Archery Clarification....

[Aiddar]

Hi all.

Quick question on archery, firing into melee...

Up until now, I have been assigning a base -8 to shooting into a melee, IF there is a good guy between the archer and the target (i.e. we have archer, then a good guy and bad guy in melee, with the good guy positioned such that he is "blocking" the archer from hitting the bad guy.)

The reason for the -8, is the standard -4 for shooting into Melee (feat:- "Precise shot" removes) and then an additional -4 for the good guy acting as "soft cover" for the bad guy (feat:- "Improved precise shot" removes). Is this fair, or is it double counting?

Any thoughts appreciated!

Cheers

Aiddar

[Noir le Lotus]

You are absolutely right on this !!

[Jiggy]

Technically, the soft cover is a +4 to the target's AC rather than a -4 to the attack roll, but yeah, you've got the basic idea.

[Corlindale]

That is correct, yes. It would also be soft cover if a bad guy was in the way, though (if for some reason you wanted to shoot past an enemy towards a priority target). The cover rules are actually rather strict, as my current archer has been discovering.

[Aiddar]

Thanks all - I thought I had it correct, but the overall penalty seems quite high! Makes a ranger specialising in bow quite powerful, as they get access to Improved Precise Shot as a bonus feat much earlier than any other class.... :-)

Cheers

Aiddar