Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="blalien" data-source="post: 5701647" data-attributes="member: 41954">All flying animals have an altitude limit.  Wings work by displacing the air around them, sort of similar to swimming.  In order to fly, you must be able to displace an amount of air equal to your weight.  The farther you get from the surface of the earth, the lower the air pressure gets.  When you reach a certain altitude, there won't be enough air for you to displace, and you won't be able to fly any higher.  The altitude you can reach depends on your size, wing span, and wing strength.  Most airplanes and other flying objects have an altitude limit for the same reason, unless they use rocket fuel.There are no animals that fit your conditions, because there are no animals that have a body similar to a pixie, specifically a mammalian body with insectoid wings.  Butterflies have a tiny, hollow, aerodynamic body which allows them to fly up to a height of a few hundred feet.  The only flying mammals are bats, and they have expansive wings like birds.  You could argue that a pixie could not exist in real life, and then I would just respond with, "magic pixie dust."Considering a pixie's size and relative wing span, it's not unreasonable to assume that a pixie can only fly when there is high air pressure, near the surface of the earth.  To fly higher, the pixie must beat its wings harder, and it can only keep that up for a few seconds.  The D&D rules are an abstraction and therefore won't be completely realistic, but the altitude rules are not completely out there.</blockquote>

Verification