Cover Fire is a terrible feat

[Skabb]

Activating Cover Fire just make your attack worse. Instead of doing a normal attack, you instead give the enemy the choice of either a normal attack or an attack that is twice less as likely to hit or crit as its next attacks chance to do the same get reduced... theoretically the enemy should always choose the better option (unless you have an overly benevolent GM, or flavor really dictates the worse option), so if you are using it because you want them to take cover, they would instead just take the attack. In other games this is called a "punisher mechanic" and is almost always considered bad, unless the choices to choose from are both generally worse than what you could be doing that doesn't give the enemy an option.

To fix it, the options need to both be a little better than just a regular attack. My suggestion is two fold, the enemy needs to take a reaction to take cover, and if they don't take cover, your shots ignore their cover for the strike. I think it remains flavorful, and while both options seem powerful on their own, in practice, the ability for the enemy to choose which they do takes it down quite a notch.

[Dubious Scholar]

Agreed, allowing the enemy to choose "nothing happens" is a problem with it. Even then, I'm a bit iffy on it.

The level 1 feats are somewhat underwhelming as a whole.

[Ruzza]

When I first read it, I had assumed that the enemy could make the choice to fall prone and gain the benefits of Take Cover, which would grant them the +4 AC against your attack and also tie up their action economy on their turn. But then it just turned out to be... meh?

[RexAliquid]

Against lvl-1 or lvl-2 foes that you can reliably crit, you can make give them the choice of dying or being largely incapable of hitting your allies.

[Djinn71]

RexAliquid wrote:

Against lvl-1 or lvl-2 foes that you can reliably crit, you can make give them the choice of dying or being largely incapable of hitting your allies.

...Why give them the choice? Just kill them.

[Cellion]

Just to echo OP and present things in a slightly different way: Cover Fire is like the PF1 Powerful Sneak of 2E. It offers the illusion of a benefit.

The easiest way to see how much of a trap it is is to envision yourself as the target. You're behind cover and an enemy gunslinger uses Cover Fire. You have a choice:
A) You can let it count as a regular Strike
B) You can take a -2 penalty on ranged attacks next round to get a +2 AC against the Cover Fire Strike.

If you're not planning on making ranged attacks next round, B is a no brainer. Free AC! Otherwise, you just let A happen. After all, the enemy could have just made a Strike against you instead of using Cover Fire. The choice is in your hands so you pick the option most advantageous to yourself.

Cover Fire therefore can never be stronger than making a Strike. The opponent will only pick option B if they're getting a benefit out of it (or if they think they're getting a benefit out of it).

[Laki7z]

It is bad, should be atleast as the fighter's aggressive block where both options are bad for the opponent. I'd prefer if it acted against will dc somehow to make a foe stunned 1, immobolized or just pure prone as a fear effect.

Level 1 feats are currently quite boring and this is one that have a good potentional to be useful to avoid the autotake firearm ace

[Alchemic_Genius]

Imo, covering fire could have been a chance to do something really cool with the Ready action. Make it so that if you ready a strike to shoot at someone who fires at or approaches a certain location, person, or group of people, you not only get the strike, but also interfere with their action in some fashion

[Djinn71]

Alchemic_Genius wrote:

Imo, covering fire could have been a chance to do something really cool with the Ready action. Make it so that if you ready a strike to shoot at someone who fires at or approaches a certain location, person, or group of people, you not only get the strike, but also interfere with their action in some fashion

Honestly, an action that sets you up to be able to be able to do a more limited AoO at range (first range increment) against a chosen target would be very cool. Just drop the movement trigger from AoO (leaving the manipulate and ranged attack triggers) and I think the range advantage (the problem with AoOs with ranged weapons) would be balanced out by choosing one target and needing to spend an action to prepare.

Also getting that Crit on a caster and shooting them in the hand as they cast a spell is a great image.

[glue2]

Agreed. The only thing the feat does is expand your target's options in response to a completely normal Strike. The strike needs to be differentiated somehow.

I also really like the idea of reworking the feat entirely as a buffed ready action or attack of opportunity variant.

[Alchemic_Genius]

Djinn71 wrote:

Honestly, an action that sets you up to be able to be able to do a more limited AoO at range (first range increment) against a chosen target would be very cool. Just drop the movement trigger from AoO (leaving the manipulate and ranged attack triggers) and I think the range advantage (the problem with AoOs with ranged weapons) would be balanced out by choosing one target and needing to spend an action to prepare.

Also getting that Crit on a caster and shooting them in the hand as they cast a spell is a great image.

