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

[Faolyn]

The problem is this assumes wyverns and rocs are everywhere, and wherever they are they consider other predators what they're looking for. So again, you have to define things in a particular way to support the fliers.

Or griffons, hippgriffs, chimerae, manticores, harpies, dragons... there's no end to the number of flying predators in LU. And that's not even considering intelligent fliers who hunt for sport.

In the real world, predators don't go after predators of the same "size category." But they will go after smaller predators--house cats are predators but are also a prey species, for example. Keep your cats inside if you live in a place with eagles, large hawks, or coyotes around. No reason why a dragon wouldn't nom on a wolf.

And even if a flying predator won't eat a wolf, wolves would be their competition, or a source of a quick meal--a pack of wolves may kill a deer and a chimera swoops in to steal it.

 

[James Gasik]

Cats can kill birds. You gotta land sometime!

I mean I get it. It's not that fliers are magically immune to every combat or exploration challenge. But there are going to be times where "yeah, but I can fly" is the response from the player when the DM doesn't want it to be that easy.

Specialized builds require specialized responses, and it's simply not fair to employ those all the time. I have this friend who, every time he plays, decides to make these ultra-specialized builds that are difficult to deal with without specifically targeting his weak points. Which is obnoxious, because I don't want to have to do that- if his AC is too high, I can't just use enemies who have higher attack bonuses, because then the rest of the party gets shredded. If he has a weak save, it's not right to target that more than occasionally.

I'm always very careful to design encounters around the capabilities of the whole party, not one character. But one time, this came to a head where the party was separated and his character was able to solo pretty much an entire dungeon as a result, and that was extremely frustrating.

So yeah, I know from experience how a flying character can cause this sort of havoc. But what I've been saying this whole time is that this scenario isn't limited to flight. There are lots of ways a character can be built that will cause this sort of issue, be it that guy with too much AC or mobility, the character that simply does way more damage than his peers, or the joker with Devil's Sight who keeps reminding you that darkness isn't going to serve any real purpose in the game.

Heck, I once, quite by accident, ruined an adventure where we had to deal with Duergar assassins simply because I owned a Robe of Eyes and could see invisible foes, and the mod hadn't been written with that as being a possibility!

Nerfing or banning flying may seem like an easy solution, but DM's are going to have to engage with these kinds of phenomenon, and you probably shouldn't nerf or ban everything the players come up with.

Knew a guy once who thought himself a game designer, and would often add crazy homebrew options to his game. If you tried to point out potential issues, he'd get annoyed, taking it as a personal attack on his creativity (I guess).

But if you actually made a character to do something interesting, he'd instantly nerf it saying "well, that wasn't intended". After awhile, he was complaining that nobody wanted to use his "cool options". I finally had to tell him, "My man, the problem is, your options are only cool until they're actually used."

Like he once made a custom Pathfinder race that had a bonus Feat and a +2 dodge bonus to AC and saw nothing wrong with it...until three people chose that race and suddenly had AC's too high for him to deal with.

I'm not saying that he shouldn't have fixed that, of course, lol- it was obviously too good (curse the Advanced Race Guide), but he didn't even try to engage with it.

I just think that situations like this are a learning moment for every DM. I mean, flying creatures and humanoids exist in the setting. How have they not taken over the world, due to their superior mobility? How is melee combat still a thing? How are feral melee monsters still a threat?

It's like every time a player of mine comes up with a goofy way to use a spell. I let them have fun for awhile, but eventually someone will have a countermeasure, and when they squawk, I just smile at them and say, "What, do you think you're the first person to have ever thought of doing this in the world?".

And maybe that approach isn't for everyone. But we shouldn't presume that something like a flying PC or whatever is going to automatically break the game in half. There is a possibility that it might lead to the game becoming more interesting as well.

 

[Stalker0]

Or griffons, hippgriffs, chimerae, manticores, harpies, dragons... there's no end to the number of flying predators in LU. And that's not even considering intelligent fliers who hunt for sport.

In the real world, predators don't go after predators of the same "size category." But they will go after smaller predators--house cats are predators but are also a prey species, for example. Keep your cats inside if you live in a place with eagles, large hawks, or coyotes around. No reason why a dragon wouldn't nom on a wolf.

And even if a flying predator won't eat a wolf, wolves would be their competition, or a source of a quick meal--a pack of wolves may kill a deer and a chimera swoops in to steal it.

So that’s why there aren’t any flying PCs, the flying monsters ate them all

 

[Thomas Shey]

Or griffons, hippgriffs, chimerae, manticores, harpies, dragons... there's no end to the number of flying predators in LU. And that's not even considering intelligent fliers who hunt for sport.

That doesn't say a thing about how common they are, even as a set. Frankly, if they were all that common, things like farming and the like would be impossible.

 

[Faolyn]

That doesn't say a thing about how common they are, even as a set.

They are as common as you want them to be. Even if monsters included rarity values like they did in 2e, you're not beholden to them.

Frankly, if they were all that common, things like farming and the like would be impossible.

