D&D 5E Flight ability: Does this make the Aarakocra overpowered?

[Corpsetaker]

Greetings!

I saw this discussion over on the Wizards of the Coast website so I figured I would bring it here.

Do you think the Aarakocra is overpowered because it has flight?

Discuss.

 

[Zaran]

Not at all. Flying PCs make great targets.

What would bother me more about them is the fact that they aren't relatable to most NPCs in my campaign. It always annoys me when a player wants to play alien looking characters because I either have to treat them like they are a walking freak show or I have to change my story to make them fit.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Greetings!

I saw this discussion over on the Wizards of the Coast website so I figured I would bring it here.

Do you think the Aarakocra is overpowered because it has flight?

Discuss.

There are so many ways to turn that flight into a liability that I just don't buy it.

I mean, at the very least, every creature in your world proficient with martial weapons has the ability to use nets, which for a Medium-sized flyer, are a prescription for "take Xd6 damage and call me in the morning."

For more brutish unthinking monsters, flying isn't any more of an advantage than having ranged attacks is.

Yeah, they can ignore most battle terrain, so can anyone with a teleportation power, that's notable, but it's not TOO powerful.

 

[Lancelot]

We've just started a campaign with an aarakocra monk. He'll eventually have an insane amount of movement speed but, at the moment, he's probably one of the most vulnerable characters.

The first encounter: kobolds, outdoors... including a winged kobold. The aarakocra is immediately engaged in a 1-on-1 duel at 50' altitude where the rest of the party can't really help him. Sure, we can use missile attacks... but he's out of range of touch (or even short-range) spells, and the rest of us are engaged by the regular kobolds (so, firing with disadvantage while in melee). It limited our ability to focus fire on a single target. And then the monk got hit, reducing him to 1hp. That's when the player realized the implications of getting knocked unconscious at 50' up. The falling damage would have killed him instantly. He chose to immediately disengage and land, out of sheer terror at his vulnerability in aerial combat.

From a combat perspective, there are too many ways in which a flying creature can be counter-balanced. They become a focus for aerial or missile-firing attackers. There isn't much cover or concealment in the air. Getting knocked unconscious becomes "probably lethal", rather than "somewhat inconveniencing". Even once the aarakocra reaches a level where a fall won't reduce them to "negative max hp", the damage taken after falling unconscious = 1 death box. Like any situation where one PC is physically separated from the rest of the party, it makes teamwork tactics that much harder. Many enclosed adventuring areas (dungeons, castles, caverns, sewers, etc) simply don't have the vertical space to take the aarakocra out of reach anyway.

Now, there will be times when the aarakocra will absolutely shine - and that's perfectly okay. There's not much a bunch of zombies can do against an aerial archer. But how is this different from having access to the web or spike growth spells (to name just a few)? These spells utterly ruin non-casting, non-missile, ground-based foes. The solution is to have a mix of enemies that can pose a challenge to the party, while also sometimes letting the PC's "win" for their choice. If the party is standing in a long hallway and 4 animated suits of armor appear at the far end, the druid's spike growth is basically an insta-win. If the party is attacked by wolves and the aarakocra sorcerer starts blasting them from above, that's pretty much the same. Good job, enjoy the victory. Hopefully, you've got something that will handle the gargoyles in the next encounter...

To me, the broader risk is what it does to the Exploration pillar of the game, rather than the Combat pillar. However, even there, you've already got to account for the ranger's hawk companion, the wizard's owl familiar, the warlock's imp familiar, etc, etc. There are so many aerial scouting options available that I don't see how the aarakocra substantially unbalances it.

 

[jgsugden]

Big risk, big reward. It is overpower and overly vulnerable at the same time. That isn't a combo for all players, or for all groups, but if you're willing to accept the higher risk of death from crashing, then it can be ok....

 

[Rhenny]

Like I posted on WotC boards, 50' of unlimited flight is game changing, not overpowered.

I'm DMing a campaign with 1 Aarokocra PC, and the first session was great. The Aarokocra pc was able to fly over a forest area, find a fleeing goblin and then drop down in a clearing in front of it before it ran into a cave to get help. That gave the Aarokocra PC a feeling of accomplishment, and it helped the party. Well done. Then, after the Aarokocra flew back to the party, the party followed his directions to get to the cave. They all went into the cave and encountered the rest of a bandit gang (4 more goblins, a goblin boss and 2 half-orcs). The others in the group had darkvision so nobody used light or a torch. Inside the cave, the Aarokocra PC fumbled around trying to sneak attack with disadvantage because he couldn't see well in the dim light. In that session, we saw how one advantage was counterbalanced by a disadvantage.

