Why is flight considered a game breaker?

[billd91]

I think that if you run enough superhero games, flying seems like a trivial problem.

I've run a lot of superhero games and I can't fully agree to this. Your classic ground-hugging brute response to fliers in a superhero game is to throw something heavy, like a car, a cement mixer, or a rabid wolverine. Most fantasy environment brutes aren't capable of that.

 

[billd91]

I find that flight isn't too big a deal as long as a) it's not available to the entire party, and b) it's a limited resource for the PCs who do have it.

I always liked the fact that Fly in 1e and 2e had a variable duration that only the DM knew. The PC could rely on it for a good chunk of time but, as the time neared its end, could no longer do without risking a fall. If not backed up by feather fall holding a spell slot, the wizard (or other character) had to be a bit more conservative with use of the spell.

 

[MrMyth]

Much of this has already been covered, but to offer a couple thoughts:

I first saw this in action in Living Greyhawk. The group I often saw in action was almost entirely ranged - a cleric, a wizard, 2 rangers and 2 rogues. And thus, they all decided to invest in flying bucklers and other items that gave them flight for relatively cheap.

The RPGA is not an environment where the DM can customize every encounter to the party. Which meant many fights involved the party just flying 40' into the air, and nuking the battlefield at their leisure.

So that is one problem with 'game breakers' - they don't adapt well to standardized environments where everyone is supposed to be on even footing. (No pun intended.)

The other issue is that of limits. Yes, if I have a party that entirely flies, I can design adventures specifically for them. But it means I can never have a ground based encounter. Never have a pit or chasm for them to deal with. Every enemy needs to be able to adapt to their fighting style, or be completely useless.

Even more dangerous - what if only 1 or 2 PCs can fly? I not have a much harder time balancing obstacles and threats. Will those PCs trivialize things? Will putting something in place to challenge them become too dangerous to the land-bound PCs?

Flight isn't the end of the world. But in the game I'm running, one PC can indeed fly, and it is often a hassle when he does something unexpected that undermines an encounter or challenge. I don't begrudge him that - he gets to feel awesome about it - but it definitely shows itself as a very strong ability, particularly because he has it all day long without any limitations.

 

[CleverNickName]

It's not a game-breaker for me, but it plays havoc with my preconceived notions of the game. Like pawsplay and Hobo have suggested, the ability to fly is more of a superhero game element, not a fantasy one. It's perfectly fine to have superhero characters in the game; it's just not something I care for.

Gandalf, King Arthur, Bilbo, Merlin...none of them fly. That's more of a Superman or Magneto thing. But I digress.

The ability to fly doesn't necessarily have to break the game, but it certainly can...especially when made permanent, and when combined with powerful ranged attacks or other magic. It takes a bit of finesse and tact on the part of the DM, to restrict flight in a way that is fair to the player and fitting to your game. And it takes a bit of trust and understanding on the part of the player, to not exploit the rules in his/her favor. This is true for any rule, though.

For us, we got rid of the fly spell. Characters can still fly, but they have to use potions or winged mounts (only) in order to do it. This gives the players what they want, without letting the game drift too far into Superhero Land.

 

[Herschel]

Flying is also a problem for balanced character creation. Suddenly, the melee barbarian can fly and smack the winged bad guy and has a big advantage over the Ranger or Rogue who actually built their character to do ranged attacks. I have a barbarian in one game and he's hhad encounters where he has chucked rocks, grab a long plank, whatever to try and help in the fight. He's fast, but he doesn't have teleports or flying to get to the balconies, etc. Other characters have that.

 

[Stoat]

Flight raises three issues in D&D.

1) As others have said above, it makes melee-oriented, nonflying monsters obsolete. Take a look a look at the Monster Manual. The majority of monsters are melee-oriented and don't fly.

2) It allows PC's to circumvent ground-based obstacles such as chasms, rivers, walls, rough terrain, etc. This makes it more difficult for the DM to channel the PC's movement. As a result, it is harder for the DM to predict where the PC's will be. This makes it harder to plan out an adventure.

