Do you play with Friendly fire?

[silverwolfer]

Do you let your wizards drop fireballs in the middle of the front lines, or do you say, NOPE no killing the douche who steals all your magic components.

[GenghisDon]

friendly fire is more part of my/our game than RAW would suggest.

[Remmirath]

I let the PCs (and NPCs) kill each other with impunity if they like, including accidentally. If the characters want to kill each other but can't it will, in my experience, lead to contrived situations and strained roleplaying anyhow. I've found that most functional parties won't try to kill each other, and it's more fun to watch the disfunctional ones do each other in than quietly implode.

Also, I think it's more fun - and certainly more realistic - to have the chance of injuring or killing other party members or friendly NPCs with a misplaced spell or other area effect. Makes you think about it more.

[Fenryr]

We don't allow friendly fire between characters (players may allow it). If it happens, the mage yells to the Rogue: "THINGS ARE GETTING HOT!". And the Rogue nods, knowing she has good Reflexes and Evasion. Only in such cases we allow friendly fire, knowing the Rogue has lots of chances to survive. Or if the Barbarian is in Rage and he must be saved at some HP cost.

There's a feat in PF IIRC that allows to select targets in AoE spells. I don't remember the name, my bad.

[Seatbelt]

I've never played in game where friendly fire was off. If you throw a fireball at 9 mooks and a PC, everyone makes a reflex for half.

[Vizzerdrix]

I've never played in game where friendly fire was off. If you throw a fireball at 9 mooks and a PC, everyone makes a reflex for half.

This. Just don't expect the other PC tojust lye back and take it without repercussions.

[demigodus]

Never considered friendly fire being off as an option.

Also, if someone steals from a PC, they are either not noticed, or are going to die. Even if it is a party member. Even if friendly fire is off. If my spells can't hurt them directly, I can kill them by destroying the ceiling, and dropping it on them.

[Tyndmyr]

friendly fire is more part of my/our game than RAW would suggest.

This. My players have gleefully had intraparty fights break out while still in combat with enemies. Someone misinterprets something, or gets offended, and everything goes horribly awry. Happens if I'm DMing or not.

Consider the following example:

We're wacking a buncha goblins, they pose fairly little threat to us. When we're down to the last four, one of the warriors offers them the chance to surrender if they lay down arms. They glance around at us, and comply. The assassin looks at them, says "what are we gonna do with a bunch of goblins, and lunges for them blade drawn. Another warrior opts to make a trip attack on him. The assassin's sorc buddy fires on the warrior. Pretty soon, the wizard's webbing everyone, swearing that the first one that moves, he'll put a cone of fire over everyone and everything. Everyone tries to escape different ways, the fire gets countered by the sorc, the ranger is crying in the corner, asking why we can't just all get along, and the goblins are dying/screaming in terror/confusion.

Obviously, this alerted half the dungeon to our presence, and brought them down on our heads. We're bad at teamwork sometimes.

[GenghisDon]

LOL

yeah, I've seen stuff too:smallbiggrin:

[ShneekeyTheLost]

One rule I state clearly as a GM:

"I do not prohibit inter-party conflict, I merely take advantage of it".

After all, if you are arguing, or fighting... you are making a lot of noise. Let's make a roll on the random encounter table and see what noticed.

Friendly Fire is definitely on in my games. Firing into melee not only has the penalty which is alleviated by Precise Shot, but if you miss your target, but would have hit it if they hadn't been in melee, you can shoot your buddy instead.

As far as things like fireball... anything in the area is hit. Including the caster himself, if he's silly enough to drop one at his feet. There are several options to help with this, Sculpt Spell and one of the Archmage abilities are two I think of off hand. They wouldn't need to exist if friendly fire didn't.

[jaybird]

Friendly fire is always on. Also, if you WOULD have hit an enemy in melee with another PC without the penalty, you hit your buddy instead. Hilarity ensues when you're armed with something like a bolt pistol :smallbiggrin:

[Delusion]

"Don't worry, I have evasion." has to be the most common last words for rogues in many groups I have been part of.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

"Don't worry, I have evasion." has to be the most common last words for rogues in many groups I have been part of.

