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As the rules appear to stand an immobilised flying creature that can not hover will descend its movement distant and then crash if it has not reached the ground. A crashing creature falls upto 100 squares per round unless they can make a DC 30 athletics.
In many cases flying creatures do not have hover and do not have the kinds of athletics skills that will permit a DC 30 save. Furthermore few have an ability to immobilise other flying creatures.
Thus my PCs have worked out they can fly at height 150 and use fairly low level powers to cause high level creatures to crash and sustain 20d10 damage. Of course there is always a reciprocal risk but the odds are stacked massively in favour of the PCs.
Am I missing something or have the game designers provided a simple way of inflicting 20d10 damage against flying creatures?
As the rules are written most flying creatures would be stupid to fly above more than about 8 squares. This seems daft.
Was this different in some other version of D&D that I don’t know about? If any creature stops flying and starts falling it always took damage… lots of it… its… well its logical. What did you want them to do? Should flying creatures be immune to immobilizing effects?
Knocking flying creatures Prone is far more effective than Immobilized and pretty easy to find powers that do that as well, it even works on hovering creatures.
Yeah, "Fight In The Skies" 4e is not... lol. The rules they do have are mostly logical, but a DM is going to have to reasonably extrapolate a bit. There are a lot of powers/effects/whatever that just don't make sense in the air in any case, so that helps. You cannot really create terrain, so that obviates a bunch of spells that might cause someone to fall prone. likewise it is going to be, at best, exceedingly difficult to stay close to an enemy in the air, unless you both desire that, so a LOT of melee attack based ways to knock people over are gone or much less important.
And lets face it, if you're fighting 100's of feet up in the sky, it is going to be pretty darn dangerous and pretty easy to end up falling to your kersplat. Which is pretty much why there is rather a hint of relegating PC flying to high levels where there is some decent chance of survival. The relative ease of bringing flying creatures DOWN to the ground is also a big advantage in the more likely scenarios where the PCs are being straffed by some monster. It isn't all that fun to be a helpless target, and even if your party has a couple ranged strikers in it, that still leaves you with maybe 50% of your normal firepower, which is not really conducive to victory in most battles.
So look at flying PCs in combat as a high risk thrill type scenario for the players, and the ease grounding flying monsters as a benefit to the game.
Lets not forget that there are a massive number of hover fliers in 4e. Probably more than half the fliers can hover. Prone is the only reliable way to bring them down. As previously stated most prone effects come from melee attacks which makes it hard to apply them to fliers.
The rules for flight in 4e are relatively weak but it does sort of make sense that if you're having combat 150' off the ground there is a significant chance your day is going to end with a resounding thud and a small bounce.
I remember a few months ago a thread where people debated whether the wizard 1 power "Icy Ground" (or whatever it is called) should or shouldn't be able to knock a flying creature prone. One group say "It's icy ground, so it doesn't affect flying creatures". The other group say "forget the fluff, just go with the mechanics and make up a reason for it".
Certainly the wizard "Icy Rays" can be good at bringing down flying creatures (damage + immobilise).
It seems to me that the question behind the question is why, when even epic attack powers might be limited to 8d6 damage or 6[W] damage, is there a way for relatively simple to cause falls do 20d10?
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It seems to me that the question behind the question is why, when even epic attack powers might be limited to 8d6 damage or 6[W] damage, is there a way for relatively simple to cause falls do 20d10?
Cheers
Because you are not supposed to be doing such things in 4E, so not much attention have been given to it?
Thus my PCs have worked out they can fly at height 150 and use fairly low level powers to cause high level creatures to crash and sustain 20d10 damage.
More like 9d10 to 5d10 damage depending on the speed of the flier. Also, do it to the players, they want to play with fire then let them get burned a couple times.
Afraid Tuft is on the ball. Remember the table in the DMG that lists level-appropriate falls? You are not supposed to fly higher than that.
In this case, it seems it is the players taking the initiative to fly high. In which case the DMs response should probably be to not challenge them up there. All they can do at 150 feet is travel. If they constantly seek to use high-level archery or such trickery, maybe a few ranged immobilize/knockdown powers is in order, but in general I'd let them get away with it. Most interesting stuff in DnD is indoors anyway.
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Thanks for the thoughts. I guess the question was related to the discrepency between falling damage and limitation on epic powers. Take the point on the knock prone being even easier to achieve than immobilse.
