big fat ass wings tht become problems indoor or when entering tru a small window, weight limitations, enemys in caves instead of towers, higher stamina cost for flying, dwarfism because small things can fly better, fall damage reminder - if you fly, you better watch out that you keep flying
Give spellcasters Earthbind. Use Paralysis/Stun to knock them out of the sky. Use Ropes of Binding, wait for them to fly too close and truss them up in midair. (My personal favourite) use physical Wall spells to make them mosquito themselves. As soon as the party wipes one combat encounter due to their flight, ensure that the enemy groups are prepared for their flight-centric tactics.
yeah , I always assume there are little clouds circling that condense into a wall wherever needed. or they become a fog that obscures a wind maze that loops back to the bottom on a wrong turn. so many fun homebrew anti flight spells for towers.
Yeah, flying is part of the game. It exists both as a spell, and as a feature for many races. A wizard who doesn't take this into account when building his tower, is incompetent. Just add two gargoyles on the top, problem solved.
Lol. Do your players want to be able to do something cool that would probably break your game? Give them a magical item that allows them to do all of that in a shared dream, before resuming the regular adventure. xD Edit: maybe the dream is induced by a powerful entity that could grant them these abilities (obviously with a catch), giving them something to pursue if they still want them enough.
make a feathered t-rex - chicken wings are small as well - just their feathers make them big - who says t rex didn't have big ass wing feathers on their arms? (except archeologysts)
I see a bit of an easy fix. Add flying monsters like pterodactyl or winged kobolds, or add archers. It doesn't entirely shut down their ability, but means that they still fight
Flying combats are often not as easy to justify or manage. Also many maneuvers are kind of useless or silly in mid air. And also fighting wile flying can be very deadly. And on the air, there is not much terrain. That makes it hard to give the combat a spin via geography etc. I let my PCs have their flying spells and so on, but I would talk to them if it takes the fun out of the game
I personally find flight to shift power rather than be inherently potent. It’s a noncombat ability that opens up many avenues of approach for the pcs, but it’s also a fairly hefty detriment against archers.
This is what I came up with within two minutes of hearing the dilemma: Ways to adapt my game to flying PC’s: 1) The Terrasque now has a tongue attack like a frog that can snatch flying creatures from the air at 150’ range. 2) Every creature that has hands is proficient with some sort of ranged weapon and carries such a weapon. 3) the campaign takes place where flying is common. There are cities of towers, treetop cities, floating castles and airships bristling with artillery weapons. 4) Hold Person is now the spell of choice for NPC spellcasters. 5) The teleportation portal at the top of the tower leads to the first level of the dungeon, the entrance is magically sealed and can only be opened from the outside, the inside of the tower is warded so that any teleportation spells or magic transports the teleporter to the first room of the dungeon. To escape, the party must climb to the top of the tower and climb down from the roof (or fly away). There are no windows in the inside of the tower. The teleportation portal that takes the characters to the rest of the campaign is on the second highest level of the tower.
1.) like it, might adapt some of my dragons that can instead of a breath weapon cone, they can shoot a stream of the breath weapon in a line of 150' 2.) thought this was already RAW, meh, it is in my game :) 3.) while not the case in my table, several of the smaller idea are, except air ships, they are almost in existence, if the PCs and the gnomes they are friendly with have their way. 4.) well, duh. thought this was already a thing in mixed enemy groups. Just makes gravity a weapon now. If gravity don't get you, the melee at the bottom will. 5.) That's mean, I like it. *steals*
The wizard tower example is almost kind of silly to me. If I'm an evil wizard with 8 levels worth of monsters and a portal to gods-know-where at the top, don't you think I would have invested in windows? How about sentries? How about anything that can detect a winged kobold flying up the side of my tower? If I were DMing that scenario, you could bet that I'd roll Perception checks for every level that winged kobold PC passed. The first one to detect them would raise the alarm and that PC would become a pincushion of arrows, magic missiles, javelins, and the like. If they survive, they get to go in through the front door with the others and do the adventure as planned. If they die, well that kind of serves them right for doing something as stupid as fly up the side of the enemy base. If they do get to the top, good for them! As for getting the rest of the party up there, well you can also bet that I wouldn't give the party an item like a teleportation rod at 1st level. And as for the ropes thing, I should think that they run the same risks of detection as the kobold did. More so, since there are more of them and they're climbing up the side of the tower. As soon as they're detected, the enemies within pull out bladed weapons and cut the ropes. If the PCs die, serves them right for doing something as stupid as trying to climb up the side of the tower full of bad guys. If they survive even this, good for them!
One simple solution: There's a force barrier protecting the top. Why? Because I'm the dm and I said so. Or a barrier that prevents magic from crossing.
@@mhDarkWolf not even. Its there because that's an obvious precaution a paranoid wizard is going to take. Plus if he makes it to the top, good luck fighting all of the horrors up there alone. He has to have the time to get the rod out and use it. And a wizard tower isn't just a tower, its a massive expression of the wizard that built it and thus all of the traps and deadliness he felt prudent to build into the place. Depending on what sort of wizard he is, is what decides what's waiting up there. Necromancer, Pyromancer, Conjurer, Artificer? Oh and those guys are still level 1. XD
@@LupineShadowOmega If I was the wizard I would have some anti-aircraft weaponry, a gravity barrier around the castle that increases gravity 10 to 20 times, lots and lots of spikes, and maybe even an angry storm cloud or even a tornado. If they manage to get to the top with all of that, then congratulations they were clever, but otherwise they have to go up the long way.
a very very simple counter measurment against flying; glas windows - works well against birds, bette make an observation check before going tru a window at full speed
High level mages with towers tend to have permanent walls of force protecting their towers from airborne assault. This is better than a glass window because it can't get dirty. 100% invisible.
I do recall making some of these suggestions in my comment from your rant video. You also brought up other points that are solid as well. Another thing would be to make flight available at a later level. At level one you may have feather fall. And as you level up, learn, and grow your wings grow stronger as well. Making an acrobatics check for an air hop or a heightened jump at level 5. Full blown flight at 9 or 10 whenever you feel the wings would be appropriate or when you better prepare your story/world to accomodate flight.
You did say that you should clip their wings in the past video. I think that was the issue people had. I had been concerned as a DM with flying PC's but after running for one I just find that being adaptable is the best way. I can't imagine a DM actually putting themselves in the position where they level up the whole party levels 1 - 6 like your first example, surely they'd improvise and make it work.
I would hazard that the DM made mistakes on that situation. The Wizard should have noticed what was going on, especially with that much time. The kobold should have found himself staring in the face of magic missiles from some simple low-level mages in service to the wizard who ran the tower. There would have been archers. They would have seen this happening and had an encounter at the top of the tower. If the Players have flight, the DM would logically use flying enemies; good luck to the level one kobold when a flight of stirges comes into the fray. Heck, there's a lot that could have been handled. DM botched the situation. A flying character had advantages, yes, but how they fly, how much control they have, take off area, landing, etc. And don't get me started on Hold Person dangers. A simple Command to Fall Prone and your level 1 flying character is suddenly roadkill. I just don't feel flight is overpowered to a thinking DM.
Agreed. DM botched the tower situation for sure. And the PCs should have only gotten XP for stepping through a magical portal (which would be zero, IMO), not defeating all the enemies that they never even saw. Otherwise, the fastest way to level is to hitch a ride on giant eagles across the wilderness and get XP for the orcs, giants, and dragon lairs you fly over. LOL
I've played flying characters,I love my flying dudes. My grumpy owl ended up humiliated by the first town because my landing throw was botched. Kersplooshed into the fountain and ended up soaking wet with living armor trying to help but his scalding hot metal body made poor owl sizzle. She was having a very bad day. Flying characters can give some fun times and fears. I created a winged dragonborn I've been wanting to use who's afraid of being underground, buildings, and hallways especially, and uses said wings for ground combat.
My protection aasimar paladin loves her wings we currently doing storm giants and the dm loves the fact that giants love to throw huge boulders, roofs etc etc. Love this and has shown me that going high is very dodgy indeed also the fact that I can only fly for 1 min a day stops it being too OP
I personnaly would not artificially limit a player's ability to fly to one minute per day. However, I would probably start using fatigue level rules if a player flies too often.
One of my favorite examples of how fly effects the game is a player helping his party bypass a mine field by attaching rocks to a rope and using it to set off the mines
If flying is that commonplace in the world the world would've adapted to it a long time ago. Nets, magic webs, anti-air, underwater, or underground, settings would be more preferred. Just like a world where magic is common place would mean there are a lot of anti-magic measures in place.
I play a dwarven battlesmith cleric with the travel domain. This gives me fly once a day. I'd say that because of the limit, it's not that game breaking. I can see myself abusing it if it were a natural ability. However, this touches on something I saw on How to be a Great GM's channel about nerfing characters. Nerfing a character's ability makes a player feel like they got screwed over and there's no reason for it. You can always give them stronger opponents or tougher challenges. As the GM, you make the world, and so if the party finds themselves blowing through things a bit too easily, then it's a simple matter of upping the difficulty for next time. Same with flying. For example, I had a player that made a necromancer build that gave him over 100 hd worth of undead he could control. This broke all of my encounters... No matter what I threw at them, he had an army swarm it and instagib it, and if it was more powerful, it would get raised and added to the army. I decided that they are a high enough level and that they needed a good fight. So, I had an npc that the group trusted start a summoning ritual. When the group caught word of this, their righteousness took them straight to the problem instead of trying to prep for it. The army of undead went in, but the npc had been studying the group, and he knew how they fought. He closed the doors and had every undead in that room banished to another plane. The players fully expecting the undead army to do what they always do wait it out, giving him enough time to finish his ritual. By the time my dear necro had realised that he lost his connection to his undead, it was too late. They now had 4 waves of increasingly difficult demons to fight through, no way out, and no army. The necro still had his heavy hitters, but other than that it was all him and his party. They managed to just barely fight through it (I especially loved the look of horror on their faces as they realized the first wave wasn't going to be it) and won. It was a fantastic fight that had them pulling out all the stops. At the end, any of the demons that didn't go past -30 hp didn't get destroyed too badly, thus allowing my necro to raise and keep one demon to control as a reward.
