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Archives of Nethys

Pathfinder RPG (1st Edition) Pathfinder RPG (2nd Edition) Starfinder RPG

Rules Index | GM Screen | Player's Guide
Chapter 9: Playing the Game / Encounter Mode / Movement in Encounters

Cover

Source Core Rulebook pg. 477 2.0
When you’re behind an obstacle that could block weapons, guard you against explosions, and make you harder to detect, you’re behind cover. Standard cover gives you a +2 circumstance bonus to AC, to Reflex saves against area effects, and to Stealth checks to Hide, Sneak, or otherwise avoid detection. You can increase this to greater cover using the Take Cover basic action, increasing the circumstance bonus to +4. If cover is especially light, typically when it’s provided by a creature, you have lesser cover, which grants a +1 circumstance bonus to AC. A creature with standard cover or greater cover can attempt to use Stealth to Hide, but lesser cover isn’t sufficient.

Cover is relative, so you might simultaneously have cover against one creature and not another. Cover applies only if your path to the target is partially blocked. If a creature is entirely behind a wall or the like, you don’t have line of effect and typically can’t target it at all.

Usually, the GM can quickly decide whether your target has cover. If you’re uncertain or need to be more precise, draw a line from the center of your space to the center of the target’s space. If that line passes through any terrain or object that would block the effect, the target has standard cover (or greater cover if the obstruction is extreme or the target has Taken Cover). If the line passes through a creature instead, the target has lesser cover. When measuring cover against an area effect, draw the line from the effect’s point of origin to the center of the creature’s space.

Cover and Large Creatures

Source Core Rulebook pg. 477 2.0
If a creature between you and a target is two or more sizes larger than both you and your target, that creature’s space blocks the effect enough to provide standard cover instead of lesser cover. The GM might determine that a creature doesn’t gain cover from terrain that it’s significantly larger than. For example, a Huge dragon probably wouldn’t receive any benefit from being behind a 1-foot-wide pillar.

Special Circumstances

Source Core Rulebook pg. 477 2.0
Your GM might allow you to overcome your target’s cover in some situations. If you’re right next to an arrow slit, you can shoot without penalty, but you have greater cover against someone shooting back at you from far away. Your GM might let you reduce or negate cover by leaning around a corner to shoot or the like. This usually takes an action to set up, and the GM might measure cover from an edge or corner of your space instead of your center.

Three-Dimensional Combat

In aerial and aquatic combat, you might need to track positioning in three dimensions. For flying creatures, you might use one of the following methods:
  • Find platforms to place flying creatures’ miniatures on.
  • Set a die next to a creature with the number indicating how many squares up in the air it is.
  • Make a stack of dice or tokens, 1 per 5 feet of elevation.
  • Write the elevation next to the monster on the grid.
In underwater combat, choose a plane to be the baseline, typically the waterline, the sea floor, or a stationary object you can measure from.

As with ground-based movement, moving diagonally up or down in 3-D space requires counting every other diagonal as 10 feet. Measure flanking in all directions— creatures above and below an enemy can flank it just as effectively as they can from opposite sides.