Oh, thats a really good idea. Imo if we do it this way, the triggers for covering fire should be moving, striking, or casting, since irl the point of suppression fire is to halt attacks and offensive advancement

[Physicskid42]

I agree, the best role for a sniper both in real life and in games is part of unit, they should get lots of support skills

[Arachnofiend]

Y'all remember Overwatch Style from PF1? That's definitely something I'd like Snipers to be able to do out the gate in PF2. Would be a good use for the text space getting wasted on Cover Fire...

[Djinn71]

Alchemic_Genius wrote:

Djinn71 wrote:

Honestly, an action that sets you up to be able to be able to do a more limited AoO at range (first range increment) against a chosen target would be very cool. Just drop the movement trigger from AoO (leaving the manipulate and ranged attack triggers) and I think the range advantage (the problem with AoOs with ranged weapons) would be balanced out by choosing one target and needing to spend an action to prepare.

Also getting that Crit on a caster and shooting them in the hand as they cast a spell is a great image.

Oh, thats a really good idea. Imo if we do it this way, the triggers for covering fire should be moving, striking, or casting, since irl the point of suppression fire is to halt attacks and offensive advancement

I think you'd need to keep it at Ranged Strikes rather than Strikes in general, otherwise you're getting another shot at full attack bonus on any turn where your target acts (because moving, striking, and casting is pretty much everything an enemy will do).

I think it is necessary to leave the option for an opponent to strike in melee without getting shot, same as melee AoOs. I was only wary of including movement in the triggers because your target wouldn't really have the option to step to avoid the AoO like they do in melee, though I suppose they could step out of your range increment (or maybe into cover) given the short range of a few of them. I think you're right though, it would probably be fine to include movement triggers.

[Alchemic_Genius]

Oh shoot, I forgot to put in the ranged part of ranged strike.

Covering fire vs a melee foe absolutely should happen in the "approaching my ally" stage, and not in the actually swinging at my ally stage.

Movement absolutely should be an included trigger though. Like I said, covering fire as a military tactic is *specifically* to previf we look at trench warfare, you got shot by the machine guns when running in No Man's Land between the trenches. Making it so that you're all good just because you dont shoot is kinda silly

I still feel we need something in there to also account for wizards who might decide to lob a fireball and the like. It's not a ranged strike, but it is something that a sniper should be able to punish

[Tamdrik]

Skabb wrote:

Activating Cover Fire just make your attack worse.

To fix it, the options need to both be a little better than just a regular attack. My suggestion is two fold, the enemy needs to take a reaction to take cover, and if they don't take cover, your shots ignore their cover for the strike. I think it remains flavorful, and while both options seem powerful on their own, in practice, the ability for the enemy to choose which they do takes it down quite a notch.

I completely agree, and I think that's one reasonable fix. The overwatch option others have suggested would also work, though it could be a separate mechanic. Another fix could be to force a Will save on the target to resist cowering behind cover, taking a penalty to attacks next round on a failure and gaining a condition on a crit failure (maybe frightened 1 or stunned 1).

[Loreguard]

A readied action costing one action (and eventually the reaction) that can be triggered by the target making a ranged strike or moving makes sense to me. (allowing it to be an attack without map, but only if the target prompts it)

Alternately, I admit that I felt like Cover Fire was worthless. I thought about it and had to admit that it had a miniscule ability to trick someone into doing something bad for them. But was hard to really use effectively. It almost seems like not dodging should give the user of the feat (who invested to get the feat) some sort of advantage, even if it is minor, such as a +1 to hit or a +1 static damage(potentially precision). It could be flavored that you threaten extra leaving your attack pointed longer than usual (prompting their opportunity to duck) but the extra lingering allows them to aim a moment longer getting the extra circumstance to hit or damage bonus.

The fact that the opponent's choice is [treat it as a normal incoming attack, or get a benefit for a possible cost] seems more like a feat choice for the defender, not the attacker.

Doing something like forcing a will check, which failure forces you to duck might be another potential option, to make it seem more like an actual attacker's investment. [allowing them to of course intentionally choose to duck as well of course]

[Gizmo the Enemy of Mankind]

I've been waiting for a covering fire mechanic, so I'm excited to finally see it as an option, but I definitely agree that the feat doesn't work as it is currently presented.

My biggest issue is actually with how circumstantial the feat is; it requires the enemy to be both attacking at range and benefitting from cover. This happens far too infrequently in the games I play; it came up only once as I playtested the gunslinger through a dungeon recently, and the affected goblin was killed by an ally before the attack penalty could even play out.

