Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Solstysse 01-04-08, 02:22 AM	I can't find the rules for casting into a grapple...in game example: My party member is being grappled by dragon, the dragon is aiming to swallow him whole. He has him pinned and I'm trying to cast ray of enfeeblement on the dragon so my party member can get away. I take my -4 because of the melee situation and I can hit the dragon easily. What is my chance to actually hit the dragon vs. hitting my party member? Clarity is good in this situation...because in game I hit the party member doing 7d6+7 points of dex damage to him...allowing the dragon to swallow him and it ended up killing him before we could get him out.
ArcTan 01-04-08, 02:31 AM	By RAW, you can never miss your target and accidentally hit your friend. You simply take a -4 penalty to your attack roll with the ray for the target being in melee, and that's it. ("Friendly fire" is, by default, nonexistent and considered a houserule.)
Novacat 01-04-08, 02:59 AM	I can't find the rules for casting into a grapple...in game example: My party member is being grappled by dragon, the dragon is aiming to swallow him whole. He has him pinned and I'm trying to cast ray of enfeeblement on the dragon so my party member can get away. I take my -4 because of the melee situation and I can hit the dragon easily. What is my chance to actually hit the dragon vs. hitting my party member? Clarity is good in this situation...because in game I hit the party member doing 7d6+7 points of dex damage to him...allowing the dragon to swallow him and it ended up killing him before we could get him out. Your DM then house-ruled the miss chance, and you did WAY too much damage, and to the wrong ability score (unless the "dex damage" is a typo, and you meant "str damage", which I think you did). A coruscating ray springs from your hand. You must succeed on a ranged touch attack to strike a target. The subject takes a penalty to Strength equal to 1d6+1 per two caster levels (maximum 1d6+5). The subject’s Strength score cannot drop below 1. Emphasis added.
groveborn 01-04-08, 03:25 AM	I'm not sure I'd make you take -4 either, as the dragon is bigger than the broad side of a barn, and the person it's holding is like an object at that point. I know it's RAW that you would, but really. You'd also be likely aiming at its side or rear end, which removes the risk of hitting friendlies (which is a house rule as mentioned). Firing into combat usually assumes against creatures of like sizes, within 5 feet of each other. Dragons aren't exactly that. You also don't do strength damage with Ray of Enfeeblement, only Strength penalty, which doesn't stack. Use true strike if in real doubt.
ArcTan 01-04-08, 04:37 AM	The Dragon and guy are still moving around constantly while fighting each other. Remember that at no point do they just stand stock-still to let you "target" -- your shot represents taking an opportunity at one particular moment while the Dragon and guy are weaving around each other (and their "position" on the battlemat represents that fleeting moment).
Kouk 01-04-08, 05:51 AM	Shooting or Throwing into a Melee If you shoot or throw a ranged weapon at a target engaged in melee with a friendly character, you take a -4 penalty on your attack roll. Two characters are engaged in melee if they are enemies of each other and either threatens the other. (An unconscious or otherwise immobilized character is not considered engaged unless he is actually being attacked.) If your target (or the part of your target you’re aiming at, if it’s a big target) is at least 10 feet away from the nearest friendly character, you can avoid the -4 penalty, even if the creature you’re aiming at is engaged in melee with a friendly character. Precise Shot If you have the Precise Shot feat you don’t take this penalty. Also, there is a fairly "hidden" rule, that when you shoot or throw into melee you roll randomly to see which opponent you hit. This can be seen on Table 8-6 Armor Class Modifiers on page 151 of the PHB, which you can see here: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatModifiers.htm It is also in the Improved Precise Shot feat description. The Grappler moves into his opponent's space, but this has always struck me as very complicated in the case of creatures of different sizes. I would assume that with really big creatures you could still use the option to aim at a spot farther away than your ally so you can attack normally.
groveborn 01-04-08, 07:08 AM	Yes, I realize that RAW says so. I get that, really. The argument that a dragon is moving around a lot to eat the guy in its claws is far fetched, however. The dragon's tail will be whipping around, sure. The guy in his claws isn't doing much to get in the way. I'm just saying that this circumstance represents a certain opportunity to examine whether the rule should be implemented or not, not that the rule doesn't apply. I just feel it's far too general to apply to all combats.