I did play a sprite character once. It was able to fly, but the hight at which it could fly was limited to 30 ft. The deal i made with the GM was, that he could just cut them off, if the flying was causing Trouble for him.
I’m playing a draconian with wings and I’m also the tank so I’ve used my ability to fly to get the biggest of enemies away from the party to fight them alone. Besides that I sometimes completely forget I have them
I do not understand the problem: That teleportation door could have had some sort of password or key to be used. Problem solved. Or, if you do not want to change anything: Simply go with the flow! Do not change anything and let them take their 1st level characters to a land of most ferocious buggers without giving them that many xp. Simply continue the adventure in the land beyond the portal. You may cry into your cushions at home. You could also have Jamie Lanister intervene - and simply give that flying kobold a good hard shove over the ridge.
The DM who got circumvented by the winged kobold did screw the pooch a bit... The teleportation rod was a bad idea, such a teleportation portal should perhaps not be open and operational to anyone and anything that comes up to it (since that would mean any old bird could come through, for example). Also, completely bypassing all the encounters without even knowing about them like that should net zero xp for it, not half, IMO... I would've put some sort of magical key to the teleportal somewhere in the tower, problem solved. :P
@@jimlong3223 If the teleporter was to lead to the next chapter of the campaign, that might be a bit impractical... unless there was a separate piece of the key on each level, of course, and the teleporter sent everyone to the entrance of the level with the next key piece.
strong winds that are dangerous for beeing draftet away. and including physics, calculate how big the wing has to be and how much weight they can carry. that means limiting the items and amor and even possible the bone density therefore making them a glas canon - just like our birds
Love the winds idea. That would make flying difficult terrain with a chance of being blown away if strong enough winds. Yes, carrying capacity would be an issue. Perhaps fly normally if unencumbered, but speed reduces until PC can no longer fly if carrying too much.
@@theDMLair wind, snow, rain - that all can be ignored by walkers but not for flyers. if you use enough real world flight animals as reference, you will soon see why many birds stoped fling and started walking again flying is good for running away, scouting and fast one hit attacks and scaring enemys away - but thats it
if intelligent flying enemies are common the world would've adapted to it. I mean, it wouldn't take 30,000 years of living alongside of flying humans for us to regularly carry around range weapons & build hard-to-see netting/webbing around our cities.
My DM and I made adjustments to my aaismar, with hidden wings. At the start she thought she was a human, until she hits level 3. (Something happened to awaken her) Now she has wings but she doesn’t know how to use them, she only can break her falls, making her almost immune to death by falling, but if she land in water with her wings out she is incapable of swimming. I’m around level 6 now, she knows how to glide without holding anyone or anything heavy, but that’s it, her manoeuvres in the air are terrible at the moment therefore always with disabilities. It gives extra spice and depth to my character and the total experience of the game, I forces me as player to think about my moves and how to play, but that is how I like to play my games.
Level 1 flying character approaches wizards tower, fortress, encampment, etc... Is visible to everything with ranged attacks from a distance. Takes a volley from enemies popping out from cover. Is knocked unconscious Falls Dies. Given the risk of flying, I would let players have fun when they can us it to their advantage. Let them chase that T.Rex all over the place, slowly whittling it down.
I think having their gear weigh them down so if they fly they have to have a skeleton setup, so risk/reward. If they fly with their gear make checks to see if they can maintain flight
How to deal with pcs who decide that they want to play a race with natural wings and a flying speed in a campaign starting at level 1: The first time they get captured, their captors decide that it'd be a good idea to use lobbers to relieve their prisoners of their wings. Now the PCs that could fly are now on a quest to regain their wings, and have to wait until they have the ability to cast Regenerate. Also, a (1) scroll of Regenerate would be a very, VERY, valuable reward
I would only consider that if it was talked about with the player one on one beforehand. You're mutilating their character off the bat and taking away agency. I know many people would feel that is a wretched thing to do without consideration for the player. Regaining wings quest could be a really fun arc but I'd suggest talking about it all at session zero to make sure they are okay with their character losing such a fundamental part of who they want their character to be.
The tower example .... my biggest 2 issues are the overpowered item and the excess EXP award. Bypassing is not experiencing. They did not even see the stuff they bypassed. They did not learn anything. No experience. Negotiating with a dragon is experiencing a dragon without killing it. They saw it. They talked to it. They survived it. They dn't get full exp of killing it, but they learned something.
