Gulch Gunner Questions

[Tyinyk]

I'm making a gulch gunner, and I had two questions.

The first: Do I take the -4 penalty to shooting into melee combat if I'm shooting an adjacent enemy?
I feel like I shouldn't, but it's not always intuitive.

The second: With the deft shootist deed, can I choose to provoke an attack of opportunity while firing in melee, since that's one of my ways to regain grit? And if not, is there a way to avoid AoOs when reloading, but not shooting?

[Tyinyk]

It's been a day, so I'm gonna bump this up as opposed to making a new thread with the same questions.

[Zwordsman]

I believe you always take the "shooting into melee" penalty. It does represent not shooting your ally, but I think it also represents the other person's movements too..
though, I could be easily convienced otherwise, if its just you and not you and another person..
but RAW wise.

"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.)"
and in pathfinder you count as your own ally.. so I think you count as your own friendly character and your being threatened at that point. though if they had a reach weapon i guess you could get in closer.

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You can't chose I guess it doesn't have selective language unlike most other feats.

Uh. I thought that there was a feat specifically for reloading without provoking. I don't know it off hand though. go to the PRD and go to ultimate combat, adv classes, and whatever else came out after Ultimate Combat and "ctrl f" to look for reload. and read em all. if nothing then go to older books