|
A character in a PbP PFS game that I am running has a quadruped eidolon and the question arose as to whether he could fire through its square without incurring the usual soft cover penalty (the eidolon was right in front of him and the monster was a bit farther away).
In the rules on Low Obstacles and Cover,
A low obstacle (such as a wall no higher than half your height) provides cover, but only to creatures within 30 feet (6 squares) of it. The attacker can ignore the cover if he's closer to the obstacle than his target.
I've never seen it come up that a quadruped would be considered a low enough cover to be ignored, but is does make some sense.
On the other hand, there is a special feat for small or smaller creatures, low profile, which has as part of it the specific benefit "... In addition, you do not provide soft cover to creatures when ranged attacks pass through your square."
I would think that if small or 'low' creatures regularly modified the usual soft cover rules then it would be mentioned more specifically. (Of course, it might and I could just be missing it...)
But, since it was a good argument and makes sense, I decided to interpret cover rules for now to think of the cover provided by low/small creatures more like the low wall example.
Does anyone else have a more definite idea of how it is supposed to work?
|
I'd never considered the "low wall" rule in comparison with soft cover. Probably because it's very rare that it will actually be applicable. The medium creature would need to be quite tall, or the halfling at the smallest possible size, for this to normal.
I think the Low Profile feat would maintain usefulness as it eliminates soft cover entirely, not just with respect to your unusually big friend but also with respect to your smaller (i.e. your size) allies.
I'd go with it, but I think RAI may have been to use that rule on objects only. As phrased it's any low obstacle, though, which means it's legit to use if your medium+ character happens to be that much larger.
I think you're on the right track.
Soft Cover, by RAW, is not dependent on size. The CRB just says that creatures between you and your target provide soft cover and it never mentions size.
Partial Cover says you only get half the benefit if your attacker can see at least half (or more) of you. It does not say that this applies to Soft Cover, but it also does not say it doesn't, so as far as I can tell, this rule applies to all Cover regardless of whether it is "Soft" or not.
And the part you quoted about low obstacles might be applicable too, even for Soft Cover, since the low obstacle rule doesn't specify that it only applies to inanimate obstacles - seems to me that it would be applicable to Soft Cover just like you described.
So, assuming this quadrupedal Eidolon is no taller on all fours than 1/2 the height of the Summoner, then the Summoner should be able to shoot over it, with no Cover or Soft Cover, at any enemy farther than 30' away or at any enemy farther away from the Eidolon than the Summoner is (so if the summoner is just 5' away from his Eidolon, the Eidolon gives no Soft Cover to any enemy more than 5' away from the Eidolon.
Also note that when the enemies return fire, the Summoner only gets Partial Soft Cover from their attacks.
At least, that's how I would interpret these rules all working together.
The rules do not make an exception to the size of the creature standing in front of you. Only whether or not the line of fire cuts through their square or not.
If your shooter was large and he had a small or medium person in front of him and the target was far enough away there would not be a soft cover penalty because the line drawn does not cut through the small/medium creature.
However, in the case of a medium person with a small creature in front of him they both occupy 5' spaces and thus there is soft cover.
The low wall rule applies to objects, not people. Walls do not move or wave swords and hands around where they may interfere with the shot. :)
- Gauss
|
Your pushing the game system a little bit too hard in that aspect.
Something like a character of medium or small size effectively exists on the battle field as a five foot cube. Trying to shoot through that cube grants soft cover no matter if it's a 6' tall Burly Half-Orc or a 2' 9" Lithe Halfling as far as the rules are concerned. How the creature is put together doesn't factor into the mechanics of things, quadruped or biped creatures care about their size not how many legs they have.
Also a creature is not simply an obstacle like a wall, they're going to be moving around at any given point during a round.
Operating in a Pathfinder Society capacity means things like the cover system shouldn't be altered.
That feat is the proper solution for that situation. In a home game setting if you wanted to effectively give that as a bonus feat to every creature smaller then itself you'd have to do a lot of arbitration but then it is your game.
|
|
I do believe that if the attacker is closer to the obstacle than his enemy is he should not have cover if attacking in. It means that whoever gets close to the obstacle has the advantage.
I even made a paint picture to show the lines of sight, ans thus the lines of effect, showing how the low obstacle (be it a wall or anything) interfere in the attacks.
PICTURE
The attacker on the left has a clear line of sight, and thus HAS NOT any penalty. The other one does have a tiger blocking his view, so it has cover if he aims at the first one.
If you call that "pushing the game system" I say i'm sorry, but even Cover and Line of sight are made to bring the game closer to reality.
And about the feat, it was made to work regardless of the obstacle position, and it is not what the point in this thread discuss.
So, go ahead, refute it if you can.
Ralklain, except your image is not how the rules work. In all cases the archer is shooting through the space occupied by the tiger. They are both small/medium size. If the archer were large size or the tiger were tiny (2.5' cube) then yes, your example would work.
As for reality, reality has nothing to do with this game. This is not a simulationist game. It has a lot of rules that contradict reality and thats without even including how magic breaks reality.
Finally, a low wall is an inanimate object that is not moving, pacing, rising up on hind legs, or whatever. It does not randomly interpose its body parts in it's 5' cube.
- Gauss
Nice analogy Lincoln. Mind if I steal it? :)
- Gauss
So based on RAW, an Ogre cannot throw a spear, overhand, over his goblin ally standing at his feet, aiming at a human 20 feet away, without that human getting +4 AC from the goblin. Also based on RAW, a human wizard cannot fire a scorching ray at an ogre while the wizard's snake familiar is on the ground in front of the wizard without the ogre getting +4 AC from the snake.
I get it. That's RAW.
But it's impractical.
The OP was talking about a summoner firing over the back of a medium sized quadruped eidolon. Assuming the summoner is human-sized, this is about the same as a real Earth human firing a rifle over the back of a German Shepherd. There is no way that German Shepherd would interfere with that rifle shot; it won't be waving its hands in the air, swinging weapons, etc.
Sure, if the dog ran up and tried to attack the rifleman's target, the dog might get in the way and provide cover because now it's in the fight. Fair enough. But just standing there, it shouldn't be a problem.
What "should be", and what RAW actually is, are clearly in conflict in this case. I guess since the OP is asking for PFS, he better follow RAW.
However, the rules for low obstacles do not specify that the "obstacle" must be inanimate, non-living, inorganic, etc. None of that. The OP's summoner could very easily define his eidolon as an "obstacle" and would be absolutely correct by the definition of the word in the English language, and would not be made incorrect by any Pathfinder game terminology.
Which makes me think that that rule could still be applied to his living, eidolon, "obstacle" - at least as long as the "obstacle" is simply standing patiently in front of him and not charging into melee (at which time it ceases to be an "obstacle" and becomes a "combatant" instead).
DM_Blake, yes, he can. By RAW.
The Ogre is large (10' space) and the Goblin is small (5' space).
OO
OOG..........H
Draw a line from any corner of the Ogre's square (ogre's choice) to the Human's corners. If that line cuts through the Goblin then the human has soft cover.
Drawn from the corner above the goblin (not behind it) the Ogre's line does NOT cut through the goblin so the human does not have soft cover.
Regarding the human and the familiar snake, it is a tiny creature and does not occupy a 5' space. It occupies a 2.5' space. Thus, the same is true there too. The human can shoot over it because drawing a line from the corner of the human's square to the corners of the target's square does not go through the snake's space.
- Gauss
|
|
I would like to clarify that I was not deliberately changing the rules in a PFS game, as has been implied. Rather, I was temporarily agreeing to a series of connections in the RAW that could be interpreted together more than one way, so that the correct answer was debatable, at least. Therefore, following the "How to Make Rulings" section in the PFS "GM 101" pdf, I made a reasonable decision quickly enough to not hold up the game unnecessarily and then went here, looking for a more definitively correct interpretation of the rules. When I said "I decided to interpret cover rules for now" and asked "Does anyone else have a more definite idea of how it is supposed to work?", I was pretty much precisely following what is recommended in the pdf:
In order to keep play moving during a scenario, it is often necessary for a GM to make rulings on the spot, especially when something is not covered by the rules or when no one is sure how a particular rule works. Remember that an event coordinator or a fellow GM can be a great resource when trying to decide how a rule works. If you make a ruling for an unclear situation, stick with it for the rest of the scenario but make sure that your players know that it applies just for this game session.
The point that both humans and halflings/goblins occupy the same 5' cube is a good one, but it is not always strictly true that they are equivalent in the space that they take up or block. This is the case in the analogous "Shooting or Throwing into a Melee" rule where
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.
In this case, the two sizes - Medium and Small - would be treated differently based on what size is two or three sizes bigger.
And while I agree that a halfling will be waving its arms around and such, potentially being higher than the low wall, if we are talking about the total amount of cover - and not "firing into melee", which is about having to avoid friendlies - then I would point out that the wall is, well, solid and takes up the whole 5' base width, while no halfling, however chubby, would do so. The hard cover of the wall thus seems at least the equivalent of the soft cover of the halfling and, presumably, if one could be fired over or around under some condition then so could the other.