How are melee characters expected to deal with flying creatures?

[eamon]

Imo fun in an rpg comes from playing an alternate persona in a fantastic world and overcoming challanges (by your own, no matter what those challenges are), not by simply slaughtering higher and higher level enemies while your DM makes sure that you always have a chance of winning by direct combat.

I agree - but using a party's weakness doesn't necessarily mean exploiting it. As Tallifer said, you could let them confront their weakness and force them to retreat and rethink, or you could drop hints (perhaps the dragon's flyby strafing attacks are the stuff of local horror-stories). You can use their weakness to encourage some creativity or some changes in tactics, and mixing things up now and then is fun.

In a sense you have have you cake and eat it too - you don't need to tailor the challenge type match the PC's, but you can still have a party that always has a chance of winning - if they take into account what they know about the situation and plan appropriately. The world can stay reasonable, and the party won't get TPK'd by bad luck or an oversight. Ideally ;-).

 

[Derren]

you could drop hints (perhaps the dragon's flyby strafing attacks are the stuff of local horror-stories).

Thats exactly what a DM should do. But when the PCs still manage to get into the fight then it is their "challenge" to figure it out how to deal with it.
What the DM should not do is to play the monster stupidly (unless it is stupid) only to give the PCs a chance of winning the fight or pull punches to let them retreat. He also should not force an combat with a flying enemy just to "teach teh PCs a lesson".
Whatever happens to live in the area is a possible encounter, not more, not less.

 

[keterys]

Sure... and if blue dragons are an example of a creature that could be a horrible encounter for that particular group, if played optimally, then it should instead be a green dragon (or whatever). Or the blue dragon should be changed to not be a hovering artillery.

 

[renau1g]

I agree - but using a party's weakness doesn't necessarily mean exploiting it. As Tallifer said, you could let them confront their weakness and force them to retreat and rethink, or you could drop hints (perhaps the dragon's flyby strafing attacks are the stuff of local horror-stories). You can use their weakness to encourage some creativity or some changes in tactics, and mixing things up now and then is fun.

In a sense you have have you cake and eat it too - you don't need to tailor the challenge type match the PC's, but you can still have a party that always has a chance of winning - if they take into account what they know about the situation and plan appropriately. The world can stay reasonable, and the party won't get TPK'd by bad luck or an oversight. Ideally ;-).

Half the fun of being a player was not being fed a steady diet of monsters who I could easily overcome with my skill set. In 3e it meant I needed to change my strategy as the party rogue when we ran across some undead, or for the wizard when we fought a golem.

In 4e they got rid of most of that, which I do like for the most part (except knocking an ooze prone), that being said if a group totally forgoes ranged attacks there are consequences to that decision, just like if the group totally forgoes melee attacks. As a DM I'd ensure that after reviewing the PC's sheets I let them know they lacked ranged attacks and if they were ever immobilized or fighting flying enemies they'd be in trouble. If they ignored it, too bad.

 

[keterys]

What if they were overflowing with ranged attacks, but only up to range 10? Or they could do some ranged, but at 1/8th the damage output?

Cause I mean the two parties I detailed earlier have quite a lot of range in the 10 or under department, but go to 20 and they're pretty screwed.

 

[Neuroglyph]

Half the fun of being a player was not being fed a steady diet of monsters who I could easily overcome with my skill set. In 3e it meant I needed to change my strategy as the party rogue when we ran across some undead, or for the wizard when we fought a golem.

In 4e they got rid of most of that, which I do like for the most part (except knocking an ooze prone), that being said if a group totally forgoes ranged attacks there are consequences to that decision, just like if the group totally forgoes melee attacks. As a DM I'd ensure that after reviewing the PC's sheets I let them know they lacked ranged attacks and if they were ever immobilized or fighting flying enemies they'd be in trouble. If they ignored it, too bad.

I half to agree as well - a party of 5-6 characters should have covered most combat situations with their skill sets - ranged or melee. The nice thing about 4e is the ability, level by level, to modify your character by using the Retraining rule. A party can hone themselves as a TEAM and take those exploits that will cover a combat situation that their teammate is not capable of handling.

I still think that a DM can be fair, and create one or two ways to allow melees to handle a flying encounter - such as terrain or some other plot device. But if your characters insist on being melee dps freaks, without giving an eye to the sky, then maybe a flying encounter will help to shake them out of their one-track mindset.

 

[Derren]

Sure... and if blue dragons are an example of a creature that could be a horrible encounter for that particular group, if played optimally, then it should instead be a green dragon (or whatever). Or the blue dragon should be changed to not be a hovering artillery.

No. When the group lacks ranged weapon then they should stay away from blue dragons (and generally most other flying enemies). Its their responsibility to stay away from such encounters.

This of course requires a DM to put more thoughts behind world design than "what monster would be level appropriate for the PCs?".

 

[KarinsDad]

What if they were overflowing with ranged attacks, but only up to range 10? Or they could do some ranged, but at 1/8th the damage output?

Cause I mean the two parties I detailed earlier have quite a lot of range in the 10 or under department, but go to 20 and they're pretty screwed.

Screwed?

Walk into a building. Go into a tunnel. Hide under the trees.

