Penetrating shot an Line Effects

[Greenfield]

The Penetrating Shot feat has a nice, cinematic feel about it, doesn't it?

The hero with his mighty composite longbow takes careful aim, fires, and the shot hits with such force that it tears through the first target and hits a second one.

Good imagery. (I think they call that a Quigley, after the trick shot in the movie Quigley Down Under)

Now compare that to the way the rules handle Line effects.

An AOE effect - Line affects targets in every square the line touches.

Consider a straight line of squares on the battle map. Start at the left corner of one, count down the right distance, and mark the end at the right corner of the far end.

Do that and your affect runs along a five foot wide swath. I'm an archer (not too good) in real life, and that's like a seven lane freeway for an arrow, to be able to hit anything/everything along that route.

Now let's try again: Start at a left side corner of the starting square, count down the correct number of spaces, then mark the other end at the same left side of the destination square.

The arrow's path now runs right along the dividing line between those rows, which means it touches squares on both sides of the line. Your Line AoE is now ten feet wide.

If the five foot path is a seven lane freeway, the ten foot wide one has to be a slalom course. We've left high cinema and proceeded to Looney Toons, with the shot swinging and swooping all over the room.

Thoughts?

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

I tracked down rules of "Line of Effect" and "Like of Sight" and didn't find them helpful.

Reading Penetrating Shot feat, the wording "your shot takes the form of a 60-foot line" and "Make a separate attack roll against each creature in the line" leads me to believe you draw a single line in a direction and if it passes thru the enemies square, you roll to hit. If you draw your line directly down the middle between two rows of 5' squares, it would not pass thru any of those squares and miss everyone.

Hm... do you roll damage for each target as well, or roll damage only once?

 

[MarkB]

How often are you really going to have targets lined up two-abreast in such quantities that you really feel the unrealism of this rule? And how is an arrow re-bounding across a ten-foot-wide path as it travels down the line any more unrealistic than managing to punch that arrow through several targets in the first place?

Clearly there's something more than just simple physics involved in pulling off such a shot, straight path or not, so just attribute any oddities to it being fate or magic or divine intervention.

 

[Dandu]

If the five foot path is a seven lane freeway, the ten foot wide one has to be a slalom course. We've left high cinema and proceeded to Looney Toons, with the shot swinging and swooping all over the room.

Thoughts?

A level 10 fighter can survive being flattened by an anvil dropped from fifty feet up and walk it off.

We never left Loony Toons.

 

[N'raac]

This is an element of abstract placement. The targets are each somewhere in their 5'x5' squares. The feat effectively dictates that a line through their 25 square feet passes through a portion of that area which the character occupies. A miss against any target can be interpreted as that target not being in the right part of the 25 square feet to be struck. Clearly, the arrow was not defected by the target's shield or armor or tough hide, since it kept moving to the target behind him.

 

[Grogg of the North]

[MENTION=6669384]Greenfield[/MENTION] As we often say in my gaming group "Don't think about it too hard, or your head will explode".

If I HAD to explain how it works with two people abreast, I would point out that you're 10th level. You're an amazing archer, near legendary in your prowess, and that with but a glance you can compute all the angles needed to fire your arrow so that not only will it strike your opponent but bounce between all other foes in your shot!

Yea a cheesy cop out but like I said: Don't think about it too hard.

 

[Greenfield]

Okay, next question: is the arrow shot actually a line AoE?

As in, if I fire at a Swarm, do I do double damage as per the Area of Effect v Swarm rules? Or am I wasting arrows?

 

[N'raac]

I'd have to say not a line AoE, but a multi-targeting non-area attack. Just like Whirlwind Attack can't hit each rat in the swarm individually.

 

[Greenfield]

Sounds reasonable.