Nobody in the party (including the Aarakocra player, the other players and me, the DM) feels that the Aarakocra is overpowered or that he steals any of the spotlight.

85%-90% of the adventure they will run has the pcs investigating leads in town and inside buildings, infiltrating different structures and dungeon delving to eradicate elemental cult fanatics (Princes of the Apocalypse). That means that the Aarakocra's flight will only really be helpful about 10% or 15% of the time. Not a big deal.

Most of the arguments against Aarakocra flight have to do with the fact that unlimited flight should not be something that low-mid level pcs have. This is an ideological argument, not a power argument. The DM can always make adventures challenging even with Aarakocra in the mix. Some obstacles may not be a challenge for the birdman, but other obstacles will be challenging. It is all about variety. Aarakocra still go unconscious and die just as easy as other PCs. They actually can die easier when they are slept or knocked unconscious in mid-air. They can be surprised, hit with missile fire and spells, foes can ready actions to wait for an Aarakocra to get near. One danger is an Aarakocra sniper or spell sniper, but that may just be an abuse of the feat, not an abuse of the race. So far, definitely not an issue in our games.

 

[Nawara]

Most of the arguments against Aarakocra flight have to do with the fact that unlimited flight should not be something that low-mid level pcs have. This is an ideological argument, not a power argument.

This. So much this. Similar to how the initial "OMG THE MONK IS OP!!!!" reaction in 3e was based on people trying to fit a new system into old ways of thinking, the idea that flight is by definition a high-level power is a legacy of 3e and 4e thinking. I suspect it has something to do with battlemaps and most low-level enemies in old adventures being Monster Dudes With Swords, but who knows.

I think an Aarakocra PC opens up all sorts of options, both tactically and story-wise. There are tons of ways to take one down, and falling out of the sky is bad. It's definitely a high-risk/reward strategy, but so are a lot of things in D&D. The important thing is that, as a DM, you know one of the PCs can fly while you're planning the adventure.

Certainly most superhero teams have had a flyer or two for the past half a century and that hasn't made writers draw a blank or fall into the Aquaman-style "Look! One of the seven gems just fell into the ocean!" trap.

 

[Fralex]

Flight isn't even that high-level a power. You get fly at 5th level, and even at level three you can levitate, or reduce yourself and hitch a ride on a flying familiar. Flying just sounds really good because it's one of those things humans always wish they could do. If you watch a lot of birds carefully (particularly the littler ones), they seem to treat their flight as just a really long-range jump most of the time; it's usually just a means to an end, to get to a new tree, or something short-term like that.

 

[Sunseeker]

Flying, like any other movement feature, is only as overpowered as the DM is unwilling to deal with it.

When my players fly, they get attacked by flying things or ranged characters. When my players move around the battlefield too quickly, they run into dangerous terrain. Etc.... There are other even easier ways to restrict flying: tight canopy, cramped spaces, indoor environments, storms. Flying excels in wide-open flat to lightly mountainous terrain. Everywhere else flying will almost never see any use.

Flying is very overpowered if the DM is unwilling to make adjustments to a campaign that isn't designed to deal with it, or isn't interested in mixing things up in order to challenge flying. This is where most of the "complaints" about flying come from: the DM has created a lot of challenges for walking, non-acrobatic, average-speed characters and anything outside of that, especially as grossly outside of it as flying is not a source of creative rethinking on the part of the DM, but an afford to their game design sensibilities.

 

[Psikerlord#]

A ranged birdman PC will be OP in every environment he can remain at significant range. Which will be all outdoor locations/wilderness style adventures, some parts of city adventures, and little of dungeon adventures.

Magic initiate for feather fall. sharpshooter or MC warlock blaster with the 300' range from the skies. He will simply stay completely out of range of thrown weapons, and only be vulnerable to bows (and at disad if the range is more than 150') or other long range magic. Not to mention invisible flying scout.

On the other hand if it's a melee PC, it's just movement/scout utility, I'd say that's fine.