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A question has come up about ranged touch attack into combat and if there is a penalty or not. I beleive it is no because of the following:
Shooting or Throwing into a Melee: If you shoot or
throw a ranged weapon at a target engaged in melee with a
friendly character, you take a –4 penalty on your attack roll.
Two characters are engaged in melee if they are enemies of
each other and either threatens the other. (An unconscious
or otherwise immobilized character is not considered
engaged unless he is actually being attacked.)If your target (or the part of your target you’re aiming at,
if it’s a big target) is at least 10 feet away from the nearest
friendly character, you can avoid the –4 penalty, even if
the creature you’re aiming at is engaged in melee with a
friendly character.If your target is two size categories larger than the
friendly characters it is engaged with, this penalty is
reduced to –2. There is no penalty for firing at a creature
that is three size categories larger than the friendly
characters it is engaged with.
As seen here, it says ranged weapon, and nothing about touch attacks.
Precise shot backs this up with
Benefit: You can shoot or throw ranged weapons at an
opponent engaged in melee without taking the standard
–4 penalty on your attack roll.
.
Which again says nothing about touch attacks.
So I guess the question is does a ranged touch attack count as a ranged weapon, and if so where does it say this.
And is that why you can apply point-blank shot to rays and ranged touch attacks?
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Ranged Touch attacks from spells are subject to the -6 penalty for firing into melee.
See this thread: LINK.
Ranged Touch attacks from spells are subject to the -6 penalty for firing into melee.
See this thread: LINK.
Thanks for the Link. I'll waid in on that thread ;)
Ranged Touch attacks from spells are subject to the -6 penalty for firing into melee.
See this thread: LINK.
-4
Ok here is the curve, do you suffer the shooting into melee penalty if you're the one in melee with the target?
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Ok here is the curve, do you suffer the shooting into melee penalty if you're the one in melee with the target?
I believe the answer is "Yes you still take the -4". The main reason is simplicity. The combat system that Pathfinder uses is incredibly abstract. If you use a battlemap and you view combat as one guy standing next to the other guy swinging swords at each other your missing the point. The combat system, hit points, and the like are all used to take combat like you see in the movies (Gladiator, Game of Thrones, LotR, Zorro, etc) and make it work with in the game rules.
The combatants, while standing still (for the most part) on the battlemap, are representing swings, misses, dives to the side, circling each other, and the like. But to keep things simple the system uses a turn based combat system where people are "standing still" and only swing there swords or shoot their bows on their turn. There have been other game systems that handled combat better IMO, but they were a lot more complex too.
So while you may be the character in "melee" with the baddy, he's still considered to be in melee because he threatens you so you take the penalty (and AoO for that matter) if you shoot him from that position.