D&D 5E On fairies and flying

[Scott Christian]

True, flying is pretty obvious, and should be anticipated by the DM, and any intelligent NPCs.

But just because the party doesn't have flying it doesn't mean they won't come up with a cunning way to bypass a hazard. It does become "tit-for-tat" if the DM tries to ban everything the PCs might come up with. It escalates from banning flying to banning creative thinking.

"Intelligent NPCs" leaves out a huge section of the MM.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

When everyone can move in 3 dimensions, no one can. Same as underwater. You only have mobility advantage if you are more mobile than whatever you are fighting.

Well, unless you are in vehicles, and/or there is 3D terrain to consider.

When my players were chasing a sky coach on fantasy speeder bikes, one thing they were able to do was drop below the ship to reduce which of its weapons could target them, or rise above it to do a diving attack with all guns forward.

There was also terrain in the form of towers and skybridges, which had to be navigated 3-dimensionally while moving very fast.

In another fight with flying I set up a small work light to show where the sun was, and allowed them and thier enemies to use it tactically via positioning in 3D.

 

[billd91]

Again, I am not saying it destroys the game or creates a giant imbalance. But all of these examples, which are level one encounters, now look as though they are built for one player, and one player only. As opposed to being more organic or natural. That has a tendency to make the player wish they never would have taken flying in the first place. You could create the same examples for skill checks, traps, and navigation.

Ultimately, it’s a question of building encounters taking the party composition into account. Would you design different encounters for parties of all martial classes but no arcanists? Do you ever include skirmishers to get around blockers in front and at a wizard in the rear? Add ranged attacks to challenge a missile-oriented ranger or eldritch blasting warlock? If you do, how is a flyer much different?

 

[Scott Christian]

1) What thoughts do people have when one race has a swim speed in a naval campaign?

A naval campaign implies that people are on boats. And you have one person that can swim and even dive to safety. So sometimes they get to use that ability, and often times they don't. That makes the player feel good. But, the difference is they can't sit 100' underwater and attack people on the "bad guys" ship. They can get to safety, but then are left with very little. If you want make it where they attack the hull of the ship, fine. But the damage they do over the course of one combat is nothing that will change the outcome of the battle. And any naval campaign I have played, like Skull and Shackles for PF, had a huge mixture of terrain: ships, underwater, jungles, etc.

Overall, I think there is a difference. But, I also think flying really only matters the first four or five levels.

2) I think an interesting experiment/adventure would be a series of rooms which have various effects on movement.
•Room A: Zero-Grav, everyone can move as though they can fly/hover in 3 planes of movement.
•Room B: 2D Room; everyone is restricted to one plane of movement - either the width or depth of the room.

For Room B: Perhaps there's some method for an individual to change which plane their movement can exist in. Minor-Action to make either a Charisma-based Arcana or Charisma-based Athletics check to push your 3-Dimensional self through a 2D room. If successful, you can change which aspect of the room's area (width or depth) you can use for movement. Ranged attacks and spells are likewise limited.

That would be fun. Could definitely be in an Alice in Wonderland style adventure. And might go very well with the new upcoming product.

 

[J.Quondam]

If your PC isn't trying to kill giant rats with a rusty dagger and then dying of disease 1d6 hours later, are you REALLY playing D&D?

I mean, that's why "D&D" stands for "Daggers and Diseases" right?

 

[iserith]

I hear you, and you are correct. But you are leaving out the mix of encounters, and that's where it becomes tit-for-tat.

If you have a party travelling by air, sure they encounter flying things. You build encounters around that. You have sea encounters on the water. But when you have one that can fly and the others can't, constantly throwing a wrench at the single flying party member so they too have an encounter looks like tit-for-tat. It does not look like a natural encounter.
Here are some examples:

• A party travelling encounters a gelatinous cube in the swamp. Now, in order to make it fair, there just happens to be a tree full of stirges as well. The stirges just happen to be at the same location.
• A party travelling through a desert encounters a sand golem. Now, in order to make it fair, the sand golem is modified and able to throw sand-hands or something just as silly at the flying PC.
• The party travelling across a fjord are ambushed by a sahuagin patrol. Now, in order to make it fair, there just happens to be a priest with them, so they have a range over 60'.
• The party travelling through the forest comes across jackalweres. Now, in order to make it fair, the DM extends the jackalware's sleep gaze to 60 or 100 feet.
• The party travelling through a huge, high cavern of some ancient race comes across a large group of grimlocks. Now, in order to make it fair, the cavern ceiling is lowered to 8' so the grimlocks can actually hit the flying PC.

