D&D 3E/3.5 Do allies block ranged attacks in 3.5?

[UltimaGabe]

It's been a while since I've played 3.5 so I'm a little fuzzy. I seem to recall a rule in 3.5 saying that allies do not provide cover against your own ranged attacks (meaning, if an ally is standing between you and an enemy, he does not grant that enemy cover). Is this the case? If so, can someone provide a page number?

Thanks in advance!

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Actions In Combat :: d20srd.org
"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. Two characters are engaged in melee if they are enemies of each other and either threatens the other. (An unconscious or otherwise immobilized character is not considered engaged unless he is actually being attacked.)

If your target (or the part of your target you’re aiming at, if it’s a big target) is at least 10 feet away from the nearest friendly character, you can avoid the -4 penalty, even if the creature you’re aiming at is engaged in melee with a friendly character.

Precise Shot
If you have the Precise Shot feat you don’t take this penalty."

So, a -4 penalty, which you ignore with Precise Shot. That is all. Don't ever think of shooting into a grapple, though!

EDIT: Interestingly enough, you only take the penalty if a friendly creature is in the melee. If there's some sort of three-way dispute, and the two parties you're against have members in melee against each other, you'd presumably not suffer any penalties at all...

 

[UltimaGabe]

Erm, thanks for the quick reply, but you didn't answer my question. I understand the rules for firing into melee. But what about firing through an ally's square? Let's say an ally is immediately in front of you, and an enemy is two squares beyond your ally. Can you fire through your ally's space, or does the enemy gain cover because your ally is in the way?

I distinctly remember there being a rule saying specifically that firing through an ally's space does not provide cover to the target (though firing through an enemy's space would provide cover, so you can't fire past one enemy to hit another). However, I checked the PHB and found nothing, and I can't seem to find anything online. It may have been a 4e rule. I'm not sure.

The reason I ask is because I just started a 3.5 game where the DM has applied about a thousand and a half house rules to the game (half of which he added for "realism", and the other half he insists are core rules, but I'm certain they aren't). He's constantly telling ranged attackers that they don't have a straight shot because an ally is in the way, and he even went so far as to say that it was flat-out impossible to use a reach weapon to attack a target in the second row. (He said that one enemy standing behind another was equivalent to being completely behind a wall.) If I can find a page reference or some other hard rule, he'll change it, but until I find such a statement, I've gotta deal with my ranged attacker being useless in anything but a wide-open battlefield.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

The only thing I see in the PH about it is under the rules for Cover on p. 150. In that it says if the line between you and the target passes through a creature, it gets +4 cover AC against you. Which implicitly means that is the only penalty for that circumstance.

 

[UltimaGabe]

Alright. I may have been thinking of a 4e rule, then.

But, yes, I'm aware that there's no reason an enemy should be unattackable just because there's a creature in the way. In the end we were able to talk him into granting the target double cover (+8 to AC), and that was the best we could get.

>.>

 

[Vegepygmy]

It's been a while since I've played 3.5 so I'm a little fuzzy. I seem to recall a rule in 3.5 saying that allies do not provide cover against your own ranged attacks (meaning, if an ally is standing between you and an enemy, he does not grant that enemy cover). Is this the case? If so, can someone provide a page number?

There is no such rule in 3rd edition. I believe that is the rule in 4th edition, however.

In 3.5, your ally may provide your target with soft cover (+4 to AC). If you are also firing into a melee, you take a -4 on your attack roll (for an effective total -8 to hit).

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Alright. I may have been thinking of a 4e rule, then.

But, yes, I'm aware that there's no reason an enemy should be unattackable just because there's a creature in the way. In the end we were able to talk him into granting the target double cover (+8 to AC), and that was the best we could get.

>.>

Wow...

Kill off your archer and make a character build that his houserules don't completely rape.

 

[Dandu]

I could float a few ideas...

 

[athos]

It's been a while since I've played 3.5 so I'm a little fuzzy. I seem to recall a rule in 3.5 saying that allies do not provide cover against your own ranged attacks (meaning, if an ally is standing between you and an enemy, he does not grant that enemy cover). Is this the case? If so, can someone provide a page number?

In a non combat situation, no, the person on your side would not provide cover, so your shot would be without penalty.

In a combat situation, you would need precise shot to avoid the -4 penalty.

At least this is how I would rule it. I couldn't find anything in the 3.5 books that state this is the way to run it or not, you might try the FAQ, which I no longer have.

 

[Gwarthkam]

Allies can provide cover.

Otherwise the feat "Coordinated Shot" from Heroes of Battle would be meaningless. "Coordinated Shot" makes you avoid the AC bonus granted by cover behind your ally or allies. This feat has "Precise Shot" as a prerequisite, which makes the argument, that "Precise shot" handles cover from allies redundant.

"Improved Precise Shot" takes care of this even better though.

As I read it, the -4 penalty for shooting into melee "stacks" with the +4 AC bonus for the one behind the cover. The first is a penalty to the attacker, the second a bonus for the opponent. The first does not implicitly cancel out the other, as suggested earlier (as I read it) and the first is not even a cover bonus.

The effective modifier of +8 AC (or penalty of 8) that you played with seems within the rules.