that while you're moving that everybody else is absolutely stationary. I disagree with that, and use the figures as a more general (yet more specific than TotM).
The disadvantage that's imposed won't matter much once the characters are higher level, and the characters attempting to fire into melee are the ones that are really good archers anyway. Which is the way I think it should be. It also helps build tension and increase the drama of combat.
Randy
On the other hand, these are the heros and perform amazing feats of combat.
So for my campaign, I'm sticking with 1/2 cover for all combatants. I'm also imposing disadvantage on the attack roll, and if they miss, the higher roll is used as the attack roll against a random combatant. Mostly to save an extra die roll later.
The Sharpshooter feat eliminates the cover penalty.
Even when using miniatures (we use a mix), I've never liked the strict miniature approach to 'move into a position where nobody is in the way.' Combatants are always in motion, circling, dodging, parrying and attacking. The miniatures on the board give the illusion that while you're moving that everybody else is absolutely stationary. I disagree with that, and use the figures as a more general (yet more specific than TotM).
The disadvantage that's imposed won't matter much once the characters are higher level, and the characters attempting to fire into melee are the ones that are really good archers anyway. Which is the way I think it should be. It also helps build tension and increase the drama of combat.
Randy
Please if you do this warn your players of your house rules before they make characters, I would never run an archer or other ranged based character in a campaign that used that house rule. I wouldn't want to be in melee either so, I guess a save only based caster.
Ilbranteloth
Explorer
Of course I do. And all interpretations of the rules/house rules are open for discussion in my campaign. If they don't work for the players, then we find a variation that does.
To me, the purpose of the rules is to support the storytelling. In this case I want characters to think twice about firing into melee. It should be tougher than firing prior to melee, which is why in most cases real combatants don't fire into melee.
Having said that, I also think that there should be some amazingly talented (and rare) individuals who will fire into melee, and hit the majority of the time.
So let's think about this - 1/2 cover imposes a -2 penalty (+2 to opponent's AC), 3/4 cover -5.
Disadvantage is equal to about -5. So the penalty here is about -7, or a little more difficult than 3/4 cover. Is that too steep? Perhaps.
But here's my campaign's 4th level Ranger. Proficiency bonus of +2, Dex bonus +3. He has the Archery fighting style granting a +2. So far a +7 bonus. With the Sharpshooter feat, he ignores the cover. So now it's effectively a +9 bonus in relation to my rule about firing into melee. His chance to hit is now the same as a 1st level character with no Dex bonus and no special abilities firing at somebody not in melee.
What I didn't mention, is that we just take the second die roll as is. In other words, it's an off shot so we're not adding the normal to hit modifiers for your character. If we did, that would be an effective +14 which is very high. Instead, the roll to hit the opponent is about a +5, and that's only if you miss on the attack against your target.
That doesn't sound that bad to me. It makes it difficult to do, but not impossible. And as the character increases in level, he'll be much less likely to worry about it altogether. If he has some Inspiration to spend, then he can eliminate the disadvantage as well. Again, I think this plays well into the storytelling aspect.
It makes the character think twice before subjecting his allies to the possibility of being on the receiving end of friendly fire.
Another alternative if you feel that firing into melee is easy, would be to impose the cover penalty only. Then if the attack is a critical miss (natural 1), they hit one of the other combatants.
The other alternative I've seriously considered was that if the attack missed by the 2 points of AC provided by cover, then that combatant is hit instead, as long as the roll is high enough to hit it. But that means that as long as your allies have a high enough AC, they'd never risk getting hit. So then I moved to rolling a second attack roll to see if that hits the other combatant. That just adds more rolls.
But if you want the penalty to be less, and the chance of hitting a different combatant to be more than 5%, then the third option would be a good choice.
We may change our approach ourselves as we find that one method is too tough or too easy. That's why I love these rules, each campaign can find the rules that work for them.
Randy
Technically, it isn't a house rule. We already know that there's a module in the DMG to put penalties in for firing into melee. We just don't know the exact rule yet. In a few weeks he'll likely be using the module.
So all he's really doing is fudging something together while we wait for the real rule.
The real rule is already in the game, if you don't have an unobstructed view of the target due to other creatures being in the way the target gets a +2 bonus to AC.
I highly doubt the DMG will add or expand on this.
So sure for your game adjust to taste and all but let us be honest about calling a house rule a house rule.
Mearls already stated, on twitter IIRC, that there are rules for a module for firing into combat in the DMG.
evilbob
Adventurer
It seems like an incredibly tricksy bit of rules minutia that a rule for firing into melee would not be mentioned anywhere except in a piece of a sentence in the cover rules. Anyone wondering simply, "can I fire into melee with my archer" wouldn't likely notice that and play happily away until someone had to make a cover call, noticed the rule, and then extrapolated. That's a bit of a stretch for something that is a super-common occurrence in every battle with a ranged-based character.
Which leads me to believe that like pretty much everything else in 5.0: you should probably just play the way you want. It's still possible to justify one idea over another, so just use whatever works best for you and don't worry about it.
Sidebar: All this does make me wonder if this was part of the reason "cover" as a rule is so unusually complex compared to anything else (not that it is particularly complex, but the fact that it isn't blindingly simple makes it, by comparison to everything else, complex). Handling it via adv/disadvantage would be SO much easier and follow their normal rule systems much better, but if every time two enemies were next to each other this gave archers disadvantage I wouldn't ever play one, either. It also auto-cancels the rogue's sneak attack advantage when firing at range, since the rogue needs someone standing next to the target to get advantage but if someone is next to the target it would have given disadvantage.
Since you can't hardly participate in this thread without saying what you would do,
I think I would continue to house rule cover to be adv/disadv, and ignore any penalty for firing into melee except when an enemy is intentionally trying to give cover to another enemy (typically by being 5' away and standing in front of the second enemy). I might just use the normal -2 in this case, again to avoid odd adv/disadv interactions.
Which leads me to believe that like pretty much everything else in 5.0: you should probably just play the way you want. It's still possible to justify one idea over another, so just use whatever works best for you and don't worry about it.
Sidebar: All this does make me wonder if this was part of the reason "cover" as a rule is so unusually complex compared to anything else (not that it is particularly complex, but the fact that it isn't blindingly simple makes it, by comparison to everything else, complex). Handling it via adv/disadvantage would be SO much easier and follow their normal rule systems much better, but if every time two enemies were next to each other this gave archers disadvantage I wouldn't ever play one, either. It also auto-cancels the rogue's sneak attack advantage when firing at range, since the rogue needs someone standing next to the target to get advantage but if someone is next to the target it would have given disadvantage.
Since you can't hardly participate in this thread without saying what you would do,
I think I would continue to house rule cover to be adv/disadv, and ignore any penalty for firing into melee except when an enemy is intentionally trying to give cover to another enemy (typically by being 5' away and standing in front of the second enemy). I might just use the normal -2 in this case, again to avoid odd adv/disadv interactions.Similar Threads
