How are melee characters expected to deal with flying creatures?

[mneme]

Hmm. Clearly, the -intended- rule (and certainly the sensible one) is that a pull/push/slide must be legal movement using targets movement modes.

A swimming creature can be pulled around vertically or horizontally in the water -- but unless it has a fly or walk speed, it can't be forced moved out of the water.

A creature with a fly speed can be pulled/pushed any which way.

A creature with a walk speed but not a fly speed can't be forced moved into the air, but can be moved along a slope.

Hmm. Only thing is, this doesn't cover stuff like critters that force move people into water--though that's arguably hindering terrain anyway. Not seeing a big loss here.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

There's a certain blend here. While the DM has to tailor his encounters for his party, you also want most parties to handle a wide variety of encounters.

I think this is a weakness in 4e's power system.

In 3e, a fighter's power is represented in his weapon and his multiple attacks. A fighter with a powerful bow in hand can do solid damage, though not as high as with his weapon.

In 4e, a fighter's main power comes from both his weapon and his powers. You can give them a good magic ranged weapoin....but they can't use any powers with it. At will attacks become weaker and weaker at higher levels, so the damage disparity grows.

Yes, you are right

but not the answer to the quoted passage...

my reasoming for the quoted passage:

1) The dragon can´t know that 21 squares, i.e. 105 ft. is a magical barrier
2) The dragon can´t hover at this distance
3) Players can move
4) The dragon most certainly can´t judge the distance exactly
5) Designing an encounter which not only challenges the players by attacking their weakness once in a while and with "fair" means is ok. Designing an encounter with monsters who happen to know where exactly the weaknesses of the players are and shamelessly exploiting them is not ok.

1) Fair situation (IMHO of course)
And presenting a dragon which only stays at this distance right from the beginning...
At the beginning, the dragon usually would believe he faces normal warriors who are no challenge to him and offer him a good meal. Only whe the dragon realizes he is facing real enemies he will try to back off and stay in the ait using his breath weapon. If the enemies fire on him with missiles and magic he will stay even further away...

2) The Dragon knows from this particular group of adventurers and te adventurers may have heard rumors of dragons, but ignored them. (Maybe because the DM would never use ranged monsters in the open vs an only melee party) The dragon has heard of the melee prowess of the fighters so decides to attack in the open and show them who is the boss.

Unfair stuation:
Random encounter dragon on an open plain, no trees. Suddenly appears at 200 ft distance. Closes to 105 ft and attacks with his breath weapon without any reason... rinse and repeat until players are death.

 

[Herschel]

A bit of an aside, but it is my understanding that the 'not vertical' part of forced movement was only intended to cover using forced movement to induce falling damage (ie, by sending people up) and it is standardly accepted among WotC that you can pull downwards and that interpretation will be making it into an FAQ of some kind.

But my understanding is often flawed, and I'd have thought it would hit an FAQ by now.

This is also the way I have understood it, as have the multiple other DMs played with.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yes, you are right

but not the answer to the quoted passage...

my reasoming for the quoted passage:

1) The dragon can´t know that 21 squares, i.e. 105 ft. is a magical barrier
2) The dragon can´t hover at this distance
3) Players can move
4) The dragon most certainly can´t judge the distance exactly
5) Designing an encounter which not only challenges the players by attacking their weakness once in a while and with "fair" means is ok. Designing an encounter with monsters who happen to know where exactly the weaknesses of the players are and shamelessly exploiting them is not ok.

1) Fair situation (IMHO of course)
And presenting a dragon which only stays at this distance right from the beginning...
At the beginning, the dragon usually would believe he faces normal warriors who are no challenge to him and offer him a good meal. Only whe the dragon realizes he is facing real enemies he will try to back off and stay in the ait using his breath weapon. If the enemies fire on him with missiles and magic he will stay even further away...

2) The Dragon knows from this particular group of adventurers and te adventurers may have heard rumors of dragons, but ignored them. (Maybe because the DM would never use ranged monsters in the open vs an only melee party) The dragon has heard of the melee prowess of the fighters so decides to attack in the open and show them who is the boss.

Unfair stuation:
Random encounter dragon on an open plain, no trees. Suddenly appears at 200 ft distance. Closes to 105 ft and attacks with his breath weapon without any reason... rinse and repeat until players are death.

These are all really good points which a DM should be taking into consideration. Of course not all DMs seem to be even this insightful and some are just spiteful, and some are just frightful In any case it devolves down to not a weakness in the system, but just a matter of having a good DM. Bad DMs will muck things up one way or another.

