I Believe I Can Fly With Average Maneuverability

[Hella_Tellah]

The rules for tactical aerial movement in 3.X are needlessly complex.

			Perfect Good		Average 	Poor 		Clumsy 
Minimum forward speed 	None 	None 		Half 		Half 		Half 
Hover 			Yes 	Yes 		No 		No 		No 
Move backward 		Yes 	Yes 		No 		No 		No 
Reverse 		Free 	–5 ft. 		No 		No 		No 
Turn 			Any 	90º/5 ft. 	45º/5 ft. 	45º/5 ft.	45º/10 ft. 
Turn in place		Any 	+90º/–5 ft. 	+45º/–5 ft. 	No 		No 
Maximum turn 		Any 	Any 		90º 		45º 		45º 
Up angle 		Any 	Any 		60º 		45º 		45º 
Up speed 		Full 	Half 		Half 		Half 		Half 
Down angle 		Any 	Any 		Any 		45º 		45º 
Down speed 		Double 	Double 		Double 		Double 		Double 
Between down and up 	0 	0 		5 ft. 		10 ft. 		20 ft.

Mercy. Is there any earthly reason to have five different qualities of aerial movement with twelve dimensions of difference?

For 4th edition, I hope they trim it down to just two kinds of flight. Call them "Basic Flight" and "Perfect Flight." Basic Flight would require a minimum forward movement speed, one 90 degree turn per move action, and a maximum up angle of 45 degrees at half speed. Perfect Flight would be just as it is now, which is pretty intuitive: float around however you want within your movement speed. Keep the double downward speed, and everything else--maximum turn, "between down and up"--should be left on the cutting room floor.

The Fly spell could then grant the caster Basic Flight, while a higher-level spell could grant Perfect Flight. Further spell differentiation could come from duration, speed, etc.

What do you guys think? Should 4th edition retain the high degree of granularity in flight types? Are there other changes you would make? What house rules are you using for flight in your current game?

 

[Wepwawet]

DAMN!
Is there such a complex flight table?!?!?!
Thank god I never needed to use that...
Anyway, I would just guess how the creature would move, forgetting the exact math of it's trajectory. Based only on the quality

 

[hexgrid]

I've always wondered what "move backward," "reverse," and "turn in place" were doing in a system that doesn't use facing.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

Um? What exactly do they mean by "between down and up"
Isn't that MIDDLE perhaps?

Damn, did the invisible ceilings from video games invade my D&D without me noticing?

 

[Nebulous]

I'm shocked to even see that chart. Jeez. I agree, i want 4e simple simple simple

 

[Moon-Lancer]

What do you guys think? Should 4th edition retain the high degree of granularity in flight types? Are there other changes you would make? What house rules are you using for flight in your current game?

the only problem i see with your suggestions is that dragons have 150 movement so they can turn around and such. Most of their movement is intended to burn on flight maneuvers.

 

[EricNoah]

Um? What exactly do they mean by "between down and up"

I believe it's a reference to how much forward movement is required between moving down and moving up. More maneuverable creatures can move down and up without an intervening forward move. Less maneuverable creatures can move down, but then must move forward some amount, before starting to move up. At least as I recall.

 

[Hella_Tellah]

the only problem i see with your suggestions is that dragons have 150 movement so they can turn around and such. Most of their movement is intended to burn on flight maneuvers.

Ooh, yeah, that's kind of thorny. On the one hand, I do want dragons to be able to do cool aerial maneuvers--mid-air reverses, fly-by attacks, and so forth. There should be some flying creatures that do awesome, Starfox-arwing-style aerial maneuvers.

"Do a barrel roll!"

On the other hand, I wouldn't want to have a big section that DMs need to reference every time they run a flying creature, although I'm sure most of us just wing it .

They've said in the podcasts that they're doing an "exceptions-based" design process with monsters. I think the simple method I've written out could be used, but certain monsters should get per-encounter abilities to do cool things in the air.

 

[Klaus]

Simpler? Hell, no!

More useable? Hell, yes!

I find the 3.x flying rules to be sketchy at best. No guidelines on how to use minis (or how to NOT use minis) in a flying battle. At least the Dragonlance CS had aerial rules that included stuff like the answer to the question "My target is 40 ft. away and 100 ft. up, what's my distance to it?", and the very cool notion of Altitude Bands.

As far as facing goes, it is required once you get airborne, because creatures with less than Good Maneuverability must keep a minimum forward movement each round (which, if it's greater than 5ft, means you can take only standard actions while flying).

 

[WhatGravitas]

3E flight is messy. I hope 4E does something like that:
Poor flight: All movement in a single turn must be in the same direction. Must make at least one normal move or falls down.
Average flight: Movement from the a single move action must be into a single direction (but if you make a full move, i.e. make two move actions, you can change in between).
Good flight: Move as want to move.

Cheers, LT.