Under the hood -- cover questions

[takyris]

Hey all,

A couple of quick questions -- still running the system through its paces, seeing what I like, what works.

So I'm imagining a gunfight, based on people's discussions so far.

Let's say that your PCs and some bad guys are shooting at each other.

The bad guys are werewolves. They're standing out in the open, laughing as they fire, because the PCs don't have silver bullets.

There's a convenient corner, and a stack of three-foot-high crates. There are four PCs.

Al is standing around the corner, looking around to fire off shots as he can.

Bev is kneeling around the same corner, leaning out to fire off shots in tandem with Al.

Carl is standing behind the crates, which act as a three-foot-wall.

Dana is kneeling behind the same crates, looking out to pop shots at the werewolves as they start to close on her and Carl.

So, my questions:

1) Do any of the werewolves have cover relative to any of the PCs, based on what I said?

I THINK that the answer is no. If they were using melee weapons, it'd be a different story, but the fact that they're using ranged weapons makes it like arrowslits -- the werewolves don't get any cover.

2) What bonuses to Defense would each person have?

Al: Peering around a corner gives you 3/4 cover, but fighting around a corner gives you 1/2 cover. I'm not sure if fighting means strictly melee, or if it's assumed that someone who has to put a bit of their body out there to fire gets less cover than someone just peeking over the edge. So either +7 for 3/4, or +4 for 1/2.

B: She gets whatever cover Al gets, and also benefits from the fact that she is kneeling to present a smaller target. So, whatever Al gets, +2.

C: He's got 1/4 cover, right outta the book. (+2 Defense) He's also got a projected lifespan of two more rounds.

D: Sorta tricky. You could give her one-quarter cover plus the kneeling bonus, but really, kneeling behind those crates, she's got more like half cover. So I might be inclined to give her the +4 for better cover, rather than one quarter cover and the kneeling bonus (which, as it turns out, works out to exactly the same thing, a +4 total defense bonus).

3) Just to make sure of the mechanics, how would you as a GM deal with a player who said, "I want to snap off a shot at the werewolf and then duck down behind the crate completely"?

I'm not sure on the rules here -- not enough cover use in my D&D game.

Option one: Tell the player that ducking is assumed from the cover description. Everything is happening simultaneously, so if you get hit, it's likely that you got hit as you leaned out to fire.

Option two: Make ducking down like that a move-equivalent action, or something that can only be done as part of a move. Thus, someone could fire and then duck back down, getting full cover, but they'd need to spend a move-equivalent action to look up next round.

Thanks for the help -- hopefully not being really really dumb. Given how important cover is gonna be in the game, I wanna make sure that I've got all my ducks in a row before the players start asking me about why they only get a 1/2 cover bonus when they're behind a corner, and not a 3/4 cover bonus.

-Tacky

 

[Zenon]

3) Just to make sure of the mechanics, how would you as a GM deal with a player who said, "I want to snap off a shot at the werewolf and then duck down behind the crate completely"?

I'm not sure on the rules here -- not enough cover use in my D&D game.

Option one: Tell the player that ducking is assumed from the cover description. Everything is happening simultaneously, so if you get hit, it's likely that you got hit as you leaned out to fire.

Option two: Make ducking down like that a move-equivalent action, or something that can only be done as part of a move. Thus, someone could fire and then duck back down, getting full cover, but they'd need to spend a move-equivalent action to look up next round.

I would go with Option one. Tell them that to do it all in one action without risk takes the following:

From the d20 Modern SRD:

Shot on the Run
Prerequisites: Dexterity 13, Point Blank Shot, Dodge, Mobility.
Benefit: When using an attack action with a ranged weapon, the character can move both before and after the attack, provided that the character’s total distance moved is not greater than his or her speed.
Moving in this way does not provoke an attack of opportunity from the defender the character is attacking (though it can provoke attacks of opportunity from others, as normal).

 

[takyris]

Not just a pathetic bump -- if people think that these questions are obvious, then please, just tell me so. As I said, I wanna make sure I've got myself covered. If the questions are answered in the book itself, cool -- I'll know on 12/25 when I unwrap it.

The major questions I'm wondering about are the "fighting behind" versus "peeking out from behind" questions for looking around corners. Is this concretely answered in the book? Are my guesses accurate (i.e., 1/2 cover if you're shooting around a corner, and the +2 kneeling bonus stacks)?

If it ain't obvious, would anybody mind pinging the Wizards boards? I always have trouble getting to their messageboards.

-Tacky

EDIT: THANKS, Mist!

 

[Mistwell]

I've posted your queestions to the WOTC for Charles Ryan to comment. I'll let you know when he responds.

 

[Mistwell]

Here is the response:

OK, for starters we have a problem with this scenario. If A is standing at a corner (occupying the square behind the corner), B can't also be there (occupying the same square), regardless of whether she's standing or kneeling. The two characters can't take up the same space.

(You could house rule this one if you really want it to be possible for two people to shoot around the same corner (or from behind the same car door, or whatever); perhaps each person suffers a -4 penalty on attacks, or a -2 on attacks and -2 on Defense, because they're in each others' way.)

I'll ignore this in my answers below, however, since it's a side point.


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1) Do any of the werewolves have cover relative to any of the PCs, based on what I said?
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No. The questioner's logic is correct.


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2) What bonuses to Defense would each person have?
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I would probably give everyone half cover. (More than half of their bodies are covered, but probably half or so of their vital areas are exposed. (This is the same reason a 3-foot wall only gives you one-quarter cover--see page 144 for more.))


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D: Sorta tricky. You could give her one-quarter cover plus the kneeling bonus, but really, kneeling behind those crates, she's got more like half cover. So I might be inclined to give her the +4 for better cover, rather than one quarter cover and the kneeling bonus (which, as it turns out, works out to exactly the same thing, a +4 total defense bonus).
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You can give her the normal cover plus the kneeling bonus, or the better cover--whichever is higher. In this case, obviously, the result is the same. But if she started at half-cover, and kneeling improved her cover to three-quarters, I'd give her the benefit of +7 (three-quarters) rather than +6 (one-half cover plus kneeling).

(Note that kneeling doesn't always increase your cover; if you started and half-cover and kneeling didn't actually increase it to three-quarters, the bonus should only increase to +6. As with all cover situations, it's up to the GM to visualize the situation and decide how much cover the character has.)


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3) Just to make sure of the mechanics, how would you as a GM deal with a player who said, "I want to snap off a shot at the werewolf and then duck down behind the crate completely"?
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I'd say "yes, and I want a pony." Seriously, the characters' normal efforts to avoid being hit are already built into their Defense. If the character wants to take extra steps (perhaps that's what's happening here), she can fight defensively, using the normal rules for that (-4 on attack, +2 to Defense)--see the top of page 137.

Hope that helps. Glad to hear that the players are making some smart tactical decisions in their gunplay!

 

[takyris]

Mist, thanks for posting that over! That helps a bunch.

As for players not being in the same square, yeah, oops. I liked the image, but I guess on the actual battlemat, the standing guy would be in the square behind the kneeling gal, firing over her head. Which still works from a cover perspective.

Again, thanks for throwing that to the WotC boards!

-Tacky