Basic Fantasy RPG Forums

Having witnessed the Marketstone players' attempts at self-annihilation via the BFRPG firing into melee rules, I read this topic on Dragonsfoot with interest: http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewt ... 15&t=52510.

I think I might actually prefer the solution proposed by Rath Denacht in that thread (a straightforward d6 roll) to the BFRPG by-the-book approach. It seems slightly counter-intuitive to me that a more skilled archer who has missed when firing into melee is actually more likely to injure a fellow party member than a complete novice when using the BFRPG approach.

Don't get me wrong - I'm strongly in favour of attaching a significant risk to firing into melee. It's just that I wonder whether Rath's approach on Dragonsfoot might be a neater way of doing it than the current BFRPG approach.

Any thoughts?

I really like this rule! Its a great house rule. I think the only thing I would add is to use the grenade diagram to see who it hits. But what if you have enemies and allies in the scrum? I would say that if the roll lands on a bad guy, he takes the hit. Makes it more random than just hitting a good guy.

dymondy2k wrote:I really like this rule! Its a great house rule. I think the only thing I would add is to use the grenade diagram to see who it hits. But what if you have enemies and allies in the scrum? I would say that if the roll lands on a bad guy, he takes the hit. Makes it more random than just hitting a good guy.

I remember that when this was discussed previously, Chris was very clear that, in his opinion, there should be no "good" outcome for a missed "to-hit" roll. So the possibility of hitting an enemy other than the one originally targetted was ruled out. Only allies could be accidentally hit. I'm OK with that.

I was more interested in the actual mechanism for determining whether an ally was hit by a stray missile, and whether the approach suggested by the guy on Dragonsfoot offered any advantages over the BFRPG by-the-book approach.

A miss should be potentially catastrophic for allied fighters, and I agree with Solo that any miss should not be inadvertently a boon by hitting another foe.

My biggest problem is that I look at these things from a player perspective - whatever benefits the PCs most. Let's see if I can check that bias.

Core rules sez: If you fire into melee and miss, the GM decides which of your allies could be hit, and rolls a strike against each until someone is hit or there are no valid targets. Use full attack bonus.

Rath sez: If you fire into melee and miss, there's a 50% chance an ally is hit.

First model - It takes into account your ally's AC, but makes it easier to hit your friends as you get better at shooting. (You're more likely to not miss, and more likely to hit someone on a miss.) The matrix of possible results averages out to 25% chance of hitting an ally - per ally - and you generally only want to try this when hitting the monster is easier than hitting your allies. When you get really skilled, you are less likely to hit your allies, by virtue of being less likely to miss in the first place. However, this also means that the better you are (the lower your to-hit rolls need to be for everyone), more of your shots will hit something - a master archer of ridiculous skill will either hit the target, or hit an ally. And the probability goes up with the more friends you have to hit. (using the old p*(1-p)^n formula)

Second model - Second essentially ignores armor (so your Fighter-in-a-can is as likely to take damage from your missed shot as your incredibly crazy Melee-ing Magic-User), but this remains constant as you progress - effectively you are less likely to hurt your friends, as you are less likely to miss. It produces the same average overall chance of hitting an ally (effectively treating all your friends as if you needed an 11 to hit). It doesn't matter how much easier or harder it is to hit your friends. This also means that compared to an aimed attempt to hit an ally, a "lousy" shot (someone needing a higher roll to hit his allies AC) will more accidentally hit a friend, but a good shot (having a lower to hit roll) is less likely to hit an ally. A variety of corrections for relative skill, all effectively covered by a single d6 roll. Simple is good. However, you only check once. Having multiple allies doesn't increase the chance of someone getting hit. This actually favors the party in situations where you have multiple allies. This also favors the enemies as they are less likely to friendly fire one another as well.

First model punishes firing into melee more, but lays out all the possibilities and probabilities in sequence for all to see. The second one obscures and blends the variables, but is much faster to resolve.