And that Winged Kobold could have gotten to the top of the tower and found that it was protected by a force bubble. Can't get in that way. It IS a wizard's tower after all....
WARNING! LONG COMMENT! Following Matt Colville's philosophy, I'm just going say the good bits first before ranting in the comments section. I like this video. I find myself agreeing to a majority of the advice given here. The designing around the flying speed and ways to do it are all really good advice in my opinion. Because of the nature of DnD, maybe these are all bad advice for some tables but I think this generally not bad advice. I also do most of these things in my own games. Now the big rant: This may sound like I'm bragging but I really am not. The first DnD campaign I had ever ran had an Bird-folk Barbarian so I had a Barbarian that can move at 50ft of flying speed. I don't know why it was like that but the advice "Build your campaign taking the flying character into consideration" just seemed like a very obvious thing to do and it just seemed like a common DMing knowledge. I don't know if it's because I played games like Shining Force and Fire Emblem with their flying units but the tips you gave in your video just came to me naturally when I was designing my encounters for that campaign. "Oh, this character can fly, I'll place the first adventure in a dungeon" "I'm going to give these goblins shortbows" "I'll place a bunch of tall trees so my super fast boss monster that can climb effortlessly up to attack the flying character if it comes to it (It didn't come to that but the plan was there)." "I'll make this encounter on the out doors but have a house so the flying character is forced to get down on the ground for the last segment of the encounter." "I'll replace these 4 kobolds in this encounter with winged kobolds." It never even once occurred to me that a flying character may cause a problem. Even now, I design dungeons with flying in mind even though I don't have a flying character anymore; traps that are MEANT to be easily bypassed by the flying PC, indoor encounters etc. When I watched the first rant video, I was one of the people who had an issue with the example used. It was because that was the first time I even considered that flying characters might be a problem for anyone. Again, I'm not claiming to be a great DM. In fact, I'm a mediocre DM at best. I really suck at encounter balancing, making every battle too hard. I have way too much trouble designing dungeons and encounters whenever there is a Moon Druid in the party, I don't know how to handle a Moon Druid in combat. I make dungeons extremely video-gamey. I'm saying that out of all the stuff I have trouble with, flying characters have never been one of them. It was just a surprise seeing anyone else have a problem with it for the first time since I kinda thought every DM just designed around flying characters by default.
Oooo, Colville. I love his stuff! :) Yes, I think most “DM advice” out there should always be taken with a YMMV viewpoint. What works at my table, might miserably fail at your table. And I’m with you, balancing a game around the PCs abilities (whether it’s flying or something else) is natural and logical to me as well.
This works well in the immersion as well. If you are in a fantasy world where people fly (with wings or spells) why would you not protect against it? Also, would this not affect the evolution of species to deal with air borne predators? Having anti-air defenses can and should be used whether or not the PCs can fly. Ballista aimed at the sky on the top of a castle wall should not be surprising.
I was running TSKT and my wife who was a winged Teifling thought she would be safe from 2 fire giants attacking the party. She quickly learned that giants can throw large rocks and they really hurt when they roll a crit.
I have yet to run an adventure with players using flying PCs, but I really don't see the problem with certain races being able to fly, as having such a powerful ability comes with a ton of downsides (e.g.: an Aarakocra can't fly if s/he is wearing Medium or Heavy Armor), as you illustrated. Plus, a good DM will usually find a solution even in-universe to that problem. The PCs are handing the BBEG's soldiers' asses to them? They will start to use more archers/crossbowmen/marksmen to regain the upper hand on the protagonists. Removing their ability to fly might be a bit too overkill, and may actually make the DM look like a jerk, for good reasons, so it may be a good idea to use that sparingly, as you suggested. Anyways, good video as usual!
@@tishabyte Not only does flying come with its own set of problems, but the countermeasures are so easy to come up with that it's seriously baffling to see people give advice as Luke here rightfully points out. But then again, usually when I hang out on the usual subreddit for inexperienced DMs (which I won't name but you can figure out), I sort by top so that the dumbest posts cannot reach me. And yet, sometimes I see stuff like "My players are playing LMoP, but they want to explore the multiverse, how do I make the Material Plane explode?" (and yes, I have seen that), so I wonder how easy it actually is to come up with the most obvious answers to certain questions.
I play flying characters a lot but 2 things, 1 i do not fly and attack in the air because it doesn't make sense and is kinda powerful, and 2 most flying i do is to get to an advantage points to look around, flee, or land then attack.
Another option is to simply give the flying PC a limit to their flight. For example, the homebrew faerie elf race can only fly 30ft high maximum with their natural flight ablilties. A flight duration limit could also be used so that characters aren't just flying around all the time.
I get we have opinions and rules, but most people forget that he has been a DM since high school. Just me, but I think I know what he is talking about But yeah. Flying caharacters are good, but yeah, I see your point in the tower part, that's frustrating. Edit: wait, didnt gnolls have bows?
