Attacking through teammates

[dandean]

Ok... this involves ranged attacks, reach attacks, and meat shields.
The characters are Gnoll (G), Fighter (F), Druid with Longspear (D), and an Archer (A).
They are arranged down a 5' wide corridor as follows:

A DFG

1. The archer is in the back of the group in a tunnel with no way to get around people. In order to hit the gnoll, he needs to shoot through the Druid and the Fighter. Its -4 to shoot an enemy engaged in melee with your teamate, but he has precise shot- so that is nixed. He can shoot an enemy in melee, but can he shoot through the Druid and Fighter without some kind of additional penalty? If the druid wasn't there, what would it be just to shoot through the fighter? My DM said yes to both cases, with no penalty because of precise shot.

2. Regarding the druid with the Longspear... the gnoll is in range (10'), but the fighter is directly between them. Can the druid poke at the gnoll, and if so, what kind of penalty are we looking at. My guess is yes, with only a -4.

3. If the druid or archer are allowed to take the shot, but miss... what type of chance do you devious DMs give for the fighter or druid to take the stray fire in the backside?

 

[the Jester]

1. The archer is in the back of the group in a tunnel with no way to get around people. In order to hit the gnoll, he needs to shoot through the Druid and the Fighter. Its -4 to shoot an enemy engaged in melee with your teamate, but he has precise shot- so that is nixed. He can shoot an enemy in melee, but can he shoot through the Druid and Fighter without some kind of additional penalty? If the druid wasn't there, what would it be just to shoot through the fighter? My DM said yes to both cases, with no penalty because of precise shot.

2. Regarding the druid with the Longspear... the gnoll is in range (10'), but the fighter is directly between them. Can the druid poke at the gnoll, and if so, what kind of penalty are we looking at. My guess is yes, with only a -4.

3. If the druid or archer are allowed to take the shot, but miss... what type of chance do you devious DMs give for the fighter or druid to take the stray fire in the backside?

Well, Precise Shot eliminates only the 'engaged in melee' penalty, not the target's bonus to AC from cover (the fighter and druid). Now, from the druid's perspective, I'd rule the target gets a +4 cover bonus to AC. From the archer, prolly worse- more like +6.

If the druid misses the target because of the cover bonus, but the attack roll would hit the fighter's AC, he hits the fighter. Likewise, with the archer missing and the druid's AC (I might roll to see which pc might be hit).

I'm goin' 3.0 with shooting the cover here.

 

[glass]

the Jester has it right.

No penalties to the attacker, either in melee or because of precise shot, but the gnoll in the example get cover from the fighter for and AC bonus.

IIRC, the ranged attack striking cover is a officially a varient rule, but I thnk most people use it because it just makes sense.


glass.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I'd give the gnoll cover from the druid (+4 AC) and improved cover from the archer (+8 AC). The archer has a chance (based on the variant which I use IMC) to hit the druid or fighter (random), but the druid has no chance to hit the fighter because the fighter is within 5ft and you cannot attack someone within 5ft with a longspear. If you can't do it to a enemy, you can't do it to an ally.

 

[apesamongus]

Druid and archer both get -4 for cover. There's only cover and full cover, nothing in between. Precise shot only removes the -4 for shooting into melee, not the -4 cover penalty (and yes, that means if you have neither you're at -8.)

 

[Stalker0]

If your playing 3.5, ape has it right. Its +4 cover or you can't make the shot.

However, the dm is certainly within his rights to add a little more than +4 if he feels like it.

In this situation I would go with +7. This is the bonus for 3/4 cover from 3.0, and I think that's a good approximation of the situation.