Forum

If a character is prone and in cover does an attacker get both the -2 for shooting a prone target as well as the extra armor from cover?

If so this causes some questions, like why is it harder to hit someone prone behind cover as opposed to someone just sticking their arms and head around cover? They will be exposing the same target area and the same amount of their body will be behind cover.

A possible solution would be that taking cover gives attackers -2 to hit at all times, regardless if the target is prone or not, but that will make cover a lot better, especially cover in terrain that already gives attackers a penalty. For example, a regular forest would give attackers -3.

Another solution might be that a character cannot take cover while prone, but that doesn't make a whole lot of logical sense either.

Good points. I guess I would interpret being prone as "intentionally exposing as little of yourself as possible." I guess that's fine, whether you're being cover or not. After all, you could stand behind a rock, or you could lay as flat as possible behind it, only poking your head out as needed. Right now the only drawback to going prone is you give up immediate freedom of movement, maybe that's not enough?

Either way, the cover only provides "armor" if you roll hit locations not hidden by the cover. I suppose the -2 could be construed as "only the top of my head is visible" -- but if you take a bullet in the top of the head it's still gonna be bad.