Pardon my B.S. for a moment as I try to split this hair into teeny tiny pieces.
Does shooting or throwing into melee still grant the -4 penalty to the attack roll... IF the friendly PC involved is a summoned monster?
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.
The Truth I Believe: The summoned creature is considered friendly, as it doesn't attack you and other rules-y reasons and therefore must be considered a friendly thus creating the "Firing into Melee" scenario. I accept this as the most likely truth.
The Truth I Want: Player Characters can choose to consider the summoned creature a friendly or not a friendly, and thus can shoot or throw into melee with reckless abandon and not incur the -4 penalty.
The Gibberish: I've got lots of reasons to want the 2nd idea to be the case. Such as, it's just a thing, not a real creature and will go away soon anyways, I don't care if I hit it, it's not my friend. I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it and make another one just like you... and so on and so forth.
Someone please tell me my desired truth is silly, ridiculous, foolhardy and entirely without merit so I can stop thinking about it and get on with my gaming life!
Thank you.
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It attacks your opponents to the best of its ability. If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions.
As you can see, a summoned monster is always considered a friendly target.
Unless your party members wants to become... your "opponents"... Otherwise it is not possible for you to summoned "non-friendly" monsters just to avoid the -4 penalty.
RAW, Secane is right. The summoned creature is friendly (except for maybe some planar summoning cases that don't really apply).
I personally like the flavor of firing wildly into melee, so I'd houserule that you can ignore the -4 penalty, but the target hit is random.
Thank you all, I feel much better now. :D
Thank you all, I feel much better now. :D
Just to add: You are silly, ridiculous cheesemongerer to want this! It is this kind of twisting the rules to fit your power gaming, that is ruining the system in the first place!!! ;-)
it's just a thing, not a real creature and will go away soon anywaysI completely disagree with this. You didn't cast "Create Monster V" you cast "Summon Monster V" to get that Bralani Azata. You called it from elsewhere to come and fight your fight, and when your spell is up, he's going home. Even sooner if he gets whacked.
Potato Potato. But it's nice to see people take this question so seriously. :)
Just to add: You are silly, ridiculous cheesemongerer to want this! It is this kind of twisting the rules to fit your power gaming, that is ruining the system in the first place!!! ;-)
Aaaaand that's the itch I needed scratching. ha
You could simply declare the creature not to be your ally. It would lose any bonuses you might be giving your allies, but that's all. It's still bound to obey.
The only way I could see you arguing your way out of this - - is if you could present a case that you knew your ranged attacks had no chance of harming the friendly unit. Of course this requires that is in fact the case, and your character knows it. So that makes it rare already. But I can see it being considered/allowed.