Troll Lord Games

I'm somewhat new at the CK helm, though I've played AD&D for many a year. I have a problem (as the CK) with characters firing missile weapons into a melee furball.

As I envision it, in melee the characters and monsters aren't just standing there, toe to toe, going at each other hammer and tongs. Rather, those in melee are constantly in motion, ducking a weaving, and attempting to maneuver into a position where they can deliver a damaging blow to their opponent.

And then, you have the one (or two, or even three) characters who are adept with bows, who wish to stand a bit further back and pepper intended targets, already in melee with the meat shields, with long pointy sticks traveling at great velocity.

Without, of course, doing damage to their meat shield friends.

How should a CK handle this?

My current (and rather unsatisfactory) solution is to penalize the archers with a 50% chance of hitting their own party members. It does keep the monsters from succumbing to a hail of arrows whilst being bludgeoned to death by the meat shields. But this doesn't seem quite fair, even to an evil CK.
One of my players suggested that arrows that miss their original target (fail to penetrate AC) have that 50% chance of hitting the closest party member to the intended target. This seems more fair than what I'm using now, and *might* be what I'm looking for.

Suggestions?
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"You don't understand, Beaufingle", said Lungwort cryptically. "You ARE dinner." -- M.M. Moamrath

I haven't CK'd a game myself, but this is one of the "house rules" I've been considering.

I've been thinking about using this rule - The PC firing the bow must first make a Dexterity check (CL = the level of the foe he/she is striking at). If successful, the PC may fire normally. If the check fails, the PC will incur a -4 (or perhaps a -2, I haven't decided yet) to the attack roll. However, the PC may decide whether or not to shoot after the result of the Dexterity check (which represents whether or not the PC "has a clean shot" or not). The only trick will be this - if the PC decides to make Dex check, and they decide they do not want to shoot, they can do nothing else on their turn (which I think represents the time it took to line up the shot - i.e. the Dex check)

Just my two cents.

If you still want to add rules for hitting an ally, I would maybe rule that if the attack misses the foe, then a 50% chance to hit an ally would be acceptable. I look at it like this - the intended target is the foe. If arrow misses the foe, then it can go one of two places, either off into the wild blue (misses) or into your ally. A 50-50 chance of hitting either one. But, if you don't like the 50% hit chance, simply reduce it to 25% - there's more space around the ally then on the ally.

I'm a big fan of the way C&C handles this by default. If a character fires into melee and hits all is well. If, on the other hand, he misses, the CK determines if any other target was on the same path (friendly or otherwise).

A missed shot can hit another target if it is in the way and falls within the weapon's short range. Even so, the attack roll suffers a -1 to hit for every 10 feet it flew (the rules don't say but I generally just use the attack roll the player has already rolled).

The one exception to the above is a crossbow. Crossbows can hit another target at medium and long range as well. But they do suffer the normal to hit penalties of short and long range even when "hitting" a target by accident (once again, the rules don't say one way or the other but I also give crossbows the -1 to hit per 10 feet of short range).

Example:

A B D C

A fires a short bow at D (baddie who is 60 feet away) and misses.

B (a party member who is 30 feet away) is on the same path. Using the original attack roll with a -3 to hit check to see if it would hit B (who's back is to A so he might be in trouble).

C (yet another baddie who is 90 feet away) can't be hit since the short bow only has a chance of accidentally hitting targets within short range (60 feet). If A had used a hand crossbow instead C could be hit using the original attack roll with a -11 to hit (-3 for 30 feet in short range, -2 for medium range penalty, -6 for long range penalty).

All this can be found under ranged combat on page 117 of the phb. Happy gaming and, of course, if you don't like the above method...toss it for something which works better for you.

Since the target is constantly moving (dodging), and frequently concealed/covered by those he/she is engaged with (50% cover), I would rule that a -4 to hit penalty would be in order.

If the shot missed, then I would say that there was 50% chance of hitting an adjacent target (friend or foe).

-Fox

Interesting question really. I'm assuming that the fighting is in an area large enough to allow for the weaving and bobbing around. A fight to hold a doorway or narrow corridor is less likely to generate the amount of movement that would generally hinder careful aim.

Size of the opponent is more of a consideration in such cases which none seemed to have addressed. So I think I'd handle this as such;

For melee that does not occur in a confining/enclosed area-

Small target: +3 to required hit number for each friendly large; +2 to required hit number for each friendly medium.

Medium target: +1 to required hit number for each friendly medium; +2 for each friendly large.

Large target: +1 to required hit number for each friendly large.

If the melee is occurring in an enclosed area such as a doorway or narrow corridor, the penalties are reduced by 1 per size class due to the limited movement of the combatants.

Alternatively (and possibly simpler)

The archer suffers a -2 to their hit roll when firing into melee.

Shots that miss their intended target have a (number for friendlies) in (number of combatants) chance of hitting a friend. Each combatant and/or friendly that is Large size, counts as +1 to the appropriate chances. Each combatant and/or friendly that is Small size, counts as -1 to the appropriate chances.
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The obvious will always trip you up FAR more than the obscure.

