Not sure if this is something I had missed but I could not find a rule regarding using a bow or thrown weapon at targets locked in melee combat. How should I handle the risk of hitting your ally?

Ignore it. It’s not necessary. Bows are not so powerful that they need extra rules to keep them in check.

9 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

Ignore it. It’s not necessary. Bows are not so powerful that they need extra rules to keep them in check.

I disagree to a point: bows are better than katana at doing basic fatigue damage - there's far less risk. So an archer softening him up, then the katana doing the crit...

Still, I agree that the imposition of a penalty to TN is too much, tho' perhaps counting it as causing a strife to allies in the fight...

Or perhaps an affliction on the roll.

26 minutes ago, AK_Aramis said:

I disagree to a point: bows are better than katana at doing basic fatigue damage - there's far less risk. So an archer softening him up, then the katana doing the crit...

Still, I agree that the imposition of a penalty to TN is too much, tho' perhaps counting it as causing a strife to allies in the fight...

Or perhaps an affliction on the roll.

I might see cause for a similar rule to what 4E has, where there’s a penalty to hit someone engaging you in melee with a bow. If they’re in melee with someone else it’s IMO a bit unnecessary. I do think my personal style of setting up combat affects my judgement though: typically the players have lots of opportunities to use features of the environment, often to the point of being able to set up a chokepoint for the more tanky PCs to stop enemies from getting to the softer targets, but distances are relatively short. That means you can bounce around a bit as an archer if your Hida buddy isn’t blocking well enough, but you normally don’t get a great deal of shots before the ranks close - if any at all. Once somebody’s close enough to stab you however, you probably should feel a bit bothered with that predicament.

The current movement rules make closing a bit dicey - the kinds of foes you don't need to worry about with can't close on you anyway, so everyone's incentivised to pepper them with arrows, and the ones you want to pepper from afar can reach anywhere on the map in a single charge action, and still generate a free strike with it...

I think they removed the charge action in the update, so no more huge move + damage in one single action....

8 hours ago, Franwax said:

I think they removed the charge action in the update, so no more huge move + damage in one single action....

They did. Manuever can move you just as fast as previously, but there's no way of landing a strike afterwards.

The other problem is the lack of a definition of 'locked'.

After all, strike is 'swing at any opponent within range of the readied weapon' - and that range could be anything from range 0 to range 2.

You could nominally up the TN of a shot at an opponent with a friendly within range 1, I guess, but it seems a bit harsh.

I like the idea of making the ally near the target shot at potentially suffer some of the strife. Being shot at by your allies seems a suitably traumatic experience.

13 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

I like the idea of making the ally near the target shot at potentially suffer some of the strife. Being shot at by your allies seems a suitably traumatic experience.

Nice idea, but I’d say no more than 1 Strife, otherwise it might end up being more stressful to have your friend shoot at the guy you’re fighting than to have enemies actually shoot you !

Maybe 2 if the weapon is Wargear?... not sure.

But I do like those awkward situations:

- group: “watch out! They’re shooting at us!”

- Shinjo bushi group member, hiding his recurve bow behind his back: “oops... er... yeah, they’re shooting at us! Ahem”

Later... “wait... which one of those bandits had a bow?”

14 minutes ago, Franwax said:

Nice idea, but I’d say no more than 1 Strife, otherwise it might end up being more stressful to have your friend shoot at the guy you’re fighting than to have enemies actually shoot you !

Maybe 2 if the weapon is Wargear?... not sure.

But I do like those awkward situations:

- group: “watch out! They’re shooting at us!”

- Shinjo bushi group member, hiding his recurve bow behind his back: “oops... er... yeah, they’re shooting at us! Ahem”

Later... “wait... which one of those bandits had a bow?”

Misses could have a chance to hit someone in melee with the target instead.

16 minutes ago, Franwax said:

Maybe 2 if the weapon is Wargear?... not sure.

That would happen by default; if your actions inflict strife when you've got Wargear, the strife is increased by one anyway - no need for a seperate rule.

18 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

Misses could have a chance to hit someone in melee with the target instead.

I'm usually not a fan of friendly fire rules.. seems overly punitive, game-wise.

1 minute ago, Franwax said:

I'm usually not a fan of friendly fire rules.. seems overly punitive, game-wise.

To be honest, I think any additional penalty to ranged combat is unnecessary. Just suggesting something not tied to Strife.

The game mechanics don't need any more bloat at this point and given the cinematic bent of the game is going for, friendly fire rules are not needed.