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<blockquote data-quote="evilbob" data-source="post: 6367426" data-attributes="member: 9789">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.&nbsp; Anyone wondering simply, &quot;can I fire into melee with my archer&quot; wouldn't likely notice that and play happily away until someone had to make a cover call, noticed the rule, and then extrapolated.&nbsp; 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:&nbsp; you should probably just play the way you want.&nbsp; 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:&nbsp; All this does make me wonder if this was part of the reason &quot;cover&quot; 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).&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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, <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> 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).&nbsp; I might just use the normal -2 in this case, again to avoid odd adv/disadv interactions.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="evilbob, post: 6367426, member: 9789"] 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. [/QUOTE]

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