D&D 5E Sword Coast - Winged Tiefling

[Amatiel]

So, with the new Sword Coast supplement, we have the option of introducing winged tieflings ( and aasimar presumably ). As written, you simply ditch your inate casting ability for wings ? WOW! nice trade

As my players use the Feat system, I changed this to a racial Feat I called Infernal Inheritance. At least that way they need to burn a feat, and it pushes back flight to at least 4th level.. Seemed more balanced that way.

Anyway... For those of you that allow winged characters in your campaign, how do you deal with say ..Your winged tiefling finds a suit of +1 half plate and wants to wear it? Personally I would think this would be a problem ?

 

[ccs]

It might be a problem. Or it might not....
In my games magic armor comes in two varieties: auto-adjusting (will resize itself to fit any wearer small - large), & set (to a specific race/size catagory/etc). As you ID it we roll to see what you've got.
It is possible to alter the later (to a degree), but you'll need a specialist..... The more drastic the change, the more expensive the alteration. And of corse some things - like altering gnome sized armor to fit a human - just won't work.

 

[KahlessNestor]

I know that the aarakoa can't fly in more than light (?) armor, so that would be a reasonable restriction. Definitely disadvantage on Dex checks to fly.

 

[Sunseeker]

As my players use the Feat system, I changed this to a racial Feat I called Infernal Inheritance. At least that way they need to burn a feat, and it pushes back flight to at least 4th level.. Seemed more balanced that way.

So, they have to burn a feat AND give up their innate casting? I'm not clear on your writing.

Anyway... For those of you that allow winged characters in your campaign, how do you deal with say ..Your winged tiefling finds a suit of +1 half plate and wants to wear it? Personally I would think this would be a problem ?

Stock, non-magical armor is designed for stock people. Stock people don't have wings. You need to purchase custom armor, have it customized for you, or modify the armor yourself. Magical armor is (mostly) auto-adjusting, it's magical and that means I don't ask questions.

I don't bother with hindering people's movement rates, be it flying or otherwise, unless you are over your normal carrying capacity. Those with training in plate know how to move in it, with their wings or with their arms or with their legs. I do rule that you need at least 5' of space on both sides of you to spread your wings. So, no flying in narrow hallways, which pretty much takes care of flying being an easy out in most dungeon settings.

Flying isn't a problem for me. It's easy enough to grab some archers or mages and shoot you out of the sky, or even some flying monsters.

 

[Hussar]

I've often wondered why flight is such an issue for game balance. It's not like the entire group flies. So, our winged Tiefling flies up and stays out of combat. No different than that archer or wizard that hangs back out of melee and does exactly the same thing. And, it's not like every encounter occurs outside. In indoor situations, flight isn't an issue (generally) and even outdoor, if you're among trees or whatnot, flying thirty or forty feet up simply means everything you're shooting at either has cover or concealment or both.

Why do people consider flight such a big issue?

 

[Demetrios1453]

In indoor situations, flight isn't an issue (generally)

I have a winged tiefling in my OotA campaign, and, with most of it being in the Underdark, it's not really an issue. On those occasions where the ceiling is high enough, the character can fly - it happens enough where it wasn't a wasted choice, but rare enough that it doesn't become stale and uninteresting...

 

[Mirtek]

.So, our winged Tiefling flies up and stays out of combat. No different than that archer or wizard that hangs back out of melee and does exactly the same thing.

In the later case the preassure is on the front line to keep it that way, in the former the front line can relax more, the tiefling is unreachable anyway

 

[Amatiel]

Yeah, I wan't asking because I was concerned about PC flight, as I don't consider it a big deal. I was just curious how people handle the armor issue with a creature that armors aren't designed for. If your tielfing finds a cool suit of +2 plate armor of resistance, do you allow the armor to magically change shape to fit his wings ... chop holes in the back to make room ... or say it doesn't fit ? Just curious how people handle the issue, as there are no rules for it in 5e ..

 

[Ezequielramone]

There is an optional rule in a small box in the player's handbook I believe, that says how much the character has to pay if the armor is not the same size or the character has a different body type.
I think it is something about 20/50% of the market price to adapt the armor, depending on how much work has to be done. Like a breastplate would have small rework for this winged character, but a full plate will need lot of work. It is up to the dm interpretation how much they have to pay.
I use that rule for size and fullplates (FP are made for a particular person, making it fix to another needs work)

 

[Dausuul]

I've often wondered why flight is such an issue for game balance. It's not like the entire group flies. So, our winged Tiefling flies up and stays out of combat. No different than that archer or wizard that hangs back out of melee and does exactly the same thing. And, it's not like every encounter occurs outside. In indoor situations, flight isn't an issue (generally) and even outdoor, if you're among trees or whatnot, flying thirty or forty feet up simply means everything you're shooting at either has cover or concealment or both.

Why do people consider flight such a big issue?

In my experience, flight for a single PC is not a big problem - highly useful, to be sure, but not the sort of thing to make a DM beat his/her head on the wall. It's when the whole party can do it that it becomes a major headache, because at that point a huge number of scenarios that would normally pose a challenge are trivialized.

Thanks to the concentration rules and the limited number of spell slots available, 5E does not make it easy for the whole party to fly. Winged tieflings could be a problem if the entire party decided to play winged races; in practice, however, I wouldn't expect to see that happen very often, and it only takes one ground-pounder to force the party to reckon with stuff on the ground.