The tower example sounds like an incompetent DM to me. Our DM never allowed us to have magic items that early in the game, not even potions. Solved allot of these problems.
I don’t know the DM personally, but they were either super new or super incompetent or made some big mistakes all in the space of the first game session.
@@theDMLair I think he was new, but it kept the game challenging. The Cleric, Bard, and Paladin were able to keep each other (as well as my Rogue and the last guy's Sorcerer) alive throughout the campaign. We only started coming across healing potions around level 6, and the only other magic item we got was a rapier that did radiant damage.
A good way to fix that could be to just have the tower be so high, that the flying player would start having difficulty breathing, and feeling cold, to the point that if he tried to get all the way to the top he would simply faint and fall. The tower could have closed windows or some sort of magic that would allow the players to avoid those issues by going in from the inside though. You could also have the top be covered by huge stormy clouds or maybe simply high level flying enemies.
I agree flight is a powerful capability, but it’s far from insurmountable. As a player who tried to utilize flight to keep my squishy ranger alive, I learned 4 things: 1 if you can hit someone, they can hit you. Bows and arrows aren’t rare weapons, and the sky has very little cover for you 2 if enemies CAN fly, you’re alone without a tank. Doesn’t need to happen often for you to be more cautious 3 in a world where the scariest creatures out there fly (dragons) most enemies have some form of anti air defense in their bases 4 rain fucks you up. Wet feathers don’t fly well.
I have a character concept that is a winged kobold. I understood that being able to fly at level one gave her an advantage over others, so I put a few limits on it: she can only do so in light or no armor, she can't be carrying more than 10 pounds of inventory, stuff like that.
At first, I'd let them be. Allow them to take down a couple small baddies and whatnot while flying till eventually they become well-known. At that point, enemies who have heard of them will start to prepare measures against such techniques so any countermeasures seem natural instead of metagaming or forced
What if you were to have a homebrew magic item that would simply float in mid-air, and attack anything that gets too close to it? It would act as a sort of turret, so Flyers could not fly to close to these objects without getting knocked out of the sky
I’d allow it. After all, not everyone has the luxuries of shortcuts that these characters have. If the advantaged character goes off, the he’s leaving the rest of the PCs to take on the threat without him/her.
10ft tall dungeon ceilings cover a multitude of sins. Gnolls do have a Ranged Attack, they can throw their Spears up to 60ft, then go and retrieve them. Web arguably only works as you suggest if there isn't an anchor point nearby, if there is then the PC is Restrained to that anchor point and thus does not fall. But yeah, DM's who allow Flying Familiars but not Flying PCs, don't realize just what PCs can do with their Flying Familiar, after all a Grappling Hook and Hempen Rope is only 14lb, and even a Tiny STR 2 creature can carry that, such as any of the Flying, Climbing, or Burrowing Familiars.
From armadas to whole naval fleets of flying ships, dragon-riding lunatics armed with whatever you like... TO grape-shot catapolts and ballista arranged in various formations on the ground... We have MANY ways of dealing with a flying party. In the longest standing world I consider a "personal playing field"... I DO have whole kingdoms in the sky, Floating mountains held aloft by powerful artifacts or depraved enchantments, and a myriad of other peculiar reasons that it's just as unhealthy for adventurers to go flitting about as it is to stay firmly on the ground... Finally, while you hit around the point.. I'm going ahead to state it outright. A party that just avoids the encounters inherent to the adventure FORFEITS any XP to be earned from said encounters. This isn't to say avoiding combat voids XP... BUT avoiding the encounter all together, particularly such encounters as the ones REQUIRED to flesh out the story within the campaign. Take your Wizard's Tower example... First, I do XP "the old fashioned way"... BUT if you're milestoning, I can agree with the "half-XP" stock answer... or even more astringent. BUT I would recommend you put some clever mcguffin item inside the thing, somewhere around one-third or half-way... down some dark little place that could only even be learned about by GOING THROUGH THE DAMN TOWER... and let that be some key-point to the storyline or plot for a "later" purpose in the adventure/campaign. Maybe it's the resting place of a lost puzzlebox, which once solved, either holds a key to the certain planar domain of the BBEG, OR becomes a key to some hidden weapon stash kept by the BBEG... either of which would distinctly be advantageous for Players to have... and while there are work arounds to the problem... story-wise it's flatter and less satisfying than to find out WHO owned said puzzlebox, why it was built originally, and whatever else might revolve around it. ALL lost to the anals of a history not explored by the Players who'd rather fly and lark about that bother with that whole inconvenient adventuring nonsense... Look, there's nothing wrong with a flying PC... EVEN at Level 1 in D&D. There's not even anything wrong with a whole party of them, regardless of how they came about the ability... BUT we are HOBBYISTS here. We're involved in the GREATEST hobby ever created! What kind of hobbyist are you NOT to want to enjoy your hobby? Maybe re-think the hobby if you don't want to at least respect the GM's craft of an adventure or campaign for you and your fellow Players... ;o)
Used to play an Avariel ranger from level 1. Downside with her option to fly however is that she kept her wings hidden inside a custom made backpack for the sake of keeping them hidden as much as possible since the world my GM made had the 'outside world' be full of superstitious people that made their wings worth tons. So, even though she physically had the ability to fly, she would never do it unless the need for it were extremely necessary. Was quite fun that way.
