Elusive Target and cover.

[H_H_F_F]

Elusive target is probably my favourite tactical feat, but it's weird. One of the oddities is the entirety of diverting defence, which makes someone make a melee attack against a target outside their reach. I have always ignored this problem, and shall continue doing so, but I just realized there's a second question: does the attacker's ally get soft cover because of the flanked enemy? What do you think?

[Biggus]

Doesn't soft cover only affect ranged attacks?

[H_H_F_F]

Doesn't soft cover only affect ranged attacks?

Only against melee attacks, IIRC.

Edit: checked the SRD, it says ranged. Checked my book, it says קפא"פ (melee). Checked the English version on my laptop, it said melee. Weird.

I guess we should assume the SRD is correct. That may mean my question is void, unless this implies that soft cover works against reach weapons? I'm a bit confused now.

[Doctor Despair]

Doesn't soft cover only affect ranged attacks?

As I recall, melee attacks against folks who are not adjacent to you (such as attacks with reach) use cover rules as if they were ranged attacks.

[Buufreak]

קפא"פ

The books got translated into (I think that's) hebrew. Adding that to the list of commonly known languages. That's really neat.

[the_tick_rules]

it says the attack roll is rolled against the enemy as if it was flat footed. It never mentions any negatives or anything else to indicate you being between them hinders the attack in anyway so I say no cover.

[H_H_F_F]

The books got translated into (I think that's) hebrew. Adding that to the list of commonly known languages. That's really neat.

That is indeed Hebrew. Good job!

it says the attack roll is rolled against the enemy as if it was flat footed. It never mentions any negatives or anything else to indicate you being between them hinders the attack in anyway so I say no cover.

If it mentioned cover I wouldn't ask this question, of course. I still feel there might be a case, given the fact that this maneuver will always result in one person attacking another through an occupied square. However, I would be happy to conclude that's not the case, since as I mentioned it's my favourite tactical feat.

[Biggus]

Only against melee attacks, IIRC.

Edit: checked the SRD, it says ranged. Checked my book, it says קפא"פ (melee). Checked the English version on my laptop, it said melee. Weird.

I guess we should assume the SRD is correct. That may mean my question is void, unless this implies that soft cover works against reach weapons? I'm a bit confused now.

I just checked the errata for the PHB, it was changed from melee to ranged.

Errata files for 3.5 are found here (although they're now listed as "updates" for some reason):

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/errata