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[Justice and Rule]

It almost never plays out like that for us. It's almost always a long discussion about whether you can hit three or four targets, not hit allies, not burn up the papers on that desk in the process, etc..

And then the 25% of the time where the answer is "Yes you will hit an ally or that thing you didn't want to burn up" the caster says OK nevermind I will pick another spell. And MORE time is wasted waiting around for that.

Meanwhile the fighter runs in, hits the same target over and over until it goes down, and bobs your uncle.

Yeah, I've never seen martials have much problem figuring out what they are doing. More often you get spellcasters trying to figure out what spell they can use to try and out-think the encounter. Everyone is trying to find something in their repertoire to cut whatever Gordian Knot they think they are facing.

 

[Incenjucar]

I really wonder if giving fighters some kind of AOE or cone attack option would help here, like a whirling dervish cleave move that simplified their attacks into fewer rolls.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The 3rd level Fly spell that a caster may cast at 5th level isn't so much an established "feature" as it is an opportunity cost where you spend a limited resource that you opt into for a purpose. That spell slot might otherwise be used for a fireball that saves the encounter, or something else. The Fly spell also takes concentration, limiting your other options.

It isn't really THAT limited of a resource though. Not for how supposedly powerful it is. And while Fly takes concentration... so does Sorcery Incarnate at level 14. Yet Jeremy is talking about pushing it back from level 14 because even at level 14 he feels flight with concentration is too powerful.

Having a Fly Speed all the time is indeed campaign altering. Forever. You can stay out of reach of enemies, drop an AoE concentration spell, and pick off anyone who looks like they're getting out. You can bypass so many obstacles and encounters unless the DM designs adventures where you can't benefit from your fly speed as much, and at that point, what is the point?

And over half of that is encounter design and monster design. Sure, maybe at 5th level none of your enemies having an effective ranged attack makes sense, but by 9th level every enemy should be able to deal with a flier by having ranged damage. This means that you aren't actually out of reach.

And yes, you can bypass obstacles and encounters. Trivially easily. However, name a single encounter or obstacle that could be bypassed by permanent flight by the ENTIRE party, not just the flier, that cannot ALSO be just as easily overcome by the Find Familiar spell. A spell which, by the way, is available at 1st level and creates a flying creature.

I've played under a DM who said having a Fly speed is no problem, and then designed adventures so to punish flyers or make flying useless. The DM wasn't being honest with themselves.

That said, I think 14th level is fine for a permanent fly speed. It's better than a permanent fly speed at 1st level.

I mean.. I would sure hope so, considering the plethora of ways to get fly speeds. If by 14th level you can't get concentration free flight, then something is deeply wrong. Especially since easily used options like Brooms of Flying exist.

 

[Minigiant]

Man it’s been years since I’ve had a fighter player like that.

But it illustrates another point. That player probably doesn’t want round by round choices added to their fighter character.

Unknown since only one edition had true round by round choices in the fighter.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Not every encounter or adventure takes place in a dungeon or building with ceilings. Overland travel and "random encounters" are not uncommon. For example, during overland travel, the party runs into a hunting party of brutish creatures that can't fly. The flying PC can solo them, or at least make them run away, without breaking a sweat. The only danger to their peers is if rather than stay away, those characters choose to put themselves into harms way for fun.

If the party has range options that out range the enemy, and they are in a wide, open terrain for overland travel... what does flight matter in that equation? They just kite on the ground instead of at range. Unless they got ambushed, and the only way to kite is to fly up.... at which point how does this help the rest of the party at all?

And even underground, if it is in the Underdark, or a large cavern big enough for a Huge+ creature to traverse comfortably, the flying character is still at an advantage over anyone else who can't reach them.

Again, maybe at 5th level. But why are adventures for mid-to-high level PCs not having ranged options? Do Drow in the underdark never deal with levitating mindflayers or creautures that live on the ceilings of caves?

And, again, while one character is flying and immune to consequences.... what is the rest of the party doing? Does the entire rest of the party just constantly flee and hide while their superman savior wins every fight?

Heck, there are builds based around a caster soloing a tarrasque because "technically" it doesn't have a ranged attack or it doesn't have aura that messes with flying. When the Tarrasque became a reality in an older campaign of mine, I had to tell the party not to theorycraft based on the MM statblock, because the statblock was going to be different. (I had altered my Tarrasque into an Earth Primal that affected gravity and flying around it.)

Which is a bad design, and trivially fixed. And no, this isn't some sort of nerf to fliers, because you need the same fix to deal with rapid horse archers too.

 

[Minigiant]

Thanks for the replies! It's interesting, and seems like for at least some tables and builds, the fighter's concept of being simple (at least in combat) ended up failing?

It's more that many players and DMs of fighters wanted complex fighters. However since the fighter is usually designed only around being simple, when complexity is added on atter it drags down the game.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Then over on the wizard side the second level sorcerer metamagic features come over to wizard five levels later at level 7 just as the campaign end is nearing,

Completely ignoring the fact that the wizard feature at level 7 is completely free (it just takes a 10 minute ritual) and the one at level 9 may cost gold, but otherwise allows for a permanent increase in power. While the sorcerer must continously in the moment use daily resources that can't be accrued or spent like gold.

 

[Chaosmancer]

maybe, but it is much easier to adjust for ‘strong fighter’ than for ‘flying ranged attacker’, you just need to add more of the same, and the environment can stay as is. Flying needs a lot more adjustments than that

What adjustments are needed for flying that aren't needed for ranged attackers in general?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Thanks for the replies! It's interesting, and seems like for at least some tables and builds, the fighter's concept of being simple (at least in combat) ended up failing?

Not at all. That it takes longer to resolve an attack action than a fireball IME doesn’t speak at all to more complex spells and tactically boring fighters.

My point has always been that just making many attacks can take time, making each attack have the kind of rider you might see on a low level spell will have a strong chance of sucking for people who like the champion fighter. Which is most fighter players, as far as we have data to tell us.

 

[Chaosmancer]

caster says "I'm going to fireball this area". GM picks up a handful of d20's with one for each monster & tosses them down. GM looks at the d20's & says these ones pass these ones fail while the caster is rolling the damage dice they already had set aside. Meanwhile every single turn from the fighter looks similar to this one from Alice.

Or it looks like this.

Player rolls 4d20, quick basic math
"Okay, that's a 15, 17, 20 and 8 to hit"
"The first three hit."
"Okay, that is 9, 6, and 10 damage"
"The gnoll dies after the first two hits."
"Okay, I'll move over here to this enemy then, 20 still hits them?"
"Yep."
"Cool, that was 10 damage and my turn"

Maybe with some dramatic flare put in. But RP is different.