@Stalker0 The problem isn't to do with powers. In fact powers COULD solve the issue. The issue is the same one that has always existed in D&D where you have a dependency on different skill sets for different weapons. In 2e a fighter with a high STR and a bow is equally hobbled because DEX still controlled to-hit bonuses with missile weapons and at higher levels the enhancement bonus of your weapon was still a major part of your chance to hit. Stats had a similar amount of effect on your attack bonus and so did magic etc as it does in 4e. Thus a 2e fighter with a bow is really no better off than a 4e fighter with a bow.

At least in 4e it is theoretically possible within the design of the game to write a power which gets the fighter around part of the issue by making it a STR vs AC attack. Nothing is going to particularly solve the "I can't afford a magic bow I use once a year" problem. Either you have one or you don't and that has nothing to do with powers.

As a design issue solving this IMHO is as bad as not solving it since the implication is you now have to let every PC be essentially at par with a variety of weapons. How then would one character excel with a specific style of fighting? If they can excel at one specific style, then that will be the baseline for performance in that style and the "ordinary" guys are still lame at it by comparison. Its not a solvable issue and 4e is no better or worse than any other system in this regard.

 

[keterys]

1) The dragon can´t know that 21 squares, i.e. 105 ft. is a magical barrier
2) The dragon can´t hover at this distance
3) Players can move
4) The dragon most certainly can´t judge the distance exactly
5) Designing an encounter which not only challenges the players by attacking their weakness once in a while and with "fair" means is ok. Designing an encounter with monsters who happen to know where exactly the weaknesses of the players are and shamelessly exploiting them is not ok.

I think we still safely know that the blue dragon sniping party is still just an example of an unfun encounter, and hopefully no DM is rolling random encounters for a party traveling or running a module that happens to include a blue dragon and then going 'well, I guess the smart tactic would be...' _but_ your assumptions above are flawed.

1) It's not a magical barrier. It knows it can launch a blast of energy a certain range. It should well know how high to stay so it's at the rough extent of its range (ie, 101-110 ft up). If you mean 'it shouldn't know that many creatures have attacks which don't go past 100 ft' - 1) why not? and 2) why wouldn't it stay at max range, regardless?
2) It has fly (hover). Yes, it can.
3) Doesn't really help them except to limit the number of them it can kill. That is why I mentioned that it might only kill, say, 2 of the 5 PCs though. I assumed a scenario where they all scattered and ran. It presumably focuses on the ranger or whatever first in the meantime.
4) It can do so as exactly as any player can, and since it only needs to be within 10 feet of its estimate I imagine it can do so quite well enough for these purposes. At least as well as any PC positioning a blast 5 or area burst 2 normally. I imagine you don't make PCs use grenade scatter rules for that, anyways, nor would I think of telling a DM to do so for his monsters as a player.
5) Sometimes DMs don't design encounters - they run them from a module or roll some random encounter or something similar. Not my preferred method, of course, but I _have_ actually fought multiple dragons out in fairly open areas in modules as a player and had a DM once whose idea of fun _was_ to hover at max height in a 60' tall room using ranged attacks cause hey, that's what was in the module (yawn).

So depending on the game, Grasping Javelins and Ebony Flies (preferably with the invulnerability saddle) may be the method of choice for dealing with flyers. If you're lucky you may have some other resort, though surprisingly few abilities work for this. If your DM doesn't allow forced movement to work vertically, you're even more up a creek.

 

[Tallifer]

Imagine you are actually a hero building a new adventuring party or a lord hiring a new party of adventurers. Why would you not recruit at least one ranged controller and one ranged striker?

In fact MMORPGs make better simulation for the roleplaying aspect of an adventuring party: there is a goal (waging war against the other realm, defeating some monsters, questing for something in dangerous territory) and the party begins to assemble. If there is a certain role lacking, everyone stares disconsolately at each other until a) they find another member or b) one of them agrees to fetch another member of his family [ooc switch to an alternate character].

If your party is useless against flying creatures then you need to sacrifice soemthign else.

 

[Derren]

I also strongly believe, if a DM allows a dragon to stay at exactly 21 squares away he is doing his job wrong...

Ok, but then the PCs are not allowed to use "When the dragon gets within 20 squares ready actions.

I don't see that the DM must do something in this situation.
If a fight with the dragon makes sense considering the location and actions of the PCs he is not required to make it defeatable for the party.
The players are responsible to overcome the challenge. And when they are not prepared they should flee and regroup.
The DM should not dumb his monsters down and play them like they would be complete tactical morons just so that Mr. "I only need a melee weapon" fighter can hit it.

