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You can use your standard action to make a ranged attack that
provides covering fire for an ally. Make a ranged attack roll
against AC 15. If you hit, you deal no damage but the selected
ally gains a +2 circumstance bonus to AC against the next attack
from a creature in your line of effect (see page 271), so long as
that attack occurs before your next turn.
As a full action, you can use a ranged weapon
with the automatic weapon property to provide covering
fire or harrying fire in a cone with a range equal to half
the weapon’s range increment. You must expend 10 charges
or rounds of ammunition to use this ability. Decide if you
are providing covering fire or harrying fire. Make a single
ranged attack roll with a +4 bonus, and compare it to the AC
of all creatures in the area. Any creature with an AC equal
to or less than your attack roll is affected by the selected
effect. If you select covering fire, choose a single ally that
gains the benefit of the covering fire bonus to its AC.
What does this do? The problem I run into is, "Any creature with an AC equal to or less than your attack roll is affected by the selected
effect.", but Covering Fire does not affect enemy targets, so that doesn't seem to do anything. On the other hand, the final sentence doesn't seem to be predicated on actually hitting anything - does this force you to spend 10 ammo to effectively automatically pass the normal hit requirement on Covering Fire?
I think the confusion comes up in providing regular cover fire. I shoot, beat ac 15, and my ally has a +2 bonus to AC vs the attack of an enemy in my line if effect. It sounds like regular cover fire works better than suppressive fire, I think the OP is missing that it only applies to the next single attack, while suppressive covers all those opponents
The ability reads pretty clearly to me... if you use an automatic weapon to provide covering fire you make a single attack against all targets in a cone with half the range increment of your weapon. You get a +4 bonus on that roll. if you beat the AC of any targets in that cone than your chosen ally gets a +2 AC bonus against those enemies until the start of your next turn.
Where do we diverge in how the ability operates?
We diverge here: "if you beat the AC of any targets in that cone than your chosen ally gets a +2 AC bonus against those enemies until the start of your next turn." I just cited both rules texts; neither has any mention of providing a bonus against multiple attacks, so I do not understand why you think suppressive fire, used for covering fire, protects against enemies past their first attack. Similarly, covering fire explicitly states it expires after the first attack, and suppressive fire does not override this - it overrides what enemies are affected, whatever that means, but does not override the expiration clause in covering fire.
I think the confusion comes up in providing regular cover fire. I shoot, beat ac 15, and my ally has a +2 bonus to AC vs the attack of an enemy in my line if effect. It sounds like regular cover fire works better than suppressive fire, I think the OP is missing that it only applies to the next single attack, while suppressive covers all those opponents
What do you mean? Covering fire, standard, applies to all opponents in Line of Effect. Suppressive Fire could be interpreted to be strictly worse, of course, and fail to provide Covering Fire against opponents too far away for the feat (but within line of effect), but that doesn't sound right to me.
There's also no mention in suppressive fire that covering fire from it removes the clause about it expiring on the first valid attack - suppressive fire explicitly states it "provides covering fire [...] in a cone", so presumably it acts like covering fire except where it says it does not.
I just fundamentally do not understand how suppressive covering fire works.
you have a 10' wide corridor with you and an ally on one end, 5 cyber goblins lining the hallway and a computer terminal at the far end that your ally needs to reach.so if i use a non automatic weapon i make an attack against AC 15 and if i make it than my ally gets a floating +2AC vs the first attack against them from an enemy in my line of effect. The ally will still provoke from the next 4 enemies down the hall and has no bonus to AC vs those enemies.
If i use an automatic weapon i make a roll with a +4 bonus and if that beats the AC of all five targets than my ally gets +2 AC vs the first attack of each one of those five.
Thanks! At least now I have your interpretation to work with, too.
Covering Fire specifies "a +2 circumstance bonus to AC against the next attack from a creature in your line of effect", and Suppressive Fire specifies it changes which enemies are affected. Obviously the feat is intended to do something, even though Covering Fire doesn't actually affect any enemies at all.
I think your interpretation is that Suppressive Fire changes it to, "a +2 circumstance bonus to AC against the next attack from each creature you hit", which sounds equally as valid to me as "a +2 circumstance bonus to AC against the next attack from a creature you hit". Or neither, of course - as I opened the thread with, my interpretation is that covering fire doesn't affect any enemies to begin with, so the feat has strange wording and does not actually do anything.
On what basis do you think it's the first one, as opposed to the second? I get why you're interpreting Suppressive Fire to change "within LOE" to "hit by Suppressive Fire".
Covering fire does affect an enemy: the first opponent in your line of effect that attacks a specific ally has to go up against an AC that is 2 higher. You're not actually changing the enemy's stats or attack bonus, but that is the effect it has on him. There is a specific enemy that is being affected: whoever attacks first.
Suppressive fire changes that to affect every enemy in the cone for which you surpass their AC.
If you want to directly modify the description of covering fire, it would be something like: "the selected ally gains a +2 circumstance bonus to AC against the next attack from a creature in your line of effect every creature that is hit by the suppressive fire".