Novacat 01-04-08, 10:42 AM	That's why most of the larger dragons have a touch ac of about 8. Even with the -4 penalty, just don't roll a 1.
Howie23 01-04-08, 12:27 PM	I can't find the rules for casting into a grapple...in game example: My party member is being grappled by dragon, the dragon is aiming to swallow him whole. He has him pinned and I'm trying to cast ray of enfeeblement on the dragon so my party member can get away. I take my -4 because of the melee situation and I can hit the dragon easily. What is my chance to actually hit the dragon vs. hitting my party member? Clarity is good in this situation...because in game I hit the party member doing 7d6+7 points of dex damage to him...allowing the dragon to swallow him and it ended up killing him before we could get him out. Your situation is shooting into a grapple. When shooting into a grapple, the RAW is to randomize which grappler you hit. Friendly fire into a grapple is not a houserule. RAW does not say how the odds of hitting which target change based upon size. I make the odds proportional to the base area of each creature. So, a huge dragon grappling a medium ally would be 9:1 to hit the dragon. Whatever odds you establish, you are creating a houserule, since the RAW is silent.
Father Dale 01-04-08, 12:31 PM	Are there other creatures fighting the dragon in melee? How big is the dragon? Is it significantly bigger than the grappled PC? If its just the dragon and the PC, i.e. there are no other creatures in melee with the dragon, then you don't take a -4 to the attack. Also, if the dragon is large enough that you can attack one of the squares it occupies, and that square is 10ft away or more from any melee combatant, then you can target that square without taking a -4 to the attack. (Also, attackers with Precise shot can avoid this -4 penalty altogether.) The fact that the dragon is grappling does not invoke the -4 to attack. What does occur though is that when firing a ranged attack (such as a Ray spell) into a grapple, there is an equal chance of hitting all creatures in the grapple. In this case, there would be a 50% chance of hitting either the dragon or the PC. The Improved Precise Shot feat can negate the chance of hitting other creatures than the intended target. Thus, in the example you have given, it sounds like you would have no penalty to the attack roll, but that you would have a 50% chance of hitting either the dragon or the PC with the Ray of Enfeeblement. (It would not be unreasonable for a DM to conclude that, assuming the dragon is substantially larger than the PC, that the chance of hitting the dragon is better than 50%, or even negated altogether. i.e. If the PC is medium and is in a grapple with a dragon that is colossal, it would make sense that the ranged attack would have a substantially greater likelihood of hitting the dragon than the PC.)
Novacat 01-04-08, 12:46 PM	There is no rule which causes an outside attacker to have a chance to hit an ally when attacking into a grapple. It is an unfortunately popular house rule, and a holdover from 3.0. I defy you to quote from the SRD otherwise.
