Flying

[KrazyHades]

How the hell do you run full-out flying encounters? I've done encounters with flyers before, but largely with monsters flying while the PCs try to take them out with ranged weapons. Now I'm getting to the point where the PCs have access to flight, and one of them is a half-celestial (with a nice pair of feathery wings). I don't know how one would efficiently run a flying combat on a battlemap.

Suggestions from those experienced in this subject would be VERY helpful.

 

[Whimsical]

Get yourself a bunch of these.

Set your programable calculator to quickly calculate using Pythagorian's theorem. Although it has to deal with halved ascending flying and doubled descending flying.

 

[Pinotage]

Pythagoras is you friend, as mentioned, to calculate distances. On a map, though, I've always used two maps for 3D combat - one a top view, and another a side view showing elevation. You can still quite easily count squares and use Pythagoras to calculate movement, and it gives you a good idea of what's threatening you and what's not, and where everything is relative to the characters. It's still time-consuming, though, but I don't think there's any escaping that. I ran an underwater adventure for 2 years, and the system worked well for the most part.

Pinotage