Red Griffyn |
Now that the good ranged weapons (looking at you crossbows) don't take penalties for shooting from prone and we expect combats to have more ranged enemies (instead of one archer and five melee bad guys) I think an effective new strategy will be to execute 'The Magikarp' (i.e., floppy fish) combat tactic. The maneuver goes like this:
1. Move Action: Move into Line of Sight (Bonus points if it is behind low cover, like an overturned table).
2. Standard Action: Take your ranged attack (Bonus points if you hit).
3. Swift Action: Go prone. This gives you a +4AC against ranged or if you got behind low cover you should have complete cover and force the enemy to maneuver to even hit you.
You can keep doing this, in various Move/Standard/Swift action order of operations by continually jumping up and down behind cover or at least giving yourself a +4 AC against enemy ranged attacks. As well, now that we can downgrade a standard to a move/swift and a move to a swift action. A Ysoki with the racial Moxie ability or anyone with the feat Kip-up can use a swift action to stand up, shoot, and move behind a different piece of cover to really take away enemy action economy/Line of Sight.
The Pros: Full attacking has been nerfed and this tactic gives you an AC boost (+4 while prone vs. ranged or total cover) without really changing the action economy of the game that many people will use given the high KAC/EAC values. The tactic forces the opponent to close the distance to you instead of vice versa. Helps push the attacks towards visible tanks in the group who want to pull agro. I don't see, by RAW, anything that would reduce your reflex save so grenades and the like won't be any more effective than usual.
The Cons: Melee will ruin your day so if there are a lot of brutes on the field, don't do it. Also, nothing stops the GM from using this against you.
Ithnaar |
Taking cover is almost always a good tactic in ranged combat, but just like many other sci-fi games, there's an easy way to fight against that tactic : Grenades (and other Exploding weapons).
Frag to kill, Incendiary to make them move and Smoke if you want to close for melee and keep them from shooting you to pieces while you do.
Aratrok |
Taking cover is almost always a good tactic in ranged combat, but just like many other sci-fi games, there's an easy way to fight against that tactic : Grenades (and other Exploding weapons).
Frag to kill, Incendiary to make them move and Smoke if you want to close for melee and keep them from shooting you to pieces while you do.
Grenades detonate on impact. Going prone doesn't make you any more vulnerable to them- a prone target and a standing target have to make identical reflex saves.
Ithnaar |
Grenades detonate on impact. Going prone doesn't make you any more vulnerable to them- a prone target and a standing target have to make identical reflex saves.
True enough. What I was getting at, though, was that grenades do not target the actual enemy, just a map vertex, so they can nullify any advantage of cover, concealment or being prone, so long as you plop that grenade *behind* the barrier. Like you said, it doesn't matter if the target is prone for a grenade, but it sure does for a pistol (from a ways away).
Heck, you can be prone, have Total Cover and Total Concealment, rendering you immune to standard weapons fire, but none of that means a thing when a grenade sails over that barricade, lands in your lap and you have to make a saving throw.
EarthSheep |
Can't the enemies just ready attack actions that trigger when you attack? EDIT: Now that I'm thinking about it, I think the way you implement this tactic is always stay on your feet during your turn, and then at the end of your turn ready a "Go Prone" action that triggers whenever your opponents shoot at you.
Shinigami02 |
I mean unless I'm mistaken Cover and Concealment are still going to apply to attack rolls against an intersection (though Prone won't). So if they're aiming for your lap, and that concealment miss chance screws them up because they can't see your lap, the grenade might just land in a place on the other side of the cover from you, in which case the blast will go over your head leaving you just fine. Of course it could land right beside you (instead of in your lap) in which case you're no better off, but that's a risk that would happen anyways.
Wikrin |
Park a hover drone up a tree where melee folks can't reach, have it go prone and start sniping. Doesn't work in space stations, though.
I've been working under the assumption that I'm going to be doing something similar to this. I got Barricade, but I might wind up switching that out. I really dislike how it is "partial cover," rather than giving any dimensions. Something that's partial cover on the Vesk in the party really should be at least regular cover on a Gnome. Partial cover should be regular cover if I kneel. Stuff like that. :/ Normally that would be GM discretion, but with Barricade, even if you're lying prone behind it, it's still partial cover. Doesn't really make sense. That's like if you ducked behind a crate for cover and the crate was suddenly only half as tall.