Father Dale 01-04-08, 01:11 PM	There is no rule which causes an outside attacker to have a chance to hit an ally when attacking into a grapple. It is an unfortunately popular house rule, and a holdover from 3.0. I defy you to quote from the SRD otherwise. This is from footnote 3 to the Table: Armor Class Modifiers found in the Combat II section of the 3.5 SRD: 3 Roll randomly to see which grappling combatant you strike. That defender loses any Dexterity bonus to AC. Additionally, from the Improved Precise Shot feat: IMPROVED PRECISE SHOT [GENERAL] Prerequisites: Dex 19, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, base attack bonus +11. Benefit: Your ranged attacks ignore the AC bonus granted to targets by anything less than total cover, and the miss chance granted to targets by anything less than total concealment. Total cover and total concealment provide their normal benefits against your ranged attacks. In addition, when you shoot or throw ranged weapons at a grappling opponent, you automatically strike at the opponent you have chosen. Normal: See the normal rules on the effects of cover and concealment. Without this feat, a character who shoots or throws a ranged weapon at a target involved in a grapple must roll randomly to see which grappling combatant the attack strikes. emphasis added
Solstysse 01-04-08, 01:13 PM	Unfortunately, the rule for who you'd hit in a grapple is on page 61 of the rules compendium under the heading "attacking grapplers" : Those not engaged in a grapple can attack those engaged in a grapple. Grapplers take the afformentioned penalties to ac (the -4 etc). If you make a ranged attack against a grappler while not engaged in the grapple, you role randomly to see which grappler your attack hits. It doesn't say what the chance is...but the dragon was "huge" and the character was "medium" so he's quite a bit bigger. He was also hiding most of his girth behind our airships hull and apparently all I could see was his head and the grappled player in his mouth. *rolls eyes* It seems to me that if a dragon had you pinned...in his mouth...his mouth would be closed but oh well. Also, I used ray of clumsiness, pg 166 spell compendium, and it does 1d6+1 per two caster levels of dex damage. It also says (maximum penalty 1d6+5, minimum dex 1) so I'm assuming they mean the +1 goes up every 2 levels, not the whole 1d6+1...if that's what they mean they need to be more clear about the way they state the rules of the spell. Otherwise my buddy would still be alive and the dragon wouldn't have had to be gutted. (on a different note, the dragon my dm used to swallow the pc didn't have the appropriate feat...I get irrated when people use written characters and add random crap to them willy-nilly. I didn't go hunt down the dragon I saw him while glancing through the book...but when it comes to a pc death...playing by the rules is important to me)
Turin 01-04-08, 01:17 PM	There is no rule which causes an outside attacker to have a chance to hit an ally when attacking into a grapple. It is an unfortunately popular house rule, and a holdover from 3.0. I defy you to quote from the SRD otherwise. It's a note on the table for Armor Class modifiers: Roll randomly to see which grappling combatant you strike. That defender loses any Dexterity bonus to AC. Edit: nevermind, somehow I got post-ninja'd
Merestil Haye 01-04-08, 01:31 PM	There is no rule which causes an outside attacker to have a chance to hit an ally when attacking into a grapple. It is an unfortunately popular house rule, and a holdover from 3.0. I defy you to quote from the SRD otherwise.The table in question is the Armour Class Modifiers table found in the Combat Modifiers (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatModifiers.htm) section of the SRD. Unfortunately, the rules are probably written with equal-sized grapplers in mind, and assume an even chance of hitting any one creature involved in the grapple. Thus the chance is 50/50, which is quite unintuitive. The houserule I would use is to assume that the smallest size creature in the grapple is 1 creature, and each other creature in the grapple counts as 2n creatures, where n is the number of size categories larger than the smallest. So if a Medium creature is fighting a Gargantuan one the ratio is 8 to 1 since the Gargantuan creature is three size categories larger than the smaller.
ArcTan 01-04-08, 02:46 PM	Whaddya know, he's right. (Dammit, *why* did WotC insist on scattering the relevant rules text to a situation to the four winds like they did?) Mea culpa. This rule looks pretty nasty, actually. "Roll randomly" means you have a 50% chance of hitting either one. Which means your attack modifier doesn't help, and may hurt -- unless your friend has a very high Deflection modifier to AC and/or is going to be harmed a lot less by your spell than the Dragon would (both of which, in your scenario, seem to be false), firing a spell into a grapple is a very risky gamble.
