S_Dalsgaard
First Post
Does it really matter that much if the flying PC hovers or take a 5' move (or even moves in a circle back to his original position)? Whatever you call it, the PC can effectively stay in the same spot from round to round.
D&D 5E Flight ability: Does this make the Aarakocra overpowered?
- Thread starter Corpsetaker
- Start date
Majoru Oakheart
Adventurer
I don't think that flying makes them "overpowered". It can ruin certain types of adventures, however. So, if you are a DM who likes to use that sort of adventure, flying can essentially make certain challenges completely moot.
Before 5th level, without aarakocra you can safely create an adventure that does something like "The enemy runs across the bridge that spans the 1000 foot wide chasm. He gets to the other side just as you clear the woods and cuts the ropes on the bridge. It collapses. You can hear him taunting you from the other side as he yells out, 'I guess I win this round! I'm sure we will meet again. Until next time.' as he rides off into the distance."
With an aarakocra in the group, he just keeps flying after the enemy and likely either kills him by himself or follows him back to his base and tells the rest of the PCs where to find his secret hideout. Which, can disrupt the flow of an adventure if you weren't planning on the PCs finding that information until much later.
Even after 5th level, you can run this scene with the knowledge that the PCs MIGHT have fly...but likely don't. If they do, they are both expending one of their daily resources for a real benefit in game(they get to catch the enemy earlier than if they hadn't cast fly and that's one less fireball they can cast that day) and they also made a meaningful choice about what spells to prepare that day.
In addition to scenes like that there are also pit traps, puzzles that require the PCs step only on certain tiles to cross a room, scenes where you want them to get lost in the woods for a long time, princesses trapped on the top floor of tall towers filled with traps that are unclimbable due to extremely slippery surfaces(but have windows at the top so that the princess can call down for help), and so on.
There's a lot of things that if you use them on a regular basis, flight can become a real issue. As long as flight is a limited resource that the PCs need to explicitly plan to use and become less combat powerful when they do use it, they likely will attempt to find mundane ways of solving a puzzle rather than wasting a spell on it. But when flight if free and infinite and comes from your choice of race, it will be used to solve every problem that flight could solve. If you run very narrative adventures this can be a real pain in the behind. This is the reason the race is banned in Adventurer's League.
Before 5th level, without aarakocra you can safely create an adventure that does something like "The enemy runs across the bridge that spans the 1000 foot wide chasm. He gets to the other side just as you clear the woods and cuts the ropes on the bridge. It collapses. You can hear him taunting you from the other side as he yells out, 'I guess I win this round! I'm sure we will meet again. Until next time.' as he rides off into the distance."
With an aarakocra in the group, he just keeps flying after the enemy and likely either kills him by himself or follows him back to his base and tells the rest of the PCs where to find his secret hideout. Which, can disrupt the flow of an adventure if you weren't planning on the PCs finding that information until much later.
Even after 5th level, you can run this scene with the knowledge that the PCs MIGHT have fly...but likely don't. If they do, they are both expending one of their daily resources for a real benefit in game(they get to catch the enemy earlier than if they hadn't cast fly and that's one less fireball they can cast that day) and they also made a meaningful choice about what spells to prepare that day.
In addition to scenes like that there are also pit traps, puzzles that require the PCs step only on certain tiles to cross a room, scenes where you want them to get lost in the woods for a long time, princesses trapped on the top floor of tall towers filled with traps that are unclimbable due to extremely slippery surfaces(but have windows at the top so that the princess can call down for help), and so on.
There's a lot of things that if you use them on a regular basis, flight can become a real issue. As long as flight is a limited resource that the PCs need to explicitly plan to use and become less combat powerful when they do use it, they likely will attempt to find mundane ways of solving a puzzle rather than wasting a spell on it. But when flight if free and infinite and comes from your choice of race, it will be used to solve every problem that flight could solve. If you run very narrative adventures this can be a real pain in the behind. This is the reason the race is banned in Adventurer's League.
pming
Legend
Hiya.
This makes about as much sense to me as a rock that the aaracokra dropped suddenly stops falling because the aaracokra got knocked unconscious/died. I'm pretty sure most DM's would rule that the rock is still going to be affected by gravity, even though the Aaracokra's "attack" action was foiled. So that begs the question...if the DM is going to "apply physics" to stuff when it's appropriate, why would it be not appropriate with regards to how natural flight works?
Now, 5e doesn't have the kind of detail that it would take to figure out all that lift vs. weight with regards to speed and air pressure and all that stuff. All of those fiddly-bits are handled by DM adjudication. Personally, I wouldn't let a flying character (via natural flight) get away with flying less than 50% of his movement before he would have to spend an action trying to remain aloft. So a player saying "Ok, fine, I fly 5' forward then...now I shoot" isn't going to cut it unless his normal movement rate was only 10'.
