Cover Fire Mod

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Christopher

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Jul 6, 2024, 4:54:51 PM7/6/24

to imilabfo

Can anybody clarify if "cover fire" does something distinct from "take cover"? If they are the same thing as stated above, I'm curious as to why there are distinct binds (maybe there is no good reason, and it is just left over from something they never implemented or something).

cover fire mod

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Thanks... but to clarify, I'm asking about the "Cover Fire" keybind, which is a separate keybind from both the "Take Cover" and "Take Cover in Place" (it may actually do the same thing, but I'm looking for confirmation that it is the same thing, or if not, what, if anything, it actually does).

Whatever it does, and whether or not it is effectively the same as anything else, it is definitely not necessary. The reason no one knows what it does is because no one has ever had to use it. So don't worry about rolling a cover class and being ignorant of its function, pretty much everyone is.

Activating Cover Fire just make your attack worse. Instead of doing a normal attack, you instead give the enemy the choice of either a normal attack or an attack that is twice less as likely to hit or crit as its next attacks chance to do the same get reduced... theoretically the enemy should always choose the better option (unless you have an overly benevolent GM, or flavor really dictates the worse option), so if you are using it because you want them to take cover, they would instead just take the attack. In other games this is called a "punisher mechanic" and is almost always considered bad, unless the choices to choose from are both generally worse than what you could be doing that doesn't give the enemy an option.

When I first read it, I had assumed that the enemy could make the choice to fall prone and gain the benefits of Take Cover, which would grant them the +4 AC against your attack and also tie up their action economy on their turn. But then it just turned out to be... meh?

...Why give them the choice? Just kill them. AUC.register('auc_MessageboardPostRowDisplay'); AjaxBusy.register('masked', 'busy', 'auc_MessageboardPostRowDisplay', null, null) Cellion Jan 6, 2021, 11:30 am 6 people marked this as a favorite. Just to echo OP and present things in a slightly different way: Cover Fire is like the PF1 Powerful Sneak of 2E. It offers the illusion of a benefit.

The easiest way to see how much of a trap it is is to envision yourself as the target. You're behind cover and an enemy gunslinger uses Cover Fire. You have a choice:
A) You can let it count as a regular Strike
B) You can take a -2 penalty on ranged attacks next round to get a +2 AC against the Cover Fire Strike.

If you're not planning on making ranged attacks next round, B is a no brainer. Free AC! Otherwise, you just let A happen. After all, the enemy could have just made a Strike against you instead of using Cover Fire. The choice is in your hands so you pick the option most advantageous to yourself.

It is bad, should be atleast as the fighter's aggressive block where both options are bad for the opponent. I'd prefer if it acted against will dc somehow to make a foe stunned 1, immobolized or just pure prone as a fear effect.

Imo, covering fire could have been a chance to do something really cool with the Ready action. Make it so that if you ready a strike to shoot at someone who fires at or approaches a certain location, person, or group of people, you not only get the strike, but also interfere with their action in some fashion

Honestly, an action that sets you up to be able to be able to do a more limited AoO at range (first range increment) against a chosen target would be very cool. Just drop the movement trigger from AoO (leaving the manipulate and ranged attack triggers) and I think the range advantage (the problem with AoOs with ranged weapons) would be balanced out by choosing one target and needing to spend an action to prepare. Also getting that Crit on a caster and shooting them in the hand as they cast a spell is a great image.

Also getting that Crit on a caster and shooting them in the hand as they cast a spell is a great image. Oh, thats a really good idea. Imo if we do it this way, the triggers for covering fire should be moving, striking, or casting, since irl the point of suppression fire is to halt attacks and offensive advancement I think you'd need to keep it at Ranged Strikes rather than Strikes in general, otherwise you're getting another shot at full attack bonus on any turn where your target acts (because moving, striking, and casting is pretty much everything an enemy will do).I think it is necessary to leave the option for an opponent to strike in melee without getting shot, same as melee AoOs. I was only wary of including movement in the triggers because your target wouldn't really have the option to step to avoid the AoO like they do in melee, though I suppose they could step out of your range increment (or maybe into cover) given the short range of a few of them. I think you're right though, it would probably be fine to include movement triggers.

Movement absolutely should be an included trigger though. Like I said, covering fire as a military tactic is *specifically* to previf we look at trench warfare, you got shot by the machine guns when running in No Man's Land between the trenches. Making it so that you're all good just because you dont shoot is kinda silly

I still feel we need something in there to also account for wizards who might decide to lob a fireball and the like. It's not a ranged strike, but it is something that a sniper should be able to punish

To fix it, the options need to both be a little better than just a regular attack. My suggestion is two fold, the enemy needs to take a reaction to take cover, and if they don't take cover, your shots ignore their cover for the strike. I think it remains flavorful, and while both options seem powerful on their own, in practice, the ability for the enemy to choose which they do takes it down quite a notch. I completely agree, and I think that's one reasonable fix. The overwatch option others have suggested would also work, though it could be a separate mechanic. Another fix could be to force a Will save on the target to resist cowering behind cover, taking a penalty to attacks next round on a failure and gaining a condition on a crit failure (maybe frightened 1 or stunned 1). AUC.register('auc_MessageboardPostRowDisplay'); AjaxBusy.register('masked', 'busy', 'auc_MessageboardPostRowDisplay', null, null) Loreguard Jan 15, 2021, 09:41 am Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber A readied action costing one action (and eventually the reaction) that can be triggered by the target making a ranged strike or moving makes sense to me. (allowing it to be an attack without map, but only if the target prompts it)

Alternately, I admit that I felt like Cover Fire was worthless. I thought about it and had to admit that it had a miniscule ability to trick someone into doing something bad for them. But was hard to really use effectively. It almost seems like not dodging should give the user of the feat (who invested to get the feat) some sort of advantage, even if it is minor, such as a +1 to hit or a +1 static damage(potentially precision). It could be flavored that you threaten extra leaving your attack pointed longer than usual (prompting their opportunity to duck) but the extra lingering allows them to aim a moment longer getting the extra circumstance to hit or damage bonus.

Doing something like forcing a will check, which failure forces you to duck might be another potential option, to make it seem more like an actual attacker's investment. [allowing them to of course intentionally choose to duck as well of course]

My biggest issue is actually with how circumstantial the feat is; it requires the enemy to be both attacking at range and benefitting from cover. This happens far too infrequently in the games I play; it came up only once as I playtested the gunslinger through a dungeon recently, and the affected goblin was killed by an ally before the attack penalty could even play out.

I've tinkered with a homebrew adaptation that I'm hoping can rehabilitate this feat because I very much want this to stay in the game, I just want it to closer simulate how cover fire works and to allow it to be used in any encounter. Covering fire, as a tactic, should provide some sort of mechanism to reduce the threat against your allies so that they can press forward; that is the spirit of this mechanic to me and what I've tried to replicate by sabotaging the opponent's reaction in my homebrew version (and the ability for a martial character to disrupt a reaction seems like fertile ground to seed). The intent is to allow the player the option to use this feat as many times on their turn as they want to; each attempt can either build-up suppression on the same target or initiate a little suppression against a different target with each shot. The Strikes are purposefully inaccurate, as covering fire in real combat is not intended to be accurate, it's intended to be rapid and suppressing. I'm still undecided how the penalty should be inflicted, but here's what I've come up with, feedback is welcomed: