Level Up (A5E) Why is non-magical flying so limited for PCs?

[Micah Sweet]

To me the issue is that standard scenarios that I’d expect to happen in a fantasy story don’t work if a PC has flight. Heck, a bunch of published adventures don’t work if a PC has flight.

-The players need to go through a dark forest filled with dangerous wolves.
-The players need to climb a mountain in order to find an item at the top. It’ll take 2 days to get to the top because going straight up isn’t an option. Over those days they’ll be attacked by polar bears and yeti since they’ll have to pass by their lairs.
-The players need to find their way down a trap filled hallway, where touching the ground is dangerous.
-The players come to a chasm where the bridge is out and are forced to take a detour around forcing them to spend the night in a nearby haunted town.
-The players need to transport an unconscious guy with an anti magic aura on him to the one place that will be able to heal him but there are demons (without flight) waiting to ambush them on the road there.

These are just a few of the scenarios that have actually come up during games that would have been ruined by one person having at will flight. There are countless more. Does each of these have a “solution”? Sure. But do most of those solutions either feel like you are purposely taking away a player’s ability or feel very contrived and artificial and possibly a little unfair? You bet.

I don't use published adventures for anything other than parts, and then I modify the parts.

 

[Faolyn]

I am. Makes a lot more sense in the world after all.

I do miss morale checks. It's ridiculous to assume enemies are going to fight to the death.

 

[lichmaster]

-The players need to transport an unconscious guy with an anti magic aura on him to the one place that will be able to heal him but there are demons (without flight) waiting to ambush them on the road there.

This seems more of a contrieved example than a reasonable scenario to me.

Anyways, it seems the discussion is getting pointless.
Some want to allow flight to be a possibility and want actual mechanics and verisimilitude around it, others don't for whatever reason.
It's like some people are saying "no infravision ever", and other are saying: why not? Just don't use it if you don't want to.

 

[lichmaster]

I do miss morale checks. It's ridiculous to assume enemies are going to fight to the death.

Pretty much no sentient being should do so except in really dire circumstances.
A mother bear would probably fight to the death if cubs were threatened, and most mindless undead would definitely fight until destroyed. But in the overwhelmingly vast majority of cases, this won't be a thing.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Pretty much no sentient being should do so except in really dire circumstances.

hey, it's worked out for me so far. haven't lost a PC yet!

 

[Thomas Shey]

Ok. If you're happy with things as they are and don't want to change, then there's no discussion to be had.

Any time someone says "This thing in the game doesn't work properly, we should fix it" I'd think the fact that people will come out to say "It doesn't seem to work badly to me and doesn't seem like it should be changed" seems like something that should be expected.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Any time someone says "This thing in the game doesn't work properly, we should fix it" I'd think the fact that people will come out to say "It doesn't seem to work badly to me and doesn't seem like it should be changed" seems like something that should be expected.

Sure, but neither of us are likely to move here, so I see no value in continuing to reiterate our opinions at each other.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The flying creatures aren't making the opposition flee, though.

Please go look at the post I was responding to.

I
Flying PCs only don't have repercussions because you said you don't want there to be any--you specifically said you don't want to make encounters that would challenge flying PCs. Which is your prerogative, but you can't also claim that flying PCs are immune to danger and can make ranged attacks at will.

I said I don't want it to be the only ones. Don't put words into my mouth. Encounters with things like dire animals and the like ought to be a viable encounter, especially early on. That doesn't mean I'm saying there should be no encounters with ranged attackers or fliers, but I don't want things that don't land in that to be ones that overly favor a particular character. Let's not act like that's an extreme position.

 

[Faolyn]

To me the issue is that standard scenarios that I’d expect to happen in a fantasy story don’t work if a PC has flight. Heck, a bunch of published adventures don’t work if a PC has flight.

-The players need to go through a dark forest filled with dangerous wolves.
-The players need to climb a mountain in order to find an item at the top. It’ll take 2 days to get to the top because going straight up isn’t an option. Over those days they’ll be attacked by polar bears and yeti since they’ll have to pass by their lairs.
-The players need to find their way down a trap filled hallway, where touching the ground is dangerous.
-The players come to a chasm where the bridge is out and are forced to take a detour around forcing them to spend the night in a nearby haunted town.
-The players need to transport an unconscious guy with an anti magic aura on him to the one place that will be able to heal him but there are demons (without flight) waiting to ambush them on the road there.

You seem to be assuming that every player in the party will have flying abilities. How often has that actually happened? Most likely, you only have one flying PC, maybe two, assuming you have any at all--there are a ton of heritages out there, and only a tiny fraction of them have any access to flying abilities.

What that means is that all of these problems are only going to be bypassed by one PC and the rest have to go through. The flying PC can't carry everyone past the challenges. If the rest of the players are angry that this one player keeps bypassing the challenges, then it's a problem in the party. Otherwise, it's just the Narrator being annoyed that their plot didn't go the way it was supposed to go.

So let's look at these challenges here. Wolves, polar bears, and yetis? Add giant spiders (ranged attack), or griffons or wyrmling dragons (flight).

Trap filled hallway? Is it wide enough for their wings? Even with the most generous and magical of estimates, a Medium PC should have a wingspan of 10 feet at minimum, so if the corridor is 5 or 10 feet, it's not going to be wide enough. Is the ceiling high enough for them to fly? Probably not; a 10-foot high ceiling isn't going to be enough for a character that can't hover. At best, they would need a series of Acrobatics checks just to make sure they don't crash into the ceiling or walls (and feel free to trap them as well!) or into the ground. Flight's not going to be a help here.

A bridge is out? What would you have done if the PCs decided to climb down the chasm, fix the bridge, detour in the other direction, or take one look at the town and nope their way to a non-haunted campground? I assume you weren't going to railroad them to the haunted town and wanted them to get there naturally, but there's a lot of ways that encounter could go that doesn't according to plan.

Anti-magic aura guy? Too heavy to carry for long. Or his anti-magic aura interferes with the character's magical flight (if applicable). Or his wounds or illness is such that he can't be jostled too much, so flying him is too risky and he needs to stay in the cart. Or, again, give the demons, or even just one demon, flight or ranged attacks.

These are just a few of the scenarios that have actually come up during games that would have been ruined by one person having at will flight. There are countless more. Does each of these have a “solution”? Sure. But do most of those solutions either feel like you are purposely taking away a player’s ability or feel very contrived and artificial and possibly a little unfair? You bet.

Not at all. Again, your players should expect to be challenged. It's not singling them out take that into consideration when you design your encounters. It's only singling them out if you never let their flight actually be useful, or use ridiculous methods to nerf it.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

[T]here are a ton of heritages out there, and only a tiny fraction of them have any access to flying abilities.

for exact numbers - out of all the official heritages, the following have access to some sort of flight:
1. Birdfolk
2. Chrysalian
3. Constructed
4. Dragonborn
5. Dreamborn
6. Kobold
7. Planetouched (Elementaari)
there's 32 official heritages (33 if you count the elementaari as separate from other planetouched), meaning ~21% of heritages can get access to some form of flight from their heritage.