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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Machiavelli" data-source="post: 2871165" data-attributes="member: 40964">Ok, I'm definitely not understanding the "outside of combat" power offered by this poor flying ability.  The first shot-in-the-dark guess I have is in getting over cliffs, walls, and other high things, but I've analyzed that and found it to be potentially even more challenging to an elyx character than any others:An Elymastix can barely climb at all, since using his dextrous feet requires being propped up, and his wing claws have -2 Str and not much Dex to grab a rope (just holding the rope while climbing would take a risky Dex check every round).Consequently, flying is the only reliable way to get over an obstruction.  "Running" is the only way to gain any altitude in flight, and even then it's only 30' for every round of 120' forward flight each round.  Assuming an entirely straight run-up of 1200', the highest cliff that could be ascended before rolling for fatigue (this is at Con=14-4=10) would be 300' tall.  Now, if this isn't a cliff on the side of a mountain near a quarter-mile-wide open plain, then some turning will be involved.  Circling around inside a 50'-wide circular cavern "chimney" means a full revolution at the extreme edges will take 150' of flying and 360 degrees of turning.  An elymastix climbing this chimney can make 4/5ths of a revolution in a round of "running", rising 30' like usual but dropping 20' due to the 360 degrees of turning.  That means in 10 rounds (the maximum before rolling for fatigue) he can climb 100'.  In a cavern with 50' chimneys 100' of altitude is dwarfed by things like 1000' cliff faces, which are surprisingly common.  In narrower spaces it gets exponentially worse, to the point where it is literally impossible to fly up a 10' wide elevator shaft.  With a medium or heavy load even the 50' shaft is cutting it close, and remember that straight climbing with a rope is almost impossible for an elymastix.Edit:  WHOA, whoa whoa!  Wait a second.  I just thought of something.  Running can only be done in a straight line, even in flight.  Feats can be taken to add up to 180 degrees of turning (Wheel Around, I think it is), but that's it!  Altitude is a precious commodity that is hard to come by for an elymastix, apparently.  That puts it even BELOW the raptoran in regards to flight, since at least a raptoran gets an actual BONUS to climbing up to a launching point, instead of a climbing penalty.  For the record, the raptoran doesn't have a +1 LA, either.</blockquote>

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