Firing from Cover

[Mark Hoover 330]

A kobold warrior 1 with a sling is behind a 3' wide column, facing an advancing rogue. Both sides are aware of one another; the kobold is not trying to use the Sniping rules, he's just trying to make a ranged attack while not losing their cover for the round.

If the kobold doesn't move the rogue gets cover, I get that. However, it takes a Move action to load a sling. This means that the kobold can only 5' step for it's movement for the round.

Does this mean that the kobold needs to take a 5' step out of cover, make their ranged attack, then wait until next round to move back into cover? In other words, outside of Sniping, is there a way to fire a ranged attack where you keep your own benefits of cover while denying your enemy cover?

I'm thinking of all those action movies I've watched over the years where a hero presses themselves into a corner or behind a pillar, pops out and fires their weapon for an accurate shot while their enemies bullets bounce off the obstacle they're using. As far as I can tell from RAW there's no "lean out of cover, take a shot and return to cover" rules unless you're using the Sniping rules, and in the case I'm citing there are no Stealth checks happening.

[Valandil Ancalime]

"Partial Cover: If a creature has cover, but more than half the creature is visible, its cover bonus is reduced to a +2 to AC and a +1 bonus on Reflex saving throws. This partial cover is subject to the GM’s discretion."

IMO, I would allow the kolbold to retain partial cover as he leans out and attacks(without the pillar giving the rogue cover) on round 1, then on round 2 attack and move back to cover. That's how I would play the situation.

[Diego Rossi]

Cover isn't Total Cover.

Quote]o determine whether your target has cover from your ranged attack, choose a corner of your square. If any line from this corner to any corner of the target’s square passes through a square or border that blocks line of effect or provides cover, or through a square occupied by a creature, the target has cover (+4 to AC).
....
Total Cover: If you don’t have line of effect to your target (that is, you cannot draw any line from your square to your target’s square without crossing a solid barrier), he is considered to have total cover from you. You can’t make an attack against a target that has total cover.

Your kobold can stay half-hidden behind the column and get the +4 to AC from cover.

If he wants he can benefit from Total Cover half of the time.
Starting from Total Cover he can load the sling, move so that he can fire while benefitting from Cover and fire the sling, next round he loads, fires the sling and the move behind Total Cover.

[VoodistMonk]

It's PF1... there's a feat for that!!! In this case, it's SIX feats, and your Kobold has to be a Halfling. Lol.

But for the small price of Ammo Drop, Juggle Load, Point Blank Shot, Dodge, Mobility, and Shot on the Run... you can step out, fire your sling, and step back into cover.

[PFRPGrognard]

This is a complete misreading of cover rules.

[Diego Rossi]

PFRPGrognard wrote:

This is a complete misreading of cover rules.

Care to explain what of the above comment is a misreading of the cover rules?

A column is a vertical obstacle, generally they don't occupy the whole 5' square and to fire a sling you need only a hand, so hiding more than 50% of your body behind hard cover is feasible.

[Mark Hoover 330]

PFRPGrognard wrote:

This is a complete misreading of cover rules.

Please explain. From my reading of the rules on Cover, if you have cover from an enemy's attack, said enemy has cover from your attack unless you give up your cover. In my example sure, the kobold can step out from the cover to make their attack with a 5' step and therefore the column won't be between it and the rogue, so the rogue gets no Cover bonuses from the kobold's attack, but then the kobold is exposed with no cover for itself until next round when it can move back behind the column, right?

[LordKailas]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

PFRPGrognard wrote:

This is a complete misreading of cover rules.

Please explain. From my reading of the rules on Cover, if you have cover from an enemy's attack, said enemy has cover from your attack unless you give up your cover. In my example sure, the kobold can step out from the cover to make their attack with a 5' step and therefore the column won't be between it and the rogue, so the rogue gets no Cover bonuses from the kobold's attack, but then the kobold is exposed with no cover for itself until next round when it can move back behind the column, right?

It is possible to benefit from cover without granting cover to your enemy. Either by making use of a low obstacle or improved cover (eg. an arrowslit). However, the situation described does not seem to fall into either of these categories.

for completeness the low obstacle rules state

Low Obstacles and Cover wrote:

A low obstacle (such as a wall no higher than half your height) provides cover, but only to creatures within 30 feet (6 squares) of it. The attacker can ignore the cover if he’s closer to the obstacle than his target.

So, if instead of being a full column it was just a broken stub of a column the kobold could stand behind it and attack without having to move, gaining the benefits of cover w/o any penalty.

[Diego Rossi]

Sigh.

Quote:

To determine whether your target has cover from your ranged attack, choose a corner of your square. If any line from this corner to any corner of the target’s square passes through a square or border that blocks line of effect or provides cover, or through a square occupied by a creature, the target has cover (+4 to AC).

To determine if a target has cover you trace a line from the firing guy to the target guy.

Steps:
1) "choose a corner of your square". Any corner can do.

2) "If any line from this corner to any corner of the target’s square passes through a square or border that blocks line of effect or provides cover, or through a square occupied by a creature, the target has cover".

So if you have a target ahead and to the right of your position and a column that doesn't occupy the whole square ahead of you, you can trace a line from your right forward corner to all corner of the target square without "passing through a square that blocks line of effect", and without "passing through a border that blocks line of effect".
The only possible exception is that your line passes through the target creature square to reach the rear-left corner, but badly written text notwithstanding, I refuse to let a creature provide cover to itself.

When doing the opposite the creature in the open has to trace a line to all of your square corners and, depending on its position, it is probable that some of them will be blocked, providing you with cover or partial cover.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Diego Rossi: THANK you for clarifying the fact that, if the column doesn't fill the whole square the kobold can trace a line and thus keep its own cover while the rogue does NOT have cover! I now understand better where it is important that Light Forest specifically calls out that there are trees that do NOT fill a whole square while Heavy Forest features trees that occupy one or multiple squares for the purposes of Cover.

Also, I apologize for being so dense! I've only been playing this game for 10 years and doing the cover rules wrong with regards to ranged attacks this whole time, no biggie... :0

[Diego Rossi]

The question was fully motivated, I did the same for other stuff and was corrected by posters on the forum.
The "Sigh" was about people arguing that you can't receive cover by a vertical object without giving cover to the target. And honestly, it was a bit heavy-handed as a reply. LordKailas made a good argument.