Really? I thought it was

"Wait a sec, DC of HOW MUCH?"

Or possibly:

"Whaddya mean a 29 doesn't make the save?"

[Eldonauran]

Heheh, yeah. Friendly fire is always on. Since I usually play a spellcaster of some sorts, I am crafting magic items for everyone (they pay exp costs too) and making sure that not only does the rogue/monk/ninja/generic-evasion-wannabe have a way of dodging my fireballs, but they also have an item of elemental resistance that will keep their pride intact should they roll poorly.

Of course, the tank/heavily-armored-HP-soak gets the best of the elemental resistances simply because of his lack of evasion.

Oh the fun I have crafting as a Mystic Therge.

[TypoNinja]

I plan for it, pick an agreed upon element, grab a ring of resist, and let the wizard blast away. I feel like its a good tactical decision. Let the enemies clump up around you thinking the AoE won't come cause you are standing there too, then BOOM!

[Knaight]

In the handful of D&D games I've played, friendly fire has been in. That said, I find that if you move from fantasy to space opera incidents of friendly fire go way up. Somebody deciding to open up with full auto down a corridor on the principle that the cover the other PC has down the corridor is better than everybody else's happens with some frequency. Then there are times when another PC in powered armor is getting swarmed and overwhelmed, and they figure that the powered armor and shield can probably protect against a grenade being thrown in the room, and hey, it's not like anybody else has armor on. Then there is the tactic of blowing a huge hole in the side of a space station, figuring that the other PCs are fast/well equipped enough to catch on to something/fire off a grappling hook. Sometimes, these things work. Sometimes, people significantly underestimate the capacity of their gun to punch right through cover, their grenade to overcome shields, and the suction power of a gigantic hole in the wall. Sometimes the dice just aren't in their favor and they manage to hit that one angle that bypasses cover, or accidentally throw the grenade so it goes off inside their allies shield, or accidentally catch something with their grappling hook that is weighted at way fewer newtons of force than the pull of cold vacuum.

[molten_dragon]

Yes, definitely. I've never played in a game where it worked otherwise. At least if you're talking about allies being affected by AoE spells/effects as well as enemies. It doesn't tend to be a huge problem though. Either the casters have figured out how to aim their effects to avoid their companions, or the meleers have figured out how to avoid those effects.

I try to discourage players intentionally attacking each other though, since it's disruptive to the game. I've had a few go at it and din't stop it, but that's rare.

[GenghisDon]

That makes sense, Knaight, modern or high tech settings having more friendly fire. There tends to be far more missle combat than melee.

the space opera sounds fun:smallsmile:

In very high tech settings there can be tech to reduce/avoid friendly fire...I take it none of that is seeing use?

[Yorae]

There's a feat in PF IIRC that allows to select targets in AoE spells. I don't remember the name, my bad.

Selective Spell. +1 Metamagic, exclude a # of targets from your spell up to your spellcasting stat modifier.

[Knaight]

In very high tech settings there can be tech to reduce/avoid friendly fire...I take it none of that is seeing use?

There is certainly tech which is preventing accidental friendly fire in play. That does...surprisingly little in practice.

[NavyBlue]

Absolutely... It really kills realism if The rangers arrows just phase past me, or the wizards fire burns everyone but the me.
This has led to incidents a time or two, but usually in good fun. One memorable event was as follows: Myself (Lvl5 Barb) and Friend (Lvl5 TWF Ranger), in a 30 by 30 guard post with 4 mooks. As we're squaring off, the Sorc of the party, watching from outside, decides we need backup, and lobs a fireball through the open window. Note the size of the room. In fairness, it did take out the mooks....

[137beth]

I never considered friendly fire being off...
Until I played in a sandbox game, where the DM insisted that there would be no friendly killingof PCs (but friendly killing of NPCs was still acceptable). The result was that a PC switched sides in the middle of a combat, but did not officially declare "I am switching sides for the purposes of friendly fire." His character was killed by another PC, who said that it shouldn't count as player-killing (because the killed PC was fighting obviously fighting on the opposite side.) The DM declared that the death was void, because although the PC in question was killing NPCs on "his own side", he could not be killed by another player on "his own side" (which was not really his own side, since he had switched allegiances.) This really ticked off every player (except for the one who was resurrected). During the next big encounter, all the PCs declared that they were fighting on the opposite side. Hence they could not be killed by their NPC "allies" who were actually enemies. Eventually the DM agreed to turn friendly fire back on, to avoid the absurdity we had just created.

