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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 8266745" data-attributes="member: 6677017">So I did some research into the history of the flying items. The carpets of flying have traditionally been the most powerful, and the winged boots and broom of flying have traditionally been similar in power level. The wings of flying varied drastically in function and relative power level over the editions.One factor that I noticed that is highly relevant is that of maneuverability class/rating. Those new to 5e might be unfamiliar with it. Basically, different flying creatures/items could maneuver better than others in prior editions. This included how sharply they could turn/dive/climb, how hard it was to gain altitude, and whether or not they had to maintain forward motion to stay aloft. 5e has none of that. Anything with a fly speed can move in 3-dimensions as easily as in 2. This was a huge balancing factor in previous editions that is completely absent.For example, the carpet of flying could hover, while the broom of flying could not (and had to keep moving forward or crash). Both carpet and broom had low maneuverability--making them difficult to employ in combat, while wings and boots had high maneuverability and were more or less designed for combat.Adding those factors back into 5e is not of interest to me, but tweaking the broom of flying to make it play well with the others is. Basically, it should be a primarily Exploration Pillar item, not a Combat Pillar item. If players are choosing it over the same rarity winged boots in combat, something is very broken.Before we really talk about how to do that, we need to look at the ramifications of different interpretations of the broom's features. I've made some tables comparing the various items. The first table is by the book (with question marks on the broom), the next is giving the broom a generous interpretation, and the last is giving the broom a weaker interpretation.[ATTACH=full]136577[/ATTACH]Looking at the charts, the generous interpretation really should make it a Very Rare item, without or without the capability to Dash, and whether or not the carpet can Dash. It's just that good.The weakest interpretation that I can easily extract from the text still should have it sitting at Rare. Sure, you have to put some thought into using it effectively, but it's clearly better the boots (with a light enough character), given that it lacks attunement and is almost as fast without Dashing as the boots are with Dashing. One might say (as I might myself) that that weaker interpretation doesn't look that much better than the boots. This is true, but it's at least as much better than the boots as the wings are! We see from the wings that the higher top speed is considered very heavily in the power assessment, since that's literally the only thing the Rare wings have over the Uncommon boots (unless you factor in that one might possible layer two cloaks but not wear two pairs of boots). In every other way the boots are superior to the wings, yet the wings are considered more powerful. Because the power level of the wings has varied significantly from edition to edition, and they could therefore have placed them wherever they wanted, I'm going to assume that the relative ranking was an intentional design consideration rather than an oversight (though it may have been). The broom of flying with the weak interpretation is roughly comparable to the wings of flying and clearly as much better than the winged boots as the wings of flying are, justifying it being given a minimum rarity of Rare.On the issue of Dashing, I think it's important to remember that you can't Dash all day--only for short periods of time. The DMG Chase rules make this explicit in the case of chases. You can also determine that by looking at the daily travel rates the game gives for characters. The vehicles that the game has published do not have the capability to Dash. If they did, they would move twice as fast as they are described moving daily, because they don't get Exhausted like creatures and could just Dash all day long. Given than the carpet and the broom are independent devices described with their own movement speed (as opposed to worn items), it seems reasonable to treat them as vehicles and disallow Dashing. (I'd personally have mounting the broom take half your movement just like mounting a steed, but let you walk onto the carpet normally if it's low enough. That's in addition to using an action to activate them.)So I could just go for the weak interpretation of the broom of flying and up its rarity to Rare. But I'd rather not. That messes up the random magic item tables I so love, and makes the broom a super-star in the Combat Pillar as well as the Exploration Pillar, rather than maintaining the intended balance of broom as entry level Exploration item, boots as entry level Combat item, wings as superior Combat item and carpet as superior Exploration item.I'm kind of stuck.</blockquote>

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