D&D 5E Aerial Combat

[S_Dalsgaard]

The current discussion about buffing the fighter with fly, in the thread on bounded accuracy, made me think about how to run aerial combat. I haven't had the chance yet to have a battle between flying opponents and was wondering how to run it.
Lets take the example from the mentioned thread, a fighter with Fly vs. a dragon. The fighter wants to get in close combat and uses his round to close with the dragon and make his attacks. Now the dragon has no problem with close combat and makes melee attacks in its round, but as it can't hover, it also has to make a move. I know it is a bit different between gaming tables how this is ruled (you need to make a full move to stay aloft or only ½, a quarter, or some other fraction), but in any case the dragon is forced to take an AoO when it moves away from the fighter. As far as I can figure it out, it is never a good idea to get into close combat while flying, unless you can be the one that makes the closing move.

Or is there something I am missing?

 

[abelmort]

as it can't hover, it also has to make a move.

Is this necessarily true? The rule in PHB states:

If a flying creature is knocked prone, has its speed reduced to 0, or is otherwise deprived of the ability to move...

Nothing in there about choosing not to move, or is that somewhere else?

 

[S_Dalsgaard]

Is this necessarily true? The rule in PHB states:

Nothing in there about choosing not to move, or is that somewhere else?

No, not necessarily, but the recent thread on Aarrakocra and their flight ability made me think that it was common for tables to rule that creatures without a hovering ability must move at least some of their move each turn to stay aloft. It isn't something that is really stated one way or the other in the rules (except for what can be inferred from the text you quoted).

 

[Wik]

Well, you could rule that a hover check must be made, a la Pathfinder. Or you could just let PCs hover, RAW. Or you could force the monsters to circle the standing still character, still in range so no AoO.

I personally like the last one. It reminds me of the time I was working on site and saw a raven and an eagle fight. They were both flying, but also circling about madly in the air. It was pretty cool.

 

[S_Dalsgaard]

Well, you could rule that a hover check must be made, a la Pathfinder. Or you could just let PCs hover, RAW. Or you could force the monsters to circle the standing still character, still in range so no AoO.

I personally like the last one. It reminds me of the time I was working on site and saw a raven and an eagle fight. They were both flying, but also circling about madly in the air. It was pretty cool.

Yeah, the last one seems like a pretty good compromise.

 

[Wik]

Yeah, the last one seems like a pretty good compromise.

If you want to do something a bit more clunky but still really cool, you could have one flying character still move, and allow the adjacent guy to either follow, OR let the flyer get away with no AoO, and have the moving character move at only half speed. This would allow for the sort of movement that you see in real (non airplane) aerial combat. It's a bit of work, but it'd be neat to see, and covers the "realism" factor of having to actually move, while still preventing flyers from being completely screwed. Of course, you could also just give most flyers flyby attack...

There are a lot of birds where I live, and I've seen more than a few birdfights. They tend to involve the birds moving erratically in one direction, pecking and swooping around each other but in real close quarters, almost like flying cats.

 

[miniaturehoarder]

Aerial combat isn't worth it in 5E since it was made into one shot rocket tag with the prone / push rules.

 

[DaveDash]

The current discussion about buffing the fighter with fly, in the thread on bounded accuracy, made me think about how to run aerial combat. I haven't had the chance yet to have a battle between flying opponents and was wondering how to run it.
Lets take the example from the mentioned thread, a fighter with Fly vs. a dragon. The fighter wants to get in close combat and uses his round to close with the dragon and make his attacks. Now the dragon has no problem with close combat and makes melee attacks in its round, but as it can't hover, it also has to make a move. I know it is a bit different between gaming tables how this is ruled (you need to make a full move to stay aloft or only ½, a quarter, or some other fraction), but in any case the dragon is forced to take an AoO when it moves away from the fighter. As far as I can figure it out, it is never a good idea to get into close combat while flying, unless you can be the one that makes the closing move.

Or is there something I am missing?

RAW everyone can hover. Creatures with the hover ability just can't be knocked out of the sky when they're knocked prone. So you can trip attack a beholder out of the air.
Basically aerial combat works more or less like land combat, but with some more deadly repercussions.

Now, if you want to change the rules so that creatures that don't have the hover ability have to keep moving, then cool. It probably adds a more interesting dynamic to aerial combat without slowing things down too much.

 

[S_Dalsgaard]

RAW everyone can hover.

I could not find this anywhere (unless you mean RAW as in it doesn't say they can't hover). Do you have a page number?

Personally I am fine either way, but as you say, it could add a bit to the dynamics of aerial combat if flyers couldn't automatically hover (something like the maneuverability classes from earlier editions was suggested in the thread on aarakocra).