Aid Another
In melee combat, you can help a friend attack or defend by distracting or interfering with an opponent. If you're in position to make a melee attack on an opponent that is engaging a friend in melee combat, you can attempt to aid your friend as a standard action. You make an attack roll against AC 10. If you succeed, your friend gains either a +2 bonus on his next attack roll against that opponent or a +2 bonus to AC against that opponent's next attack (your choice), as long as that attack comes before the beginning of your next turn. Multiple characters can aid the same friend, and similar bonuses stack.
You can also use this standard action to help a friend in other ways, such as when he is affected by a spell, or to assist another character's skill check.
Questions:
1) Does your ally have to make a melee attack when their turn comes up and they're the recipient of your +2 to hit? Or can they back up a bit, and, say, throw a hatchet at the opponent? Are you the only one who (by RAW) has to be in melee combat for this to work?
2) What if the opponent backs up and blasts your friend with a ranged attack when you're giving your friend a +2 to AC? Do they still get the AC bonus?
3) Is there any official word on what you roll to help someone when they're affected by a spell. In a perfect world, this would be adjudicated by common sense and situational appropriateness, but I was wondering if there was any official errata or something.
4) What's the idea for what's actually happening in the game word as you're giving your buddy the +2 to hit or AC? I always pictured it as "running interference", causing the opponent to divert their full attention from defending against or attacking your ally, respectively. Effectively, it's the same as inflicting on the opponent a -2 AC or -2 to hit your ally, numbers-wise.
5) Why is it limited to melee? This seems needlessly arbitrary and precludes the possibility of "laying down cover/suppressing fire" to the same effect (+2 to hit or +2 AC for your ally). In fact, I just recently found out this "melee only" restriction while perusing the rules. Most groups I've been with have ignored it (or weren't aware of that it existed, because why should it?), and other d20 games (like Star Wars Saga) ignore it as well. Also, by RAW, it skews the combat balance toward melee, since ranged guys can't help each other out like that. I say get rid of it - there's no justifiable reason for the restriction to exist, and it just causes more "rules interpretation" headaches (see "who has to be in melee?" questions above).
Questions:1) Does your ally have to make a melee attack when their turn comes up and they're the recipient of your +2 to hit? Or can they back up a bit, and, say, throw a hatchet at the opponent? Are you the only one who (by RAW) has to be in melee combat for this to work?
RAW only implies melee for you both, so you could probably get away with it. RAI, I don't think so.
2) What if the opponent backs up and blasts your friend with a ranged attack when you're giving your friend a +2 to AC? Do they still get the AC bonus?
Reciprocal of 1. RAW, yes, because it's not specified. RAI ?
3) Is there any official word on what you roll to help someone when they're affected by a spell.[?]
"Official" ? No.
4) What's the idea for what's actually happening in the game word as you're giving your buddy the +2 to hit or AC?
Unspecified, but fluff in any case.
5) Why is it limited to melee?
Not a rules question. Intent of the author cannot be discerned from the limited fluff text available.
I say keep it, because otherwise you can get a large number of ranged attackers who cannot otherwise hurt the opponent all stacking -2s, while melee-ers are limited by the number of people who can stand adjacent (or, with reach weapons, close to adjacent).
Disclaimer: I'm of the (unpopular) opinion that Aid Another is an attack when you make an attack roll (It's listed under the Special Attack heading in the CRB, after all). So grain of salt.
1) You give that specific ally a +2 bonus on that specific target. Ranged, touch, melee, whatever, as long as it's the first attack against that opponent before your next turn. It could be an iterative, the rule says "next attack against that opponent," not next attack. I would expect table variance on Combat Maneuvers (I'm fairly sure RAW is no, but I'd like to believe RAI is yes)
2) You've already given your ally a +2 AC "against that opponents next attack." I would posit that if the next attack is a touch attack, your ally gets +2 to their touch AC. The argument could also be made that the rule says "+2 to AC," which is different than "+2 to touch AC,"
and they are therefore out of luck. Expect table variance. Either way, they still get the bonus against ranged attacks.
3) Not that I've seen. I don't know how the action economy of that would work. I think you could spend a standard action to give someone a +2 on a saving throw they make during their turn to save against a spell effect, but the rules don't expressly say
4) Aid Another itself doesn't have simulation text. The Bodyguard feat, which lets you use Aid Another as an AoO/Immediate Reaction that costs an AoO (YMMV), mentions your swift strikes warding off attacks.
5) I'm not touching this one because it's too close to the "Does Bodyguard trigger Paired Opportunist?" thread for me.
