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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 5748012" data-attributes="member: 1165">1) Yes. The DM has to redesign a lot of stuff. Certain terrain features (especially dealing with traps) can become trivial. Infiltrating a castle becomes a lot easier; the defenses are designed to keep people out the ground-floor doors. An aarakocra rogue with Stealth and Thievery could disable the trap on the window, pick the lock, and get in, by themself, then go downstairs and open a door to let the rest of the party in, as opposed to the extended Bluff/Thievery skill challenge (with a failure resulting in combat very much on the NPCs' terms) that would likely result on the ground floor. Trap encounters might need to be redesigned. Etc.I don't think being able to fly changes scouting all that much. Your opponents might have a harder time getting the cover/concealment needed to hide from a flying scout, but it's also hard to be stealthy while flying. If you're scouting by yourself, well, you're just a target for everyone who sees you.For the flying familiar, that's even worse... the familiar has to act on its own intelligence, which I believe isn't that high. (And even worse if the scout is an animal companion!)2) In my last session, the PCs fought primarily flying opponents in their first encounter. These opponents had ranged attacks too, so it wasn't just constant Fly-by Attack (you can ready an action to stop that). Many PCs were severely "nerfed", leaving the encounter being tougher than the XP budget would indicate. Similarly, most monsters and many NPCs are far weaker at ranged than at melee, giving a flying PC a large advantage. (In fact, the PCs could focus on the ranged opponents first, making the flying PC nearly invincible.)3) In Gamma World, the flying "origin" gives you -2 to hit while flying. Maybe that's enough of a problem-solve.This isn't to say you can't use a flying PC (or companion), just that you need to adjust encounters to take that into account."Monsters" should be combat antagonists, yes. I frequently design minions with non-adventuring skill powers (eg the ability to craft something in an hour, similar to the Martial Practice) but they're not intended to engage in combat. While they technically have XP values and combat stats, they're there mainly so I can know what their skill bonus instead, in case it comes up.I've also designed "neutral" NPCs, like Silvarr the diviner. One of his abilities is not a combat ability but a skill-booster, and he has access to a vast swath of divination rituals, but most of his abilities are still of the "dishing out the hurt" variety. (I made up a version of Shadow Evocation just for him.) His skills are mainly mental skills like Arcana and History, but that's not unusual for even a combat mage.Silvarr, being an old wizard not "optimized" (in flavor terms) for combat, would probably spend his first action just casting an escape spell and fleeing, but he is a wizard, would prep a few combat spells, and could fight if he felt he had to.I had two conflicting issues with the stat block as presented. The first is the monster looks exactly like a skirmisher, but has several healing surges. It would make a good antagonist against evil PCs too, as even a good-aligned NPC healbot can only heal once or twice per encounter, making their higher number of healing surges irrelevant. I suppose the difference becomes more noticeable at higher level. The second - you don't need different stats if you're not using the companion rules. But I suppose, having started in 2e and never having gone through the companions, henchmen and hireling phase, I don't see much point of having "allied" creatures. It's a cultural or generational thing, not really a rule thing.Just because most aarakocra are good (well, Silvaraak aarakocra anyway) doesn't mean that there are no statistically identical aarakocra who aren't, or that they're inappropriate to use against evil PCs. To put it another way, I don't think alignment needs to be a "game stat". There need not be any difference between a good or evil NPC in terms of combat abilities in most cases, and in some cases (eg good vs evil paladin) the differences might simply be damage type. (On the other hand, an evil cleric might be very different than a good one...)I had no issues with the flavor of the article at all.I actually had one for a while, but its' not very relevant to this thread. The player wanted to play a kenku, but there are no kenku on Athas. So I told him he could be an aarakocra, but use kenku abilities/stats. (The issue was flavor, not balance.)Kenku don't fly, though.</blockquote>

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