As for 4E and flying, I think the inclusion of relatively low level flying mounts such as hippogriff enable even heroic tier to fly. If the PCs can sit at range 40' above the target and pepper it with arrows its hard for a flying creature not to get drawn upwards.
I have also noted that the game mechanics have do not quite scale up to 3D.
There seem a few solutions.
Dont let the PCs get access to flying mounts
Have monsters decline ariel encounters at altituide
Reduce the damage from falling to be consistent with epic limits
Reduce the DC for a creature to recover from a crash
The latter seems to make most sense as creatures tend to evolve to protect themselves from their most obviuos dangers. Ignoring the real world simulation debate I have watched wildlife programmes where eagles have all but knocked flying prey sensless and the prey recover readily during the subsequent drop.
Well, one way to deal with that would be to come up with a rule relating to saves vs these kinds of effects. What you need is a mechanism that provides a guarantee that the target gets at least one save before it crashes into the ground.
Here's what I would consider doing. Make 'falling' an 'end of turn' thing that happens AFTER saving throws. So a prone/immobilized/stunned creature moves its movement and is now 'crashing'. Then it gets its save, then if it fails, it falls, which may or may not result in hitting the ground depending on how high up it is. If it does save, then it simply does not fall.
Not sure if that has any other rules implications, but it would mean that you are at least guaranteed a chance to avoid crashing and possibly more than one chance if you are high enough. The last remaining hitch is then powers with no save (usually those that read something like "... until the start/end of your next turn.") I don't know what the answer is for that, yet, but I'm thinking... Hmmmm, perhaps crashing movement happens at the start of the turn of whoever initiated the crash? That might work.
This is easily fixed. You're being way too soft on the pc's in my estimation. First letting them have flying mounts in heroic seems a little montyhaulish to me. I've been playing DnD for 30 years and other than a flying carpet in one campaign my experience with flying mounts is limited to 1-2 adventures where they were temporary.
PC's flying at 150' look like food to a ROC. Kill a pc through falling and see how long they want to continue to be fighter pilots. Any dragon can stun pc's in flight via frightful presence and stun their mounts and send them all to the ground in a pile. Griffons/hippogriffs don't have hover so any attack that immobilizes, stuns, or knocks prone is lights out. There's a dragon appropriate to every level pc group. They all have frightful presence. buhbye pc's
Killing PCs to make a point over a weakness in the game system is not my style especially when they were not being explotative they only had the mount for 1 day for a specific purpose and it just happened during an encounter. Equally a return to the bad old days of earlier edition broken rules and the unwritten code of abstenance or risk for tat seems a tad tedious (remember level raised holyword ... roll for initiative the cleric with the highest paralyses the other side, coup de grace).
Abdul I tend to agree with you Crashing has more of a condition type feel one in which the target is essentially falling out of control doing everything to regain control (i.e. effectively stunned). A flat DC of 30 makes it impossible for many creatures to recover irrespective of height. A save ends would provide lower level flying monsters a chance to recover. Knowing creatures can more readily recover from a crash would make PCs far more cautious about flying.
Thus my PCs have worked out they can fly at height 150 and use fairly low level powers to cause high level creatures to crash and sustain 20d10 damage. Of course there is always a reciprocal risk but the odds are stacked massively in favour of the PCs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacavityCat
Killing PCs to make a point over a weakness in the game system is not my style especially when they were not being explotative they only had the mount for 1 day for a specific purpose and it just happened during an encounter.
The opening statement didn't sound anything like that last one. It sounded like you gave a low level party the ability to fly, and didn't know how to stop them from hanging out at 150 feet, waiting for epic tier monsters to show up, and then watching said monster fall to its death.
__________________ Life's a die and then you bitch.
Killing PCs to make a point over a weakness in the game system is not my style especially when they were not being explotative they only had the mount for 1 day for a specific purpose and it just happened during an encounter. Equally a return to the bad old days of earlier edition broken rules and the unwritten code of abstenance or risk for tat seems a tad tedious (remember level raised holyword ... roll for initiative the cleric with the highest paralyses the other side, coup de grace).
You definitely made it appear as if it was a problem being exploited by your pc's. You could give them ample warning this was dangerous business by having a creature stun a mount and have the mount fall to it's death. If they can't glean that being 150' in the air is going to catch up with them there's no saving them anyway.
