That's if you are in the melee fighting the guy. I think he wants to know about possible penalties if someone was a distance away and firing a ranged weapon into a melee.
Yes I meant to say that a character is outside of melee combat range, and is shooting at a non-friendly whom is engaged in melee with a friendly.
Hmm... I'm looking through SR4a and Major Doom's correct. There doesn't appear to be a modifier for the Attacker when shooting into Melee combat. In fact, the only modifier I could find (p. 160) was that the Defender, when in melee combat, receives a -3 dice modifier against ranged attacks.
Yeah thanks, because I experienced it recently with a group I'm playing with, and we found it odd that there are no penalties levied on the ranged attacker concerning specifically just with shooting into melee (save for miscellaneous penalties such as distance, visibility, etc.). This however is a major exploit that can be taken advantage of by a smart group. You can have a teammate (friendly) go into melee with a non-friendly, and you just use ranged attack on the non-friendly, whom will suffer a -3 from ranged attackers due to being in melee (as per
Defender In Melee Combat rule, SR4 20th Anniversary, page 160). Which leads me to surmise...
The defender gets a penalty due to being distracted by melee combat (-3). However, one could count the melee combat as partial cover, thus granting the defender +2 to defend against the ranged attack (you could say its good cover, +4, if a human sized target is fighting a troll).
Given the speed of combat turns, positioning is more important than simply swinging your fist at someone, as it takes longer to move one's body than to twitch a finger. It takes even less time if the firer is using a smartlink and has removed the physical trigger. I'd consider some additional ranged penalties if firing from further than close range (rule of thumb is a -2 to the attack roll). I think that a canny melee fighter aware of the ranged attacker will do his best to keep the other guy in between himself and the shooter, thus granting more cover.
As it is, no, there is no strict penalty for firing into a melee. Just some possible cover modifiers.
...It would be feasible to say instead of on Critical Glitch, but on a normal Glitch, you end up hitting the friendly engaged in melee, instead of the intended non-friendly engaged in melee. Yes, No?