Seems fine to me, but I couldn't find it in the rules (which doesn't matter to me).
If they both threatened the same creature, yes.
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So, flanking?
I thought there was even a feat that allowed characters to be considered flanking as long as they were both adjacent to the enemy.
Flanking in melee, Harrying/Covering Fire in ranged.
Aid Another only on skill checks - not even in ability checks they can be used.
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I also would not allow it.
Here is the rule.
Aid Another
The GM might rule that you can help someone succeed at a skill
check by performing the same action and attempting a skill
check as part of a cooperative effort. To do so, you must attempt
your skill check before the creature you want to help, and if
you succeed at a DC 10 check, that creature gains a +2 bonus
to his check, as long as he attempts the check before the end
of his next turn. At the GM’s discretion, only a limited number
of creatures might be able to aid another. You cannot take 10 or
take 20 on an aid another check, but you can use aid another to
help a creature who is taking 10 or 20 on a check.
As stated above there are other specific actions to assist others in combat.
In 3.5 and Pathfinder you were expressly allowed to aid another with attack rolls.
In Starfinder those rules appear to have been replaced with Harrying Fire, which doesn't help melee characters.
I'd be inclined to allow characters to aid each other with melee attacks, but mimic the rules from Harrying Fire.
Harrying fire in fact helps the next character to attack the harried enemy, regardless if said character is using a ranged or melee attack.
Fair point!
I was looking more to see if there's a way a character with a melee weapon can aid another. I don't know if the absence of that rule is intentional, or an oversight as the system was refined.
Harrying fire in fact helps the next character to attack the harried enemy, regardless if said character is using a ranged or melee attack.Fair point!
I was looking more to see if there's a way a character with a melee weapon can aid another. I don't know if the absence of that rule is intentional, or an oversight as the system was refined.
As others have mentioned, the rule you are looking for is called Flanking. There are various other powers that help with aiding melee. I seem to recall that the Menacing fusion lets you effectively flank anyone you hit in melee.
In 3.5 and Pathfinder you were expressly allowed to aid another with attack rolls.
In Starfinder those rules appear to have been replaced with Harrying Fire, which doesn't help melee characters.
I'd be inclined to allow characters to aid each other with melee attacks, but mimic the rules from Harrying Fire.
Yeah me too, I was curious if anyone had a good reason for why they included it for missile weapons but not melee.
Seems unnecessarily restrictive to make someone spend a hundred credits or so on a level one gun and step back if they want to help out their friend’s attack.
Harrying fire in fact helps the next character to attack the harried enemy, regardless if said character is using a ranged or melee attack.Fair point!
I was looking more to see if there's a way a character with a melee weapon can aid another. I don't know if the absence of that rule is intentional, or an oversight as the system was refined.
I was wondering the same - I wondered mainly if there was a feat or obscure class feature that granted the ability to aid another when armed with melee weapons.
To be clear - I know it’s not allowed, I was curious if allowing it would break anything.
Trading your attack for the ability to help an ally is not the same as flanking (which is about positioning).
In pathfinder, you can aid an ally’s attack that you are providing a flanking bonus to, I was curious if anyone had a reason for why they didn’t allow it in starfinder (since losing your attack to grant a +2 doesn’t seem like an unreasonably generous thing to me, on the face of it).
As others have mentioned, the rule you are looking for is called Flanking. There are various other powers that help with aiding melee. I seem to recall that the Menacing fusion lets you effectively flank anyone you hit in melee.Harrying fire in fact helps the next character to attack the harried enemy, regardless if said character is using a ranged or melee attack.Fair point!
I was looking more to see if there's a way a character with a melee weapon can aid another. I don't know if the absence of that rule is intentional, or an oversight as the system was refined.
Flanking is different than aiding another. It's about positioning, not about using an action to aid an attack.
Indeed, in my Pathfinder 1E games, against particularly armored opponents characters often work to both flank AND aid attacks.
Flanking is different than aiding another. It's about positioning, not about using an action to aid an attack.
You want to add 2 to your friend's melee attack in Starfinder? Because flanking is how you add 2 to a friend's melee attack in Starfinder.
Bonus stacking isn't nearly what it was in older d20 editions.
To be clear - I know it’s not allowed, I was curious if allowing it would break anything.
As a houserule? No, I don't think that would be unbalanced. A parallel action to Harrying Fire that could be done with a melee weapon would be fine.
Benefits over flanking: Any character could do it - no feat or the like required. You can do it from any position (you don't have to move to get into a flanking spot).
Drawbacks in comparison: It takes the character's standard action. It only applies to the next attack against the target.
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Also a houserule. But something to consider in place would be a feat like PF1 Gang Up. A feat that allows you to get flanking bonus even when you are not actually in a flanking position.
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Aid Another in melee is called the grapple combat maneuver.
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Flanking is different than aiding another. It's about positioning, not about using an action to aid an attack.
