The archers all snapped to attention at the cry of their commander. It was time. Quickly, they formed ranks in the familiar two-row formation. Another cry from the commander and the company moved almost as one, placing their feet in the stirrups of their crossbows and pulling the mighty strings taut until they locked into place. At the next command, they loaded their weapons as they assumed firing positions, the rear row shouldering their weapons while the front row took a knee before following suit. With baited breath, they waited to hear the final command, the most important command. After what seemed like a strained eternity, the command finally came. Almost as one, the entire company squeezed their triggers, launching a deadly wave of iron-tipped bolts at the infidels. It had begun.
As anyone who knows anything about historical battles can attest, the example above is pretty spot-on. This was the way battles were fought, even up until the beginning of the first World War. Archers, musketmen or riflemen would use attack formations that allowed both the first and second ranks to fire, thus increasing the amount of devastation they could cause all at once. However, the D20 rules lack any information on how to achieve this. Certainly, a savvy dungeon master can ad-lib a ruling on the fly for individual cases, but the official rules are somewhat lacking in this regard.
The way I see it, the most obvious benefit of kneeling should be that it allows the person behind you to attack past you without having to worry about you being in the way. With this in mind, I propose that a kneeling individual should not be considered an obstacle for anyone adjacent to them that wishes to make a ranged or reach attack. Obviously, a kneeling person might still be accidentally hit by a stray missile intended for an adjacent ally*. The best way to accomplish both of these things is to consider a kneeling person to be a low obstacle that provides soft cover instead of hard cover (see Player’s Handbook, page 151).
However, there are some benefits to a kneeling person besides making life easier for her friends. A kneeling individual gives a ranged attacker a smaller silhouette target to hit, which provides her with a +1 size bonus to AC against ranged attacks, which stacks with any other size bonuses she may already have. There is, however, one major drawback to kneeling…lack of mobility. A kneeling individual cannot duck, dodge and weave as easily as she can on her feet, which imposes a –1 penalty to her effective AC against melee attacks. Additionally, a kneeling individual may only move 5 ft. without standing up first, which requires a move-equivalent action. A kneeling individual may not take a 5 ft. step.
Kneeling down is slightly more difficult than moving to a prone position. When one needs to go prone quickly, all she has to do is throw her legs from under her and catch herself on the ground with her hands. If one tries a similar tactic with kneeling, she’s likely to break her knees! However, standing up from a kneeling position is much quicker and easier than standing from a prone position. Moving to a kneeling position or standing up from a kneel are both move-equivalent actions that do not provoke an attack of opportunity. However, either one may be combined with a move action. Doing so costs 5 ft. of movement.
Moving from a prone position to a kneeling position is a move-equivalent action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity. This is a very important distinction from the core D20 rules, since those rules do not have any mechanic for a character to go from prone to standing position without provoking an attack of opportunity. By allowing a kneeling position midway between prone and standing, a character can go from prone to kneeling to standing in a single round of activity, without provoking attacks of opportunity, and still have a little movement left over to reposition himself (though any such movement may provoke an attack of opportunity independent of standing up).
An example of play:
Harold is a human ranger with an AC of 14 that makes extensive use of a light crossbow. His sister Jenna is a human fighter with an AC of 18 that has specialized in the use of the glaive. The two of them run afoul of a pair of gnolls along a road. Harold, always the ready one, has already got a bolt loaded in his crossbow, which he looses at one of the gnolls, which it blocks with a shield. Afterwards, Harold spends a move-equivalent action to move to a kneeling position so that his sister can cover them both with her glaive. Jenna moves directly behind Harold and readies an attack to cut down the first gnoll that comes within striking distance.
The first gnoll pulls a javelin from a large back quiver as it moves forward a few squares. It flings this javelin at Jenna, getting a total attack roll of 19, which means it misses Jenna because of the cover bonus granted by Harold. Because the attack roll also beat his AC, the javelin hits Harold instead!* The second gnoll already has a battleaxe in hand and moves to the square just in front of Harold. It raises the axe high and swings down on poor Harold, with a total attack roll of 14, which would have hit Harold even if he didn’t have a –1 penalty to AC for kneeling.
Harold is not faring so well, so he drops his crossbow and grabs a potion from his belt pouch. As he brings it to his lips, the gnoll makes an attack of opportunity, but rolls low, getting a total attack bonus of 8, which misses. Harold quaffs the potion and instantly feels relief. Jenna is none to happy about the gnoll hitting her brother with a battleaxe. Because it is in front of Harold, which is 10 ft. away, she can freely attack it with her glaive, since Harold doesn’t provide cover for the gnoll. She swings the glaive wide and rolls a natural 20, which she then confirms as a critical hit. She rolls high for damage and ends up loping the gnoll’s head off. She spends the rest of her turn inspecting her brother to make sure he’s doing alright.
The remaining gnoll howls in fury at the death of its comrade and draws another javelin. It throws with all its might, but rolls low and throws wild. It begins to look worried.
Harold retrieves his crossbow from the ground at his knees. In a single movement, he stands up from his kneeling position (costing him 5 ft. of movement) and moves forward and a bit to the right 25 feet, just 5 ft. shy of being right within melee range of the gnoll. Jenna decides to end the combat the best way she knows how and charges the gnoll, insuring a high damage output by using her Power Attack feat. Rolling high on both the attack and damage rolls, she lucks out and drops the gnoll into negative hit points with a single blow.
* This assumes you are using the optional rule that a miss due to cover might strike the cover. If you are not playing with that optional rule, then the gnoll would simply miss Jenna and have no chance to strike Harold.