One solution I came up with is a homebrew rule for winged flight. If you're flying with wings and are hit with an attack, you have to make a Con save (like for concentration) equal to 5 + Half the Damage taken. If you fail, you fall and can make a Dex (Acrobatics) check to reduce any fall damage. This doesn't apply if you are using magical means to fly, such as a cloak of flying or the Fly spell (assuming you're not the one concentrating on the spell) so at later levels, flying magic is still relevant.
I adore your example, Here's how I once dealt with it PC: "I fly up to the top of tower to get the item." Me: Go right ahead. The player grabs it, they return to the group. Nothing happens until dusk Me: Suddenly the item before you glows blue, you feel a chill of power ripple through you. You are all now cursed. All the monsters in a 5 mile area know where you are. PC: ??? What do we do? Me: Arcana check. Me: The curse can only be ended by killing the one who cursed the item. He's back in the tower....somewhere.... Players will often try to find the easiest way to do things. If they complain, pull out your notes and show them "ITEM CURSED" written before the session began. Lol. Great video yet again.
Correct me if I’m wrong but as long as your flying speed doesn’t specifically say that you can not hover, so reducing a pc’s flying speed to 0 won’t cause them to fall... right? That’s what I have read, but I could be wrong.
I am presently playing an Aarakocra in our Dragonlance playthrough, and we haven't had many issues for several reasons: One, for the first three levels, I intentionally gave her a psychological reason not to publically fly. She'd still make use of her wings for what looked to others like a 'super jump' for getting a better angle on an attack or reach a higher point, but mostly her wings were kept hidden under a cloak due to backstory reasons. It's not until she starts getting character development after that she starts really using them. Two, by nature, Shadow of the Dragon Queen has mostly enemies with access to ranged attacks, flight, or both. I compensate for that by having my Aarakocra be mindful of her environment and not end her turn out in the open so she's not a massive target, but that's not an exclusively flying race tactic, in fact its a tactic most ranged players should be doing. I also have rarely used her flight to be untouchable in combat, mainly for better vantage points on her ranged attacks, to ferry allies around (despite being Dex based, I made Charisma her dump stat, not Strength for character reasons, so she's actually strong enough to carry multiple allies at once), to stealth through clouds (she's also the party's scout), or my favorite: skydrop a raging Barbarian on the heads of our enemies.
In 3.5 you could put a wind wall enchantment around your wizard towers for that is what all my wizards want on there towers it only counts as a small enchantment in stronghold builder
I'm so glad a video for this exists now, cause coincidentally I'm going to be playing in a game soon as a winged kobold ranger with a beast master companion being a pseudodragon. Noted it will also be in a modern world setting and starting at level 5. I'll be taking this video as a basis of "what not to do, and how to respect my abilities as one of the possibly only flying members of the party" because its to be said that my character will be near religious when it comes to how grateful and blessed he feels to be an urd.
At the after work campaign at my previous company I played a protector aasimar paladin of devotion. Her Radiant Soul ability, which allowed her to sprout two luminous, incorporeal wings to sprout from her back was a godsend when our party fought the aboleth boss in its watery lair. My paladin flew about the water while my party were affected by the lair actions. It also helped that as a paladin she was immune to its diseased tentacle touch and enslaving charm!
Well you covered most of the adjustments I already made in my campaign with a flying PC. Still, the one you didn't cover is one that playing published modules for 5e (and just reading the Monster Manual) already made me aware of. There are plenty of monsters who can fly that are suitable for use against 1st level characters and those PC have to use many of the responses you did for your players against the monsters.
The kobold flies up to the top of the tower and teleports the party up there with them. The teleportation door takes the party to the ground level anyways because they don't have the magic keyword to gain access to the top floor. It's that simple.
You can also take inspiration from Pathfinder and/or past editions of D&D for flying rules. For example, "Fly" is a skill proficiency in those books. Usually based on Dexterity, or for spellcasters their spellcasting ability when using spells like Fly. If we take those rules and apply to the tower story mentioned in the video, DM may have the player roll to take off and fly, then a fly roll per turn until they reach the top of the very tall tower. Or if the DM really wants the party to go into the tower, he might have high winds around the tower that get harder and harder to fly through until the Kobold is either forced to give up. Or DM reward the creativity by finding a hole in the side if the tower that the Kobold craws through then uses the teleportation stone to summon the others to his position. There by skipping only a few levels rather than the whole thing.