groveborn 01-04-08, 04:38 PM	Unfortunately, the rule for who you'd hit in a grapple is on page 61 of the rules compendium under the heading "attacking grapplers" : Those not engaged in a grapple can attack those engaged in a grapple. Grapplers take the afformentioned penalties to ac (the -4 etc). If you make a ranged attack against a grappler while not engaged in the grapple, you role randomly to see which grappler your attack hits. It doesn't say what the chance is...but the dragon was "huge" and the character was "medium" so he's quite a bit bigger. He was also hiding most of his girth behind our airships hull and apparently all I could see was his head and the grappled player in his mouth. *rolls eyes* It seems to me that if a dragon had you pinned...in his mouth...his mouth would be closed but oh well. Also, I used ray of clumsiness, pg 166 spell compendium, and it does 1d6+1 per two caster levels of dex damage. It also says (maximum penalty 1d6+5, minimum dex 1) so I'm assuming they mean the +1 goes up every 2 levels, not the whole 1d6+1...if that's what they mean they need to be more clear about the way they state the rules of the spell. Otherwise my buddy would still be alive and the dragon wouldn't have had to be gutted. (on a different note, the dragon my dm used to swallow the pc didn't have the appropriate feat...I get irrated when people use written characters and add random crap to them willy-nilly. I didn't go hunt down the dragon I saw him while glancing through the book...but when it comes to a pc death...playing by the rules is important to me) That's a great spell I had overlooked and will have to add to my known list, however it's not damage, it's penalty. Greatest penalty takes over. No stacking multiple attacks with it.
Vegepygmy 01-04-08, 05:05 PM	This rule looks pretty nasty, actually. "Roll randomly" means you have a 50% chance of hitting either one.No, it doesn't. "Roll 1d10: on a 1, you hit your ally, on 2-10, you hit the dragon." That's just as random as 50/50 (and makes a lot more sense). Also, two creatures grappling with each other are not "in melee" for purposes of imposing the -4 to hit with a ranged attack: PHB, page 140 Two characters are engaged in melee if they are enemies of each other and either threatens the other. PHB, page 156 You don't threaten any squares while grappling.
Solstysse 01-04-08, 05:55 PM	That's a great spell I had overlooked and will have to add to my known list, however it's not damage, it's penalty. Greatest penalty takes over. No stacking multiple attacks with it. Yup it can be a devestating spell...proves...the bigger they are the harder they fall. There's a critter in the draconomicon that has around 700 hp...it's a moutain wyrm something...can't remember the exact name but it has a dex of 8 and a touch ac of 1...wow...also...it has NO SR. *faints* At lvl 15 I could subdue it totally if I rolled above a 3 on my d6. The crazy factor in that makes me want to do a happy dance! I looooove ability drain/damage/loss spells....yummy. If you can't hit them...drain them. Almost everyones touch is lower than their AC...and almost no one is immune to it.
ArcTan 01-04-08, 10:29 PM	No, it doesn't. "Roll 1d10: on a 1, you hit your ally, on 2-10, you hit the dragon." That's just as random as 50/50 (and makes a lot more sense). Yeah, but now you're reading into it. Every other time it says "roll randomly" and doesn't tell you how to roll, it means to give an equal probability to each one. It doesn't mean "Set up your own table that favors your goals that you roll randomly on". If they're in a grapple, it doesn't seem unlikely that they're rolling around comically and making it hard to aim, or that the Dragon can *purposely* shift the guy around and use him as a human shield. Also, two creatures grappling with each other are not "in melee" for purposes of imposing the -4 to hit with a ranged attack: PHB, page 140 Two characters are engaged in melee if they are enemies of each other and either threatens the other. PHB, page 156 You don't threaten any squares while grappling. You don't threaten any *squares* while grappling, because you and your grapple-opponent are in the *same* square. That leaves the question of whether you threaten each other open. ...However, since you technically can't take an AoO on your grapple partner, I guess it's true you can say that this doesn't count as "in melee". It definitely doesn't make sense that grappling someone means that they have a -4 to hit either you or the other guy, after rolling randomly to see which one gets hit -- the two of you as a combined target should be *easier* to hit, if anything.
Father Dale 01-05-08, 04:33 PM	(on a different note, the dragon my dm used to swallow the pc didn't have the appropriate feat...I get irrated when people use written characters and add random crap to them willy-nilly. I didn't go hunt down the dragon I saw him while glancing through the book...but when it comes to a pc death...playing by the rules is important to me) I agree wholeheartedly. I've lost way too many PC's because a DM didn't properly read or understand the enemies ability. And one PC wizard I lost died because he was swallowed whole by a creature that was simply not big enough to swallow him. And also, the creature simply swallowed him in a single shot by making a successful attack roll, not on the next round with a grapple check. The PC was raised, but the DM ruled that all my equipment (including my spellbook!) was destroyed by the acid damage in the creatures stomach. (My DM also didn't understand the rules on object hardness against elemental damage. Several of my items, including said spellbook, would have been impervious to the creatures damage because of their hardness and resistances.) Of course now I'm considered a 'rules lawyer' because I make sure things get done right (not necessarily in my favor though). But if the DM isn't going to do it, somebody has to.
