D&D 4E Ranged Cover rules all hosed up in DDM2 (/4E?)

[Imban]

In this situation, where C1 is an archer, C2 is a dragon, and the black squares are walls, C2 has cover from C1? What? That's just plain hosed up.

The relevant quote is on DDM2's rulebook, page 30:

Ranged Cover
To determine ranged cover, the attacker chooses a corner of its square. If any line from this point to any part of the defender's space is blocked by a wall (or other blocking terrain), the defender has cover. When attacking Large or larger creatures, those lines must be drawn to all squares the target occupies.

 

[Thaumaturge]

Hmm. Wow. It specifically calls it out too.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Celebrim]

No, that seems right to me. You've chosen an edge case, but clarifying that edge case probably does more harm than good.

The dragon clearly has cover. It doesn't have much cover, but it does have some cover. I'm not sure how the rules work out exactly how much cover - it looks to me like 1/8th in this case. The penalty imposed 'to hit' should be less than the penalty to the dragon's AC due to large size. For 1/8th cover, I suggest a -1 penalty.

UPDATE: Hmmm... now that I think about it, the actual cover is probably close to 1/32nd. That's small enough to be negligible given D20's scale. But, again, I don't know how the rules in question resolve how much cover some amount of cover affords.

 

[Thaumaturge]

Good point. If they go back to a much more granular cover system, this isn't weird. The problem, as I see it, is if they maintain the "three types of cover" cover system. If the example dragon has cover, then he gets +4 AC in 3.5 terms. That seems a bit much for just a bit of him being behind a wall.


Thaumaturge.

 

[Imban]

No, that seems right to me. You've chosen an edge case, but clarifying that edge case probably does more harm than good.

The dragon clearly has cover. It doesn't have much cover, but it does have some cover. I'm not sure how the rules work out exactly how much cover - it looks to me like 1/8th in this case. The penalty imposed 'to hit' should be less than the penalty to the dragon's AC due to large size. For 1/8th cover, I suggest a -1 penalty.

All cover (less than "no line of effect") is equal in 3.5e and assumedly so in 4e. I'd have personally chosen the opposite that they did: if you can draw unobstructed lines to all corners of any square a large target presents, it doesn't have cover. Large creatures shouldn't have a much *easier* time taking cover than medium-sized creatures when logic dictates the reverse.

 

[Nikosandros]

This rule makes very little sense. Hopefully it won't be present in the RPG.

 

[Celebrim]

Good point. If they go back to a much more granular cover system, this isn't weird. The problem, as I see it, is if they maintain the "three types of cover" cover system. If the example dragon has cover, then he gets +4 AC in 3.5 terms. That seems a bit much for just a bit of him being behind a wall.


Thaumaturge.

Yes, I would agree.

I guess I'm too used to running 3.0 (I never did go to 3.5 for any number of reasons). In 3.0, the cover rules lend themselves to being as granular as you like.

In a less granular system, this would be IMO an excellent example of a case where invoking DM priveledge and applying a circumstance modifier would be highly warranted.

 

[Larrin]

It does seem a little odd, but think of it this way. There is part of the dragon you can't hit with an arrow, because there's a wall in the way, so logically that WILL decrease the odds that you'll hit him. Granted you're aiming the part you can see, but thats now a smaller target, so its 'harder' to hit. A Big big monster already gets a penalty to AC due to its size, so if its now a smaller target, it should get some of that penalty back, hence the cover bonus.

Not a perfect rule, but it gets the job done, leaves little room for arguments and hair splitting, and if you squint, the logic isn't as bad as it first seems.

 

[Celebrim]

All cover (less than "no line of effect") is equal in 3.5e and assumedly so in 4e. I'd have personally chosen the opposite that they did: if you can draw unobstructed lines to all corners of any square a large target presents, it doesn't have cover.

That absolute makes no sense either, since then if we moved the dragon 15' south where it would be fully half behind the wall, it would still have no cover.

Large creatures shouldn't have a much *easier* time taking cover than medium-sized creatures when logic dictates the reverse.

Absolutely true, but your suggested fix would be equivalent to suggesting that all large sized creatures either had total cover or none.

I hate to make it complicated, but a better rule would be "if you can draw an unobstructed line to the center of more than half of the squares a large target occupies, it doesn't have cover". Even that is not quite right though because I can think of some edge cases where it fails. It is however better than the rule as written if you are worried about edge cases like this.

 

[bording]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatModifiers.htm

How is the DDM2 rule for ranged cover any different than 3.5? There is an exception in 3.5 for larger creatures and melee cover, but ranged cover has no special exception.

Under this situation in 3.5, C2 would have cover.

One other thing, in DDM2 (and presumably in 4E) cover is -2 to attacks vs +4 to AC in 3.5. This is going to make cover have less of an impact than it does currently.