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For me, if you miss your target, your roll a ramdom person in the area and make a new roll against theirs.

I impose a -4 penalty to hit the target, and if the the attack roll misses, I have the player roll to hit the nearest adjacent target. Many's the time a team mate has been subjected to "friendly fire" and gotten an arrow in the back
Incidentally, the teeny, unreadable words on my avatar below Chaotic Neutral read: "it makes firing into melee a lot more fun!"

Lord Dynel wrote:
If you still want to add rules for hitting an ally, I would maybe rule that if the attack misses the foe, then a 50% chance to hit an ally would be acceptable. I look at it like this - the intended target is the foe. If arrow misses the foe, then it can go one of two places, either off into the wild blue (misses) or into your ally. A 50-50 chance of hitting either one. But, if you don't like the 50% hit chance, simply reduce it to 25% - there's more space around the ally then on the ally.

I really like this suggestion since I prefer fast-paced combat and simple rules. Less for me to have to remember and/or look up. The overwhelming majority of the encounters my players have had recently have been indoors, where ranges are very short and the rooms and chambers have been confining. (The tunnel areas in the Crater of Umeshti are *very* confining for medium-sized PCs, and the chambers they open into are just tall enough for them to stand upright in!)

Outdoors, where ranges and melee combat can spread out somewhat, I'd probably use the 25% hit chance, unless the opponents are Small, and are more difficult to isolate. But I have ruled that in dungeon/indoor encounters, Large opponents in melee can be attacked by ranged weapons with no penalty.
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"You don't understand, Beaufingle", said Lungwort cryptically. "You ARE dinner." -- M.M. Moamrath

Go0gleplex wrote:
Interesting question really. I'm assuming that the fighting is in an area large enough to allow for the weaving and bobbing around. A fight to hold a doorway or narrow corridor is less likely to generate the amount of movement that would generally hinder careful aim.

I should have specified that the situation which prompted the question was due to dungeon/indoor combat--specifically, Casey Christofferson's "Crater of Umeshti" module. (Great stuff, Case!) In that respect, about half of the encounters occur in very confining chambers, some of which are no bigger than 20x30 feet. Two of the six party members are Small, and only one of those has Darkvision. While traversing the tunnels, I've ruled that it takes a total of three rounds for all six party members to be able to enter any specific chamber (two PCs being able to enter the chamber per round). In the smaller chamber areas, it's difficult (if not impossible) to use ranged weapons, especially for the Medium-sized PCs. in the larger, Dwarven-constructed rooms, there's generally more space to move around and maneuver in. Even so, we're still talking about less than 60 feet of distance between possible opponents, even in the largest of those rooms.

Quote:
Size of the opponent is more of a consideration in such cases which none seemed to have addressed. So I think I'd handle this as such;

For melee that does not occur in a confining/enclosed area-

Small target: +3 to required hit number for each friendly large; +2 to required hit number for each friendly medium.

My *original* ruling was similar-- -3 to hit a Small target when firing into a melee situation. I discarded that because all it did was nullify the DEX to-hit bonus of the characters doing the shooting, all of which have high DEX scores and/or a +1 racial bonus when using ranged weapons.

Quote:
Medium target: +1 to required hit number for each friendly medium; +2 for each friendly large.

Large target: +1 to required hit number for each friendly large.

So far, they've only run into one Large target in a decent-sized room, and I didn't penalize the archers for that one. He was inept (bad die rolls) and suffered a quick demise.

Quote:
If the melee is occurring in an enclosed area such as a doorway or narrow corridor, the penalties are reduced by 1 per size class due to the limited movement of the combatants.

I haven't ruled such, but I would think that in the Umeshti tunnels, only a Small combatant would be able to use a ranged weapon, and even then only with difficulty (-2, perhaps.)

Alternatively (and possibly simpler)

The archer suffers a -2 to their hit roll when firing into melee.

Shots that miss their intended target have a (number for friendlies) in (number of combatants) chance of hitting a friend. Each combatant and/or friendly that is Large size, counts as +1 to the appropriate chances. Each combatant and/or friendly that is Small size, counts as -1 to the appropriate chances.[/quote]

This last one is also an attractive option. Much to think about...
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"You don't understand, Beaufingle", said Lungwort cryptically. "You ARE dinner." -- M.M. Moamrath

Taranthyll wrote:
I impose a -4 penalty to hit the target, and if the the attack roll misses, I have the player roll to hit the nearest adjacent target. Many's the time a team mate has been subjected to "friendly fire" and gotten an arrow in the back

This one may be the simplest and fairest yet. Presuming, of course, that the PC doing the firing can actually get into position to fire...

Quote:
Incidentally, the teeny, unreadable words on my avatar below Chaotic Neutral read: "it makes firing into melee a lot more fun!"

Agreed!
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"You don't understand, Beaufingle", said Lungwort cryptically. "You ARE dinner." -- M.M. Moamrath

I just determine how much, if any, cover the target has from the melee opponent and add that to the AC of the target.

R-
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The Book of the Mind