Has anyone any recommendations for implementing LOS in D&D.

This is particularly for cover, and shooting through a friendly character

Thanks

Hello there BigBadBazz,

By “LOS” do you mean “Line of sight?”

Cover is treated as a straight bump to the AC of the person taking cover. Full details are here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/combat#Cover

As for shooting a target that is engaged with a party member, I have not DMed in a very long time, so I’m sure someone else here could come up with something better than my suggestion on disadvantage on the attack roll.

Cover is one thing my party rarely ever seems to use in our games. We just completely forget about it.

In Chapter 8 of the Player's Handbook, Cover, it says that anything behind another creature is classed as half cover. So if a friendly character is shooting an orc but it's on the other side of a human party member engaged with said orc, the orc will get half cover. You might change this appropriately according to what the creature is and what the friendly character is. If it's a goliath barbarian vs a goblin? The goblin might get three quarter cover. Entirely up to the DM.

The question was more when is someone behind cover.

I think i'll rule straight line from center of one character to center of another

If line passes through both front square line and rear square line of blocking creature, then the target gets cover, this may stop targets asking for cover when most of target is exposed if shooter has flanked but a small bit of target is still obscured.

Hoped someone had a tried and tested solution to this

thanks to both of you

Quote from BigBadBazz >>

The question was more when is someone behind cover.

I think i'll rule straight line from center of one character to center of another

If line passes through both front square line and rear square line of blocking creature, then the target gets cover, this may stop targets asking for cover when most of target is exposed if shooter has flanked but a small bit of target is still obscured.

Hoped someone had a tried and tested solution to this

 

thanks to both of you

Chapter 8 of the DMG has a section that outlines miniature play and how to determine cover-based square or hex maps.  I'm not sure if you are playing with miniatures but if you are using a battle map this section might be useful to your question.  I use it in my Roll20 games has it has cleared up a lot of combat cover questions.

we use these rules at our table.

if there's one creature between shooter and target, no problem....2 or more = some level of cover.  ...never bothered with 'well, what if one is small'.  (although i personally would like to change it to 1 creature between = half cover, 2 = 3/4 cover, 3 = full cover).

if there's one or more creatures between shooter and target and shooter rolls a 1, one of the other creatures gets shot.

I usually allow you to shoot through friendlies with no penalties but if it's a hostile unit then the target gets half cover. 

Exactly what I was looking for

For the sake of simplicity I kind of ignore cover. It usually works like this: The archer moves into sights fires his shot, then goes back behind cover so you can't shoot him.

Firing into melee: I let it pass because somebody ALWAYS nat 1s a shot into their friend. I don't need it to be more complicated than that.

Quote from Wysperra >>

For the sake of simplicity I kind of ignore cover. It usually works like this: The archer moves into sights fires his shot, then goes back behind cover so you can't shoot him.

Firing into melee: I let it pass because somebody ALWAYS nat 1s a shot into their friend. I don't need it to be more complicated than that.

 

 My group does the opposite. All the PCs and NPCs use cover rules when they can. And yes, someone always Nat 1s a shot into their friend. It's great!