| 2 people marked this as FAQ candidate. |
Situation: Archer shoots at an enemy. Between him and the enemy is an invisible ally. The archer does not see invisible but knows his ally is invisible somewhere in his vicinity.
1) Does the invisible ally have a 50% chance of being hit (total concealment)?
1a) Does the archer still take the -4 for Soft Cover?
2) Does the archer take a -4 to hit for Soft Cover for his invisible ally, whether he sees him or not?
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Situation: Archer shoots at an enemy. Between him and the enemy is an invisible ally. The archer does not see invisible but knows his ally is invisible somewhere in his vicinity.
1) Does the invisible ally have a 50% chance of being hit (total concealment)?
a) Does the archer still take the -4 for Soft Cover?
2) Does the archer take a -4 to hit for Soft Cover for his invisible ally, whether he see him or not?
1. I would say no as to the best of my knowledge there are no rules for hitting your allies.
a.I would say yes.
2.I would say yes.
1. No. You never have a chance to hit someone in between you and your target. Being invisible does not change this.
2. More difficult to say. Going to defer to greater rules Gurus on this one, though I'd say my home game ruling (ad hoc, not official) would not grant the +4 AC bonus for soft cover (its technically a bonus to ac, not a penalty to the person firing) because the person isn't ducking and weaving behind someone as he normally would.
thats solely my opinion, and I again have absolutely zip and nil to back number 2 up in the rules.
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Personally, if I were GM in this situation, I would adjudicate that the target would receive a soft cover bonus, if the ally were in direct line with the opponent (i.e. providing a barrier, albeit an invisible one, for the target to be behind).
The issue with cover is that there is a physical impediment between creature A and creature B. Regarding allies providing soft cover, i don't believe the bonus cover comes from either party ducking and weaving with each other, rather your ally is providing a physical barrier that is getting in the way.
EDIT: Doh, realized this was the rules thread. I'll find some rules when I'm not typing on a little screen.
I'd play it so the creature still has soft cover +4 AC. If you miss the creature because of the cover and hit the character's AC, then you hit the character.
Though I wouldn't give you the -4 hit penalty for the creature being in melee unless you were trying not to hit the invisible target. If you don't know the invisible target is there, you won't bother aiming carefully.
That's how I would play. Personal reasoning always trumps RAW for me. I like to adjudicate a situation in a manner I feel would best fit the situation.
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Cover: To determine whether your target has cover from your ranged attack, choose a corner of your square. If any line from this corner to any corner of the target's square passes through a square or border that blocks line of effect or provides cover, or through a square occupied by a creature, the target has cover (+4 to AC).
Soft Cover: Creatures, even your enemies, can provide you with cover against ranged attacks, giving you a +4 bonus to AC. However, such soft cover provides no bonus on Reflex saves, nor does soft cover allow you to make a Stealth check.
As long as your invisible ally satisfies the requirements in the first paragraph, then he would be providing soft cover for your target. If he is also somehow engaged in melee while remaining invisible AND fulfilling the requirements to be cover for your target, you would have a -4 to your attack, and your target would have a +4 to its AC.
That being said, this last sentence was a rather sudden epiphany that struck me as I was reading through these rules to post this. Previously, I think our group had not been using the cover rules (I think more out of forgetfulness than anything) and just applying the -4 to the attack role. Or, if anything, the GM didn't make it obvious that he was applying any cover AC bonus to the target, and just doing the quick math in his head. Oh well.
The soft cover AC bonus comes from obstructions to hitting the target (which translate as AC bonus because it requires more work to avoid the obstructions, thus 4 points harder). This is different from concealment in which you have a miss chance because you can't easily see the target. Invisible things don't obstruct the target nor interrupt the vision between the attacker and target.
Generally a creature in a combat perceives everything that is not actively hiding (and only then if they fail the perception check vs stealth). The invisible ally would know the attacker is shooting his bow and can stay out of the way of the shot. Just because we talk in 5' squares doesn't mean we are 5x5x5 blobs of hittable flesh. The bonus from obstructing creatures comes from the target's attempt to keep the intervening creature between target and attacker. If the target cant see the creature, it can't keep that invisible creature in the line of attack.
So I'd say the answer to all the questions is No.
Corollary - Does the bow-user get a -2 to fire into melee between a monster and his invisible ally (assuming he doesn't have the feat to discount that penalty)?
For this I'd say yes because the monster is moving back and forth in the dance of combat and the -2 implies a need of the archer to be more careful in his shot, not to avoid his companion but in order to ensure a valid hit.
The rules don't say anything about having to use a piece of cover to best effect to get the benefit of cover, the cover merely has to be present.
An invisible wall provides exactly as much cover as a visible wall, an invisible character provides exactly as much cover as a visible character.
As to the first question, it would seem that if you shot in the direction (i.e. though the space) of an invisible character (enemy or ally) you would have at least some chance of hitting it. However, by RAW, to attack an invisible character, you must select a square to attack, and if the character is not in that square, you have zero chance of hitting it, even if you try to shoot directly behind it.