Friendly Fire Rules?

[Mr.Joel]

When someone's shooting into melee, or even at a target right in line with an ally, I warn the player, "Be careful," or "There's a chance you might hit Ed." On a natural 1, I have the player roll a new attack. If that roll would hit the AC of the ally, THUNK.

I use the same method when a character with a long weapon, like a spear, is jabbing into a close hand-to-hand fight.

Odds of disaster are low, but it's enough to make people nervous. And it has come up. For low-level PCs, that friendly arrow can mean death.

[austrodavicus]

I simply rule that a player firing into a melee that includes fellow party members will hit an enemy if the to hit roll is odd, and a party member if the roll is even. Of course determining if the missile actually does hit and do damage still depends on whether the roll is high enough to hit the victim's AC, no matter if the victim is friend or foe.

[BlackTroll]

If an archer fails to hit a target in close combat with an ally by less than 5, we asume that the target was struck/grazed but not injured.
But if a target is missed by 5 or more, then there is a 50/50 change that the ally is struck. Some modification is the target is much larger than your ally.

A natural 1 always results in an arrow or bolt being buried up to its fletching in a friend - only seems fair!

[Aplus]

I simply rule that a player firing into a melee that includes fellow party members will hit an enemy if the to hit roll is odd, and a party member if the roll is even. Of course determining if the missile actually does hit and do damage still depends on whether the roll is high enough to hit the victim's AC, no matter if the victim is friend or foe.

I love it. Amazingly simple; accurate representation of the odds; no crazy modifiers or extra rolls. In a word, brilliant!

[samwise7]

Thanks for all the replies everyone. There are a lot of different options to think about. Hmm...

[bathwizard]

I simply rule that a player firing into a melee that includes fellow party members will hit an enemy if the to hit roll is odd, and a party member if the roll is even. Of course determining if the missile actually does hit and do damage still depends on whether the roll is high enough to hit the victim's AC, no matter if the victim is friend or foe.

This rule seems very simple, but there is the quirk that if you treat natural 20s as critical hits, you only score criticals against friends.

[michaelcurtis]

I use the same rule as austrodavicus, but as bathwizard points out, I use the inverse. Odd rolls are applied to friendlies and even rolls are made against bad guys. Thus, you can only crit a real opponent. It's a small reward in an otherwise brutal system to reduce people shooting willy nilly into raging combat.

[jasmith]

Bow Specialist - +1 to hit and the Fighting-man may fire into melee as if he had Studied the situation, with no penalty to his rate of fire – Arrows and Heavy Bolts will do d8 in damage.

Can he then actually study the situation to make all the to-hit penalties go away?

Alas, no. He's basically just a really quick study. Or an instinctive one.

[3llense'g]

Bow Specialist - +1 to hit and the Fighting-man may fire into melee as if he had Studied the situation, with no penalty to his rate of fire – Arrows and Heavy Bolts will do d8 in damage.

Can he then actually study the situation to make all the to-hit penalties go away?

Alas, no. He's basically just a really quick study. Or an instinctive one.

Oh, I see. That works.

[austrodavicus]

I simply rule that a player firing into a melee that includes fellow party members will hit an enemy if the to hit roll is odd, and a party member if the roll is even. Of course determining if the missile actually does hit and do damage still depends on whether the roll is high enough to hit the victim's AC, no matter if the victim is friend or foe.

I love it. Amazingly simple; accurate representation of the odds; no crazy modifiers or extra rolls. In a word, brilliant!

I wish I could claim the credit. Sadly I can't remember who I borrowed this idea from, but I have to say it's made the whole process a lot quicker and simpler.

I use the same rule as austrodavicus, but as bathwizard points out, I use the inverse. Odd rolls are applied to friendlies and even rolls are made against bad guys. Thus, you can only crit a real opponent. It's a small reward in an otherwise brutal system to reduce people shooting willy nilly into raging combat.

I stopped using criticals in the game and so for me it didn't matter who was odds and who was evens, but if we still played criticals I'd go with Michael's solution. Although I must admit I like the thought of using the critical hit against the players to try and knock into their heads the madness of firing into melee. We have one player who does it regularly.