So, a recent scenario has popped up where a character fighting a medium sized creature, on the other side of a doorway, called on the rules of cover to gain a partial cover bonus.
Citing the rules for cover, which seem quite clear in this case:
when making a melee attack against an adjacent target, your target has cover if any line from any corner of your square to the target's square goes through a wall (including a low wall).
So we all know how the line drawing works, it requires any line to pass through even a low wall and it will offer cover.
So a doorway, typically 3.5-4', centered in a 5' square, doesn't really seem to offer a lot of room to maneuver when you're talking about swinging battleaxes, swords, etc. Piercing weapons would fare must better, but there's no exceptions for weapon types so it's best to just KISS.
I ruled in favour of the player. As the map clearly showed it wasn't a 5' wide door, and the lines would clearly cross the wall encroaching on the 5 square between the doorway, both combatants benefited from Partial Cover.
Is my interpretation here correct do you think? Have you had any similar doorway incidents?
My group always assumes all doors are exactly 5 feet wide, for simplicity.
But in your case, if the door was narrower, then you made the right call. Both combatants should have partial cover.
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A kind mapmaker will draw the scenario map so that walls and doors align neatly on the grid, either filling a square or just filling the edge between two squares, so that there's no doubt about the tactical situation. I hate it when people try to be "clever" by drawing ambiguous lines, or a lot of diagonal lines that leave you wondering whether a given square is big enough to stand in or not.
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I can't entirely make out your example. Was it like this?
` ` E
# P #
` ` `
Where E = enemy, P = PC, # = Wall
In that case I'd say cover applies for both combatants; they can't draw a line between E's southeast corner and P's southeast corner.
I think his example was: thin wall separates two rooms, 3.5' door connects the rooms, combatants stand directly on either side of the door.
So more like this:
_E_
#P#
Where "E" is the enemy, "P" is the PC, "_" is showing there is a wall, and "#" is an empty space. It isn't shown in the diagram, but the doorway between E and P is narrow, less than 5 ft. wide.
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Ahhh...
A narrow doorway might provide cover, sure, though personally I'd avoid that for the sake of my own sanity.
Partial Cover: If a creature has cover, but more than half the creature is visible, its cover bonus is reduced to a +2 to AC and a +1 bonus on Reflex saving throws. This partial cover is subject to the GM's discretion.
Seems like that'll still stop AoOs though.
In Dungeons of Golarion, there is a vault with 3 black widow spiders. My sons tripped the release of all three, but surprised me with the idea to step back through the door. As a result, they could took care of these spiders one at a time instead of a full assault. I was pretty impressed as we had only a few playing sessions at this time.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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In Dungeons of Golarion, there is a vault with 3 black widow spiders. My sons tripped the release of all three, but surprised me with the idea to step back through the door. As a result, they could took care of these spiders one at a time instead of a full assault. I was pretty impressed as we had only a few playing sessions at this time.
Why does it seem like new players always have the best ideas? Veterans never seem to try interesting or clever things. Heck, I can even see a decrease in clever ideas in my own history of transitioning from "new player" to "veteran"! What happened to me?!
:(
Ha! It is because new players are thinking about how they would survive the situation and old hats are trying to beat the game/math.
I agree that per rules, it counts as cover. But is also counts as squeezing doesn't it? Ascalaphus has it in that the maps should be designed to fit the game. They look better when drawn for style but work better when drawn to play.
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In Dungeons of Golarion, there is a vault with 3 black widow spiders. My sons tripped the release of all three, but surprised me with the idea to step back through the door. As a result, they could took care of these spiders one at a time instead of a full assault. I was pretty impressed as we had only a few playing sessions at this time.Why does it seem like new players always have the best ideas? Veterans never seem to try interesting or clever things. Heck, I can even see a decrease in clever ideas in my own history of transitioning from "new player" to "veteran"! What happened to me?!
:(
Reminds me of the Diablo games.
In the 1st one - you had relatively few powers, making it all about tactical positioning etc. You spent a lot of time running back to doorways etc when you ran into a big group.
In diablo 3 you have so many freakin' powers and crazy abilities that no one ever bothers.
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Proper use of doorways to control the flow of enemies is an important art. Often enough a single enemy manages to bottle up all of the PCs, or a PC positions himself so that he's the only one fighting all the enemies on the other side.
More and more I think the best tactic is to open the door and stand back, let enemies come through one at a time and cut them down. However, that won't work so well if the enemies also have archers, so sometimes you need to force your way in. This is an area where Overrun maneuvers may prove necessary.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
In Dungeons of Golarion, there is a vault with 3 black widow spiders. My sons tripped the release of all three, but surprised me with the idea to step back through the door. As a result, they could took care of these spiders one at a time instead of a full assault. I was pretty impressed as we had only a few playing sessions at this time.
In a recent session, we were fighting in a narrow corridor and our Undine Shaman couldn't get to the action. Instead, she opened a different door to a new room, causing some of the players to groan that she might introduce new combatants, possibly also cutting off our escape route.
Behind the door was a dire rat. I was thinking, "What happens now, does she waste a spell killing this thing?"
Instead, she shut the door. The rest of the players started laughing because we hadn't even considered the possibility of just closing the door. We were so caught up in "must kill everything" mode that it simply didn't occur to us.
I was so amused by the situation that I wrote a song about it. (You can click on the imbedded SoundCloud box to hear the song if you like.)
I think his example was: thin wall separates two rooms, 3.5' door connects the rooms, combatants stand directly on either side of the door.
So more like this:
_E_
#P#Where "E" is the enemy, "P" is the PC, "_" is showing there is a wall, and "#" is an empty space. It isn't shown in the diagram, but the doorway between E and P is narrow, less than 5 ft. wide.
That's the scenario exactly.
Although someone above did raise an interesting point about squeezing. I'm away to scour the rules again. ;p
Ok, as per the rules on squeezing through tight spaces, given the 3.5'-4' of space between the door frame isn't at least half the size of the 5' space it occupies- this area wouldn't have to be squeezed through.
Cheers for the feedback folks. I think I'm just going to have to pay more attention to the map designs in the future and/or clarify before we begin.
In Dungeons of Golarion, there is a vault with 3 black widow spiders. My sons tripped the release of all three, but surprised me with the idea to step back through the door. As a result, they could took care of these spiders one at a time instead of a full assault. I was pretty impressed as we had only a few playing sessions at this time.Why does it seem like new players always have the best ideas? Veterans never seem to try interesting or clever things. Heck, I can even see a decrease in clever ideas in my own history of transitioning from "new player" to "veteran"! What happened to me?!
:(
New players dont know what they can and cant do so they are full of ideas. Once you know the rules your ideas are limited to what the rules allow. I am a victim of knowing the rules also.
Close the door and hold it closed until the BBEG's buffs/summons wear off? Plenty of BBEGs are just sitting in a room in a basement with no other exit, waiting for the PCs to come for them like they got nothing better to do.
Close the door, layer on some walls of stone, then come back a few months later.
I remember reading a rule somewhere that said fighting through a doorway provided cover.
Can't seem to find it now.