Attacking creatures in the same square

[0-hr]

A couple of things that came up in tonight's game:

1) A stirge attached to my ally. If I want to swing my sword at the attached stirge, what sort of modifiers are there (if any)? The stirge is not grappling, it just entered his square and attached. The stirge is tiny and my ally is medium sized, if that matters.

2) I am a kobold wizard riding in an open steamer trunk on the back of my trusty shield guardian. Aside from the guardian abilities, what sort of modifiers would opponents suffer trying to attack me? I'm a small creature in the same space as a large creature. I'm also in a wooden trunk and so covered from the waste down (so that alone is half cover I'm thinking).

and the bonus question:

2b) If I cast a Shield spell, does it just help me, or does it also benefit my shield guardian. We are both in the same square and we use a shield marker on the square side or corner to denote facing.

 

[Li Shenron]

Really tough questions...

I am afraid you need house rules, I can't recall to have read anything about 1) in the core rules. Anyone?

1) Apparently, since I can remember nothing specifically, I think the rules don't give you any penalty, since you're still fighting in melee and therefore there's no such a thing as -4 as with a ranged attack. But it would sound resonable to me, since the stirge is basically almost "attached" to your ally, and you need care not to hit him instead.

2) Maybe you can treat the Kobold as "wielded" by the Shield Guardian? Ok, that's a joke, and the SG cannot easily "swing him out of the way" to prevent you hitting him. I think you should treat him exactly as you play a Mounted character, with the cover bonus for the special "saddle".

2b) Do you protect your mount as well as you with a Shield spell? If yes, than you may protect the SG. But I think that most of the DM would say no.

 

[dcollins]

2b) If I cast a Shield spell, does it just help me, or does it also benefit my shield guardian. We are both in the same square and we use a shield marker on the square side or corner to denote facing.

The most recent update to the FAQ added an item addressing nearly this question. To the question "if I take cover behind someone with a shield spell, do I gain the benefit of the spell?", the official answer was "no". I would have to assume the same answer if the positions are switched.

 

[0-hr]

Treating the shield guardian as a mount is a great idea! Now, if I could just figure out how being on a mount affected by chance of getting hit...

For now, I'll just go with the simple solution; no modifiers.

As for the shield spell, what I've come up with is this: the invisible shield is actually at the square boundary (more or less) but it only moves itself to protect the caster, therefor it grants no defense to anyone else even if the attack crosses the plane of the shield.

Anyway, that's my interpretation.