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This issue has come up because of a Pathfinder Society scenario, but it's a general rules question. In the scenario (I'll leave out which one for spoiler reasons) a bad guy's tactics say "he grabs a slave as a human shield". During the combat, he remains "within reach of his slaves to act as unwilling shields."
The concern of maintaining a grapple aside (I'm assuming the slaves would not resist), what are the effects of a "human shield"? I have found no reference to this tactic anywhere after searching the online SRD and the forums here. I would guess some sort of cover, but you normally don't have to deal with the possibility of cover taking damage.
Anyone have any idea how this is handled? If it were a home game I'd just make something up and move on, but this is for PFS, and I want to make sure I'm following the rules as much as possible.
It just applies the soft cover bonus, as you cannot accidentally hit the wrong target in Pathfinder.
Standard cover bonus https://sites.google.com/site/pathfinderogc/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Cover
There is actually a variant rule in the 3.5 DMG called "striking the cover" that would perfectly apply here (I always use it anyway, even in Pathfinder). Basically it says that if a creature uses soft cover, and an attack MISSES the target by 4 or less, AND the attack roll would be enough to hit the soft cover victim, you "strike the cover" and deal damage to whoever is providing the soft cover - in this case, the slave meat shields. However, this "striking the cover" rule wouldn't apply to someone making a ranged attack who has the Precise Shot feat. The target still gets the benefit of the cover, but the attacker doesn't risk hitting the slave. This rule seems to fit perfectly in this situation, but ultimately it's pretty much just a DM call.
