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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5710980" data-attributes="member: 82106">[MENTION=2011]KarinsDad[/MENTION]I think the problem here is one of not really having the same argument. You say I'm comparing higher level with lower level powers. YES, so what? We're not comparing levels of powers. The REASON the fly powers are higher level is because they are potentially so good! The issue is this: a tactiport makes some instantaneous change to the tactical situation, once it happens that's it. We all agree it is useful, but there are few situations where it will make a huge difference. Someone dodges being OAed to get to a spot, maybe reaches some hard to reach spot if it is close enough, or escapes some grab type situation without needing to make a check, etc. You can't lard in other types of things and call them advantages of tactiport, like teleporting enemies (which itself is mostly a paragon tier capability anyway) etc because those are 'other' effects of a power that just happen to be formulated in terms of teleportation. What we're discussing is tactical use of teleport itself vs tactical use of flight.Flight OTOH has the potential to largely negate many encounters, bypass significant obstacles, etc in ways that tactiport simply won't. Tactiport's ability to do this is MUCH MORE LIMITED. Yes, flight can potentially be impossible or not useful in some situations, and once in a while it can be countered. AGAIN there's a good reason for that, it gives the DM a way to present challenges even to groups that CAN fly, which they utterly need! Lets put it this way, is there ANYTHING in the game that negates a character's ability to tactiport? No, there isn't (beyond just general ways you can block LoS for instance that are generic and not specifically tactiport negating). OTOH look at how many flight negating abilities PCs can get. Look at how many ways the DM can limit flight. This is because the option NEEDS to exist. Flight is potentially encounter breaking, and OFTEN it is ACTUALLY encounter breaking. This is why it is higher level than tactiport, pure and simple. You can argue this until you're blue in the face. It isn't going to change the facts. True flight beats the pants off tactiport overall. It just does. Thus it is a paragon option, because by paragon monsters are much more capable of countering it and thus the DM has the options he needs to be able to work with to do that when needed. Tactiport OTOH is nice, and CERTAINLY advantageous to have, nobody is saying it isn't. It simply doesn't invalidate the entire basic set of assumptions that make an encounter a challenge. This is a fundamental difference. Immunity from all effective attack from advanced flight can make you IMMUNE to retaliation for a whole encounter, completely. Tactiport can get you past a few OAs, that's about it. Most of its other benefits you cite are benefits of MOVING and apply to ANY mode of movement.As for the 'flavor' argument and the 'world setting implications' arguments. There's really not a lot that can be said one way or another about these. What would be the tactical and strategic implications of an army that could all fly? I'll tell you, it would be VASTLY more significant than that they could teleport 30' once a fight! Lets suppose Eladrin could fly. Imagine a friggin flying army of Eladrin! Oh, you have castle walls you silly boy! Oh, you want to guard the pass we can just fly over, silly boy! Oh, you got the tactical jump on us, we'll follow this! There is simply no contest there. The implications of advanced flying races on military tactics and strategy is orders of magnitude greater than that of some piddly ranged teleport (which itself isn't non-existent certainly, but it IS limited to one little tactical instant in time).The flavor thing... Well, there's just no real way to say anything about that except people's tastes will differ. Sure, tactiport is non-traditional for D&D, and doesn't really show up in traditional sources. I can certainly understand the argument that says "well, I want to play LotR and tactiport just makes that silly" but there are 1000 other ways that it is already made silly because D&D simply doesn't follow the conventions of ANY one mythology or literature. Conanesque S&S likewise isn't a lot like what you get in D&D. Note that both sub-genre CAN be better modeled by D&D to some extent, but you need to customize the game, and at that point you are free to eliminate whatever you need to eliminate, it will always be SOMETHING, and I'd venture to say that advanced flight would be right out in most cases too.The argument that all races should be nerfed back to being nothing but humans with funny eyebrows and glandular problems is just silly to me. Honestly, keep following that line of logic down the line and you have an argument for removing almost everything from the game and reducing it to a medieval version of The Sims. The game is about the fantastic and part of the draw of that is fantastical races. I find the 4e races with their distinct capabilities and more clearly distinguished from human style to be a nice feature of 4e. I don't want it to go away for any reason whatsoever, and certainly not the dubious reasoning that anything beyond human capabilities isn't believable enough or makes the DM THINK about its implications for the world.Honestly, if you don't like the way Eladrin teleport wanks with your world building, then get rid of it. Use elves in their place, or make up a variant race, etc. Turning the whole game system into bland pudding isn't the correct answer IMHO.</blockquote>

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