There are a lot of ways to force a foe to close range. Not every encounter has to end with the PCs killing/winning either. Running away is often an option.

Sure, the DM can set up an encounter on an open plain or out on the high seas in a dinghy where the PCs have little cover. The DM can kill the PCs any time he wants. Doesn't mean it's a good idea.

Any reasonable DM can make a flying encounter challenging without making it totally one sided. Flying foes should often stay out of range of ranged attacks if possible. That is one of their strengths. Doesn't mean that they should be designed to auto-win though. There are many many ways to handle flying foes, regardless of range.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, I agree KD. There are always ways to make something interesting out of any encounter. And as you say, the DM can kill any party any old time he feels like it if that's what he wants to do.

The thing is there are always weaknesses in any party. I guarantee you if you hand me 5 character sheets for a party of any level and composition and no matter how skilled they are at covering their bases I'll be able to design an encounter that will render them virtually helpless. There are just so many possibilities available to the DM and that doesn't even count DM cheese. I'm just talking about using pretty much by-the-book encounters. For that matter almost any group of monsters if played to the hilt (intelligent ones at least) can be run in such a way that they're at best virtually unbeatable.

There's nothing wrong with any of that, but obviously there is some sort of line the DM needs to walk between impossible challenges and fun, challenging, dangerous ones. It seems merely sensible that if the DM is going to spring encounters on the PCs that are designed to be close to impossible then there should be some plot element which compensates. The PCs should be forewarned or have an escape route. Their inevitable defeat should be a plot point and maybe how close they come to victory despite the odds is their real measure of success. Maybe the scenario is even a case of "Lets all go out in a blaze of glory", which is a perfectly good end to a campaign if its done well.

I'm not advocating coddling players either. Its fine to TPK a party that cockily ignores its own weakness and warnings. There COULD be other ways to teach them a lesson that don't involve wiping them out though. My campaign is pretty much a sandbox, so players can easily find stuff they can't handle, but almost invariably they'll get some forewarning that they're going to be in trouble, or there's some reasonable way they can escape, etc.

Anyway, I'm still not really convinced that 4e has any bigger problem with characters using secondary weapons than say 2e did. I still say a 2e fighter taking on a blue dragon using a bow is at best marginally less in trouble than his 4e counterpart. A 2e fighter's to-hit increased at the same rate (1/2 levels) as a 4e fighter's does. MAYBE you got more enhancement bonuses at lower levels, but its hard to say since there was no standard for this in 2e. Still, a level 10 2e fighter with a +1 or +2 bow when its not his main weapon sounds well-equipped to me. A 4e fighter can easily afford something similar at the same level (and figure the 4e guy is probably really 15th level for roughly the same point in level progression). Yeah, technically the 2e fighter's bow MIGHT be a strength bow, so OK he's got maybe +6 damage from that at most. Yes, he can attack 2x per round, but still the dragon's return shots are still a lot more powerful than his attacks and those attacks will be greatly less than what he can do with his melee weapons. His chance to hit with his (lets say) +2 bow is also not that great. At level 10 to hit AC -3 (adult blue dragon) he's got a 23 - 7 = 16+ or 25% hit rate. The 4e equivalent dragon has AC30 so again assuming the fighter has SOME dex and a +2 bow his chance to hit is not that much different. So it seems fair to say that in 2e being stuck using a bow was a little better than it is in 4e, but really the ultimate result is the same, the dragon wins and it wins because using an off weapon just never is that great. It really isn't a 4e specific problem.

 

[keterys]

Screwed?

Walk into a building. Go into a tunnel. Hide under the trees.

There are a lot of ways to force a foe to close range. Not every encounter has to end with the PCs killing/winning either. Running away is often an option.

So we're back to the dragon having to specifically fight in a suboptimal (or downright stupid) manner so that the party has a chance?

I mean, I hope no adventure ever has a blue dragon in a desert. One of their preferred habitats.

The parties indicated, two fair examples of parties, have nothing they can do about the blue dragon. In previous editions they'd possibly have access to some more flight mechanisms, a method of teleport, etc. And the party's ranged spells and weapons were almost always more than the dragon's breath weapon or spell options, whether bows or magic missiles.

So it's still not the DM trying to kill the party. It's a core game concept that is not jiving well.

You're not always within a minute of total cover. In fact, I'd imagine you're very, very often not within a minute of total cover. And the dragon only needs a minute to kill someone.

Any reasonable DM can make a flying encounter challenging without making it totally one sided. Flying foes should often stay out of range of ranged attacks if possible. That is one of their strengths. Doesn't mean that they should be designed to auto-win though. There are many many ways to handle flying foes, regardless of range.

Absolutely - but shouldn't it work a little better out of the box, too? Mind you, I think my problem would be solved by the harpy not having its aura (which is retarded, anyways) and the dragon's range being 10 instead of 20. So maybe those are just simple mistakes, hopefully not repeated often at higher levels or in later MMs.

Or maybe flight is just a lot more powerful than it used to be and hover is given out just a bit too much. Or maybe the loophole of Grasping Javelins should be championed as a solution rather than the clear loophole that it is. Dunno.