Flight and Teleportation in RPGs

[zugschef]

It depends. If you are giving out other comparable escape and travel powers, then bird flight can just be one type of character's special thing. If escape and travel powers are nearly meaningless and mostly a flavor power in the system, then it's OK for it to be someone's special thing.

What is clear is that you can't do DnD balance. Some characters having a wild variety of utility and combat powers and other characters having few is not a sustainable design.

So in a DnD game would it be better to give the non-casters flight/teleportation utility options at first level, too, or to strip these existing options from wizards, and let fly as an active player option come in at 5th level?

[maglag]

It depends. If you are giving out other comparable escape and travel powers, then bird flight can just be one type of character's special thing. If escape and travel powers are nearly meaningless and mostly a flavor power in the system, then it's OK for it to be someone's special thing.

What is clear is that you can't do DnD balance. Some characters having a wild variety of utility and combat powers and other characters having few is not a sustainable design.

So in a DnD game would it be better to give the non-casters flight/teleportation utility options at first level, too, or to strip these existing options from wizards, and let fly as an active player option come in at 5th level?

Depends if you want the players to care about pits and stairs and assorted floor effects at 1st level. If yes, then you can't have cheap teleport/flight effects right at start.

[Zaranthan]

I don't think you can conflate flight and teleportation that much. Slow clumsy flight trivializes a 100 foot cliff, but abrupt jaunt doesn't. AJ trivializes an indoor wall of fire, but flight is no help.

[PhoneLobster]

Nuh Uh ! Fuck winged things, NO ONE WANTS WINGS!

Yeah. Sure. Whatever you think. Good luck with your game that apparently only has humans and humans in furry suits in it.

[K]

It depends. If you are giving out other comparable escape and travel powers, then bird flight can just be one type of character's special thing. If escape and travel powers are nearly meaningless and mostly a flavor power in the system, then it's OK for it to be someone's special thing.

What is clear is that you can't do DnD balance. Some characters having a wild variety of utility and combat powers and other characters having few is not a sustainable design.

So in a DnD game would it be better to give the non-casters flight/teleportation utility options at first level, too, or to strip these existing options from wizards, and let fly as an active player option come in at 5th level?

I have zero problems with a 1st level warrior maiden who can just turn into a noncombatant swan.

I do have a problem with DnD-style flight on first principles at any level it appears. Circling your enemies from outside of range while tossing extreme range, no-miss spells is not viable.

Fixing that is fundamentally about fixing the way DnD handles targeting and movement.

[Mechalich]

I do have a problem with DnD-style flight on first principles at any level it appears. Circling your enemies from outside of range while tossing extreme range, no-miss spells is not viable.

Fixing that is fundamentally about fixing the way DnD handles targeting and movement.

Generally, I would say that there are different modes of movement: land-based, airborne, aquatic, zero-g, etc. and that each is going to function according to a vastly different and largely independent movement system.

So if you're making a dogfighting simulator, the movement rules are based on airborne combat and ground-based combatants are the special case. D&D has the problem that it is designed for land-based combat and handles airborne combat as a special case (and does so poorly) but that case is so advantageous that everyone does all that they can to migrate into it full-time, which means dictating all combat above a certain point via a poorly designed sub-system that the core assumptions of the rules and the various settings aren't intended to support. Faux-medieval fantasy stories are not based around the idea that everyone flies all the time.

If you're going to make a game where flight is accessible from level 1, then the primary movement system and combat system for the game need to assume airborne combat is primary. There are certainly games where you'd want to do that, ex. DBZ, but D&D isn't one of them. If a game is going to transition from land-based combat to airborne combat, then it probably needs to have a dramatically re-worked set of rules for when that happens - the same way you need a majorly re-worked set of rules to go to aquatic combat.

[OgreBattle]

Fixing that is fundamentally about fixing the way DnD handles targeting and movement.

Any other games already do that well?

[zugschef]

Fixing that is fundamentally about fixing the way DnD handles targeting and movement.