Flying characters are aloud but then I add stamina systems to make sure they don’t fly to much, after all these are flyers, also I look at how weapons work and make sure my players have difficulty with flying so they have no serious advantage. After all it’s really difficult to swing a weapon, or shoot a weapon like a bow and arrow or a gun, bow and arrow and swords get in the way of your wings, while guns have drawbacks like you get knocked backwards when shooting and when there is no ground to stop you from getting knocked off your feet, and then you have the problem of carrying items if your to weighted down so basically flight is not good in my game, also you have lower constitution because you need light bones to fly, and you also loose strength for that as well. Basically I make sure to damage flight as much as possible without completely ruining their flight. Also if enemies escape they can warn others, then boom now enemies will start using better attacks against flying.
And this, little kiddies, is one reason (among many, often much better) why you should always have a Session 0. *Establish mutual understandings and expectations for what kind of campaign you're going to play.* Is this a horror campaign? Comedy? Intrigue? What level of 'graphic content' are you all comfortable with? Are there subject matters that some of the participants would rather avoid? Are you ok with players making Evil characters? Even just basic assumptions of the game setting: how common is the use of magic, and how is it perceived? What playable races live in the region the game will start in? How is the region structured politically? What other major powers, if any, exist in the world? Do the gods sometimes walk among mortals and speak to them directly? Work together with the rest of the people you'll be playing with, so that you can _all_ have fun.
Weather is what I use and % on learning to fly. And strength checks to see how long they can fly. And if it's a mount. I really expensive saddle is needed
I've made a custom playable race, it's medium size has a flight speed of 35, but if their above 15 ft, they glide back down, bit once they hit 15 feet, they can go up 35 feet again, meaning they can only reach a maximum hight of 50ft. Based this off the 4e pixie.
One of my parties has a winged Tiefling, and it has never gotten in my way at all. I usually design traps and towers around the fact that one of my players can circumvent everything, and I sometimes manage to work it in so that the flying character is required for the solution to a problem.
I once participated in a play-test homebrew... Our party sailed in a sea of sand while looking for a monster. Eventually the monster showed up and our paladin takes his flying mount and flies to it.... The only thing the rest of the party could really do was to fire cannonballs from our ship while our paladin did most of the work. Everyone, including our DM, agreed that it was bit lame with only 1 person being able to get close and do some real damage.
@@CallenExile In this play-test, which was based on Monster Hunter series, we were on a boat which was moving at a high speed all the time so getting off the boat was out of question (unless you could fly with you mount like our paladin) and because Monster Hunter games don't have teleportation mechanics, this play-test did not have either. We were quite restricted in that game. :D Ranged weapons (in this case, our ship's cannons) was our best option.
@@MiGG0535 More than anything, why was there only a single flying mount? Why was there a flying mount in the first place? This was clearly designed as a ship to monster encounter.
I actually have an interesting character that's going to be playing in an upcoming game that I'll be DMing.. The player loves the idea of birdfolk characters like Kenku and Aarakocra, but didn't want the tough roleplaying of a Kenku, which was fair. The campaign is starting at level 1, so have a single character of a party of 6 being able to fly isn't going to.. fly. So instead, we had a chat and agreed that he *could* be an Aarakocra. But with the added caveat that one of his wings is missing. This not only builds upon the character in terms of backstory(we get to write a story about how he lost it) and personality flaws(if losing it affected him any, in terms of if he hates who took it, or if he has a chronic fear of losing things close to him) but also allows for the character, an Artificer, to build on himself later on down the line when flying isn't as much of an issue. I've basically said that, when he becomes a more talented Artificer, he'll be able to figure out a way to create himself a functional prosthetic wing, regaining the power of flight AND making his character look badass in the process. All in all, the transition from a one-winged, flawed and interesting Aarakocra to a badass metal-winged flying one, is one of the things I'm looking forward to most in the campaign.
the fastest way - reduce their weight and air resistance - now inagine a nude warlock without any inventory (except some rings and a butt-plug flying broom)
@@theDMLair no, it's faster to stack some barrels together, place a pydamid/cone on top of the barrels and fill the bottom barrels with the gas that apears when lightning strikes watter (hydrogen) Selfmade rocked - depending on their(!) know how about rockets you decide the success chances of a D100, test flights improve the likelyhood that it won't explode - on case of success the next campain will be "how to escape the moon and how much air can a magican produce before he has to rest?"
Yup, just change up the game a little. Another nice obstacle for a flying pc is the weather. Strong winds, heavy rain, weak sandstorm, snow. Don't forget that flying is one of the loudest forms of movement. Flying chars have plenty of disadvantages, it's up to the GM how convenient they make it in certain situations. The example with the tower could easily have a guardian monster at the top that would prevent them from flying to the top easily. The DM just has to know the characters.
