D&D General How has flying affected your games?

[Ralif Redhammer]

I've had some flying PCs, and yeah, the "I'll just ferry the other PCs over this obstacle, one at a time" is a thing. I generally required strength checks for that, which made for a few interesting failures. But after a while when it's the same solution for everything, that stops being interesting.

My current PCs have an airship, but they've been pretty good about not abusing it, and it's opened up more adventuring possibilities than it's closed off.

We had an aarocroka barbarian in Tomb. I didn't like it, mostly because he was always shuttling other PCs around like a lyft driver. I found it annoying and often difficult to gauge what he could reasonably lift and carry.

 

[Nebulous]

I've had some flying PCs, and yeah, the "I'll just ferry the other PCs over this obstacle, one at a time" is a thing. I generally required strength checks for that, which made for a few interesting failures. But after a while when it's the same solution for everything, that stops being interesting.

My current PCs have an airship, but they've been pretty good about not abusing it, and it's opened up more adventuring possibilities than it's closed off.

I don't think I would allow a birdman again, it created more weird (or repetitive) situations than fun ones. And he was strong too. I did enforce "you're encumbered and slow carrying this 250lb ally with gear". Generally it was just used to skip low level obstacles or hit enemies from a place they could never reach.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I don't think I'd outright ban them, but I probably would just outright rule that they can't carry someone else while flying.

I don't think I would allow a birdman again, it created more weird (or repetitive) situations than fun ones. And he was strong too. I did enforce "you're encumbered and slow carrying this 250lb ally with gear". Generally it was just used to skip low level obstacles or hit enemies from a place they could never reach.

 

[Nebulous]

I don't think I'd outright ban them, but I probably would just outright rule that they can't carry someone else while flying.

When I tried to do that it caused such an argument at the table it wasn't worth it. So i compromised with the player.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Hi everyone. How has having flying PCs affected your game?

PitA.

Flyers take a lot of grittier heroic tropes, Indiana-Jonesing/Erol-Flynnery, and general parkour fun and toss it out the window. They also take less gritty fantasy tropes, like, oh, castles, and invalidate them w/o furious handwaving.

Even 4e pixies with their mildly ludicrous altitude 1 limit (are you a fairy, or a G.E.V.?) were annoying that way, at times.

Flight, Teleportation, Invisibility, and significant shape-shifting should all be pushed to significantly higher level, IMHO.

 

[Oofta]

I don't think I'd outright ban them, but I probably would just outright rule that they can't carry someone else while flying.

I understand why you would do that from a meta-game standpoint but personally I would want an in world justification. If a PC can pick up an object that happens to weigh the exact same amount as a PC and carry it around while they fly, why can't they carry a PC?

I like to keep my rulings as consistent and logical as possible without falling back on "because magic".

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Sigh, been there.

When I tried to do that it caused such an argument at the table it wasn't worth it. So i compromised with the player.

Yeah, getting a good consistent ruling here is a tough needle to thread. An aarakocra could carry presumably 12 pounds and fly, but that same 12 pounds, if it's hide armor, makes flying impossible.

I understand why you would do that from a meta-game standpoint but personally I would want an in world justification. If a PC can pick up an object that happens to weigh the exact same amount as a PC and carry it around while they fly, why can't they carry a PC?

I like to keep my rulings as consistent and logical as possible without falling back on "because magic".

 

[Oofta]

Yeah, getting a good consistent ruling here is a tough needle to thread. An aarakocra could carry presumably 12 pounds and fly, but that same 12 pounds, if it's hide armor, makes flying impossible.

I've always assumed that was because of the difficulty of creating heavier armor that didn't interfere with flight. Then again I don't allow Aarakocra in my campaign so it's never come up. Boots of flying and similar are what I have to deal with.

Another option is to say that when you are flying you need to consider your own weight in your carrying capacity. Should work most of the time if using the base rules (strength X 15).

 

[Nebulous]

And then, since I will let them carry PCs around, within reason, and we don't normally track encumbrance, and PCs carry a TON of crap, we're trying to quickly calculate how much so and so weighs as he's hoisted over the lava lake or whatever. In the future I would rather just not allow a constantly flying character with no resource management.

 

[Nebulous]

PitA.

Flyers take a lot of grittier heroic tropes, Indiana-Jonesing/Erol-Flynnery, and general parkour fun and toss it out the window. They also take less gritty fantasy tropes, like, oh, castles, and invalidate them w/o furious handwaving.

Even 4e pixies with their mildly ludicrous altitude 1 limit (are you a fairy, or a G.E.V.?) were annoying that way, at times.

Flight, Teleportation, Invisibility, and significant shape-shifting should all be pushed to significantly higher level, IMHO.

Ugh. We had a 2e pixie one time as a PC. The sleep arrows were even worse than the flying. But yes, I think flight and teleport and invisible and shape changing should be higher level too.