[Pedantic] Shooting arrows through walls

[hyphz]

On page 196: "You usually need an unblocked path to the target of a spell, the origin point of an area, or the place where you create something with a spell."

On page 298: "You usually need an unblocked path to the target of a spell, the origin point of an area, or the place where you create something with a spell or other ability."

On page 314: "When you are behind a wall or some other hard surface that could potentially block weapons and other effects, you are behind cover. If you are behind cover you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to your AC.."

There is also a diagram on page 314 where it states explicitly that "Kyra can see the ogre, but it has cover from her" even though it appears to be on the other side of a house from her. It also says it's "screened from her ranged attacks" when you would think normally it would be impossible for her to make a ranged attack.

So if you read RAW pedantically, since the line of effect rules don't say they apply to ranged attacks, and line of sight apparently can be traced through solid objects, you can shoot arrows through walls.

Obviously this is not what was intended, but it's probably a wording correction to consider.

[Shinigami02]

Well for one thing, Cover or no, at least part of the creature is still exposed since (as the example itself states) she can still see it. Not a lot of it is exposed (hence the Cover bonus) but some of it still is or she wouldn't be able to see it. This is very much a GM ruling thing (the book doesn't even give any indication for how you know you can See a creature, just that the GM decides.)

As an extra note though, even if Kyra couldn't actually see it, but could sense it through Seeking (likely by hearing the combat happening) in that exact scenario she still has a valid way of attacking it without having to shoot through walls: They are (or at least appear to be) outside, and gravity exists, so a ranged attack (maybe not a magical one, but any projectile) could be arced over the structure. In that case there would be a miss chance too, but it's still possible without breaking physics. As I said, it probably wouldn't work with laser-like magical attacks, and definitely wouldn't work indoors, but in that exact situation, if I was GMing I'd say go for it.

[breithauptclan]

OK. From the diagram on page 314:

Ogre has cover from Kyra because the line from center to center goes through a solid object.

Ogre is screened from Kyra because the line from best corner of Kyra to center of Ogre goes through solid object.

Ogre is still seen and can be attacked by Kyra because line from best corner of Kyra to best corner of Ogre is clear (top right corner of Kyra to top right corner of Ogre).

At least, that is how I read it.

[Shinigami02]

breithauptclan wrote:

Ogre is still seen and can be attacked by Kyra because line from best corner of Kyra to best corner of Ogre is clear (top right corner of Kyra to top right corner of Ogre).

This is a logical way to calculate, and is probably how I would do it if I was GMing, but technically is not a rule.