Flight... (Let the headaches begin...)

[Burticusb]

So, I was at a Gamehole Con this past weekend, and it was a blast. It's a smallish Con located in Madison, WI.
Anyways, I was lucky enough to be awarded some nifty shoes...
And then in my next event, I went to use them, my character flew straight up to be out of harms way.
Well, the DM for that event went on to explain to me that my shoes only provided flight equal to my movement and not "hover" and if I didn't land somewhere that turn I would fall...
As a fellow DM I can see where this train of thought could come from. WotC has been extremely vague in its rulings dealing with flight. And in many of the monster entries in the MM it does list hover next to some creatures indicating that it is require for some creatures to have to just stay still in mid air.
It seems odd to me that this is not listed in the items description, but what I really wonder is, how does the AL officially handle flight?

 

[Andruin]

I assume that flying is like running. You don't stop at the end of your turn.

 

[pukunui]

Any creature with a fly speed can hover in mid-air. All the "hover" tag means in 5e is that the creature doesn't fall to the ground until it's dead. I asked Jeremy Crawford about it on Twitter a while ago. This is what he said: "A flyer that lacks the hover trait can stay aloft without moving each round." (source)

EDIT: To further clarify:

MM, pg 8: "Some monsters have the ability to hover, which makes them hard to knock out of the air (as explained in the Player's Handbook)." [their emphasis]

PHB, pg 191: "If a flying creature is knocked prone, has its speed reduced to 0, or is otherwise deprived of the ability to move, the creature falls, unless it has the ability to hover or it is being held aloft by magic ..." [my emphasis]


EDIT 2: Even if all that weren't the case, you shouldn't be at risk of falling while wearing winged boots anyway because even if you use up all the allotted time, you still "descend at a rate of 30 feet per round until you land."

 

[Uchawi]

In 5e context the DM is always right. But I would treat it like the fly spell. I just don't understand why the fly spell is non-descript when comparing it against levitate. It leaves too many questions wide open.

 

[Celebrim]

When dealing with flight rules, there is always a tension between balance and playability. If you try to deal with the complexities of flight, you end up with a relatively long and complex rules subsystem that slows down play resolution to a crawl. If you avoid dealing with the complexities of flight, you end up with flight being a mode of movement without drawback or limitation.

Since 3e, WotC has been erring on the side of making flight very conceptually simple, with the result that flight is extremely powerful and virtually without limitation or risk. One example of this are the rules that say when magical flight is cancelled, the flying being receives a free undispellable feather fall effect to ensure that they are not harmed. Another example is the trend toward making flight increasingly give perfect maneuverability, so that you can fly straight up or hover in the air.

The alternative is to treat flight like a real headache. My own house rules extend to 6000+ words, cover 10 pages, and require a flying character to track 2 additional attributes during combat - altitude and facing. Add in the fact that flight movement covers more squares typically than non-flying movement, and a flight move typically takes 6 to 8 times as much game time to track as a normal ground move - and that's if you are actually comfortable with the rules.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I hate these "well, actually" RAW interpretation rulings. The zero move thing is to create an effect where binding/grappling a non-hovering flying creature is detrimental. It's not a speed limitation and if it were most players would say, "My speed's not zero. I'm moving 1.3" to the left."

 

[Sword of Spirit]

In 5e context the DM is always right.

Is that the rule for AL?

 

[Sunseeker]

The clearest differentiation I've seen in this edition is that creatures with manual methods of flight have flight, while creatures with magical methods of flight have hover. Creatures with mechanical methods of flight can lose that flight from physical or magiacal restraints. EX: A "restrained" arrackoa could not fly. A "restrained" beholder could still hover. The key is "move speed reduced to zero". Stopping your flight at a certain point is not reducing your move speed to zero, you still have your move speed. It's reducing your movement to zero. It's different. EX: Breaking your leg reduces your ability to move. Standing still doesn't.

It's a stupid differentiation. The old differentiation was even stupider, but it's not the same as the differentiation used in this edition.

FURTHER: "winged boots" provide magical flight. I know there's no codified "magical flight" in the edition, but if you stop and think about it for 2 seconds, you'll realize that 6 inch wings on your feet not only would not provide enough lift to get a creature off the ground, but would also quite possibly be the most impractical way to provide lift. They're essentially magical rocket boots.

 

[Mistwell]

So, I was at a Gamehole Con this past weekend, and it was a blast. It's a smallish Con located in Madison, WI.
Anyways, I was lucky enough to be awarded some nifty shoes...
And then in my next event, I went to use them, my character flew straight up to be out of harms way.
Well, the DM for that event went on to explain to me that my shoes only provided flight equal to my movement and not "hover" and if I didn't land somewhere that turn I would fall...
As a fellow DM I can see where this train of thought could come from. WotC has been extremely vague in its rulings dealing with flight. And in many of the monster entries in the MM it does list hover next to some creatures indicating that it is require for some creatures to have to just stay still in mid air.
It seems odd to me that this is not listed in the items description, but what I really wonder is, how does the AL officially handle flight?

That sounds similar to a description of flight from the AL adventure that has the tower with the air cultists who use what's called wingwear...in which case yeah, that is in the description of how they work. I think it was the Howling Hatred Cultists in Princes of the Apocalypse.

[Edit: Here it is:

Wingwear

3 charges.

Bonus action and expend 1 charge to gain a flying speed of 30 feet until you land. At the end of each of your turns, your altitude drops by 5 feet. Your altitude drops instantly to 0 feet at the end of your turn if you didn’t fly at least 30 feet horizontally on that turn. When your altitude drops to 0 feet, you land (or fall), and you must expend another charge to use the suit again. The suit regains all of its expended charges after spending at least 1 hour in an elemental air node.]

 

[pukunui]

That sounds like a description of flight from the AL adventure that has the tower with the air cultists who use those boots...in which case yeah, that is in the description of how they work. I think it was the Howling Cultists in Princes of the Apocalypse?

There's also a pair of winged boots in "Cloaks and Shadows".