You want to add 2 to your friend's melee attack in Starfinder? Because flanking is how you add 2 to a friend's melee attack in Starfinder.
Bonus stacking isn't nearly what it was in older d20 editions.
I follow what you're saying. Here's where I am coming from: Flanking's been part of the d20 rule set since it was invented with D&D 3.0. Aid Another has been part of the same rule set up until Starfinder.
I'm willing to agree that there's a design reason why aiding another using a melee weapon isn't a part of the Starfinder game. That design reason isn't spelled out. I don't see a clear reason why Harrying Fire exists, but a melee equivalent doesn't.
Saying "Flanking is meant to replace aid another" doesn't make sense from a historical perspective, because both have existed along side each other until Starfinder. Saying "Starfinder got rid of melee aid another because it redid the math so that flanking subsumed the aid another action" makes sense, but I don't see a clear design reason for it. Put another way: Can you point me to something that says "we rolled flanking and melee aid another into just flanking?"
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The name harrying fire was cooler so they went with it, then realized it excluded melee and said.. eh what the heck whos going to do that.
To be clear - I know it’s not allowed, I was curious if allowing it would break anything.As a houserule? No, I don't think that would be unbalanced. A parallel action to Harrying Fire that could be done with a melee weapon would be fine.
Benefits over flanking: Any character could do it - no feat or the like required. You can do it from any position (you don't have to move to get into a flanking spot).
Drawbacks in comparison: It takes the character's standard action. It only applies to the next attack against the target.
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Also a houserule. But something to consider in place would be a feat like PF1 Gang Up. A feat that allows you to get flanking bonus even when you are not actually in a flanking position.
Cheers.
Yeah as a houserule - the cost of a standard action seems steep enough to stop any shenanigans, but I wondered if I was missing something.
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I follow what you're saying. Here's where I am coming from: Flanking's been part of the d20 rule set since it was invented with D&D 3.0. Aid Another has been part of the same rule set up until Starfinder.
I'm willing to agree that there's a design reason why aiding another using a melee weapon isn't a part of the Starfinder game. That design reason isn't spelled out. I don't see a clear reason why Harrying Fire exists, but a melee equivalent doesn't.
Saying "Flanking is meant to replace aid another" doesn't make sense from a historical perspective, because both have existed along side each other until Starfinder. Saying "Starfinder got rid of melee aid another because it redid the math so that flanking subsumed the aid another action" makes sense, but I don't see a clear design reason for it. Put another way: Can you point me to something that says "we rolled flanking and melee aid another into just flanking?"
Doing something because it's "always been that way" is a poor reason in and of itself. Paizo took a long look at the d20 system sacred cows, and sacrificed a lotbof them that no longer made sense. PF1 was a ridiculous bonus-stacking fest, with multiple bonuses filling the same conceptual game space, like flanking and melee aid another. So they got rid of it. Harrying Fire doesn't cconflict with anything else (you can't flank a ranged attack), so it works in the design space.
Doing something because it's "always been that way" is a poor reason in and of itself. Paizo took a long look at the d20 system sacred cows, and sacrificed a lotbof them that no longer made sense. PF1 was a ridiculous bonus-stacking fest, with multiple bonuses filling the same conceptual game space, like flanking and melee aid another. So they got rid of it. Harrying Fire doesn't cconflict with anything else (you can't flank a ranged attack), so it works in the design space.
The thing is it can be hard to tell when something got removed as a sacred cow because they wanted hamburgers, or that there was a copy paste error, the editor needed to make room for a picture on a page, they changed something somewhere else and that changes something over here...
edit: also should have labled my post above about harrying fire being the cooler name headcannon
FWIW, I’m not suggesting this was an omission nor that it would have been better if they’d included it.
I have a player in the current campaign who uses harrying fire a lot and likes the image of him wading into melee to help. I’m generally inclined to allow things if players have an image they’re trying to portray - I wanted to check if there was something out there I hadn’t thought of.
I think it’s a pretty suboptimal strategy anyhow, so I’m not worried about overpowering. I was mostly concerned that there was a way to do it currently and I might be unintentionally invalidating some other option.
I have a player in the current campaign who uses harrying fire a lot and likes the image of him wading into melee to help. I’m generally inclined to allow things if players have an image they’re trying to portray - I wanted to check if there was something out there I hadn’t thought of.I think it’s a pretty suboptimal strategy anyhow, so I’m not worried about overpowering. I was mostly concerned that there was a way to do it currently and I might be unintentionally invalidating some other option.
I think the solution for your game would be to add the action "Harrying Melee" Treat it just like Harrying Fire except that you must be adjacent to the foe and armed with a lethal melee weapon.
I think that would work just fine.
Cheers. Thats pretty much the plan (I figured I'd use DC 15).
It's something to do, when the enemy has DR and energy resistance/immunity to all your weapons...