Hold vs. Spelllika ability

[Hypersmurf]

Carrying 25 pounds of folded up clothes in a pack weighs you down. Wearing 25 pounds worth of stiff clothing restricts your movements in addition to weighing you down.

And yet if I'm paralyzed but not wearing Medium Armor, I can fly faster than if I'm wearing Medium Armor but not paralyzed? Hide armor restricts my movements more than... an inability to move?

Now why, you are sure to ask, would wearing armor hinder magical flight if that flight didn't require bodily motion? The answer to which is because D&D is a game seeking simplified, abstract rules that facilitate ease-of-play more than it's a physics simulation. D&D has a single set of rules for dealing with flight (rules that I think are already overly complex), because it's easier than having seperate rules for magical flight versus mechanical flight versus hybrid mechamagical flight. The only allowed distinction is whether such flight is wing-powered or not.

Yup. But if the Fly spell didn't specifically say "or 40 feet in medium or heavy armor", then it wouldn't apply. They've gone out of their way to include an armor restriction.

The Fly spell already uses separate rules for magical flight versus mechanical flight; a bird can take the Run action while flying, a Fly spell cannot. A creature with a fly speed cannot fly with more than a light load; a creature under a Fly spell can, at a reduce speed. Since they're already making distinctions, it wouldn't have been any more confusing to leave the line about armor out if they figured that movement was unnecessary.

The only logical reason armor can slow the Fly spell down is because restricting movement affects the spell. In which case prohibiting movement, with a Hold Person, must affect it even more.

-Hyp.