[Baka Nikujaga]

When I'm introducing the mechanics of the game to newer players, I'll tend to house rule the friendly fire aspects of spells (or ranged attacks) for the first few encounters or I'll make recommendations when they're positioning spells (it really depends on how many players are new and the amount of time we have to play). However, in most cases, I'll let the party decide as to whether or not they want to kill each other.

[Taislin]

I'm fairly new to playing D&D (5 sessions) but me and my friends usually have more fun actually interacting in character in the game that actually grinding through fights.
Being a mixed party, good, evil and neutral character all kinds of unusual things happen, from my good rogue being kicked in the back to the middle of enemies by the evil cleric, so that he and the necromancer have a good laugh seeing a halfling getting speared :smallbiggrin:

It happened that our necro got unconscious and while dragging him to safety i steal some of his stuff, things like that create such an awesome game session that i don't think i could play with no friendly fire

[Bakkan]

Whenever I can, but a lot of DMs are hesitant about a persistable (with shenanigans) spell making you immune to ranged attacks.

You were talking about the spell from Exemplars of Evil, right?

[Telonius]

The rules that apply to the PCs apply to the enemies too. If friendly fire is off, the evil wizard is just going to set a horde of things with high Grapple against the PCs, then Fireball away. Which is really kind of silly.

[laeZ1]

This. My players have gleefully had intraparty fights break out while still in combat with enemies. Someone misinterprets something, or gets offended, and everything goes horribly awry. Happens if I'm DMing or not.

Consider the following example:

We're wacking a buncha goblins, they pose fairly little threat to us. When we're down to the last four, one of the warriors offers them the chance to surrender if they lay down arms. They glance around at us, and comply. The assassin looks at them, says "what are we gonna do with a bunch of goblins, and lunges for them blade drawn. Another warrior opts to make a trip attack on him. The assassin's sorc buddy fires on the warrior. Pretty soon, the wizard's webbing everyone, swearing that the first one that moves, he'll put a cone of fire over everyone and everything. Everyone tries to escape different ways, the fire gets countered by the sorc, the ranger is crying in the corner, asking why we can't just all get along, and the goblins are dying/screaming in terror/confusion.

Obviously, this alerted half the dungeon to our presence, and brought them down on our heads. We're bad at teamwork sometimes.

That story just made my day. (My reaction would probably be the ranger's)

[Psyren]

We do all of it - friendly fire, missed splash weapons, chance to hit a grappling teammate etc. It encourages the casters to pick things up like Sculpt Spell, and also rewards clever spell placement, like detonating a fireball behind enemy lines instead of on top of the fighter.

[ericgrau]

Fireballed the fighter last session. There were many more foes surrounding him than friend in that blast so I stand behind my placement :smallbiggrin:.

[Belril Duskwalk]

At early levels, I find it amazing how many tense PC-NPC or even PC-PC social situations can be 'solved'* by Color Spraying everybody involved.

* Here, 'solved' means both sides of the argument get to have a little nap to reconsider their options.

And my PF sorcerer made a career out of betting his Monk friend could make whatever Save he tossed at him. He was even right on occasion.

[KingSmitty]

the last game i played the fighter in my party destroyed me with a horn of blasting, it just so happens i was behind the enemy he was blasting, and blasted me too. :smallmad:

[Ketiara]

Really? I thought it was


"Whaddya mean a 29 doesn't make the save?"


mine was more like: "Reflex? yea blast away ill keep my perfect flanking possition" and then... "Whaddya mean a 29 doesn't make the save"

[GenghisDon]

the last game i played the fighter in my party destroyed me with a horn of blasting, it just so happens i was behind the enemy he was blasting, and blasted me too. :smallmad:

sad day:smallfrown: