Targeting through allies.

[Asmor]

Remember, a five foot square is 25 square feet. Your average character isn't taking up most of that space.

Your argument, though correct, is spurious. For the purposes of blocking line of sight, it's not square feet but linear fee that matter.

Depending on their size and armor, I think in general an ally might be up to 3 feet wide. Then each square is still only 60% blocked, and given that everyone is constantly moving around I think it's very likely that you could find an opening pretty easily.

 

[Logan_Bonner]

Perfectly. You can fire through allies at no penalty. It's a little odd, actually, the increased emphasis on tactics could have benefitted from thinking about youre allies' lines of fire, and the idea of increased mobility being desireable in combat would also be consistent with getting out of the way or setting up shots.

But, it is simpler - one or two fewer modifiers to worry about - and that was also a major design goal.

Simplicity isn't the only reason. Xect has a good point about this. The rules are constructed the way they are so that ranged characters aren't taking more penalties than they deserve, and failing to keep up with melee characters. The melee characters already get flanking bonuses the ranged attackers don't get, and there's no need to penalize them twice. Also, having the penalty for cover/firing into melee doesn't let the players do what they want to do. Joe the fighter should be able to run into the thick of combat without annoying Lucy the warlock because he's given her a penalty. It lets the characters do what their role and concept wants them to do.

Good call.

I might houseroule that immobilized characters grant cover bonuses to all. I find it trite that they *don't* lose their Int/Dex Reflex and AC bonuses.

Houserules, Houserules.

Keep in mind the purpose of the immobilized rules. They're there to keep you from moving. If they were intended to make you easier to hit, you would grant combat advantage, just like you do when dazed. Immobilized is meant to keep a creature in place (and possibly out of the fight), not to make that creature a target for more attacks.

 

[DM_Blake]

Depending on their size and armor, I think in general an ally might be up to 3 feet wide. Then each square is still only 60% blocked, and given that everyone is constantly moving around I think it's very likely that you could find an opening pretty easily.

True indeed.

However, the constantly moving around thing is what actually increases the cover, rather than reducing the cover.

Yes, at any given instant, there might be part of your enemy exposed, just to right or left, or maybe under the arm, or betweent the legs, of your ally.

However, that instant is very brief. Instantaneous, actually. And since the target is moving, and so is your ally, the very next instant might result in losing your line of sight to that part of that target - either your ally stepped in the way, or your target moved behind your ally (or, more behind your ally).

Sure, now a different part of the target might be exposed. But again, only for this instant, while next instant that exposure, too, might change.

So the real challenge comes from your ability to track the movements of your target and your ally, to predict how they will move in the next several instants, and to plan ahead to aim at a specific opportunity and fire your weapon at just the exact right instant that all the factors line up to expose your target to your shot.

Can it be done?

Sure.

But it's much harder than just shooting at a target that isn't 60% occluded by a moving ally.

This is why your ally provides cover.

And, trying to calculate those vecors and predict future firing solutions is why you took a penalty on firing that shot at a covered target. I say "took" because apparantly this is a 3e concept that has ceased to exist in 4e - somehow, in 4e, it is exactly the same difficulty to shoot someone standing in front of you, as it is to shoot someone standing in front of you with a moving, dodging, ducking, lunging ally in the way.

If any of you doubt this, just go down to your local miniature golf course. Find the inevitable windmill hole. You know the one. You have to put your golf ball up a ramp through a small hole in the windmill but you also have to time the put so that the fins of the windmill don't block the hole when your ball gets there. Try it a few times with the windmill spinning, and try it a few times with the windmill stopped. You'll see the difference.

 

[Tuft]

If any of you doubt this, just go down to your local miniature golf course. Find the inevitable windmill hole. You know the one. You have to put your golf ball up a ramp through a small hole in the windmill but you also have to time the put so that the fins of the windmill don't block the hole when your ball gets there. Try it a few times with the windmill spinning, and try it a few times with the windmill stopped. You'll see the difference.

That's Simulationist thinking; that's not what D&D is about any more.

 

[On Puget Sound]

Clarification: ALLIES do not provide cover. Enemies do interfere with ranged or reach attacks to other enemies, providing cover. I have house-ruled that you get no cover from someone two sizes smaller than you are.

 

[Zurai]

I have house-ruled that you get no cover from someone two sizes smaller than you are.

That particularly silliness bothered me as well. An Ancient Dragon getting cover from a kitten is ludicrous - beyond the bounds of even the very limited simulationism in 4E.