Racial Flight. Opinions?

[the331st]

So, just curious, but how do people here feel about flight? Anyone have experiences with flying heroes in game? How about DMing for a group with a flying character?

[Agent 333]

In many circumstances, Flight won't matter much, but when it does, it's a huge game changer. Some things to note:

Flying characters + boats = aircraft carriers. Don't expect pirates to get remotely close to a ship defended by flyers, especially if they have powerful ranged attacks. A mage that can cast fly and fireball can easily disable a ship without much danger to himself.

Wall spells (and old fashioned castle walls) work far, far worse against flying characters. Seeings how wall spells are pretty potent as is, this might be a good thing...

The non-flying members of the group might get annoyed if too many obstacles are avoided/solved by flight. Chasms, walls, hard to reach objects, all make the flyer feel like superman and the non-flyer feel like they're holding the party back. This usually isn't TOO big an issue unless it comes up frequently.

A power gamer can easily make flight work wonders for him by combining his mobility with potent ranged attacks. The easiest way around this is low ceilings, or give the opponents just as good ranged attack options.

[the331st]

These are things I have seen done before as well. Ptolus was great for breaking the illusion that flight = broken I once held. And Fantasy Craft helped me get over a lot of stigmas I had about some mechanical effects.

I ask only because I see WotC made a race that should be able to fly all willy nilly but limited it to 5ft altitude limit. I don't know if it's because of story reasons or (and more likely) if it was done for perceived balance reasons but it's got a lot of people flipping out.

FC straight up hands out flight like crazy and hearing about people's experiences with it would make a nice counter point to a lot of the insane reasoning I see from those folks about game breaking effects. ie flight.

This community is like a Mother Brain to me, a place I go to get real rational advice and anecdotes.

So anymore stories? 

[paddyfool]

I haven't actually played with flight in play at all (partly because at least one of my DMs is highly suspicious of it), but it seems to me that in 3.5, melee>>ranged (aside from spells, of course) and so flight was a great defensive option, providing complete protection against non-magical non-fliers in combination with Protection from Arrows.  In FC, there are multiple great ranged options, and even if an opponent has no ranged weapons, they can still threaten, taunt, etc.

[the331st]

So maybe it's not that flight is broken, it's that the system lets/makes flight a problem. FC gives plenty of ways to counter a flyer but 3.5 had less and 4e maybe has even less then that? Interesting.

[Antilles]

I'm about to run a PbP with a drake in it, so if you can wait a couple of months I'll be able to give some input. Though I did run Darkest Hour a while back for my old group, and it had a pech archer with wings from faerie heritage. Once he had adjusted to how fast the zombies were, he were mostly untouchable for the majority of the adventure. To be fair that was my first time GM'ing so I likely wasn't seeing/utilizing all the options available to me.

[Bhurano]

Hi there,

a buddy of mine likes to go crazy with the species feats and he likes the Angelic and Draconic Legacy for the flight ability. In our very first game he came up with a Captain who essentialy was some kind of angelic warrior.

He used it several times to good effect, like changing his position with a short flight to land in between the bad guys... try to imagine a guy with feathered wings, swinging a bloody sword and a battered shield cutting down his enemies... to far away to harm you... and BAM... next thing you see is he stands in the midst of your group and starts dishing out some (un)holy vengeance.

Sadly, he couldn't or wouldn't use it in a greater manner... he tried to keep a low profile (which was hard enough ) and they never faced a challenge where fly was essential to win the day. He had the idea to use it in urban environment to achieve a sort of higher ground... like flying from rooftop to rooftop or on a tower to pelt his enemies with ranged weapons... in that case larger bows like Long Bows would be severely hampered but Short- and Crossbows would be perfect... and a no-brainer, if present... guns!!! It would make it nearly impossible for normal characters to touch such an enemy... without ranged weapons.

That's a general advice I give my players: Carry something that allows you to disable/harm/kill creatures at range.

The only thing that bugs me is the maneuverability of natural flyers. I couldn't find it... or I overlooked it. Since most flyers are up to large I handwaved it, and said that they could turn how they would like... If I ever use a dragon (holding back these beasts for a WTF moment) they will definitely not so graceful as a Drake or someone with a Species feat... at least not if they are bigger and taller as say Large sized.

Just my 2 cents.