If your flying pc's wasn't a problem I'm unsure the point of this thread. The odds are not stacked massively in the players favor as you suggest especially as even one failure for the players is career ending.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nytmare
The opening statement didn't sound anything like that last one. It sounded like you gave a low level party the ability to fly, and didn't know how to stop them from hanging out at 150 feet, waiting for epic tier monsters to show up, and then watching said monster fall to its death.
I'm not exactly sure why it would generally be any more exploitative for PCs to BE flying than to not be flying... Consider, many spells have ranges of 20 squares. A monster falling from that height will take 7d10 damage. That is already FAR beyond anything characters below epic tier can normally deliver for damage. So, regardless of whether or not the PCs are themselves flying, they possess a potent form of attack against flying monsters, at practically any level. Now, every flying monster could simply fly at treetop altitude at all times, etc. but the potential is there.
I really don't understand the attitude that says "well, all flying is just restricted to higher tier adventurers." I don't think that is really a reasonable stance to take either. Lower level characters could also fly around only at treetop height and thus avoid most deadly fall situations, but that is still simply putting a fairly arbitrary sort of restriction on what types of environments heroic characters can adventure in. What convincing argument exists for having such a restriction in the game? I don't see one.
The problem IMHO was that the designers decided to use a skill check to halt crashing. Once they made that decision it pretty much HAD to be a high DC because otherwise it would be a trivial check for most of the higher level flying creatures, and they didn't want to make it a free pass for anyone.
Using a saving throw simply avoids that problem entirely. In fact to a certain extent it makes flying MORE dangerous for some of the really high level creatures. Consider that an Ancient Black Dragon would have an athletics rating of +21, and a bonus of +10 for flying speed, thus it would normally only crash on a 1 simply 'taking 10' will obviate any chance of it crashing from above 110 squares. The same dragon requiring a save would succeed on a 5+, so it now has 4x the chance of crashing, though the probability is against it in either case. My suggestion also provides a check even below 110 squares for the dragon, so it is really fairly debatable which situation is more hazardous. In general monsters flying near the ground will crash approximately half as often if they get a save. Lower level PCs would rarely make the DC30 check normally unless their mounts are much higher level than they are, and would face practically certain death below 100 or so squares. This way they have roughly a 50% chance of only being grounded, possibly less if they happen to be above about 200 squares (though it strikes me that flying that high doesn't particularly seem like a good idea in any case). Remember, a mounted PC still has to make another save to stay in the saddle if he's knocked prone, and is AUTOMATICALLY dismounted if the mount is knocked prone (in a flying situation you might also grant a save for this).
No matter what sort of rules you use for flying combat, it IS going to be quite dangerous and PCs are likely to fall often. Why make it pure suicide? A heroic character flying at lower altitudes aught to have some chance of surviving a crash without massive damage IMHO. It isn't going to somehow degrade the game any, it just opens up a few more adventure opportunities.
Well, one way to deal with that would be to come up with a rule relating to saves vs these kinds of effects. What you need is a mechanism that provides a guarantee that the target gets at least one save before it crashes into the ground.
Here's what I would consider doing. Make 'falling' an 'end of turn' thing that happens AFTER saving throws. So a prone/immobilized/stunned creature moves its movement and is now 'crashing'. Then it gets its save, then if it fails, it falls, which may or may not result in hitting the ground depending on how high up it is. If it does save, then it simply does not fall.
Not sure if that has any other rules implications, but it would mean that you are at least guaranteed a chance to avoid crashing and possibly more than one chance if you are high enough. The last remaining hitch is then powers with no save (usually those that read something like "... until the start/end of your next turn.") I don't know what the answer is for that, yet, but I'm thinking... Hmmmm, perhaps crashing movement happens at the start of the turn of whoever initiated the crash? That might work.
I think this is a superior solution than by the book, and I'll certainly use it in my games.
__________________ Plane Sailing
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
I really don't understand the attitude that says "well, all flying is just restricted to higher tier adventurers."
It's not an attitude, it's a part of the design of the game. In the explanation of the tiers (pg 28 PHB) heroic = characters are earthbound, paragon = characters start flying. Is there even a way to get sustained flight before the paragon tier without DM fiat?
[EDIT] Ok, I found one. There's a chance you can make a heroic tier party fly with a Phantom Steed ritual if the caster is aided by 4 people and can beat a 40 on the Arcana check.
__________________ Life's a die and then you bitch.
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