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

[Sir Brennen]

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.

1/32nd? Looks more like 1/4 to me. C2 has 4 squares facing C1, with one covered. Quarter cover. If C1 where at a 45 degree angle to the upper right corner of C2, then it'd be more like 1/8th, since he could see both the North and East faces of C2.

I say this because it doesn't make sense to me that lines drawn have to go to every square the creature occupies. The side(s) exposed to an attacker are all that really matter.

I think the rule should be:

To determine ranged cover, the attacker chooses a corner of its square. If half or more of the lines from this point to any square of the defender's space facing the attacker are blocked by a wall (or other blocking terrain), the defender has cover.

Since this rule would take multiple squares into account, no need for special call outs regarding Large creatures.

 

[PeterWeller]

It really isn't a problem when you consider the fact that your dragon miniature might be just standing there behind the wall, but the dragon that miniature represents is moving around and possibly taking great advantage of that little bit of wall.

 

[frankthedm]

What is FUBAR is that cover ONLY grants +2 AC/Reflex defense. Those with the sense and forethought to claim cover should be rewarded for their efforts. Two measly points is not significant at all. I had high hopes when I saw that cover was granting +5 AC in Star wars Saga Edition, hoping that would be a preview of 4E. Sadly this is not the case.

Reason #84 that I didn't convert to 3.5.

That was still there is 3.0. 3.0 In fact 3.0 used how much of the being was behind cover. If the large target had cover, it had cover with no stipulations about firing at an open square as 3.5 had. Now as it so happens the Dragon in the example does not even have 25% cover, though it would if the archer was a square or two down.

While I can’t find a copy of the 3.0 Illo, IIRC, this approximates it well.

So applied to a dragon…

3.0 SRD Cover
Cover provides a bonus to a character's AC. The more cover a character has, the bigger the bonus.

Table: Cover
Degree of Cover AC Cover Reflex
Cover Bonus Save Bonus
--------- -------- ------------
1/4 +2 +1
1/2 +4 +2
3/4 +7 +3
9/10 +10 +4*
Total - -
*Half damage if save is failed; no damage if successful.

Cover and Attacks of Opportunity
An attacker can't execute an attack of opportunity against a character with one-half or better cover.

Cover and Reach Weapons
If a character is using a reach weapon, another character standing between the attacker and the target provides cover to the target. Generally, if both of the other characters are the same size, the one furthest from the attacker has one-half cover (+4 AC).

Degree of Cover
Cover is assessed in subjective measurements of how much protection it offers a character. The DM determines the value of cover.

Cover Reflex Save Bonus
Add this bonus to Reflex saves against attacks that affect an area. For nine-tenths cover, a character also effectively has improved evasion. These bonuses, however, only apply to attacks that originate or spread out from a point on the other side of the cover.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It really isn't a problem when you consider the fact that your dragon miniature might be just standing there behind the wall, but the dragon that miniature represents is moving around and possibly taking great advantage of that little bit of wall.

You've got to be kidding me. A dragon the size of a house is "making great use" of a 5' tall wall that blocks LOS to one of the squares it occupies. Unless it's using up all it's actions to specifically do that, it shouldn't get any bonus at all. It's fundamentally ludicrous that ANY penalty at all is given to the attacker in this circumstance.

 

[Voss]

a- abstraction for a quick, dirty skirmish style minis game.
b- the DDM rules, as presented, don't cover a creature of that size. They stop at huge, which would have 1/3 of his body/space/whatever obscured.
c- the wall doesn't have to be 5' tall. Height, the last time I checked, wasn't covered on the battlemat-things. For all intents and purposes, being an abstraction again, the walls are infinitely tall.

 

[delericho]

c- the wall doesn't have to be 5' tall. Height, the last time I checked, wasn't covered on the battlemat-things. For all intents and purposes, being an abstraction again, the walls are infinitely tall.

Ah, but that's the thing. A Medium creature can take cover behind a 3 foot high wall. And so can the Tarrasque, even if only one 2-dimensional square in its space is covered.

I can see that the DDM rules may require this sort of abstraction, given the competitive nature of the game (and, as noted up-thread, it only really applies it up to Huge size anyway). For D&D, though, we really need either something more complex, or probably an application of DM judgement.

 

[Voss]

I can see that the DDM rules may require this sort of abstraction, given the competitive nature of the game (and, as noted up-thread, it only really applies it up to Huge size anyway). For D&D, though, we really need either something more complex, or probably an application of DM judgement.

Well, yeah. I would hope this wouldn't carry over to 4e. You need to be able to handle situations like 'I dive and roll under the table (getting cover from the orc sentry's opportunity attack) and crash into the legs of the orc shaman, trying to knock him over and interrupt his spellcasting'.

But for the DDM game, this level of abstraction is fairly acceptable, particularly when the edge case being discussed isn't even applicable.

 

[Celebrim]

1/32nd? Looks more like 1/4 to me. C2 has 4 squares facing C1, with one covered. Quarter cover. If C1 where at a 45 degree angle to the upper right corner of C2, then it'd be more like 1/8th, since he could see both the North and East faces of C2.

You are using my initial reasoning. Perhaps you are right.

But then I thought about what a dragon was actually shaped like, and decided that it from the vantage point of the archer, the squares facing him weren't providing cover to the rest of the dragon (provided he doesn't care to hit them specifically). He could still see and perhaps hit the chest and belly, the limbs on the far side, the futher wing, and so forth. The bit down in the corner didn't have alot of dragon in it.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

While I agree that the situation has it's logic flaws...

I ALSO agree that if the Dragon wants to take cover behind that wall then he's pretty much scrunched as much of his body as he can into the lower right corner of his space.

He doesn't fit behind that wall, obviously, but he's at least trying to use it. Otherwise, if he's just got the tip of his tail wrapped around the archway at the corner of the wall, he has no cover.


Fitz

Oh! And it's likely the 4e rules are a bit more in depth than the minis, and they've said as much.

 

[Wolfspider]

It doesn't matter if the rule existed already in v3.5. It seems like a bad rule to me. I really hope something like this rule doesn't get ported over into the full 4e game. It already seems much too ...ambivalent....to me.

(And, to rant a bit, I wish people would stop bring up v3.5 to defend bad rules in 4e. Fourth edition is supposed to fix the sucktitude of the previous edition, remember? )