1. The rule specifies melee more than once. I would assume it means exactly that. I also wouldn't have any problems with a house rule that backing up to use a ranged attack still receives the benefit of Aid Another that was used while you were in melee combat.
2. Ditto.
3. Every spell is different. The Sleep spell tells you exactly how an ally can help a friend who was affected by Sleep. Other spells not so much. Aid Another certainly doesn't help against most of them, though it does add AC which helps against touch attacks.
4. Agreed. You interfere with the opponent's ability to defend himself or to make an attack by bumping him off balance or distracting him a little bit or simply getting in the way of his other opponent - the exact word-fluff description might be different each time you do it, but this would likely be the gist of Aid Another.
5. I would not think it's as easy to help your buddy shoot someone far away (not even with suppressing fire) unless you yourself could physically interact with the enemy (e.g. being in melee range yourself). It might make more sense to aid your buddy's AC by distracting a distant shooter (perhaps with suppressing fire) but even that is dubious. Besides, "suppressing fire" is a relatively modern concept requiring weapons capable of firing many rounds per second - until you get rates of fire into the several dozen shots per round you aren't likely to lay down enough suppressing fire to make any difference with aiding another.
Thanks for the help, y'all. :)
5. I would not think it's as easy to help your buddy shoot someone far away (not even with suppressing fire) unless you yourself could physically interact with the enemy (e.g. being in melee range yourself). It might make more sense to aid your buddy's AC by distracting a distant shooter (perhaps with suppressing fire) but even that is dubious.
Well, we could limit it to "within 30'" as we see that text on a lot of other ranged abilities.
Besides, "suppressing fire" is a relatively modern concept requiring weapons capable of firing many rounds per second - until you get rates of fire into the several dozen shots per round you aren't likely to lay down enough suppressing fire to make any difference with aiding another.
I don't mean like whipping out an Alkenstarian minigun. That's for things like multiple opponents, for which Aid Another wasn't designed for anyway. But allow me to demonstrate how it would work in my headcanon:
Aid Another, Melee (RAW)
+2 to hit:
In game: "I swing my sword toward the hobgoblin, diverting his full attention from bringing his defenses to bear against my buddy's attack. The hobgoblin sees my attack coming, and even though it doesn't hit, that momentarily distracts him enough (gets him to second-guess the positioning of his shield, etc) to give my buddy an edge in getting past the hobgoblin's defenses."
Game Mechanics: Effectively same as inflicting a -2 AC on the hobgoblin against my buddy's attack.
+2 to AC:
In game: "I swing my sword toward the hobgoblin, diverting his full attention from attacking my buddy. The hobgoblin sees my attack coming, and even though it doesn't hit, that momentarily distracts him enough (gets him to second-guess his stance, sword-swing, etc)to give my buddy an edge in not getting hit."
Game Mechanics: Effectively same as inflicting a -2 to hit on the hobgoblin against my buddy.
Aid Another, Ranged (proposed)
+2 to hit:
In game: "I fire an arrow/blast spell toward the hobgoblin, diverting his full attention from bringing his defenses to bear against my buddy's attack. The hobgoblin sees my attack coming, and even though it doesn't hit, that momentarily distracts him enough (gets him to second-guess the positioning of his shield, etc) to give my buddy an edge in getting past the hobgoblin's defenses."
Game Mechanics: Effectively same as inflicting a -2 AC on the hobgoblin against my buddy's attack.
+2 to AC:
In game: "I fire an arrow/blast spell toward the hobgoblin, diverting his full attention from attacking my buddy. The hobgoblin sees my attack coming, and even though it doesn't hit, that momentarily distracts him enough (gets him to second-guess his stance, sword-swing, etc)to give my buddy an edge in not getting hit."
Game Mechanics: Effectively same as inflicting a -2 to hit on the hobgoblin against my buddy.
So in conclusion, I don't see why it wouldn't/shouldn't work like that in close-range combat (withing 30').
Imagine if you're trying to fire a bow at Bob, who is 20' away. Bob's faithful friend is standing 10' away from you, chucking a rock in your general direction every 6 seconds. Now rock-chuck Ricky may not have a machine gun, but wouldn't you say that it would be slightly distracting to your aim or your own defensive stance/dodging against Bob's counter-attack?
P.S. I realize this is the rules question thread, so I'll likely take this "radical" proposition over the house-rules section, but I hope to see ranged Aid Another made official like it is in other d20 games.
Regarding question 2, James Jacobs says the Bodyguard feat works against ranged attacks. However, Bodyguard requires that your ally be adjacent to you, which takes the place of the "must be threatening the target in melee" requirement of regular Aid Another.