3) In D&D, flying characters are often faster than ground-based characters. Frex, in 3.5 Fly gives you a speed of 60', double that of most medium sized creatures. In tactical combat, speed is a huge advantage.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Afaics there are four means of flying in fantasy.
1) Transform into a bird. This is quite common in Norse and Celtic myth.
2) Ride a winged steed. Pegasus, the hippogriff in Orlando Furioso.
3) Magic item - winged sandals, broomstick, flying carpet.
4) Be a creature capable of flight - angel, air elemental, aaracokra, etc. These beings usually have wings.

Raw flight, Superman-style, is rare in fantasy. Much more of a superhero schtick, as others have noted.

 

[amerigoV]

To me, this just falls into the catagory game mastery and understanding your PCs. Every few levels in D&D PCs have access to abilities that change the game. I can only talk D&D 3.5 here, but the game evolves into a new style of play about every 5 levels. Spells like Invisibility and Web are the first pain, then Fly, then Divination type spells, then Teleport, then eventually Wish and Miracle. You could have this same conversation about any of these spells. Being on top of what spells are accessible* at that level helps you then build better adventures.

* Clerics/Druids can be a real PITA here when you allow stuff like Spell Compendium in play - so many spells the DM has to be at least familiary with is a negative for 3.5 over 4e in my opinion.

And it does not have to be magic. Heck I remember one of my DMs being flustered because my barbarian got some pretty sweet defensive abilities - it was hard to flank/catch him flat footed once he got up a enough levels.

Monte Cook had a great write-up about this for his Demon God's Fane module. It was an early high level module available under 3.0. He gave some great advice on how to build encounters assuming PCs had availability to certain things (in that particular case - divination magic - a L13 or so module starting with a murder mystery). He did not set it up to NERF, but to take those problematic abilities and require them to be used to further the plot.

On flying specifically - its not much of a problem. In a world of magic, one has to assume that Invisibility and Fly are available after awhile. Invisibility Purge and a few good archers with See Invisibility makes airborne attackers more wary.

I do not agree with the idea that ground base creatures are 'eliminated' by flying PCs. If that were true, then we would only have an Air Force in RL. I believe we still have a pretty robust set of ground forces despite some pretty advance flight capabilities. Also, we lost a war to a country in which we had complete air supiority (Viet Nam). Flight is powerful, but it can be countered tactically and strategically. Brutes and such many not be able to attack the airborne, but they can sure has hell take cover. If the Brutes got what you want, then you will eventually have to come to them.

 

[Desdichado]

It's not a game-breaker for me, but it plays havoc with my preconceived notions of the game. Like pawsplay and Hobo have suggested, the ability to fly is more of a superhero game element, not a fantasy one. It's perfectly fine to have superhero characters in the game; it's just not something I care for.

Ironically, I've long been tempted to run a scoundrels type Eberron game with a changeling named Mystique, a shifter name Victor Creed and an Inspired soulknife named Betsy Braddock.

But that's a considerably gritter type of superhero than Superman.

 

[korjik]

Rule 1: The PCs are not the smartest/most powerful creatures in the game world until they max their levels.

Rule 2: Anything the PCs have thought of an NPC has thought of.

Rule 3: Dragons have really good senses, and consider PC in the air to be lunch.

Results from these rules: 1) If players fly alot, then even relatively stupid monsters will take into account flying creatures. Dosent mean that all will, just that even gobbos will eventually start carrying around bows.

2) When fighting smart monsters, your flying wizard just got backstabbed by my invisible flying assassin, or jumped by a half dozen orc wyvern riders, or chompped by a really big dragon.

3) If you fly around alot before you can fight a really big dragon, you really dont want the really big dragon to know that you have enough magic to fly around alot.

flying being a problem is bad DMing only. If your players always just fly across the chasm, they dont want to deal with the chasm, so dont put them in your adventures. If the monsters dont have a way to retaliate, give them one, stop being a slave to what is in the books and realize that the purpose of the DM is to run the game, not be a second rate computer. The base game rules dont need to put restrictions in, the DM does.