Any other games already do that well?

I'm curious as well.

[maglag]

Fixing that is fundamentally about fixing the way DnD handles targeting and movement.

Any other games already do that well?

I'm curious as well.

I'm also curious. In the meanwhile, another way to look at it is what kind of objectives you need to accomplish.

If, say, you just need to hold a location to win, being able to fly circles while raining ranged attacks becomes a lot less important.

Or if a golem is rampaging around a town and you need to save something on it, then it's not an auto-win that the golem has no ranged attacks and can't fly even while the players have both. The golem can "win" by killing the important peasant NPC/destroying the sacred shrine if the party just hangs in the air wearing it down.

In 40K tabletop you can make an all-fliers army to rain death upon the enemy. But tough melee ground units are still viable because every battle has a time limit and you usually win by capturing points, and you can only capture points by remaining close and personal to them.

However if the objective always is "just kill every enemy, no time limit", then of course superior mobility+superior range will always be a prime choice. Even if fliers get a 90% acuraccy penalty and can only fly in a straight line, they can still kite everybody else unless you make some rule like "ground units get +X range because fuckfliers."

[zugschef]

That's a good point. You can't conquer or secure anything by flying. As soon as you have to do that, at some point you will need ground troops.

[PhoneLobster]

You can't conquer or secure anything by flying. As soon as you have to do that, at some point you will need ground troops.

So THAT'S why Brian Blessed and his army of hawk men couldn't get shit done until they recruited like ONE stupid American football player.

Or, to put it in other words. Your statement is blindingly stupid. OF COURSE your private army of hawkmen are allowed to conquer random shit, why the fuck wouldn't they? They just kill the things stopping them, then they land and strut around yelling out "Kyaaaah!" like screaming territorial peacocks until next time they have to take off and kill shit.

While there are edge case bullshit scenarios that flying guys (and inexplicably now also much weaker flying guys with suddenly poor time to kill) might struggle in, like "kill the hitpoint sponge that doesn't give a shit about you killing it's hit points before it does whatever"... concluding from that one edge case that flying characters can never conquer or secure anything is... breathtaking...

[Mechalich]

In a situation where flight is modeled with something at least resembling realistic physics, then no, flying units cannot conquer and secure territory. At least, that is the actual military experience of the past century. Even among patrolling bird populations - which have greater flight options than any flying human-sized object ever will - territorial control is limited. Red-wing blackbirds respond to and repulse incursions into their territory by crows and raptors, but said territory is often penetrated quite extensively prior to an effective response. Heck, among insects - Earth's dominant terrestrial lifeforms - the clades that control territory effectively are largely wingless ants and termits, a dominance they achieved after losing wings.

D&D has a problem because the eponymous monster class is able to fly - and fly fairly well even in older editions - in more or less complete defiance of physical laws. That means developing a functional flight mechanic that would limit fliers in the ways we might normally expect is impossible.

[Kaelik]

D&D has a problem because the eponymous monster class is able to fly - and fly fairly well even in older editions - in more or less complete defiance of physical laws. That means developing a functional flight mechanic that would limit fliers in the ways we might normally expect is impossible.

You are right, it is so unrealistic that anything would be able to hover. In the Name of Almighty Realism We Must Stop This!

[PhoneLobster]

Birds and flying insects totally don't defeat enemies or have territory or conquer stuff or anything

Wow.

I guess I should have told that to the common as dirt paper wasp colonies that conquered the side of my house this year.

It took a stealth night time attack by a vast and unstoppable giant wielding instant death poison gas clouds to take back those lands. TOTALLY a level inappropriate encounter by a GM out to get them.

Before that they RULED those lands. Just ask my dog who didn't invest skill points in anti-air eye lasers.

In other news when making realism arguments about the natural world, do TRY to make it so it's not an argument disproved by literally the first thing I might encounter when walking out of my door.