I've tinkered with a homebrew adaptation that I'm hoping can rehabilitate this feat because I very much want this to stay in the game, I just want it to closer simulate how cover fire works and to allow it to be used in any encounter. Covering fire, as a tactic, should provide some sort of mechanism to reduce the threat against your allies so that they can press forward; that is the spirit of this mechanic to me and what I've tried to replicate by sabotaging the opponent's reaction in my homebrew version (and the ability for a martial character to disrupt a reaction seems like fertile ground to seed). The intent is to allow the player the option to use this feat as many times on their turn as they want to; each attempt can either build-up suppression on the same target or initiate a little suppression against a different target with each shot. The Strikes are purposefully inaccurate, as covering fire in real combat is not intended to be accurate, it's intended to be rapid and suppressing. I'm still undecided how the penalty should be inflicted, but here's what I've come up with, feedback is welcomed:

COVERING FIRE [one-action] - (Feat 1 – Gunslinger)

Traits: Gunslinger

Requirements: You’re wielding a ranged weapon that requires 1 action to reload and your target is within the weapon’s maximum range.

You lay down suppressive fire to protect your allies, sacrificing accuracy to pin down your opponents. As a single action, use the required weapon to make a ranged Strike against your foe then Interact to reload, or Interact to reload then make a ranged Strike against your foe. Either way, this Strike takes a -5 penalty. The target must must roll a Will save against your class DC before you reveal the results of this attack roll.

~ Success: If the target has a reaction available, they can immediately spend it to Take Cover, if they desire. If no cover is available, they can instead drop prone and Take Cover. Resolve the Strike normally from here against the target’s resulting AC.

~ Failure: As success, but the target is forced to use a reaction to Take Cover, or to drop prone and Take Cover if cover is not available. If the target has no reaction available to spend, they become frightened 1 or increase the degree of this condition by 1 if already frightened.

~ Critical Failure: As failure, but the target becomes frightened 2 or increases this condition by 2 if already frightened. The target also cannot use any more reactions until the end of your next turn, even if they have regained a reaction in the interim.

[Dubious Scholar]

I'm not 100% sure that can be 1-action if it's baking the loading in. I think it needs the Flourish trait as well. But I like it.

At level 1, I'm not sure the crit failure can be that strong either... Mainly I don't think you can get "increase frightened by 1". Forcing an enemy prone and frightened 1 is very strong on its own, Crit Failure should probably just be frightened 2?

But it's a very thematic way to represent pinning a target down. Also, the use of Frightened like that makes it interact thematically with mindless stuff. Probably should give it the Mental tag to make it clear on that? But with a few tweaks for power that's good enough to make me want it. And that's on the tier that has the "this literally doubles your damage before 4" Firearm Ace feat... (which, really, that's more a reflection of how ranged weapon damage is in general than anything - not getting flat stats sucks)

[Gizmo the Enemy of Mankind]

Great call on the Mental trait, I completely agree with including that. I suppose it needs the Fear trait too. I also think you are right that what I've presented is too powerful, at least for a level 1 feat.

Suppressing fire is typically done as a quick, inaccurate fusillade, so that's what I'm trying to simulate by allowing multiple uses per turn. I picture 95% of the Covering Fire action as spent reloading, so that almost no time is actually spent aiming and firing. Because of this, I see it working as one action just as Running Reload and Risky Reload do. But having said that, a misfire chance would make a lot of sense, especially considering the character is scrambling to reload and fire so quickly, they probably wouldn't put as much effort into packing their gunpowder properly since the objective isn't accuracy. So I'm now considering a misfire chance as an avenue to add balance.

I wasn't sure about the Frightened condition increasing, so I'm inclined to agree that a flat Frightened 1 on a failure and Frightened 2 on a critical failure are plenty strong. Actually, even with that adjustment, the feat might still be useful enough to forgo rolling a Strike completely and just assume that the attack misses, which would be similar to Warning Shot (which I think needs help too, but could be fixed as easily as making everyone in the firearms first range increment be affected or by making it a gunslinger skill feat, but that's a different topic).

Thanks :)

[Gizmo the Enemy of Mankind]

Here's the rework I'm currently leaning towards:

COVERING FIRE [one-action] - (Feat 1 – Fear, Gunslinger, Mental)

Requirements: You’re wielding a ranged weapon that requires 1 action to reload and your target is within the weapon’s maximum range.

You lay down suppressive fire to protect your allies, sacrificing accuracy to pin down your opponents. You fire and Interact to reload as a single action, firing either before or after reloading. Instead of making a Strike, the target must roll a Will save against your class DC when you fire.