My group has a house rule that everyone honors regarding flying. our rule is that if you use ranged attacks while moving 5 feet or more through the air, you get disadvantage on your attacks. This basically forces a flying pc to chose between repositioning or attacking at a high hit chance. Now, this doesn't affect all spellcasters as much, so an additional rule we have is that you have to roll concentration checks while flying to keep your spell active until you reach a higher level(usually by out leveling the spell by 4 levels. so lv 5 for 1st level spells, and so forth). This makes flying less of a combat advantage, and we feel its a whole lot more balanced this way.
Examples to counter a flying character: 1. Forts/Towers (PC Flies above a fort) Fort General: "MAGES-ARCHERS! SHOOT EM DOWN!" (PC flies back like no tomorrow) 2. Tarrasque (PC flies) DM: "The tarrasque picks up a large boulder in its mouth and chucks boulders at you roll a save throw." (PC eventually gets pinned by one and suffers huge damage) DM: "The Tarrasque uses swallow on you while pinned." 3. Powerful non-ranged Creatures that cannot fly in general (easier just to give em range) (PC attempts the big cheese) DM: "The enemies scatter hiding in the woods/or an especially small and tight cave." (PC is forced to fight enemies who are using the trees height or the small cave to force the PC to their level or go up to the PC's level) 4. Make a height limit on their flying. (Pretty simple) Edit: Basically you said about everything here. Pretty easy to counter flying being honest as all my areas had ranged enemies that employed sensible solutions (like 1 and 3). Add number 4 and it becomes pretty balanced pretty fast- even makes them a logical target a lot of the times for the ranged characters while the land based guys deal with the other land based PC's.
we all forgot the easyest obstacle; clouds! You can't see in them, they are just walks of fog - this gives a hight limitation - and specially on mountains, clouds are close on the sky....
But couldn't that also be used to the players advantage. Sure they can't see their enemies, but their enemies can't see them either. Also certain classes get things to help them circumvent that flaw.
An idea I had. Minimum Flight Speed- Require a certain degree of Strength/Jump/Athletics to have an instant start, otherwise a runup is needed unless Draconic/Celestial etc. racial/supernatural abilities overrule. Reduce requirements for Small and Tiny beings and remove entirely for Diminutive and Fine. Also opening wings while already in freefall should incur falling damage to those wings risking breaking/removing them unless a Feather Fall spell is used or they have enough height to turn a fall into a dive into a glide(which would be quite a distance) again reducing and removing requirements for smaller size categories. (ie. A Fairy would be unharmed, an Aegyl would not)
1. Plain of air. A endless void of air with the exception of continuous falling plots of land or with floating islands. 2. A world that's like venus but with magical floating islands. (flying would be common) 3. Have the first through whatever levels you think they should reach in underground caverns, underground hideouts, underground labyrinthes, and underground catacombs. (15-20' tall rooms will not make a huge difference in combat) 4. A planet completely covered in thorn vines were flying all the time can be a hazard.
What I would do is that after they have expended all of their Ft for flying then I would force them to touch the ground and recharge before being able to fly again. As well as make it so soaring doesn’t recharge Ft but only slow down your fall.
As a GM since Intermediate School, You need as a GM be overtly candid about what your campaign will be about and if you do not want character who can fly at 1st level, you need to tell the players so they do not waste their time building a flying character. EN World's Zeitgeist AP restricts magical flight until level 12 if I am not mistaken.
You know, that DM that you described (the example you used), he could have set up his game where if they bypassed the entire tower, the portal would teleport them back down to the ground (where they were), and the only way they could go through the portal properly is to go through the entire tower to somehow activate some invisible force that changes the polarity of the portal, thus changes it to where it should go (of course, the DM should say nothing of it, until they get to the portal, for instance, it changed colors, or it seems faster, or it changed its rotation). Now I have to ask, in all the time that you DM DnD, have you ever once used a dragon? Either it be for dialogue, or for destroying?
A DM in my very first session said we coundn't have wings. Me, being a dragonborn, asked if I could breathe fire at the ground and lift off the ground like Godzilla did. He allowed it. This goes to show that being creative pays off.
1 a party flies over something with monsters/enemies 2 they arrive at the final boss underleveled 3 they have to get back to the monster/enemy part and play normally or they just cant beat the boss
I think you’re taking this approach a bit “out of world“ when in fact if flying characters were that common place the world would have adapted. That high tower with a teleportation door would’ve had anti-air considered otherwise it would be like leaving a buffet out in the woods and expecting it to be there tomorrow.
I once Dmd a campaign that took place on a flying ship as a part of a journey. 2 out of 6 of my PCs had flying capabilities. Since the campaign mostly took place in the sky most of the enemies were flying too, but I didn't stop there. I let some of these enemies be intelligent enough to grab 2 PCs and throw them overboard so that the 2 PCs who could fly had to rescue them. This leaves 2 PCs on deck who were focused down by the enemies. The enemies weren't that strong or bulky, but they had numbers and intelligence on their side which made it an interesting encounter.