Vegepygmy 01-06-08, 03:29 AM	Yeah, but now you're reading into it.On the contrary, I'm reading it on its face. You are actually reading more into it than is there. Every other time it says "roll randomly" and doesn't tell you how to roll, it means to give an equal probability to each one.In most instances where the rules tell you to "roll randomly," there is no rational basis for favoring one result over another. For example, "...if two squares or creatures are equally close, randomly determine which one counts as closest by rolling a die." However, when you are determining whether one is more likely, when shooting at a grizzly bear, to hit the bear or the salmon wriggling in its mouth, there is obviously some reason to think that "roll randomly" doesn't necessarily mean "give an equal probability to each one." If they're in a grapple, it doesn't seem unlikely that they're rolling around comically and making it hard to aim, or that the Dragon can *purposely* shift the guy around and use him as a human shield.Actually, the latter seems extremely unlikely to me (and nothing that I've said is incompatible with the former). YMMV.
JamesMaissen 01-06-08, 04:43 PM	RAW does not say how the odds of hitting which target change based upon size. I make the odds proportional to the base area of each creature. So, a huge dragon grappling a medium ally would be 9:1 to hit the dragon. Why 9:1? If you have an angle on the Dragon's squares you should have more surface area available to you. For example if you are to the side on the same level then you would have 2 faces to aim at (i.e. 18 squares) rather than just 1. -James
ArcTan 01-07-08, 01:54 AM	The Dragon himself is "round", not square. Squares are an abstraction. The space the Dragon takes up isn't actually a cube that has corners, and treating it as such just makes the rules more annoyingly fake-feeling.
JamesMaissen 01-07-08, 02:28 AM	The Dragon himself is "round", not square. Squares are an abstraction. The space the Dragon takes up isn't actually a cube that has corners, and treating it as such just makes the rules more annoyingly fake-feeling. Fine, then figure out the relative areas without the squares/blocks and go with that... But giving a colossal creature 50% immunity to ranged attacks because it's holding someone tiny (or smaller) in it's hand is worse than the square circles of 3rd edition. I mean why bother with a shield when holding a cat will protect you more? -James
Howie23 01-07-08, 01:52 PM	Why 9:1? If you have an angle on the Dragon's squares you should have more surface area available to you. For example if you are to the side on the same level then you would have 2 faces to aim at (i.e. 18 squares) rather than just 1. Intuitively, because the size of the creature hasn't changed based upon your position. In an elevated position, would you grant three faces? If you want to go with that route (that is, leverage errors introduced by the grid system), then consider: 1) The additional faces of the other creatures in the grapple. Since these are constants (you now see two surfaces for both creatures), they drop out. 9:1=18:2, (or 9:1=27:3 if your granting another face for elevation). 2) In the real world, the surface area of an object varies in a linear fashion that is proportional to the square of its size. The surface area of a sphere is 4(pi)r^2; the surface area of a cube is 6s^2. If the creatures have the same basic morphology, they have the same coefficient (4*pi for a sphere, 6 for a cube, some other number for a humanoid, something different for a dragon), which than cancels out when the critters have the same basic shape. Point 1 is a specific example of this, where the coefficient is based on the number of sides (2, or 3 if giving elevation)). If they have different morphologies, the coefficient is different. Take this much farther, and you introduce fractals. I see no reason to introduce fractals into D&D. :) 3) Consider subtended angle from the archer, based upon his angle to the cube. This might not drop out, but I can't be bothered. If we can live with "count every other square on the diagonal as two squares" than I don't think we need this level of accuracy. BTW, I have seen a DM use ratio of s^3 rather than s^2, which is comparing the volume. It makes no sense at all. David