~ Success: If the target has a reaction available, they can immediately spend it to Take Cover, if they desire. If no cover is available, they can drop prone and Take Cover instead.

~ Failure: The target is forced to use a reaction to Take Cover, or to drop prone and Take Cover if cover is not available. If the target has no reaction available to spend, they become frightened 1 instead.

~ Critical Failure: As failure, but the target becomes frightened 2 if they don’t have a reaction to spend.

[The Raven Black]

I was thinking a feat to use wild shooting to slow your opponents' advance by making a cone difficult terrain might be interesting. But I have no idea how to model it.

[Tempest_Knight]

Cellion wrote:

Just to echo OP and present things in a slightly different way: Cover Fire is like the PF1 Powerful Sneak of 2E. It offers the illusion of a benefit.

The easiest way to see how much of a trap it is is to envision yourself as the target. You're behind cover and an enemy gunslinger uses Cover Fire. You have a choice:
A) You can let it count as a regular Strike
B) You can take a -2 penalty on ranged attacks next round to get a +2 AC against the Cover Fire Strike.

If you're not planning on making ranged attacks next round, B is a no brainer. Free AC! Otherwise, you just let A happen. After all, the enemy could have just made a Strike against you instead of using Cover Fire. The choice is in your hands so you pick the option most advantageous to yourself.

Cover Fire therefore can never be stronger than making a Strike. The opponent will only pick option B if they're getting a benefit out of it (or if they think they're getting a benefit out of it).

... Option B only comes up if you make a bad decision of when to use Cover Fire...

For example... Why would you every use it against a pure Melee opponent?

Used intelligently, it is a good, if situational, feat...

[Exocist]

Tempest_Knight wrote:

For example... Why would you every use it against a pure Melee opponent?

Used intelligently, it is a good, if situational, feat...

If you use it against a ranged opponent, they always have the option of just letting it be a regular strike. So if they wanted to make a bunch of ranged attacks, they'll just let it be a regular strike. If they didn't, they get free AC.

Using the feat is actually worse than not using the feat. Because the target will should never take cover unless it benefits them more than you.

[OCEANSHIELDWOLPF 2.0]

Loreguard wrote:

... The fact that the opponent's choice is [treat it as a normal incoming attack, or get a benefit for a possible cost] seems more like a feat choice for the defender, not the attacker ...

I think my primary problem with Cover Fire is that it appears to give agency to the defender on the attacker’s turn. I’m not a fan of that -no matter the function or how minuscule I want to be making meaningful choices to dictate to the enemy, not giving them options.

My secondary problem is more nomenclature based in that it seems to take “Cover” at face value for the defender to “take cover” whereas I always thought of cover fire as “covering fire” or supressive fire used against advancing, exposed opponents. Now unlike plenty of folks hereabouts, I’m not military trained, so happy to be informed differently.

Anyhow, how I imagine a true suppressive fire option would be nice.

[TheLoneCleric]

Alchemic_Genius wrote:

Imo, covering fire could have been a chance to do something really cool with the Ready action. Make it so that if you ready a strike to shoot at someone who fires at or approaches a certain location, person, or group of people, you not only get the strike, but also interfere with their action in some fashion

That's the problem. Out of the box the feat needs to stand on it's own. Not require a very specific build to make it effective. This is one of the starting feats in a class build. Those are critical.

IMO the feat needs to do either 2 things. Force the use of a foe's action (which is expressly doesn't do now), which is useful but situational. (Better situational than it currently is.)

OR...it needs to just provide a + AC to ally moving over your range with the gun while you are firing. Which is how Starfinder handles it. Honestly the Starfinder fire rules work awesome here and cribbing from feats from there is not a bad idea.

Whatever the devs do, the core problem is the feat has too many if/then triggers in how it works. Keeping it simple to a flat test or modifier is best. Flavor wise they can create a few feats that advance what this one does by forcing movement, or causing an autohit if the foe doesn't take cover. Etc.

[Alchemic_Genius]

I fail to see how "punish someone for advancing on your team" requires a specific build.

Gizmo's take is a pretty good idea. It simulates the military tactics pretty well, and it's got a neat effect of wasting a reaction or action on failed save in exchange for a bonus gainst the shot, which is meaningful, and removing the choice from the opponent addresses the problem that your target gets to choose the better option for them

[Dubious Scholar]

I'm still thinking for 1-action that's a bit strong still, but it's in the right direction and captures the feel of using your loud and noisy weapon to make someone pause.