Again, I am not saying it destroys the game or creates a giant imbalance. But all of these examples, which are level one encounters, now look as though they are built for one player, and one player only. As opposed to being more organic or natural. That has a tendency to make the player wish they never would have taken flying in the first place. You could create the same examples for skill checks, traps, and navigation.

When I create my random encounter tables, I do so with a mix of melee creatures, ranged creatures, melee/ranged creatures, stealthy creatures (which could be melee or ranged or both), and flying creatures. I do so not knowing what the PCs are or what their capabilities are going to be. Sometimes a flying PC has it easy. Other times they have it hard. Most of the time it's somewhere in between, just like everyone else. This strikes me as the correct balance.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I hear you, and you are correct. But you are leaving out the mix of encounters, and that's where it becomes tit-for-tat.

If you have a party travelling by air, sure they encounter flying things. You build encounters around that. You have sea encounters on the water. But when you have one that can fly and the others can't, constantly throwing a wrench at the single flying party member so they too have an encounter looks like tit-for-tat. It does not look like a natural encounter.
Here are some examples:

• A party travelling encounters a gelatinous cube in the swamp. Now, in order to make it fair, there just happens to be a tree full of stirges as well. The stirges just happen to be at the same location.
• A party travelling through a desert encounters a sand golem. Now, in order to make it fair, the sand golem is modified and able to throw sand-hands or something just as silly at the flying PC.
• The party travelling across a fjord are ambushed by a sahuagin patrol. Now, in order to make it fair, there just happens to be a priest with them, so they have a range over 60'.
• The party travelling through the forest comes across jackalweres. Now, in order to make it fair, the DM extends the jackalware's sleep gaze to 60 or 100 feet.
• The party travelling through a huge, high cavern of some ancient race comes across a large group of grimlocks. Now, in order to make it fair, the cavern ceiling is lowered to 8' so the grimlocks can actually hit the flying PC.

Again, I am not saying it destroys the game or creates a giant imbalance. But all of these examples, which are level one encounters, now look as though they are built for one player, and one player only. As opposed to being more organic or natural. That has a tendency to make the player wish they never would have taken flying in the first place. You could create the same examples for skill checks, traps, and navigation.

Strange, this is what I already do for my group. I heavily modify encounters and adventures to challenge the characters they created.

And we don't even have any flying PC's!

 

[Scott Christian]

Ultimately, it’s a question of building encounters taking the party composition into account. Would you design different encounters for parties of all martial classes but no arcanists? Do you ever include skirmishers to get around blockers in front and at a wizard in the rear? Add ranged attacks to challenge a missile-oriented ranger or eldritch blasting warlock? If you do, how is a flyer much different?

That is a good question. And maybe this is the disconnect I have with @Paul Farquhar . I design encounters based on what would naturally or logically occur in the area. I design my architecture and dungeons the same way. The encounter or trap is what would logically occur. For example, if there are goblins in the heavily wooded area, and they are bandits, they most likely can ambush from the back and carry bows as well as daggers. The ambush from the back could occur, but it would be based on skill checks prior. This way both skills and combat are valued by the players.
What I do not do is design encounters based on the group. For example, the thieves' den I just made has secret (the safe way to travel) passages. The others are trapped. They all go to the same place. I can't stand when a door is trapped, but it is obviously a door that would need to be used fifty times a day. That stuff drives me nits.
The level of the group is always taken into consideration, but that is because much of my writing is more adventure paths, and not one shots that can be used anywhere or anytime. But even with level consideration, it is naturalness and logic - then level, not the other way around.

 

[Scott Christian]

When I create my random encounter tables, I do so with a mix of melee creatures, ranged creatures, melee/ranged creatures, stealthy creatures (which could be melee or ranged or both), and flying creatures. I do so not knowing what the PCs are or what their capabilities are going to be. Sometimes a flying PC has it easy. Other times they have it hard. Most of the time it's somewhere in between, just like everyone else. This strikes me as the correct balance.

That sounds more than fair. I just think we design differently. I do not have random encounters. Almost all encounters are used to move the story forward in my homebrew.

 

[iserith]

That sounds more than fair. I just think we design differently. I do not have random encounters. Almost all encounters are used to move the story forward in my homebrew.

Random encounters move "the story" forward in my game too. It's just we probably have a different idea of what "story" is.

Notably, the OP mentions running hexcrawls with what looks like no plot. So if this is more than fair for my game, I wonder why it doesn't work in that person's game or is seen perhaps as "escalation."