The only thing I don't like about either system is that it assumes that a miss means the shot didn't hit the mark. I'm fighting a giant crab, and get friendly fire because it's got a hard shell? I'm more likely to get shot by my allies if the guy I'm fighting is wearing plate mail instead of something softer? That's a lot of lethal ricochets. I'm not looking for perfect accounting on it, but I'd be inclined to rule a near miss as an armor stop. Somewhere within 1-3 of the AC, depending on how "cunchy" the armor is for the target. That'd be a GM discretion thing.

That's a great answer! I need to think about this some more ...

As a house rule, I use the difference between the target's armored and unarmored AC to see if the missile hit but bounced off. If it's a clean miss, the GM rolls to hit for the nearest character (friend or foe) in the direction of travel of the missile. I take into account the new target's AC, but there are no bonuses or penalties; it's just a straight d20 roll. I use the same rule for shooting into a mass of enemies at a distance; if you miss your target, you might still hit the guy in front of or behind him. I've considered rolling on the grenade chart to see where the missile would go, but that's an extra roll.

I understand Solomoriah's point that a miss should not turn into something good, but to me a miss is a technical failure, not a meta-game failure. This has an application in combat tactics. Whether a miss is a technical or meta-game failure changes the nature of firing into enemy groups. I prefer to keep the tactical options a bit more open for both players and their enemies.

I guess I see the point of it being a bad thing but its not very 'random' if it only hits allies. If I was to use the BFRPG rule though I wouldn't roll for everyone around the target. That sounds a bit like the theory of Kennedy's bullet to me. You shoot at the target, you hit or you miss. If you miss then use the grenade table or random # assignment (fighter is #1 and 2, cleric is 3-4, thieve is 5-6) and then roll again against that targets AC.

In a similar vein about using an AC range to determine a whiff or an armor miss, I do the same with any type of trap that fires a projectile. I think I use a -4 to determine but that could be subjective. If the roll is more than 4 away from the AC I reroll against the person behind them.

Sir Bedivere wrote:As a house rule, I use the difference between the target's armored and unarmored AC to see if the missile hit but bounced off.

Yeah, I like that. If a "to-hit" roll is sufficiently low that it would have missed even an unarmoured AC 11 foe, then it's a clear miss and a check should be made to see whether it hit an ally.

But, if a missing "to-hit" roll is higher than this, then it's reasonable to assume that the missile found its mark but was deflected, absorbed or in some other way mitigated by the opponent's armour. In this case, there's no need to check for friendly fire.

Joe the Rat wrote:First model - It takes into account your ally's AC, but makes it easier to hit your friends as you get better at shooting.

Perhaps, when checking for friendly fire, you should subtract the shooter's Attack Bonus (or a rounded fraction of it), rather than adding it in the normal way. This would then reverse the current trend - better shooters would be less likely to hit their friends if they initially miss when firing into melee.

The system currently has 4-step in its resolution:
1-Attack Roll
2-(If attack misses): Determine the reason of the "miss".
3-Determine whom is targeted by the missed attack
4-New attack roll

One way possible solution:
1-Determine whom is targeted*
1.5-Determine actual target
2-Make the attack roll
This should consider:
A-The amount of characters/monsters in the melee
B-The skill of the attacker

1-Make an attack roll against 10+cover*. If you miss you shoot to the wrong target.
*Add the penalty for cover and a value base on the amount of creatures and their size.
1.5-Use your favorite way to determine this...
2-Make an attack roll without bonuses

Another way is:
1-Determine the target randomly:
-Roll a "size die" per creature, for the original target use a dice one size larger.
-The one with the greater result is targeted (brake ties by targeting bigger size over smaller and then by lower DEX
2-Make the attack roll (if not against original target drop all bonuses)
(This way its resolve in two steps but sadly:
1-involves several dice
2-doesn't take into account the character's skill)