I have a question regarding enemies giving cover to other enemies against ranged attacks. I'll give a specific situation, and then get to my main question (please correct me If I'm making a mistake with my understanding of the rules)
Let's say I'm standing in a straight line of four adjacent 5ft boxes, in the following order:
Ranger - Fighter - Ghoul_1 - Ghoul_2
I am playing the Ranger, and I'm trying to shoot one of the ghouls.
When attacking Ghoul_1 with a bow I have to consider -4 penalty to Attack Roll for him being in melee with the Fighter, and another -4 penalty to the Attack Roll for the cover that the Fighter provides to Ghoul_1. Which is -8 to Attack Roll.
When attacking Ghoul_2 with a bow I have to consider -4 penalty to Attack Roll from the cover provided by the Fighter, and another -4 penalty to Attack Roll for the cover that Ghoul_1 provides to Ghoul_2. Which is also -8 to Attack Roll.
Now, in all that, my question is: if I'm aiming for Ghoul_2 (as in the second example), and I miss my attack because of the -4 penalty to Attack Roll from the cover that Ghoul_1 provides to Ghoul_2 (my Attack is for instance 14 vs 16 AC) do I hit Ghoul_1 instead of Ghoul_2 - as he IS the one providing him with the cover?