Precise Shot-Cover Question

[Broken Fang]

Ok...I'm not sure if we are playing this right so am going to ask here. If you have Precise Shot you can shoot into melee without the standard -4 penalty (see pages 84 and 124 in the PHB). What about this situation:

target
pc in melee

archer - directly behind pc

In this case we have been giving the target a cover bonus because of the pc and using the hitting cover rules on page 132-133.

Are we doing something wrong? Does Precise Shot allow you to shoot through a square an ally is standing in?

 

[Storm Raven]

Ok...I'm not sure if we are playing this right so am going to ask here. If you have Precise Shot you can shoot into melee without the standard -4 penalty (see pages 84 and 124 in the PHB). What about this situation:

target
pc in melee

archer - directly behind pc

In this case we have been giving the target a cover bonus because of the pc and using the hitting cover rules on page 132-133.

Are we doing something wrong? Does Precise Shot allow you to shoot through a square an ally is standing in?

No. It does not. You still have to deal with the cover bonus your ally is providing to the target (which I believe would generally give a -4 modifier to your attack roll).

If you did not have Precise Shot, you would also have to deal with the -4 penalty for shooting into melee (which would result in a -8 penalty to your attack roll).

 

[Dr. Zoom]

You are doing it correctly. When shooting at a covered target, the archer normally gets the -4 penalty for shooting into melee, and the target receives a cover bonus to his AC, +4 if the cover is the same size.

If the archer has the Precise Shot feat, he does not get the -4 penalty for shooting into melee. The AC of his target, however, will still receive a cover bonus. Note that this is a bonus to the cover's AC, not a penalty to the archer's attack roll.

 

[Storm Raven]

Note that this is a bonus to the cover's AC, not a penalty to the archer's attack roll.

The two are functionally the same thing, so pointing out the distinction seems to me to be not that important. Is there some reason why this would be critical?

 

[Broken Fang]

Ok thanks everyone...I thought we were doing it right. So long as the archer doesn't have any allies in a direct line they can fire w/o penalty (assuming Precise Shot). Only once an ally gets in teh way does the cover bonus apply (and we usually use +$ if the target is the same size).

 

[KnowTheToe]

I am glad I saw this. I have been playing this incorrectly, only using the -4 for melee and not considering cover. I will enjoy ranged weapons being less effective in many melee situations.

Edit: I am an idiot and have fat fingers to boot.

 

[Macbrea]

The two are functionally the same thing, so pointing out the distinction seems to me to be not that important. Is there some reason why this would be critical?

Well, here is the reasoning behind that.

A person medium size person standing in front of a medium sized individual provides 1/2 cover (+4 cover bonus) vs ranged shots.

If you choose to you are allowed to modify this in cases were there isn't a Medium target in front of the same size target.


Example:

Human paladin standing in front of a Large Red dragon. Probably should only count as 1/4 cover (+2 cover bonus) for the dragon.

Second example:

Human paladin standing in front of a small imp. Probably should actually, be 3/4 cover (+7 cover bonus) for the imp.


Either way the shot is -4 to attackers to hit for shooting into a melee. The other numbers are a factor of how much cover the person between the shooter and the target. Small people should result in less cover.

 

[Dr. Zoom]

The two are functionally the same thing, so pointing out the distinction seems to me to be not that important. Is there some reason why this would be critical?

Yes. If you miss the covered target with your attack roll, you still might hit the cover. If you give the archer the penalty instead, you miss them both. This is not how the rules work. So it is not really functionally the same, even though it might look that way.

For example, the archer with precise shot fires at the orc with an AC of 14. An allied fighter with an AC of 15 threatens the orc and is standing between the archer and the orc. The archer makes his attack roll and gets a total of 17.

If we give the archer a -4 penalty instead of giving the orc a +4 cover bonus to his AC, the archer's attack roll is modified to 13. He missed both the orc and the fighter. If we give the +4 cover bonus to the orc's AC, his AC is now 18. The archer misses the orc, but misses because of the cover bonus to AC. He might hit the fighter. He does because 17 beats the fighter's 15 AC.

 

[Storm Raven]

Yes. If you miss the covered target with your attack roll, you still might hit the cover. If you give the archer the penalty instead, you miss them both. This is not how the rules work. So it is not really functionally the same, even though it might look that way.

Actually, it is.

For example, the archer with precise shot fires at the orc with an AC of 14. An allied fighter with an AC of 15 threatens the orc and is standing between the archer and the orc. The archer makes his attack roll and gets a total of 17.

If we give the archer a -4 penalty instead of giving the orc a +4 cover bonus to his AC, the archer's attack roll is modified to 13. He missed both the orc and the fighter. If we give the +4 cover bonus to the orc's AC, his AC is now 18. The archer misses the orc, but misses because of the cover bonus to AC. He might hit the fighter. He does because 17 beats the fighter's 15 AC.

If we give the archer a -4 penalty instead of giving the orc a +4 cover bonus to his AC, the archer's attack roll is modified to a 13. He misses the orc. But his attack roll without the cover is a 17, missing because of the cover, but beating the fighter's AC. He hits the fighter.

Functionally the same, it just depends on how you arrange to operands.

 

[Mallik]

Precise shot/Cover

At the beginning of D&D 3rd edition, we played without a grid or minis or battle map or anything of that sort. This made an archer with precise shot something near to a God. We bitched and bitched, and the Gm's archers ruled us with nearly the same skill as our PC arcane archer schooled the baddies.

Then we started a new game using a mat and cover rules. I played an archer, just to see how it went with the discovery of how cover rules really work, and so forth. My archer kicked some ass, but not nearly the same amount of ass, despite being just as devastating (we had two sorcerers in the party, one with greater magic weapon - tee hee) in raw damage output. He had to deal with cover penalties, and spending a lot of time positioning himself so that he could get clear shots, and the enemies often put themselves between me and the party, so as to be a pain in my ass.

Any time we did a quick combat without the mat, I'd destroy things, but I became about 2/3rds as effective once we broke out the battle mat and minis. Without fail.

This is one of the things that convinced me that D&D needs to be played with the mini & grid system, or something similar :> Game balance (like movement rates, cover penalties, range penalties, etc) just goes out the window without either a genius GM who can keep it all in his head, or a grid.

But I digress. yeah, cover penalties, etc, cool.

-Mallik