And that has been a bone of contention since 1e, when people realized that even a single dragon would spell devastation for entire continents.

It also has nothing to do with flying creatures at all, since the presence of any sort of monsters would have the same problems. A couple of ankhegs would destroy all the farms--and livestock, and farmers--for miles around. To say nothing of the havoc a single owlbear could wreak.

 

[lichmaster]

They are as common as you want them to be. Even if monsters included rarity values like they did in 2e, you're not beholden to them.


And that has been a bone of contention since 1e, when people realized that even a single dragon would spell devastation for entire continents.

It also has nothing to do with flying creatures at all, since the presence of any sort of monsters would have the same problems. A couple of ankhegs would destroy all the farms--and livestock, and farmers--for miles around. To say nothing of the havoc a single owlbear could wreak.

I remember ages ago there was a 3.5 supplement that was trying to make some sense of all this, and I really liked the idea behind. It took the various descriptions of monsters, rarity of magic and magic items etc, and tried to come up with plausible developments where some form of dynamic balance was reached.
This is only needed with a simulationist approach to the game, but I think it's pretty clear that part of the people participating to this thread subscribe more or less to that paradigm and the others prefer not to bother too much
I'll look for it, if I still find it

 

[James Gasik]

They are as common as you want them to be. Even if monsters included rarity values like they did in 2e, you're not beholden to them.


And that has been a bone of contention since 1e, when people realized that even a single dragon would spell devastation for entire continents.

It also has nothing to do with flying creatures at all, since the presence of any sort of monsters would have the same problems. A couple of ankhegs would destroy all the farms--and livestock, and farmers--for miles around. To say nothing of the havoc a single owlbear could wreak.

Baldur's Gate 1 has a quest where some farmer's fields are overrun with Ankhegs- the party can use this as a great opportunity to collect chitin to make Ankheg armor. Your typical D&D world might not be able to function without roving bands of adventurers or mercenaries who can be persuaded to deal with the various monsters, ancient tombs, and wizards bent on world domination- and that's by design, to explain why there's always adventures for the PC's to go on.

 

[Thomas Shey]

They are as common as you want them to be. Even if monsters included rarity values like they did in 2e, you're not beholden to them.


And that has been a bone of contention since 1e, when people realized that even a single dragon would spell devastation for entire continents.

It also has nothing to do with flying creatures at all, since the presence of any sort of monsters would have the same problems. A couple of ankhegs would destroy all the farms--and livestock, and farmers--for miles around. To say nothing of the havoc a single owlbear could wreak.

I disagree; fliers are a much bigger issue here because they have a wider range.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I remember ages ago there was a 3.5 supplement that was trying to make some sense of all this, and I really liked the idea behind. It took the various descriptions of monsters, rarity of magic and magic items etc, and tried to come up with plausible developments where some form of dynamic balance was reached.
This is only needed with a simulationist approach to the game, but I think it's pretty clear that part of the people participating to this thread subscribe more or less to that paradigm and the others prefer not to bother too much
I'll look for it, if I still find it

To what degree I do varies, but the ones where I am are exactly the ones where I'm likely to have an issue with the low-level flying characters, so its a fair point.

 

[Faolyn]

I disagree; fliers are a much bigger issue here because they have a wider range.

Again, they're as common and as dangerous as you want them to be.

In LU, the world is divided into regions. Most humanoid settlements are going to be in Country Shires and Urban Townships. Monsters are going to be quite rare in those regions because those regions are well-patrolled. It can also be expected there are at least a few people with classes living there, especially casters that can help defend the settlements. Even a single low-level caster can do a lot to keeping a village from being destroyed, and most D&D/LU games these days are going to have casters be a bit more common. When the monsters get to be too much, that's either when the ruler sends forces--possibly even forces on flying mounts!--or puts out a call for adventurers to deal with the problem.

Or you take the game to its logical extreme and assume that the world is in a nearly apocalyptic state because of the presence of monsters. Which is perfectly fine and can be a lot of fun, but is not, as you put it, a typical fantasy world.

Plus, there's also plenty of other things you can use. People use scarecrows to, well, scare off crows. In LU, scarecrows are constructs. What if their actual purpose is to scare off flying monsters? They don't need to be "animated by the echo of a malign spirit," after all. Voila! You have a nice little guardian for your farms. Or take a bit of history and make it a law that your peasantry are forced by law to practice the bow. That may even be a bonus proficiency in some of the Cultures; can't remember off-hand.

And this whole thing isn't even nearly as big a deal as you're making it out to be, since your intelligent monsters can use ranged attacks and, even if you limit flying PCs to three consecutive rounds of flying as per the current rules, they will still be out of melee range most of the time! If that actually is screwing with your encounters--and I'm pretty sure you don't actually have that many examples from your own real game of it messing things up--then you can alter your encounters to deal with it.

And you don't even have to allow flying PCs in your game in the first place. Limit your table's heritages as much as you want. My upcoming game has only four PC heritages!