D&D 5E On fairies and flying

[doctorbadwolf]

With flying you can easily destroy the one ring, and often quickly complete other quests

For all the same reasons flying couldn’t have shortened LoTR, it isn’t a big deal in D&D .

 

[John R Davis]

Flying is massive. With flying the castle is massively changed and people live underground in what we could call "dungeons". Hey that gives me an idea.....

 

[JiffyPopTart]

While I don't care if a PC chooses a flying option...I will point out it's something that could trivialize much of the ToA map exploration subgame.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The presence of the anti-flying netting in the trees suggests it's quite intentional that the soldiers have driven the fairies into this area. It looks more like a hunt or extermination than anything about war. Why they'd ever be on the ground in the first place is beyond me.

In the real world, aviation was a massive game changer in war. In a fantasy setting easy access to flying would be similar. One fairy or aarakocra with a bag of holding on each hip would be the equivalent to a stealth bomber...or a mass driver.

A 2nd-level artificer can infuse two items and can replicate a bag of holding. "This bag has an interior space considerably larger than its outside dimensions, roughly 2 feet in diameter at the mouth and 4 feet deep. The bag can hold up to 500 pounds, not exceeding a volume of 64 cubic feet. The bag weighs 15 pounds, regardless of its contents."

So just craft a stone cannonball less than 2 feet in diameter (so it can fit into the bag) that weighs slightly less than 500 pounds (so it can fit into the bag). A round ball of sandstone that's 1.87ft diameter weighs 496.62 pounds. For granite it would be a ball 1.77 feet in diameter weighing 498.5 pounds. How long would it take that ball to reach terminal velocity? Any takers on how much more damage it would do than a cannon, catapult, or trebuchet? It's effectively a mass driver.

Altitude would be great. Up to around 5-6000 feet you're still good to breathe. If not, there's spells and magic items for that. Plenty of room for that terminal velocity thing, right? Nothing could reach you from the ground, so any fortification worth protecting would have to have flying protection. But they're not going to be able to patrol the entire 5-6000 feet above a castle or city. Say a mile across up to 5-6000 feet...that's about 131,373,864,951 cubic feet to cover. I'm sure one or two dudes on griffons with crossbows would manage fine.

Fly over the target and dump out the bag. Level a castle. Find another target and dump out the second bag. So a second level flying character with a few weeks to spare can level a castle. Hell, it's practically a downtime activity.

But nope. Flying is nothing.

(Yes, I know how absurd this is. That's the point. I have had players who would do this. It's one reason why I can't play Spelljammer. They'd just use it to take over the world. But hey, now they don't need the Spelljammer. Just one fairy and a bag of holding.)

One flying defender and this tactic doesn’t work. I also doubt that the projectile would even work as you suggest. It’d be better than a cannonball, sure, but it wouldn’t level castles.
Hell, you’re weirdly assuming that castles aren’t built to minimize damage from aerial projectiles in a world where this tactic is as effective as you think it’d be.
You’re also ignoring that the DM can call for checks against exhaustion for prolonged activity, even 5000 feet up is harder to breath and colder, and very easy to see, and the air is thinner which makes flying harder, and the world has a ton of flying monsters that would easily spot the character.

Not to mention the wealthy (which are who own castles) are likely to have magical artillery in a world with artificers, magical shielding around castles, etc.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But it's inevitable.

Yeah that is definitely not true of all or even necessarily most groups.

It’s not inevitable at all.

 

[cbwjm]

In my experience, if it's possible for a player to do it, they will. No matter how nicely you ask. So the only way to prevent them from abusing flying is to not have flying. Like asking players to not optimize their characters. As long as optimized choices exist, players will optimize. The only way to prevent it is to not use optional rules like multiclassing and/or feats. Not all players and not all the time, of course. But it's inevitable.

Not all that inevitable, which I think is implied by your previous sentence: "not all players and not all the time". Players will often do what's fun. My pixie player, for instance, can fly. It doesn't really affect combat because he has based his character on the Feegles from Terry Pratchet's wee free men which means that while yes, he could fly out of range and attack them at range, he typically doesn't because that's not what a Feegle does, instead, he gets up close and hits them with his sword.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Not all that inevitable, which I think is implied by your previous sentence: "not all players and not all the time". Players will often do what's fun. My pixie player, for instance, can fly. It doesn't really affect combat because he has based his character on the Feegles from Terry Pratchet's wee free men which means that while yes, he could fly out of range and attack them at range, he typically doesn't because that's not what a Feegle does, instead, he gets up close and hits them with his sword.

I’ve a concept for a fairy who doesn’t fly, but leaps incredible distances and has a small bat friend that can turn fully insubstantial and back at will, called a phase-glider.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

In my experience, if it's possible for a player to do it, they will. No matter how nicely you ask. So the only way to prevent them from abusing flying is to not have flying. Like asking players to not optimize their characters. As long as optimized choices exist, players will optimize. The only way to prevent it is to not use optional rules like multiclassing and/or feats. Not all players and not all the time, of course. But it's inevitable.

You don't need to ban flying, you need to get better players.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

think you could basically do this with any book.

All that said, I doubt flying i really a game changer. But it does change the feel of certain campaigns, and can definitely be a spotlight hogger.

It might make the story slightly different, but not fundamentally.

Navigating Mirkwood

Replace giant spiders with giant wasps.

Gandalf getting off Saruman's tower, Orthanc.

You don't try and imprison someone on the roof if you know they can fly, you put them in the dungeon instead. Wings would have made this more difficult for Gandalf.

Frodo escaping the nazgul when they were on their horses

The Nazgul wouldn't have been on horses if they where hunting someone who could fly.

Getting into Lake Town

In the novel this is not an obstacle.

Navigating the Dead Marches

Flying wraths, mosquito swarms, disorientating fog.

 

[NaturalZero]

Is flight at level 1 overpowered compared to other options? Yes.

Will it inevitably break the game? No.

Does it limit the sort of challenging encounters the DM can run? Yes.

Does this stop the DM from coming up with challenging encounters? No.