Problem with 4E is that the powers are so restricting. Even when the fighter gets a bow he would do rahter low damage to the dragon (if he can even hit it as Dex won't be his primary stat).

 

[keterys]

Thinking on two parties I know...
Party one has a fighter, barbarian, cleric, and warlock.
The cleric's max range is 5.
The warlock's max range is 10.
The fighter and barbarian have magic javelins and can attack with them at, say, -3 to hit and, say, -20 or so to damage (ie, 1d6+7 damage instead of 4d6+24 or 1d12+22)
I think there's at least one bow stashed in some pack, which would be at a further -6 to hit and damage.

The other has a paladin, bard, swordmage-warlock, and rogue.
Paladin's max range is effectively 5.
Bard's max range is 10.
Swordlock's max range is 10.
Rogue's max range is 18. (I think - Range 12 plus Determined for another 6)

And the number of ranged prones in the game is still very very small, which is really the best hope of dealing with creatures that can hover.

Well the best hope is a DM who wants the group to have fun and provides interesting terrain, the ability to stunt or skill challenge more options, etc. But after that

 

[keterys]

Problem with 4E is that the powers are so restricting. Even when the fighter gets a bow he would do rahter low damage to the dragon (if he can even hit it as Dex won't be his primary stat).

Well, going from 30 damage to 10 damage at a stiff penalty to attack due to weapon change is little different from going from 200 damage to 30 damage at the same penalty to attack in 3e from switching to a bow. Better, in some ways, but still a screw off either way.

You could also do some _really_ silly things with range in previous editions. When I ran Dragonlance I remember the odd effects of enlarged (double range) spells on ship combat and sieges, having dragons 'Run' for distances, and giving the archer several rounds of rolls at penalties decreasing from extreme as things closed.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I think we still safely know that the blue dragon sniping party is still just an example of an unfun encounter, and hopefully no DM is rolling random encounters for a party traveling or running a module that happens to include a blue dragon and then going 'well, I guess the smart tactic would be...' _but_ your assumptions above are flawed.

1) It's not a magical barrier. It knows it can launch a blast of energy a certain range. It should well know how high to stay so it's at the rough extent of its range (ie, 101-110 ft up). If you mean 'it shouldn't know that many creatures have attacks which don't go past 100 ft' - 1) why not? and 2) why wouldn't it stay at max range, regardless?
2) It has fly (hover). Yes, it can.
3) Doesn't really help them except to limit the number of them it can kill. That is why I mentioned that it might only kill, say, 2 of the 5 PCs though. I assumed a scenario where they all scattered and ran. It presumably focuses on the ranger or whatever first in the meantime.
4) It can do so as exactly as any player can, and since it only needs to be within 10 feet of its estimate I imagine it can do so quite well enough for these purposes. At least as well as any PC positioning a blast 5 or area burst 2 normally. I imagine you don't make PCs use grenade scatter rules for that, anyways, nor would I think of telling a DM to do so for his monsters as a player.
5) Sometimes DMs don't design encounters - they run them from a module or roll some random encounter or something similar. Not my preferred method, of course, but I _have_ actually fought multiple dragons out in fairly open areas in modules as a player and had a DM once whose idea of fun _was_ to hover at max height in a 60' tall room using ranged attacks cause hey, that's what was in the module (yawn).

So depending on the game, Grasping Javelins and Ebony Flies (preferably with the invulnerability saddle) may be the method of choice for dealing with flyers. If you're lucky you may have some other resort, though surprisingly few abilities work for this. If your DM doesn't allow forced movement to work vertically, you're even more up a creek.

Ok, i didn´t check if it can hover, this will help him a bit.

But actually, you have pointed out a lot of reasons why using a battlemap isn´t the A and O for a game.
It makes you think judging distances and heights is so easy... You can go for this tactics and it starts beeing really unfun. Within the rules, diagonals are the same as height, so it is easier for the dragon to stay at the same height... and not having to actually follow the players or go up and down a bit helps making the fight even more boring and static.

Designing and running the encounter from a book is the same. If you have an encounter in the book which tells you to kill your players on an open plane, you should consider using the adventure on the dust bin.

And you should also not use every monsters like a super intelligent tactician. Some are just brutes which try to have a good meal. (at least at first glance)

Bringing items to ground the dragon is a good idea however. And if a monster recognizes that the players can´t harm it at the distance, it should fall back to this tactic. But not straight from the beginning... (maybe if you encounter an adult dragon who has learned not to close in with adventuring parties, but usually this dragon will search for an easier target.)