[Kerebrus]

also remember (p227, Mobility)

While a winged character is in the air, he is considered 1 Size larger for Defense, as well as Blend and Sneak checks.  His error ranges with attacks and Spellcasting checks also increase by 2 (or 4 while he hovers).

Makes the "fly and attack" option, a little dangerous.

[the331st]

So is Flight just what you make of it? Flight > Ground walking just like Swim > Ground walking?

[Sletchman]

So is Flight just what you make of it? Flight > Ground walking just like Swim > Ground walking?

Both you and your GM.  In a sea-based game I played in, Swim speed was the boss.  All the enemies had pistols / rifles, so being a flyer just made you a great big (and obvious) target - but being able to sneak and swim up to their ship and disable it from out of sight made you a king.  Transfer the same characters to the underdark, and flight is barely an advantage, swim is useless and ground speed is all you need.  Change again to a shattered world of floating island-cities and suddenly the flyer rules the game.

In so many ways, the Drake is the epitome of this quandry - in some games their size and flight and built in weaponry (both melee and ranged) would make them powerful beyond belief.  In other games their size, flight and inability to use standard items could easily be the biggest hinderance a player could suffer.

[the331st]

This was my experience seeing Flying elves try to navigate sewers and dungeons. While it was a boon in the big city where they could fly away, in close quaters it didn't matter. But while in the city they felt good about themselves.

The drake has always perplexed me because it felt over powered next to other races BUT yea, I thought about it's size and appearance and it could not fit into a lot of situations with ease.

So, the drake being the only race with flight right out the box, does it strike people as unbalanced or does it's many implied penalties make up for it?

If a medium sized race with flight took the place of the drake, would this be any more or less a problem in your opinions?

[Sletchman]

If a medium sized race with flight took the place of the drake, would this be any more or less a problem in your opinions?

Depends on the race in question.  No quality exists in a vacuum, but on its own I don't think flight is a big problem.  But certain combinations can very easily become too powerful - which is why origin creation is far more then just "count to 7 mathematics".  That said, I'd be more leary of a homebrew folk race with built in flight then a beast race - mobile artillery platforms could become a very real thing (bow supremacy + flight at level 1).  By the same token I'm currently pondering races for an upcoming fantasy game (with the possibility of entirely homebrew races from the word go), and one thing I'm thinking is medium Drakes, or winged Saurians as default (and yes, the balance factor is always on my mind).

The other question is (that I can't recall seeing in the book) - can you fly and be in a stance?  I can't see it written that you can't be, but the idea that you can be sproings my brain.  I'm gonna rule "No" until I see some compelling reason that it should be allowed (or even a rule that allows/disallows it that I just didn't spot), but that's another thing that stops flight being too broken.

[the331st]

I think FC does a good job foiling flight/swim/ect from being too broken by having things like stances function like they do. Ground is better then flight/swim b/c of X (All the insane things you can do). Flight and Swim are great for niche reasons but whats sacrificed helps keep it in check.

I sometimes don't think other Systems handle flight like this, it's just all bonuses for flying and no real negatives. Maybe this is why it's so heavily regulated in other d20 games I'm currently thinking of 

[Krensky]

Flight, like a lot of stuff, is very much what you make of it and what the setting makes of it.

In my Golarion game it seems like it's been useful for the PC who has it, but not world changing. Lots of fights in locations where flight won't come up and most obstacles can't be overcome just by flying over them.

In my home brew world of Nephos (bonus points for those who figure out the joke), it's a massive boon. Primarily because there's very little ground. Falling off an airship when there's nothing but clouds and an endless fall below you makes flight very appealing, even with the advanced firearms and lots of magic being lobbed around.

[Sletchman]

In my home brew world of Nephos (bonus points for those who figure out the joke), it's a massive boon. Primarily because there's very little ground. Falling off an airship when there's nothing but clouds and an endless fall below you makes flight very appealing, even with the advanced firearms and lots of magic being lobbed around.

Guessing it's because it's Latin (or something with similar roots - Greek or Spanish maybe?) for sky / clouds / empty / vast / open?  Just because it sounds latin-ey and there's not much ground - because actually googling is for chumps (and the not-lazy).  Either way, depending on what extra rules you homebrewed for the advanced firearms and airships, I would like to know more.