Firing into melee

[DM Lauguz]

Really digging 2E but with the new terminology (Strike, Volley) I’m not seeing where/if the rules address firing missile weapons into melee. Can someone point me to the rule and/or summarize?

[Some Kind of Chymist]

AFAIK shooting into melee no longer takes any penalties; it was a feat tax in PF1 that they did away with in PF2.

[pjrogers]

Some Kind of Chymist wrote:

AFAIK shooting into melee no longer takes any penalties; it was a feat tax in PF1 that they did away with in PF2.

Perhaps for some, but I regarded firing into a melee as a legitimate and quite valid tactical issue that one could fix with two feats.

[lordcirth]

If there's a creature between you and the target, they have lesser cover. If the enemy has AoO, they can attack you when you shoot a bow or reload a crossbow. But there is no penalty for firing into melee, as such.

[shroudb]

well, firing into melee still provokes AoO (if your opponent has AoO) and can potentially provoke even twice, since Reload is an Interact action and Interact action has the Manipulate trait.

(bows don't "double provoke" since Reload 0 means that "the action to reload and attack is the same" so it's only 1 trigger (both attack and reload provoke but in this case it's the same action)

[DM Lauguz]

I agree with Chymist: I don’t agree that this is a feat tax but is a valid tactical situation that I wish was handled with elegant mechanics (i.e. not the way AD&D 1E handles it). For a game that added interesting mechanical complexity for shields it seems odd that they chose to hand wave this tactical complexity.

Guess I found something I will house rule: Disadvantage for firing into melee and a Feat or archery ability to remove it.

[Mechalibur]

I dunno, I wouldn't call imposing a penalty that applies more often than it doesn't and can be negated with a single feat (which had an unrelated pre-requisite feat) an "elegant mechanic."

It didn't become a tactical consideration, so much as a mandatory feat if you want to participate primarily through ranged attacks.

[DM Lauguz]

By that logic, you should be able to cast a fireball into melee.

Wait, in 2E, can you cast Fireball into melee?

[shroudb]

DM Lauguz wrote:

By that logic, you should be able to cast a fireball into melee.

Wait, in 2E, can you cast Fireball into melee?

yes.

barring specific disruption feats/monster abilities, the "regular" way to interrupt something is getting a CRIT on an AoO (that already is more limited)

on the flipside, if you do get interrupted by something, there isn't anymore a skill to negate that, only class feats add a chance to negate a disruption.

[Eltacolibre]

Grapple is an option too but yeah in general, you can cast fireball into melee more often than not.

[DM Lauguz]

I think people are mistaking “firing into melee” with “firing while engaged in melee” which are very different.

[Eltacolibre]

Casting while engaged melee is not an issue 90% of the time. Most monsters don't have AoO or special abilities for interruption.

If you are fighting a martial class npc (level 1 for fighter, higher levels for others), you know it has AoO but besides that...moving around the battlefield and casting spell while engaged in melee is fairly safe.

[TheFinish]

Eltacolibre wrote:

Casting while engaged melee is not an issue 90% of the time. Most monsters don't have AoO or special abilities for interruption.

If you are fighting a martial class npc (level 1 for fighter, higher levels for others), you know it has AoO but besides that...moving around the battlefield and casting spell while engaged in melee is fairly safe.

The OP isn't asking about casting/shooting while engaged in melee. They're asking about casting/shooting into a scrum where a buddy (or more) is fighting an enemy (or more).

The Fireball comment was, I assume, a joke. Yes, you can cast fireball into a melee combat. You'll just get everyone fried (or not, considering how piddly fireball is and anemic the save DCs are, but that's another topic).

For the OP: There's no penalty for firing into melee that I could find.

[Wheldrake]

Page 477 says that firing through a creature grants lesser cover: +1 AC.

That's a lot less than the -4 or -8 for firing into melee from PF1. And doubtless a good thing.

Perhaps there are some critical failures that include hitting an adjacent ally. Who knows?

[shroudb]

yes, "screening" is replaced by lesser cover.

there also exist quite a few feats in both ranger and fighter to deal with negating cover, including lesser cover.

so if that's what the op was refering to, then he's wrong.

it's just that the penalties are much more managable that you don't need to invest like 3 feats just to play an archer, and that if you're not an invested archer you may as well forget ranged combat altogether.

[The Gleeful Grognard]

For the record in the CRB lesser cover being granted is GM discretion, the language is such that a GM can state that firing at a target behind many bodies provides greater amounts of cover.

This cleared up a major issue I had with the playtest and it's anemic screening rules.

HOWEVER, I feel that something like shooting into a melee should either have a permanent penalty or no penalty at all. In PF1e it was just a baseline feat that anyone wanting to use a ranged weapon had to take, or just simply not use a ranged weapon in most combats.

Personally I love the 5e way of handling it, cover (a +2 to AC is pretty big there) and if you would miss the target's AC after cover but hit the blocking element then you hit the creature you were shooting past.
(it is the hitting cover rule)