Going for Cover: encourage, discourage or keep the bonus the same?

[olshanski]

I am pretty sure that in 3.5, there were 3 degrees of cover:

Cover +4 Defense, +2 reflex saves
Improved Cover +8 defense, +4 reflex saved, improved evasion
Total Cover: cannot be targeted.

Varying Degrees of Cover
In some cases, cover may provide a greater bonus to AC and Reflex saves. In such situations the normal cover bonuses to AC and Reflex saves can be doubled (to +8 and +4, respectively). A creature with this improved cover effectively gains improved evasion against any attack to which the Reflex save bonus applies. Furthermore, improved cover provides a +10 bonus on Hide checks.

 

[Toryx]

I think most people dealing with this are trying to get too concrete in the middle of D&D's abstract combat system. Someone standing at the corner of a wall has say 1/2 cover. If they expessly say that they duck back and forth to stand behind the wall part of the time, then this concrete action is expressed abstractly as 'fighting defensively'.

That's a very fluid way of resolving the issue. I wish the DMs I've played with had think of that. Though I'm not sure it'd really be all that effective in terms of using a wand of magic missiles or fireball, given that no attack rolls are needed in those cases. We'd always just ruled that they couldn't get line of sight unless they exposed themselves, which meant they could not take cover again, per the rules.

Agreed, though 'Shot on the Run' is quite a bit more powerful though than merely sticking your head out. I'm not sure if the feat needs to be reworked or not, but the basic idea ('I can move and fire accurately') is pretty good.

Yep, totally agree with you there. I just thought it'd be silly to force a PC who relies on wands and cover to take something as effective as 'Shot on the Run' just to peek out behind walls or whatever to fire before ducking back down again, which I've seen suggested before.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Why not completely shift the paradigm?

Instead of cover making you harder to hit { bonus to AC}, have cover make you harder to hurt {provides bonus DR}

CP2020 did this, and thats a game where everyone dives for cover when they chance is offered.
Well... except for my buddy's character Priest, but that was only because he wore more armor than your average Dataterm


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well, besides all the reasons why 4e isn't going to use armor as DR in the first place

So, my vote is for a system like Kamikaze Midget suggested

 

[Zaruthustran]

Just for fun, here are the 3.5 rules for cover:

To determine whether your target has cover from your ranged attack, choose a corner of your square. If any line from this corner to any corner of the target’s square passes through a square or border that blocks line of effect or provides cover, or through a square occupied by a creature, the target has cover (+4 to AC). Cover grants you a +2 bonus on Reflex saves against attacks that originate or burst out from a point on the other side of the cover from you.

Varying Degrees of Cover: In some cases, cover may provide a greater bonus to AC and Reflex saves. In such situations the normal cover bonuses to AC and Reflex saves can be doubled (to +8 and +4, respectively). A creature with this improved cover effectively gains improved evasion against any attack to which the Reflex save bonus applies. Furthermore, improved cover provides a +10 bonus on Hide checks.

Those rules have always worked for me. There's cover, and there's improved cover. If those two options aren't enough for you, you can always use The DM's Best Friend: the circumstance modifier.

 

[Celebrim]

That's a very fluid way of resolving the issue.

I base my DM style on all the things that have irritated me as a player. I hate it when my DM stops the action to resolve things and flips through books. I hate it when I offer some reasonable proposition and the DM can't handle because, "Uh... that's not in the rules." Rules are the DM's tools, not his shakles.

Though I'm not sure it'd really be all that effective in terms of using a wand of magic missiles or fireball, given that no attack rolls are needed in those cases.

Wouldn't they then be actually more effective then? Or mean, not more effective in defending against fireballs? I mean, as long as we are allowing someone using a ranged attack to fight defensively (and I don't see why we shouldn't), why not magical ranged attacks? And if those magical ranged attacks happen to avoid the penalty of fighting defensively because they don't need an attack roll, well jolly good for you.

We'd always just ruled that they couldn't get line of sight unless they exposed themselves, which meant they could not take cover again, per the rules.

Yeah, but in this case the player is wanting to have the best of both worlds. You want the full cover bonus, but you also don't want the enemy to have full cover from you. That's something for nothing. That's what the rules are there to prevent. But I'm saying, split the difference. So long as both squares are empty, you are free to pretend that he's standing on the line between the two and take half cover. Don't let the rules stop you from doing something reasonable, else you really are modeling a pixelated world where everything moves in 5' quanta.

 

[delericho]

Gotta go with Del on this one. Does cover come up in your games so often that you actually need a cover rule in the first place? I'm trying to think of the last time cover actually came into play, and I'm drawing a blank in the games I play.

Actually, I'm wondering if the game shouldn't drop specific cover rules entirely, and instead have three categories of terrain effect (any particular terrain could be of multiple types):

Advantageous Terrain (defensive): characters affected by this terrain gain a +2 bonus to AC and Ref defences. (Includes cover, but also any similar effects.)

Advantageous Terrain (offensive): characters affected by this terrain gain a +2 bonus on attack rolls. (Includes higher ground, but also attacking out of the sun, attacking entangled characters, and the like.)

Hazardous Terrain: characters affected by these terrain types suffer some sort of round-on-round danger. I envisage many different instances of terrain of this sort.

This would save the rules having to explain large numbers of special cases that will only rarely come up in play, and also prevent characters from stacking on huge numbers of circumstance and terrain modifiers where it is at best not clear how they should stack.

 

[Arnwyn]

Other:

3.0 - varying degrees of cover.

(But 3.5, or even SWSE, are both good.)

 

[I'm A Banana]

Actually, I'm wondering if the game shouldn't drop specific cover rules entirely, and instead have three categories of terrain effect (any particular terrain could be of multiple types):

I'd generally be down with this, but this largely falls into the pile of "Circumstance Bonus that we pointed out for you."

 

[Colmarr]

+2 please

I think there is an element of stereotypes at work here.

Why is saga +5? I'd feel pretty confident in saying that the answer is "Because the first thing people under fire in the SW movies do is hide behind something before returning fire".

Conversely, cover IMO plays an almost non-existent role is sword & sorcery fantasy. As such, I think it should be discouraged.

+ 2 gets my vote.

 

[S'mon]

I always use variable cover bonus, based on 1e DMG: 50% gives +4 AC, 75% gives +7 AC, 90% gives +10 AC.