Feathered Armor/Flying Stories and Rules

[Rashak Mani]

As usual I dont take any steps before consulting this online sage community... and I was wondering about Feathered armor.

Basically in our last adventure I had a fly cast on me by a NPC wizard and I must confess I loved it... even thou I´m a Dwarven Fighter/Barbarian with Mounted Combat feats Yet I´ve seen more opportunities to fly than to ride warponies lately. You know how DMs love to restrict people with spirited charge....

How does the armor work ? Command Word ? (standard action) Or at will ? (free action activation)

Can it be used in many intervals or periods ? In other words is it continuous use or can the time be broken into smaller parts ?

Is 50 minutes too short a time ?

I wear medium armor (Breastplate) so movement will be "only" 60' instead of my on foot of 25'.. or should I trade in for some chain shirt ?

If I make dive charges should I be allowed spirited charge bonuses or some extra damage ? How have you ruled Dive attacks ? One example is Piratecats story hour where with Iron body cast a character 'divebombed' into a poor NPC.

And finally... do you think I would look extremely silly raging with a featherd armor (description says iridescent feathers!) ?!

Feedback will be most appreciated. Any stories or accounts of other characters with this armor would be very interesting to know about. Tactics... etc...

Thanks

 

[Rashak Mani]

...bump... comeon guys nobody ever flies ?

 

[RogueJK]

I've got experience with a simliar magic item: Wings of Flying. Not quite the same, but still related to flying.

My Dwarven Battlerager loves his Wings of Flying. Everywhere he goes, he flies if given the opportunity. The only drawback to Wings of Flying is that you have to have room to spread your wings, so it's not usable in all circumstances. On the up side, they can be used for an unlimited amount of time each day.

My DM has generously ruled that my helmet spike (which is about 1 and a half feet long) can be used as a lance during a charge. My main tactic is to Fly above the enemies, dive-bombing them with my armor spikes, shield spikes, and head spike. Makes for lots of fun encounters. Just imagine a Medieval Dwarven Cruise Missile. He charges 180 feet across the battlefield, impaling himself into an enemy. Then, rinse and repeat as needed. He also uses it to boost his speed, and it makes overland travel much easier. While the rest of the party rides below on horses, he flies above, scouting around for ambushes.

Feathered Armor, while not usable all day, can still be used to great effect in battle. Fly over your enemies for easier access to flanking position. Hide in the upper branches of the trees or the roof of a cavern to get the drop on a patrol of enemies. If you have high strength, grab a heavy boulder or other useful item and let it drop from a suitable height. Fly over the front rank of fighters to get to the weak casters behind them. Fly onto the back of that Gargantuan T-Rex for easy attacks.

It's also useful outside of combat, especially when trying to get to those hard-to-reach areas. Just activate, fly up, and deactivate. It shouldn't take longer than a minute or two each time. Good for getting around the heavily guarded main gates of strongholds or gaining access to the dragon's cave which is located halfway down a cliff. Plus, you could possibly use it like Feather Fall. As soon as you begin to fall, activate the armor and drift to the ground, or fly back up where you fell from. Feathered Armor has the benefit of not having to take the time to unfurl a set of wings, so this can be used more easily than with Wings of Flying. (I should know... opening your wings right before you hit the ground is kinda like opening your parachute while 10 feet from the earth. Not very effective. And when you hit the ground, after falling a long distance, while covered in armor spikes, you tend to get stuck.)

I hope these have inspired you. I've got lots of other stories I can share.

 

[Rashak Mani]

when you hit the ground, after falling a long distance, while covered in armor spikes, you tend to get stuck

HAHA ! Doesnt look like a very heroic scene... the half buried and spiked Dwarf !! If you fall unconscious how do your friends carry you away too ? Spikes have their pros and cons.

Questions: Would you say the flying gave you too much advantage ? Does your DM complain about the 3 dimensions aspect of DMing a flying Dwarf ?

Any other tactics when flying besides the bomber (boulder dropping) and the Dive Bomber tactics ?

 

[RogueJK]

I don't think that our DM has too much of a problem with me flying. If he needs to limit my flying for any reason, he just puts us in a dense forest or narrow corridor, where I don't have enough room to spread my wings. He wouldn't be able to do this with Feathered Armor, however. Sometimes he will even provide special enemies for just me to fight. Right now, we are fighting a lot of Dragonkin (from Monsters of Faerun), which have wings themselves. While the rest of my party is battling it out on the ground below, I'm engaged in aerial combat, with our Sorceror providing some Anti-Aircraft fire.

It doesn't seem to be too big of an advantage in combat, though. If anything, it makes me a larger target. Mainly, it's usefulness is as a speed-increasing item, in which your speed is increased to 90 feet, but with the penalty that you can only run 2x that. All of the rest of it, the flying, swooping, etc., is mostly just for style. They are fairly useful *outside* of combat, but I wouldn't say it would be more unbalancing than, say, a Sorceror with Fly.

Feathered Armor and Wings of Flying are definitely utility items, as opposed to combat-oriented items. They open up lots of neat ways of approaching and solving problems.

And people tend to be rather startled when confronted with a giant, flying, spiked dwarf. That is lots of fun to roleplay.

Really, the only other tactic that I use with the Wings are to use them to get onto the back of larger enemies, where I can inflict more damage against an easier AC. Recently, this has been used to land on the back of a big Hydra, in order to gain easier acces to his heads, and to land on the back of a *gigantic* T-Rex, to get to the group of Wild Dwarves riding on its back.

I tend to use the same tactics for most combats. Like I said: Dwarven Cruise Missile, rinse and repeat as needed.
(Just try not to roll a 1 during a charge. I've gotten my head spike stuck in more trees, walls, floors, and hills than I can count.)

I'm not sure how the time limit on Feathered Armor would affect its usefulness. Just counting combat and utility-related use, I doubt that I use my wings more than 50 minutes each day. I fly around instead of walking, however, so your character would have to stay on the ground until needed.

 

[Rashak Mani]

Still havent gotten the technical answers ... pity.. Thanks RogueJK for the story... flying dwarves seem great... better than a simple +2 AC bonus...

 

[reapersaurus]

And finally... do you think I would look extremely silly raging with a featherd armor (description says iridescent feathers!) ?

My strong guess is that it would be a standard action to activate any magical items powers like that.

A DM that grants extra damage on a dive is being generous.

And yes, you'd look silly with armor like that.

I play a Zephyr (a winged race of avians) in a friend's world, and she (Mak'era) is an archer expert.

Between her flying, great vision, and powerful bow attacks (oh, did i mention invisibility and infravision?) she is (I think) a bit too much for our DM to handle.

He's created a monster! LOL

I tried to think up some diviingtype attacks, but Zephyrs in that world have such fine bone structure that it would probably do more damage to her than to the opponent.
With wingspan of almost 20', it's tough to get too close to battle.

 

[Rashak Mani]

So after all what better ? +2 AC or Flying Armor ?

 

[RogueJK]

Well... you already know my answer

There are lots of other ways to get +2 to your AC.