The Pixie is up!

[UngainlyTitan]

Now comes the hardest part of deciding what class best suits a Nac Mac Feegle.

Slayer

 

[Danzauker]

See, I'd have the pixie's flight be based off the magic of the land (ley lines), so they can fly pretty well within a given distance, but if they try to fly higher, their magic goes poof and the come down crashing. Kinda like a maglev train.

That's more or less how I imagine it. Pixies levitate, not actually fly. The wings arte there for propulsion. Their natural magic only allows them to go up to 5 feet.

So if they concentrate, flap the wings a lot, they can sort of "run jump" across charms or reach higher altitudes, but after that they can't hold and must get down to their natural altitude.

Hey, it's always better that the explanation for beholder flight in 2e! At least pixies don't have to "fart around" in order to move!

 

[tuxgeo]

See, I'd have the pixie's flight be based off the magic of the land (ley lines), so they can fly pretty well within a given distance, but if they try to fly higher, their magic goes poof and they come down crashing. Kinda like a maglev train.

Let me see if I've gotten this aright: Pixies. Ley Lines. Maglev.
OK, ley lines are linear, located where the hooved animals travel from one place to another: herd tracks. Maglev trains are linear, levitating just above train tracks of some kind.

Pixies + levitation + train tracks = the "Pixie-Powered Skytrain!" (Sort of like Lightning Rail in Eberron, but more fey.) Klaus, that's brilliant! Good job.
DMs will have little trouble railroading the Pixie PCs with that interpretation. (OK, they'll have "tiny" trouble.)

My only question is: does this make Pixie flight an extrinsic effect of the terrain, instead of its being intrinsic to the Pixie? (How would that work in the Shadowfell -- flying only every other round?)
Is there, or could there be, a specific kind of "difficult terrain" that explicitly modifies a Pixie's flight capability?

 

[Klaus]

You could certainly make a pixie-exclusive difficult terrain (but that might be too much nerfing). You could *also* have specific terrain that actually *increases* the altitude limit.

As for ley lines, they technically exist in the Feywild, but you could explain away that the very ground of the world is magical, and that the actual ley lines are more powerful conduits for this ambient magic.

 

[Incenjucar]

Tiny -> not having my book in front of me, but how big was the rat the one neverwinter theme could transform into at will?

Flying -> altitude limit and if the character manages to put something of with it, he will have to let the rest of the group behind.

Invisible -> the October preview doesn't mention an invisibility racial trait.

The Dead Rat theme turns you into a Tiny rat and one of the options for the Spellscarred theme lets you turn invisible.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

You could certainly make a pixie-exclusive difficult terrain (but that might be too much nerfing). You could *also* have specific terrain that actually *increases* the altitude limit.

As for ley lines, they technically exist in the Feywild, but you could explain away that the very ground of the world is magical, and that the actual ley lines are more powerful conduits for this ambient magic.

Heavy winds should make moving difficult for pixies... so squares behind an open door could be difficult to move in... but maybe it is better treated as a current...

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Yes, mechanically, they are mostly like a Small character.

Pixies are tiny because when someone wants to play a pixie, they want to play a super-small (aka Tiny) character. Making them 4' tall would have, frankly, missed the whole point.

In what way is Shrink a "wasted power"? It lets the Pixie play reasonably at the table without the DM seeding the environment with Tiny objects all over the place.

I mean, what is your objection? That they made them tiny with workarounds?

As I said in my OP, I do wish the Tiny aspect had more teeth to it - in carrying capacity, strength checks, stealth, and so on - but making them completely gimped for equipment and making them unable to work with a weapon-using class isn't what I was looking for.

-O

What's wrong with making the Pixie on the low end of small and fluffing them as tiny? It worked with Goliaths and the large aspect while still keeping their medium mechanics.

What they did is instead of putting a simple word "small" they made the pixie tiny and then had to add two abilities in order to make the pixie "small" in terms of mechanics when they could have made it small to begin with while keeping the size dimensions. I mean you have to sit there and take a minor action every 5 minutes to shrink each items down to your size so you can use it.

There are too many mechanics there to do something that could have been settled with one word and the other space used for something else.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I really find it funny how people are trying to slap a scientific reason as to the flying capability of the Pixie.

The fact of the matter is the Pixie was given an altitude of 1 for pure game balance. They weren't thinking of air pressure and hovercrafts, they were thinking of game balance. The designers could not give a rats ass whether you can come up with in game logic or not as to why they can only fly so high.

You can try to come up with an explanation using technobabble but don't try and explain it using real life science.

At the end of the day, when Geordi La Forge explains the quantum theories of the hyper drive system it may sound all cool and real but it's still BS no matter how much you want to believe it.

 

[Incenjucar]

We're just trying to help the folks who absolutely must have an explanation as to why a specific number of faeries can dance on the head of a pin.

 

[bganon]

Now comes the hardest part of deciding what class best suits a Nac Mac Feegle.

Slayer

Brawler Fighter.

Even if that's not the best class, Brawler Pixies are pretty hilarious mechanically. A tiny little winged princess that can smack dragons in the face and drag them around the battlefield? And the dragon can hardly even break free? Pure awesomesauce.