N.B.: I also use the Maneuverability Class stuff from Hackmaster 4e (almost the same as the 1e AD&D rules)...it deals primarily with being able to start/stop, how much 'take off' space is needed and the sharpest angle the flyer can make in the air. Incidentally, the Hackmaster Aarakokra (called Ariandrathals in HM4) have a maneuverability class of C. So they can turn up to 90 degrees a round, and can become airborn after one round.
Warning! The following is not an attack on you, it's just similar to stuff I see/hear all the time. Please don't take offense!
Y'see...your quote above there? That sounds like a power-gamer/munchkin trying to "game the system". I hear stuff like this all the time...where a player will insist that his plan will work because "that's how it would work in real life!". But as soon as a situation comes up that the DM rules against him and says so because "that's not how it would turn out in real life", the player whips out a book and points to a rule, feat, spell, ability or some combination thereof as if, suddenly, the letter of the rules is the only thing that matters. It reminds me of the Simpsons where everyone is licking toads and Marge asks Homer...
Marge: Homer! Are you licking toads again!?
Homer: Uh...I'm not...not licking toads...
Anyway...my point was that, for me, having Flight doesn't mean you have Hover. If a DM says they are one in the same, then I guess they just ignore all the mentions and specifics of Hover when it's listed in the creatures description, because it's pointless; if all things that can Fly can Hover, why did the writers/designers even put "Hover" in the description of Flight and list it with some monsters but not others? Therefore, my contention stands: Having Flight does NOT mean you can Hover unless the description in the monster write up says "Hover" next to it's Fly movement rate.
^_^
Paul L. Ming
This makes about as much sense to me as a rock that the aaracokra dropped suddenly stops falling because the aaracokra got knocked unconscious/died. I'm pretty sure most DM's would rule that the rock is still going to be affected by gravity, even though the Aaracokra's "attack" action was foiled. So that begs the question...if the DM is going to "apply physics" to stuff when it's appropriate, why would it be not appropriate with regards to how natural flight works?
Now, 5e doesn't have the kind of detail that it would take to figure out all that lift vs. weight with regards to speed and air pressure and all that stuff. All of those fiddly-bits are handled by DM adjudication. Personally, I wouldn't let a flying character (via natural flight) get away with flying less than 50% of his movement before he would have to spend an action trying to remain aloft. So a player saying "Ok, fine, I fly 5' forward then...now I shoot" isn't going to cut it unless his normal movement rate was only 10'.
N.B.: I also use the Maneuverability Class stuff from Hackmaster 4e (almost the same as the 1e AD&D rules)...it deals primarily with being able to start/stop, how much 'take off' space is needed and the sharpest angle the flyer can make in the air. Incidentally, the Hackmaster Aarakokra (called Ariandrathals in HM4) have a maneuverability class of C. So they can turn up to 90 degrees a round, and can become airborn after one round.
Warning! The following is not an attack on you, it's just similar to stuff I see/hear all the time. Please don't take offense!
Y'see...your quote above there? That sounds like a power-gamer/munchkin trying to "game the system". I hear stuff like this all the time...where a player will insist that his plan will work because "that's how it would work in real life!". But as soon as a situation comes up that the DM rules against him and says so because "that's not how it would turn out in real life", the player whips out a book and points to a rule, feat, spell, ability or some combination thereof as if, suddenly, the letter of the rules is the only thing that matters. It reminds me of the Simpsons where everyone is licking toads and Marge asks Homer...
Marge: Homer! Are you licking toads again!?
Homer: Uh...I'm not...not licking toads...
Anyway...my point was that, for me, having Flight doesn't mean you have Hover. If a DM says they are one in the same, then I guess they just ignore all the mentions and specifics of Hover when it's listed in the creatures description, because it's pointless; if all things that can Fly can Hover, why did the writers/designers even put "Hover" in the description of Flight and list it with some monsters but not others? Therefore, my contention stands: Having Flight does NOT mean you can Hover unless the description in the monster write up says "Hover" next to it's Fly movement rate.
^_^
Paul L. Ming
redrick
First Post
I like the idea that a flying character needs to move approximately half its speed each round in order to stay aloft. I wouldn't get into square fiddling and turn radius with the player, but it should be obvious to all what counts as "movement." Doubtful that an Aarakocra would be able to "circle" in a 5' or even 10' radius. (And trying to fly straight up would probably require an action anyway. And dive bombing could have negative consequences. You just gotta move a bit.) It's definitely a house-clarification that should be brought up as soon as a player starts talking about playing a flying PC, though.
In practice, this might not be such a big deal, because the Aarakocra is probably going to be outside of melee range of land creatures anyway, so unless the Aarakocra is trying to hover 5' feet above an opponent, circling in a 20' radius above a combat won't really bring any ill effects to the big bird-creature.
I do not agree with you, Paul, that an Aarakocra would need to stop moving in order to fire an arrow or take some other action. If mounted archers could fire from a moving horse, a society of flying bird-people could definitely manage a shot in flight. They could even stop beating their wings and glide briefly, to smooth out their trajectory. Just looking at the picture in the MM, the arms and wings of the Aarakocra are completely separate.
