Why is flight considered a game breaker?

[Votan]

I forget who brings it up, but Fly as a skill concept appeals to me, too. *not sure who started it first*

Well, it is a core Pathfinder skill so the idea is at least a few years old.

They add the twist that you have to be able to fly before you can start training the skill so only a smart Druid really has the skill points to develop this quickly. Others are waiting until mid-levels.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Interesting thread all the way.

My take on the whole thing is that I like cool stuff, but only care for power when I'm being limited. I hear these stories of players using the same strategy over and over. And the people relating these stories say it makes things boring. I think so too, but limits can enforce the need to be boring by blocking off new paths. It sort of makes me wonder whether there's another limit that's causing this boring behavior that isn't be recognized and addressed. I don't personally know what it is or might be, I'm just throwing the thought out there.

You might be right, but I am not ready to accept defeat just yet. D20 is a very robust game system with lots of adaptability...there has to be a "lower-magic" way to play it.

The best idea I've found to accomplish the style of play I am looking for, is to cap character advancement at 6th level (per the E6 houserules.) Fly is less of a problem when it only lasts 6 minutes, tops. It still bugs me, though.

Have you tried Fantasy Craft? It's d20 and has built right into the system the option to tweak what spells and magic items are available however you want without twisting the balance of the rest of the system into knots.

 

[BryonD]

I believe it was Henry who proposed a simple low magic rule quite a few years ago.

His rule was that you could never take a class level if that level would increase your caster level above one-half your character level.

Thus a 6th level character could be no greater than 3rd level in Wizard, Druid, Sorcerer or Cleric. You could be a Cleric3/Wizard3, or a Cleric3/Fighter3 or whatever. But nothing over caster level 3.

It is an entirely reasonable to base magic item pricing on minimum character level instead of caster level. If a CL of 5 is required to craft an item, (say a wand of Fly), then only a character of at least 10th level could craft one. So they would be they much more precious and the value could be calculated using a value of 10 for CL rather 5. (Though the effective caster level remains 5, just the price is recalculated) Now spellcasting is brought down a lot and magic items are significantly constrained.

 

[Celebrim]

I believe it was Henry who proposed a simple low magic rule quite a few years ago.

His rule was that you could never take a class level if that level would increase your caster level above one-half your character level.

This would be my recommendation for any campaign that wants low magic/medieval feel but which also wants to eventually scale up to a very 'epic' (as its erroneously come to be called) flavor.

Personally, I prefer the term 'colossal' because on of the things I don't feel mods like e6 can reasonably do is capture the feel of extremely massive opponents. There is plenty of room for an epic campaign at 6th level, afterall Gandalf was a 6th level wizard. However, there just isn't the nice continious gradient between horse, elephant, dinosaur and godzilla that the full d20 toolset gives you when you limit players to 6th level.

FantasyCraft, while a great system, in my opinion has this limitation. There 'big' stuff just doesn't feel big.

Granted, there are improvements I'd like to see in how D20 handles scale, but that's a different thead.

 

[Stalker0]

How would these three interact with the idea of "take damage and fall out of the sky?"

I would use the normal fly rules for this one. You are fine if you take damage, but proning effects knock you down.


I caution the idea of balancing fly by greatly increasing the number of ways to knock the person down. If the player feels that every time he flies he is basically giving the DM the rope to hang him with...then there's no point in giving him fly.

 

[Votan]

I would use the normal fly rules for this one. You are fine if you take damage, but proning effects knock you down.


I caution the idea of balancing fly by greatly increasing the number of ways to knock the person down. If the player feels that every time he flies he is basically giving the DM the rope to hang him with...then there's no point in giving him fly.

I suspect it is okay if the rules are clearly spelled out so that the player can judge the risk carefully. In the most mild example (dispel magic ends the spell and there is no feather fall) that's a fairly uncommon hazard and exists more to keep players from becoming too predictable with fly based tactics (as they invite a planned counter) but would rarely impact a normal campaign.

 

[pemerton]

I caution the idea of balancing fly by greatly increasing the number of ways to knock the person down. If the player feels that every time he flies he is basically giving the DM the rope to hang him with...then there's no point in giving him fly.

I suspect it is okay if the rules are clearly spelled out so that the player can judge the risk carefully. In the most mild example (dispel magic ends the spell and there is no feather fall) that's a fairly uncommon hazard and exists more to keep players from becoming too predictable with fly based tactics (as they invite a planned counter) but would rarely impact a normal campaign.

Votan, I'm inclinded to agree with Stalker0. As you present it, the removal of feather fall from fly has no impact except for the first time the GM pulls a planned counter on the PCs, at which point a PC dies (or at least runs a serious risk of death). I don't feel that it's very good design to have a class feature that is meant to be fairly utilitarian (like fly) turn into a feature which is closer to "auto-win except when my PC dies". That sort of thing can be OK for a certain style of play which (i) is high on the gonzo factor, and (ii) makes it easy to replace PCs. It can even work in a more typical character-centred D&D game as a climax point (a bit like Frodo dropping the ring into Mt Doom) - but I don't think it works for something like flight.

 

[Ashtagon]

I believe it was Henry who proposed a simple low magic rule quite a few years ago.

His rule was that you could never take a class level if that level would increase your caster level above one-half your character level.

Thus a 6th level character could be no greater than 3rd level in Wizard, Druid, Sorcerer or Cleric. You could be a Cleric3/Wizard3, or a Cleric3/Fighter3 or whatever. But nothing over caster level 3.

This sounds like a very interesting approach.

Would it be possible to be, say, a transmuter 3 / conjurer 3, with separate caster levels and spells selected for each of those two classes? Is that likely to break anything?

 

[Votan]

Votan, I'm inclinded to agree with Stalker0. As you present it, the removal of feather fall from fly has no impact except for the first time the GM pulls a planned counter on the PCs, at which point a PC dies (or at least runs a serious risk of death). I don't feel that it's very good design to have a class feature that is meant to be fairly utilitarian (like fly) turn into a feature which is closer to "auto-win except when my PC dies". That sort of thing can be OK for a certain style of play which (i) is high on the gonzo factor, and (ii) makes it easy to replace PCs. It can even work in a more typical character-centred D&D game as a climax point (a bit like Frodo dropping the ring into Mt Doom) - but I don't think it works for something like flight.

To each their own.

I'm not sure where the "character is dead issue" comes from unless the player is a) flying at a great height and b) doesn't expend resources planning for a fall. A 10th level mage shouldn't be a in a great deal of trouble taking 10d6 damage, for example. WIth a range of 100 + 10 feet per level, it's hard to get above 100' feet of falling damage unless you are directly below the wizard.

Now, if the reason is that the player is standing off opponents that could never have been defeated in melee, the standard version is just as bad (except that they take fewer hit points on the way down).

The idea is to introduce an element of risk into a repetitive tactic. It also aligns the risks closer to that of a flying mount as the classic trick now to to kill the hippogriff and not the rider. Dispel magic requires a caster level check to work, has a range, and doesn't do anything worse than with a mount.

I don't think that having a counter to a spell that is dangerous is any worse than current spells -- reciprocal gyre appears to exist partially to introduce risk to heavy buffers. How is this different?