I played a game of Adventurer Conquerer King this weekend, and while overall impressed with the game, the game did have a rather stifling rule on shooting into melee. If another character is in melee with another person, you simply cannot shoot. If you have the proficiency Precise Shooting, you are allowed to take the shot by at -4.

The rule clashes with the rest of the game. I cannot attempt something? An unskilled person cannot shoot into melee even if he knows he will probably hit an ally?

I've came across a few rulesets that answer this problem in a few ways.

1) You simply cannot take the action. Example: ACKS
2) You can take the action, but at a penalty. Example: Warhammer 2nd Edition
3) You can shoot into melee with no penalty.
4) You can shoot into melee, you take no penalties, but if roll a 'fumble' you have a chance to hit an ally. Example: Savage Worlds

What is your favourite shooting into melee combat rules? How do you handle the issue? Do you know any rules with unique ways of handling the event?

I've mostly come across vague stuff like "you might not hit your intended target", or the whole thing isn't mentioned at all. Dark Heresy etc. gave a penalty (-20 or -30 or similar), and if you would've hit without this penalty, you hit your friend, who is effectively providing partial cover.

In AD&D 1E you if you shoot into a melee who you hit is completely random, based on the number and size of the participants in the melee (random roll determines who is targeted, attack is rolled against that target). So unless the party is fighting a really big monster, it's almost always a very bad idea.

Note: this is one of those 1E things that very widely house-ruled in my experience, usually to something like: roll attack against your intended target (perhaps at -2 or -4); if you miss (or perhaps only if you miss badly) make another attack against a random other target in the melee.

I would assign equal probability to all involved in direct contact with the intended target. So if you had one ally fighting your target, the chance would be 50/50.

If the hit roll is insufficient to hit the targeted figure then its a total miss.

Let precise shot work as described. This will make shooting into melee very risky without the diallowing of the attempt.

Quote from: T. Foster;599521In AD&D 1E you if you shoot into a melee who you hit is completely random, based on the number and size of the participants in the melee (random roll determines who is targeted, attack is rolled against that target). So unless the party is fighting a really big monster, it's almost always a very bad idea.



I use this rule verbatim.  It works.  Shooting into melee, as you say, is generally a bad idea, but there's always some idiot who does it anyway.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;599523If the hit roll is insufficient to hit the targeted figure then its a total miss.

A skilled fighter has a better chance of hurting an ally in combat than a character who is not skilled?

I was considering all characters to shoot into melee, you receive the same penalty from precise shot. If you fail to hit but would have hit without the penalty, you hit another target. Much like the Warhammer 40k variety of games.

How to determine who it hits could be a completely different matter. I could do a 'scatter die' like a failed thrown area of effect projectile. I think I still have some old Warhammer 40k scatter dice in my junk drawer. Or I could do the AD&D method and just calculate the odds of hitting someone else.

Quote from: T. Foster;599521In AD&D 1E you if you shoot into a melee who you hit is completely random, based on the number and size of the participants in the melee (random roll determines who is targeted, attack is rolled against that target). So unless the party is fighting a really big monster, it's almost always a very bad idea.

Note: this is one of those 1E things that very widely house-ruled in my experience, usually to something like: roll attack against your intended target (perhaps at -2 or -4); if you miss (or perhaps only if you miss badly) make another attack against a random other target in the melee.

That's the way I do it; LOTFP has a pretty good version that I believe involves a random target but w/o any level-based bonuses to hit.

But anyways, it's an example of the conceptual gap between "Gritty" and "Anime Superhero" players.

Gritty players understand that if your buddy is fighting a lion with a clawhammer or a machete shooting at the lion with a pistol has a damn good chance of nailing your buddy instead.

Anime Superhero players understand "awesome/cool."

In play, even as a player, I love random targets when firing into melee.

I prefer things short and simple.  You can try to shoot into melee, but if you do you'll suffer a penalty to hit (unless you've got the right training/class/feat/etc. to negate this).

I'm not fond of the idea of rolling to hit, then missing, then comparing the result to the nearest target and seeing if the missed attack hits him instead.  Just adds more book-keeping.

Quote from: Planet Algol;599540That's the way I do it; LOTFP has a pretty good version that I believe involves a random target but w/o any level-based bonuses to hit.

But anyways, it's an example of the conceptual gap between "Gritty" and "Anime Superhero" players.

Gritty players understand that if your buddy is fighting a lion with a clawhammer or a machete shooting at the lion with a pistol has a damn good chance of nailing your buddy instead.

Anime Superhero players understand "awesome/cool."

In play, even as a player, I love random targets when firing into melee.

If my buddy is fighting a lion with a claw hammer, then my friend is dead and it doesn't matter if I hit him.

I never understood how 1E/2E could have "facing," implying that a character was essentially frozen in time and space during someone else's turn, then say you can't hit a melee combatant through the ever-shifting swirl of combat.  I always figured it was a ridiculous holdover from war-game mentality of archers firing volleys across a battlefield, instead of some ridiculous Anime concept like an "elf" shooting from 10' away.

Personally, I like the 3.X method.  Without specific training (Precise Shot Feat), you take a -4 penalty against a target in melee that you have a clear line of sight to.  Another person in the way provides an additional -4 cover penalty, with a chance to hit the cover if you miss by <4 but rolled well enough to penetrate the cover's armor.

So, Radcliffe the Mentally Handicapped Turnip Farmer has -4 or -8 with a chance to hit someone.

Legolas has no modifier or -4 with a chance to hit someone.

Give me a gun.  I think I can hit the one on the left more than 50% of the time.  Of course, I am an anime superhero.

They're not moving in that still picture...

Quote from: Planet Algol;599557They're not moving in that still picture...

I'll get a physicist on the phone to calculate how far they can move from those spots in the time it takes for a bullet to travel five feet.

-never mind-

Quote from: Arturick;599554If my buddy is fighting a lion with a claw hammer, then my friend is dead and it doesn't matter if I hit him.

Tell that to Carl Akeley.

Quote from: Arturick;599554I never understood how 1E/2E could have "facing," implying that a character was essentially frozen in time and space during someone else's turn, then say you can't hit a melee combatant through the ever-shifting swirl of combat.  I always figured it was a ridiculous holdover from war-game mentality of archers firing volleys across a battlefield, instead of some ridiculous Anime concept like an "elf" shooting from 10' away.

Because, at least in 1E, facing is relative and only applies when the numbers in combat are uneven, which allows excess opponents are able to maneuver into flank or rear positions. The combat round in 1E is a full minute long, and lots of movement and maneuvering goes into that minute, which is why you're considered to be in melee range of any enemy within 10', but if one person is fighting 2 or 3 (or more) opponents, the excess ones are going to be able over that minute to maneuver into position to attack his flanks and/or rear.

There is a logical hole in AD&D missile combat, but it's the one roll = one shot rule (for tracking ammo, especially magic arrows*), which is inconsistent with the time-scale and assumed action (a minute's worth feints, parries & maneuvers subsumed and abstracted into a single attack roll) of melee combat. The "firing into a crowd" rule is actually the missile combat rule that fits best with the rest of the AD&D combat system.

*You could make a rule something like that each missile attack actually uses up 1d6 rounds of ammo and be more in line conceptually with the rest of the system, but how do you square that with a character specified as having 2 +1 and 4 silver arrows (unless we consider those to be abstract "arrow bundles" instead of individual arrows, but that's the kind of aesthetically unsatisfying dissociated mechanic that gives me hives, so I choose instead just not to dwell on the paradox).