So, under normal outdoor conditions, as I see it, the inability to hover becomes more of a weakness that can be targeted by clever opponents and GMs, and less of a blanket disadvantage.
pming
Legend
Hiya.
I actually agree with you.
I think this is the second (?) thread about Aarakocra and flying that I've posted in. In the other thread I said that I'd let an Aarakocra shoot while flying, but he would never get Advantage when doing so. It would be one of those little "rule balances"; a trade off, if you will. Mobility and capability to attack your target and not get attacked yourself...but at the cost of (perhaps) less potential accuracy. In HM4, your range is reduced by one category; so Short range becomes Medium, Medium becomes Long, and you can't effectively hit (come on natural 20! ) at Long range or greater...and that's only while actually flying/moving. If you can hover, you suffer a flat -1 per round of continuous hovering/shooting, up to -3 maximum (e.g. if you shoot, then wait, then shoot, then wait, etc, you only ever have -1).
^_^
Paul L. Ming
I actually agree with you.
I think this is the second (?) thread about Aarakocra and flying that I've posted in. In the other thread I said that I'd let an Aarakocra shoot while flying, but he would never get Advantage when doing so. It would be one of those little "rule balances"; a trade off, if you will. Mobility and capability to attack your target and not get attacked yourself...but at the cost of (perhaps) less potential accuracy. In HM4, your range is reduced by one category; so Short range becomes Medium, Medium becomes Long, and you can't effectively hit (come on natural 20! ) at Long range or greater...and that's only while actually flying/moving. If you can hover, you suffer a flat -1 per round of continuous hovering/shooting, up to -3 maximum (e.g. if you shoot, then wait, then shoot, then wait, etc, you only ever have -1).^_^
Paul L. Ming
Aenorgreen
First Post
I just don't get why it would be any harder to shoot while gliding than it would while walking or riding a mount. Do you disallow advantage to anyone who moved during their turn?
redrick
First Post
Hiya.
I actually agree with you.
^_^
Paul L. Ming
Aha. I misunderstood your earlier post in this thread where you said something along the lines of, "If the Aarakocra stops moving in order to shoot..." to mean that the Aarakocra would have to stop moving in order to shoot.
Cool. Carry on.
(I certainly wouldn't grant an Aarakocra advantage for shooting "down" on a target while flying, but if the Aarakocra were all quiet flying at night and the target had a torch? I'd probably give the Aarakocra the hidden advantage there. Reducing the range of a weapon for "mounted" combat seems a reasonable thing to do, though maybe too fiddly for my table, seeing as 5e doesn't provide the "short range" number. Something to think about if I ever do a steppe campaign, which would also happen to be a very advantageous setting for an Aarakocra.)
pming
Legend
Hiya!
See? This? This is why I really love 5e!
We seem to disagree a bit on some of the particulars, but I think I'd rule much the same you would in the above situation. And the cool part is...5e is just "rules light" enough, just "vague" enough, just "rulings not rules" enough that we are both playing the same game, but with slightly different feels to them. It makes my old, shriveled curmudgeonly-grognardit'ed heart all warm and tingly!
Well, I'm off to sit on my deck all day drinking iced tea while stocking a multi-level ruined dwarven citadel for tomorrows game. We finally hit "summer" up here in Whitehorse... it's getting a bit hot for me, but still rather nice after 8 months of -20C weather (our forecast says we'll have the next week sitting with highs of about +21C...what's that...72F?...sortchen-hot for all of us up here in the Yukon). At least it's still kinda cooling off at night (down to about 8C...47F), so that's some relief.
^_^
Paul L. Ming
See? This? This is why I really love 5e!
We seem to disagree a bit on some of the particulars, but I think I'd rule much the same you would in the above situation. And the cool part is...5e is just "rules light" enough, just "vague" enough, just "rulings not rules" enough that we are both playing the same game, but with slightly different feels to them. It makes my old, shriveled curmudgeonly-grognardit'ed heart all warm and tingly! Well, I'm off to sit on my deck all day drinking iced tea while stocking a multi-level ruined dwarven citadel for tomorrows game. We finally hit "summer" up here in Whitehorse... it's getting a bit hot for me, but still rather nice after 8 months of -20C weather (our forecast says we'll have the next week sitting with highs of about +21C...what's that...72F?...sortchen-hot for all of us up here in the Yukon). At least it's still kinda cooling off at night (down to about 8C...47F), so that's some relief.
^_^
Paul L. Ming
S
Sunseeker
Guest
I always disliked the distinction between "fly" and "hover" because the assignment of which creatures got which seemed highly arbitrary.
redrick
First Post
I dunno, it's a fairly easily visualized distinction. If a particular assignment seems incorrect to you, just change it. For me, a quick scan through the MM for "hovering" creatures seems to match my expectation — hovering, the most part, is a magical levitation, granted to things like beholders, ghosts, specters, etc. Very few forms of mundane flight allow a creature to hover.
What are some examples of creatures that should be able to hover but can't, or can hover but shouldn't be able to?
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