It feels like a long range Trip potentially... but class DC is always going to be high. Hmm.

[Loreguard]

Hmm... improved aid action...
Cover Fire:
[1 action]
Declare, either:
covering a specific ally of yours
or covering a specific hidden or observed foe of yours, that has cover

If choosing the Ally within range of your ranged weapon, if anyone in range of you that is hidden or observed, makes a ranged attack against your specified ally, you may spend your reaction to shoot first.

If you choose the foe, if that foe makes a ranged attack against any ally, you may spend your reaction to shoot first.
[Reaction]
The target may duck, granting your Ally the benefits as if you critically succeeded at your aid check for the rest of their turn, and they receive a +4 bonus to AC vs. this attack as if they had greater cover if they started with cover, or +2 bonus to AC vs. this attack if they didn't start with cover. (in the case of covering an ally)

If they did not duck, you make a strike at your map at the end of your last map calculation (probably end of your last turn), and they lose their cover bonus by one step. If your strike is a normal success, you do damage normally and confer the benefits of an aid reaction to the ally's AC for the calculation of the interrupted strike. If you get a critical hit, you do damage like a normal successful hit instead of a critical, but impart the effects of a critical success to the Ally for their AC for any attacks against this same attacker until the end of your target's next turn.

Basically, a prepare aid action that removes the requirement to adjacent to your foe/ally, and allows you to do normal damage on a successful strike, and prompts the enemy to choose giving you critical aid effect to your ally, for a bonus to avoid your attack. Or take your attack, subjecting themselves to losing part of their cover bonus and risking damage and (still) impact to their chance to hit their target.

[Dubious Scholar]

Yeah, Glimpse of Redemption is good because both outcomes are solid. Even if the enemy picks the better option for them you've gotten good value out of it.

Also, as a reaction, it doesn't generally have much competition in your action economy - Champion reactions are basically free upside when they go off. This has the opportunity cost of taking this feat and not using the action on a different attack enhancer (Risky Reload is the very next level for instance).

[Qaianna]

To play Asmodean Advocate, I do see the point. You're offering the enemy a +2 AC now in exchange for -2 to hit on its next turn. Your actual intent is to hinder the enemy, not go for a kill shot.

The downside of the feat is the same one I often see in abilities like this. There is benefit in messing up the enemy -- we had a shootout in a Starfinder game go that way, with my mechanic unable to HIT an enemy but able to hit the harrying check, and leaving an enemy open for a later roll (which actually did need the bonus to hit that time!).

Thematically it's about the same as Warning Shot. I wonder if you might even expand Warning Shot to let you do it more often to someone.

[Gizmo the Enemy of Mankind]

Thanks again for your feedback. I've got a new version for those interested. I'm of the opinion that gunslingers need more actions that function as reload combos. Based on the playtest feedback I've seen and my own playtesting experience, the class becomes too boring and repetitive otherwise (frankly, they need better feats across the board). So, I've continued to retain a free reload in my proposal here, but I've simplified the reload to be after the shot only, then added the attack trait, and imposed prone only on critical failures.

Covering Fire [one-action] (Feat 1 – Attack, Fear, Gunslinger, Mental)

Requirements: You’re wielding a loaded ranged weapon that requires at least 1 action to reload and your target is within the weapon’s maximum range.

You lay down suppressing fire to protect your allies, sacrificing accuracy to pin down your opponents. You fire your weapon then Interact to reload as a single action, but Instead of making a Strike, the target must roll a Will save against your class DC when you fire.

~ Success: If the target has a reaction available, they can immediately spend it to Take Cover, if they desire. If no cover is available, they can drop prone and Take Cover instead.

~ Failure: The target is forced to use a reaction to Take Cover. If cover is not available, the target can choose to immediately drop prone and Take Cover or to do nothing, but they must they spend a reaction regardless of their choice. If the target has no reaction available to spend, they become frightened 1 instead.

~ Critical Failure: The target is forced to use a reaction to drop prone and Take Cover. If the target has no reaction available to spend, they become frightened 2 instead

Since Warning Shot was mentioned, I'm of the opinion that the Warning Shot feat should include a free reload as well, otherwise you are effectively spending two actions and a round of ammunition to Demoralize, and for a very modest additional benefit. I'd bump up Warning Shot further still by offering the option to Demoralize all opponents within the firearm's first range increment instead (like shooting into the air in the middle of a crowd).

I'm open to incorporating a misfire chance into either of these alternative feat proposals because of the fast reloading, but I'm not sure what the most elegant implementation would be.