Improved Precise Shot, Total / Soft Cover and Creatures

[denigreur]

I had a situation yesterday in my game as a GM.
My group were fighting a bunch of boggards in tunnels and caverns. The melee characters were holding a choke point in a corridor and boggards were piling into them to attack. The boggard's shaman was hanging back his followers and was slinging spells.

But our ranger, with Improved Precise Shot, was mainly ignoring all the soft cover provided by creatures and striking the priest hard and fast and he force him to retreat.

I'm looking back at the situation and i'm wondering if in that case, i should have ruled that the mass of creatures both allied and enemies would constitute as total cover at this point. My players are arguing that RAW, it shouldn't be anything but still be soft cover.

I haven't seen something in the rules stating anything about mass of enemies providing more cover. Have I missed something or there is nothing in rules changing that 1 creatures or 20 creatures gives the same cover.

[Java Man]

If the shaman was able to target spells on the melee he did not have total cover.

[Hugo Rune]

To add to Java Man's comment. One creature per 5' square isn't actually that dense.

[denigreur]

Java Man wrote:

If the shaman was able to target spells on the melee he did not have total cover.

That's actually a good point. It goes both way.

[Diego Rossi]

Java Man wrote:

If the shaman was able to target spells on the melee he did not have total cover.

Hugo Rune wrote:

To add to Java Man's comment. One creature per 5' square isn't actually that dense.

Java Man and Hugo Rune have covered the main points.

You, as the GM, in that kind of situation should evaluate if:
- the PC and the shaman have enough light to see the opponent (darkvision and low light vision will help). That situation can be asymmetric between the PC and the shaman;
- if the mass of boggart and PCs was dense enough to totally remove the LOS (the loss of LOS will affect both combatants);
- if the inability to target each other will make the encounter more interesting without nerfing an ability that did cost a feat. As an example, if the shaman had area effect spells capable to buff the other boggarts, the inability to target the PCs is irrelevant to its ability to affect the encounter.

It is something you should do every time something like that happen. Every situation is different. More fun is the goal.