Anticipating an opponent breaking cover?

[phiwum]

I would not allow spells of any kind, missile or otherwise.

[Steve Plambeck]

Originally Posted by phiwum

I would not allow spells of any kind, missile or otherwise.

That's how I'm leaning too. One caveat though might be to treat magic items with missile spells attached the same as a missile weapon being fired, rather than as a spell being cast. They may be magical, but they are still things you point and shoot like guns, no conjuring required.

[phiwum]

Fair enough.

[Skipper2921]

If I allowed spells, I would allow it only for spells for which the wizard had considerable mastery, so spells that are at least 5 IQ less than the wizard's IQ.

[RobW]

One way to play this out in RAW might be for the GM to make a common sense ruling about line-of-sight and terrain cover, and then handle the rest of combat normally.

For example, this knight ducking from one tree to the next. What a pain and well yes normally he might be perfectly shielded. But the GM would be free to rule that it's difficult to acquire perfect cover in these circumstances, and instead rule that Knight is finding partial cover. The archer could then fire at his normal time but with some reasonable DX penalty.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

As phiwum kindly pointed out, my suggestion was to narrowly apply Waiting in this modified sense to the one matter at hand, not anything else.

The obvious problem of making a regular attack on someone walking by between obstacles takes care of itself anyway. If the target is passing close enough for a regular attack, it's stepping into the attacker's front hex anyway and so stops for engagement.

This does not take pole weapon jabs or thrown weapons into account.

A legit question though is, should any form of "opportunity fire" be allowed (if you're allowing it) for more than a missile weapon attack?

This would be more consistent. The wording on ITL suggest that Waiting for an Opening does not apply to spell casting.

[Steve Plambeck]

Originally Posted by Shostak

This does not take pole weapon jabs or thrown weapons into account.

Well, imagine the tree trunks or columns disappear from the equation. On the target's turn to move, it passes within 2 hexes of the attacker but it keeps going because it never became Engaged. If the attacker can't then move to follow, stopping 2 hexes away, there's just no way to bend the RAW to allow the jab. Now put the tree trunks back, and let the target walk the same course passing within 2 hexes of the attacker again without stopping. Nothing has changed, except the scenery. Still no jab allowed.

I'd never attempt to stretch the idea of "opportunity fire" to accommodate a pole weapon user, and I see no reason to even try!

If you allowed weapon throwers to use "opportunity fire", whatever DX penalty you used for it would have to stack with the range penalty for a thrown weapon, which is already pretty severe. You don't have to allow it even if you do for missile weapons, but even if you do it's seldom going to make a difference.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

Nothing has changed, except the scenery. Still no jab allowed.

It isn't the obstacles that are relevant, but the Waiting for an Opening option and whether or not it is reasonable to allow opportunity shots w/missile weapons one using that option. I'm arguing that it makes just as much sense to allow a pole jab against someone running across an particular set of unobstructed hexes as it does to allow a missile weapon shot in the same circumstance. Or, to put it another way, it would be difficult to convince a player of a PC with a pole weapon that they could not take a jab in that circumstance when you've already allowed one who's character uses a long bow to do make an opportunity attack.

RobW's suggestion of giving a partial cover DX adjustment seems better than messing around with action order, to my way of thinking.

[phiwum]

Can I just say, don't blame me, Shostak. It was Steve's idea. I was agin it.

(I still think the idea has some uses. You're right that it's a tacked on rule, but I think it fixes a particular bug in fitting chunky movement with missile attacks. I also think that in practice, it comes up rarely enough you could probably omit it and rarely worry about how that crossbowman surely should have had a shot.)

[Steve Plambeck]

Originally Posted by phiwum

Can I just say, don't blame me, Shostak. It was Steve's idea. I was agin it.

Hahahaha! Wait, I didn't start this thread!

Anyway, just because anyone makes an exception for one thing doesn't mean they have to make it for everything and anything. If a player moans a little, well, they moan.

Hey, traps go off when they go off -- traps don't wait to go in DX order. Just call the archer posing like a statue with a drawn bow for two turns a living trap, and forget changing any rules :)