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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 2568997" data-attributes="member: 5143">Agreed, mostly.  With the caveat that changes to make the game more "realistic" start piling up since the rules are designed to be vague on purpose to cover as many situations as possible with the same rule to avoid having to come up for new rules for each circumstance.For instance, the arrow situation was basically us in a 5-ft wide hallway with 4 party members in front of me and the enemy in melee with the first party member.  I was a sorceror in a D&D 3.5 edition game which took place in HARN world.  In other words, casting spells could get me arrested and killed.In this situation, the rules give just a cover bonus to the AC of the enemies.  In the case of a house rule that allows you to hit your friends in the way, how many friends between you and your enemy does it take to get a percent chance to hit your friends?  Is it a straight percentage or do you actually have to have rolled high enough to hit your friends?  Does it happen with ranged touch attack spells as well as ranged weapons?  What about reach weapons?  Does the percentage change based on how many friends are between you and your enemy?  What if there are enemies between you and the enemy you are firing at, do you risk hitting them instead?  Is there a max percentage, or at some point do you have no chance of hitting the person you were aiming at?Those are just the logic problems involved in just ONE house ruling.  Then there are the balance and fun issues.  Is it fun to play an archer when often you will be at the back of a party in a dungeon corridor with a large chance of hitting your friends?  Shouldn't everyone just play melee fighters rather than kill their own party?  If you happen to choose an archer anyways, what fun is it going to be for you when 90% of your actions are "I do nothing because I don't want to hit my party"?  Doesn't that remove a lot of choices from the players?Exactly, I also don't consider it a reason to change the RAW unless you think out the consequences of a rules HEAVILY before putting into place and even then, avoid making changes JUST because of a lack of "realism" in the rules.  Understand that your views on realism might not be the same as your players' views.  Often, the unrealistic version of the rule is also more fun and more easily remembered and understood.</blockquote>

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