He is taking a -4 for shooting into melee. If the person not being aimed for was inbetween the ranger and the target then the target also gets +4 soft cover bonus to AC.
My favorite houserule for this makes the -4 optional...if you choose not to take it, you have a 50% chance of hitting the wrong combatant versus a flatfooted AC. Makes for some hilarious friendly fire hijinks!
Long ago I had a house rule where the shooter could choose to ignore the -4 penalty, but if they missed, then they had a 50% chance to hit a different target. The different target had to be within one square of the intended target and if there was more than one, the hit was determined randomly.
Eventually we just abandoned the rule and just implemented the RAW.
We have always ruled that cover is the GM's call. I suppose that is technically a house rule because we will routinely rule that a target has "partial cover" based on a "reasonable" interpretation of the "more than half of the target is visible" partial cover rule.
I have to admit that I find the cover and melee fire rules to be needlessly draconian. Basically it's a -8 for a non-specialist to fire into melee. That is a crushing penalty. It more or less makes it impossible for anybody without the full point blank shot tree to be effective in most combats. And if a character DOES have the feats, they become full-attack damage machines... its far too binary and arbitrary. PCs either suck horribly as ranged combatants or else they rain destruction on the enemy.
There's gotta be a way to make ranged combat more useful and reasonable.
My favorite houserule for this makes the -4 optional...if you choose not to take it, you have a 50% chance of hitting the wrong combatant versus a flatfooted AC. Makes for some hilarious friendly fire hijinks!
I've had this on offer (though without the flat-footed part) for years. So far no players have taken me up on it.
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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.
Precise Shot: If you have the Precise Shot feat, you don't take this penalty.
Rules as written do mention that one of the combatants needs to be a friendly character to the person shooting into the melee.
I suppose it comes down to whether the -4 penalty is from either them being in melee or from you not wanting to hit your friend.
Due to the language of the ability, and the fact that to adjacent enemies don't necessarily cause the -4 penalty, I think it's the latter.
That penalty exists to simulate avoiding hitting one target in the melee. If you're not avoiding it, no -4.
If you're asking how to determine who gets hit if you don't care which, there are two answers. Answer 1: you aim at squares, and unless they're in a grapple (which is a different situation penalty-wise) then you just pick one and shoot at it.
If you want to be more random about it, just flip a coin. You'll then roll against the AC of whichever one comes up... Armor counts under AC after all, and you might "hit" him but not damage him.
Evil Lincoln for the win*
Please tell me human is your favored enemy!not yet but entirely possible in a couple of levels
Taking Human as your first Favored Enemy is never a bad choice and I highly recommend it. If you didn't take it at your first opportunity, then you should do so ASAP.
/ *I can't even believe I just typed that...
If you have a familiar and a higher level invulnerable rager then you could do something like have the familiar attack the barbarain likely do no damage and give him +4 AC agianst ranged attacks for people without precise shot if you do give the penalty for shooting into melee but that is baltant metagming.
The -4 you take for firing into melee, is not just about not wanting to hit one over the other. Its about the fact the combatants are dodging and weaving and otherwise moving in unexpected fashions as they combat each other. Whether you care about which one you hit is immaterial, you take this penalty irregardless, you don't get to ignore it just cause you don't care about either. The firing into melee penalty is not optional.
Hold on, so you can avoid shots while you are fighting someone else, but you can't avoid shots if you're focused on the person shooting at you?
ie) archer takes a 5-foot step and lobs off a shot.
I think that both effects(not wanting to hit friend and distraction for freindly fire) are important when firing into melee but this is one thing not really assumed to happen in most games. Maybe just houserule at -2 and be over it as it is only one effect.
Oh you still do get soft cover with reach weapons though.
He definitely does not suffer the -4 per RAW, nor should he. Question is what to rule for he chance of hitting another target? I'd probably do a percentile roll BEFORE the attack is rolled. You have the guy you're trying to shoot, and then anyone adjacent to him. I'd count the one you're aiming for twice. So if it were the intended target and one other jerk, you'd have 67% chance of shooting at him, 33% chance of shooting the other guy. If it were two other guys, it'd be 50%/25%/25% and so forth... Not adjacent but in melee...I'd probably just not count them for the sake of simplicity.
Anyway, once the d% decides who's actually getting shot, roll to hit normally w/o the firing into melee penalty.
Soft cover would apply even if you hate both melee combatants, but I'd say if you would've hit w/o the cover bonus (ie, you were 4 under the modified AC value or less), you then reroll to attack the guy in the way. Does that make purposesly shooting deeper into the ranks of a melee where you just want everyone to die more optimal? Yes. Is that how it should work? I'd say yes.
Above are ALL houserules, obviously.
There are two penalties typically when shooting into melee, and I think folks are confusing them somewhat.
My interpretation:
The -4 you take if you have people between you and the target (for soft cover), is all about you wanting to hit the farther opponent over the closer one. If the two combatants are side by side, you don't take this penalty, and you can shoot at the one you want. If you don't care which you hit, shoot the closer one so you don't take the penalty. You can't *not* declare a target of your attack, these aren't splash weapons.
The -4 you take for firing into melee, is not just about not wanting to hit one over the other. Its about the fact the combatants are dodging and weaving and otherwise moving in unexpected fashions as they combat each other. Whether you care about which one you hit is immaterial, you take this penalty irregardless, you don't get to ignore it just cause you don't care about either. The firing into melee penalty is not optional.
One is a -4 penalty to your attack roll.-->fighting in melee
The soft cover bonus is +4 to their AC. ---> someone is inbetween the attacker, and the intended victim
Mathmatically it is like a -8 altogether, but it should be noted that the two are not both penalties to your attack roll.
The game does use the term "friendly character" because it assumes the party will be fighting enemies. When corner cases come into play the GM had to adjust the rules accordingly.
And friendly combatants don't count (except for cover) if you don't care about hitting them. In the last combat IMC, the sorceress kept hitting the cleric with Disrupt Undead because he got in the way, but she didn't suffer both penalties.
If I am in an evil campaign I might not care who I hit. That does not mean I get to ignore the -4 penalty.