"My hat of flight noes know limits"

[Raduin711]

I'm not really sure how often we see the comic book superhero style flight offered by the old 3rd level Fly spell in fantasy stories. There are indeed a fair number of flying ships and flying mounts and flying monsters, but how often can the heroes fly around like Green Lantern? And, of the examples that do exist, how often is that flight used as intelligently and effectively as your average RPG player can manage?

QFT. I totally agree. Most flight in fantasy is reserved for things with wings, and the occasional flying transportation, like flying carpets and airships. Not usually superhero type stuff.

 

[WhatGravitas]

But apparently, what we get is:
Heroic: Walk
Paragon: Walk Faster
Epic: Walk Even Faster, or Fly Slowly

The problem with flight is: How do you give non-wizards long-term flight?

Giving them wuxia-super leaps, walking in the air?

Make it a mass spell, making it crucially important to have ONE specific class in your group?

Or magic items, in which you re-introduce a severe magic item dependency?

So their solution was: Bend the wizard and restrict his magic flight instead of warping all other classes and the rest of the system, just because somebody introduced flight too early in older D&D editions.

And item/mount-enabled flight seems to be in. And really, flight in fantasy is usually NOT about superman flight, but about riding giant eagles or griffons hippogriffs!

Cheers, LT.

 

[Leatherhead]

The problem with the "Kill Him First" assumption with flight is

1- you can't assume that all possible encounters have to be balanced upon the ability to kill the flying guy when flying is not a strong genre expectation (as in a "swords are effective" and "dragons are strong" expectation)

2- preparing an entire combat round or encounter into batting down the flying character, one who most likely strongly invested into the ability, smacks of Metagaming and GM-Hate

3- Flying is a cumulative and synergistic ability; the character who is powerful enough to want to invest into flying is also going to be powerful enough to counter the anti-flying measures as well.

This isn't to say that Flying isn't chained down and unhappy in 4E. Its just that the 1E "solution" isn't a cure-all.

It should be allot easier to have encounters where monsters can handle flying characters without having to "force them in" now that encounters are composed of multiple monsters with roles such as artillery, controller, or even flying brutes, and skirmishers.

 

[Aservan]

Ok for those of you who hate flight you will be just as disappointed as I am. Flight STILL EXISTS. There is even a mass fly spell for Wizards. So you still need old Wiz in your party to do certain types of adventures.

My problem is that Wizards half-assed it. They didn't get rid of flight. How could they? As has been pointed out the grand daddy of all appeals to authority in fantasy is LoTR. It has flyers.

I don't have a problem with the stated goal of 4th. I really like this edition over all. I just think that the designers dropped the ball when it comes to flight. They listened to the haters and the lovers and tried to find a middle ground. They failed in my book.

Flight is more complicated now. Not less. Flying carpets are permanent but you can't fly higher then 10 squares (no getting out of range 'cause it's not sporting) and it gives you a penalty to defenses as it is unbalanced. Not simple. With the old carpet you fly nice and easy. Now I have to have questions. What happens when you fly over a mountain? Is it ten squares over the surface or ten squares over sea level? Can I get extra height by flying over structures? How about tents? Do they count or do they blow over because of the awe inspiring 6 speed on a friggin 20th level item?

Ok I can fly for 5 min with my nifty high level warlock/wizard spell. So how far is that given that I can go over the terrain. Where is the calculator and I need a map so I can draw the straight line? With flight being semi perm it just felt more natural to guesstimate.

I don't want adventures to be invalid, but I don't want them precluded either. Trip wires and pressure plates are fine for heroic and even paragon adventures but I want the epic in my epic. Why is flight wrong for epic level characters?

We can overcome death in D&D but gravity is too hard? They are dealing with an audience that has grown up with the knowledge that "what goes up must come down" is wrong. Orbital mechanics put to death that falsehood.

It's a bloody game. If we can make magic happen we can make flying characters happen. Even if you can't buy a hippogryph in the PHB anymore (lame – stop breaking promises) how long do you think it will take for a PC to train one to be a mount? Heck greek legend has us riding flying mounts and you can't get more fantasy then that. So flight will exist. Then why did the PC versions of it have to be half assed? Martial characters will have to get magic equipment that lets them fly like their arcane/divine/psionic brethren. I don't even see that as violating the concept of such characters. They are always dependent on their equipment.

I like game balance. I also like character advancement and doing neat things. To my way of thinking the mechanics exist to support the fun. The mechanics need to change to support flight. Make artillery monsters who are good at shooting things down. Make earthbind spells. Say entangled people can't fly. These are mechanical solutions to the "problems" of flight not a cop out answer of: "It's hard so swing the nerf bat." I am not saying that starting/low level characters need to be able to fly like they could in 3rd. Buttsmakers like high level PCs should be able to though.

Granted flight causes problems but I see those as challenges to be overcome in the name of fun rather then insurmountable obstacles. In our world we just fly over them.

 

[Stormtalon]

Might someone who has the PHB via buy.com's spirit of early generosity look in the ritual section and give the level of Phantom Steed, and perhaps the component costs? That's flight right there. You get up to 8 flying mounts that last 24 hours each AND with a built-in feather-fall ability on the off chance they're dispelled (they go poof upon taking any damage, for instance).

 

[Tuft]

Might someone who has the PHB via buy.com's spirit of early generosity look in the ritual section and give the level of Phantom Steed, and perhaps the component costs? That's flight right there. You get up to 8 flying mounts that last 24 hours each AND with a built-in feather-fall ability on the off chance they're dispelled (they go poof upon taking any damage, for instance).

Level 6, lasts for 12 hours, and you get flight (10 squares above ground) only if you succeed at a DC 40 Arcana roll when you create them. Component cost 70, ritual cost 360.

 

[Stormtalon]

So, flight is borderline possible at level 6 (Arcana Trained, Focus, 20 Int: 5 + 3 + 5 + 3 = 16, + aid from at least 2 other party members means Nat 20 gives flight, if I have all the mods correct), but more likely to happen as you move thru Paragon tier.

Knew I'd missed at least one important detail on my quick skim.

 

[Aservan]

Phantom Steed:

Level 6, Cost 70 GP, Exploration, 10 minutes to cast and lasts 12 hours.

Arcana Check Speed Special
19 or less 10 none
20-29 12 Ignore difficult terrain
30-39 15 water walk
40 + 20 Fly up to 10 squares off ground

Again you need a 40+ on your arcana check to get flight which is Ok I guess as it keeps it out of pretty much every one's ability (maybe a 26 + level character can do it reliably). We keep the stupid 10 squares thing so tall buildings and trees are impassible (10 squares = 50 feet = 15.24 meters).

I get the 10 squares thing as an attempt to make it so you can be shot down. I am in the camp though that holds that smart tactics should win over hand waving game mechanics. Ground dwellers need to find shelter if they can't shoot down fliers. Simple. Sun Tzu would be so disappointed in this aspect of 4th.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

It is part of the genere of almost every fantasy setting ever made. Flying ships. Flying monsters. Basically flying ninja animae dudes.

Just taking a quick look over some Fantasy novels - LotR, Thomas Covenant, Belgariad, Conan, Videssos by Harry Turtledove....

I can't think of a single one that has any protagonist cast a spell and fly.

I like the new limited use of flight.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Flight arrived too early pre-4e. I like the environment to matter, for cliffs, rivers and swamps to be obstacles for more than 20% of the campaign.

And it's one more of the million and one ways D&D screwed the non-magic guys.