[zugschef]

You can't conquer or secure anything by flying. As soon as you have to do that, at some point you will need ground troops.

So THAT'S why Brian Blessed and his army of hawk men couldn't get shit done until they recruited like ONE stupid American football player.

Wait... they never landed?

[SlyJohnny]

PL and Kaelil, you're being deliberately obtuse. MechaLich was making the point that real-life flying creatures tend to be small and comparatively fragile for their size, whereas D&D has a propensity for hawk men who will happily fly in medium armor to a location, and then still be able to fortify and defend that location against ground-bound troops. Maybe the hawkmen have -2 Con or something, but they're still nothing like as fragile as they should be.

And yeah, other people have made the point that flight isn't always unbalanced. There's always going to be difficult situations that a particular party or particular character just happens to have exactly the right ability to utterly trivialise. Unless you're a fighter or something, but everything makes those guys feel small in the pants.

[Kaelik]

PL and Kaelil, you're being deliberately obtuse. MechaLich was making the point that real-life flying creatures tend to be small and comparatively fragile for their size, whereas D&D has a propensity for hawk men who will happily fly in medium armor to a location, and then still be able to fortify and defend that location against ground-bound troops. Maybe the hawkmen have -2 Con or something, but they're still nothing like as fragile as they should be.

I don't know which stupid point he is making, but I can guarantee it is stupid. I mean yeah, in the real world, the physics of flight dictate that anything that flies with say, wing power, is a fragile pathetic creature that can be killed by any clown with a big net and a club.

But I would be extremely hesitant to make an argument that "Commoners should be able to kill anything that flies with a big enough net and a club" in a game called Dungeons and Dragons.

[Mechalich]

The point is that, because dragons are able to fly, all sorts of other things are able to fly in 'its magic!' ways. As a result, D&D doesn't have tissue-paper-thin fliers in the way many games do. However, because being tissue-paper-thin is the natural balance against the advantage of flight, flight in D&D is therefore inherently unbalanced.

This is a problem with D&D. Flight in D&D is such a powerful advantage that either everything must fly or no one must fly. This makes the game less rich mechanically, and it makes any setting that takes the mechanics seriously considerably less rich.

[Kaelik]

and it makes any setting that takes the mechanics seriously considerably less rich.

SETTINGS ARE SO MUCH MORE RICH WHEN THEY DON'T HAVE DRAGONS AND HARPIES AND GRIFFONS AND MANTICORES AND AIR ELEMENTALS.

MAKE MY SETTING RICHLY FILLED WITH ONLY LEVEL 1 GOBLINS!

[virgil]

and it makes any setting that takes the mechanics seriously considerably less rich.

SETTINGS ARE SO MUCH MORE RICH WHEN THEY DON'T HAVE DRAGONS AND HARPIES AND GRIFFONS AND MANTICORES AND AIR ELEMENTALS.

MAKE MY SETTING RICHLY FILLED WITH ONLY LEVEL 1 GOBLINS!

[hyzmarca]

D&D has a problem because the eponymous monster class is able to fly - and fly fairly well even in older editions - in more or less complete defiance of physical laws. That means developing a functional flight mechanic that would limit fliers in the ways we might normally expect is impossible.

You are right, it is so unrealistic that anything would be able to hover. In the Name of Almighty Realism We Must Stop This!

Fantasy totally needs more rotary-winged dragons. Why should a dragon fly like a bird when it is so much more metal for a dragon to fly like a helicopter.

[Mechalich]

and it makes any setting that takes the mechanics seriously considerably less rich.

SETTINGS ARE SO MUCH MORE RICH WHEN THEY DON'T HAVE DRAGONS AND HARPIES AND GRIFFONS AND MANTICORES AND AIR ELEMENTALS.

MAKE MY SETTING RICHLY FILLED WITH ONLY LEVEL 1 GOBLINS!

You have the implication absolutely backwards.

Flight in D&D is such an advantage that the setting should contain only flying creatures - they're so much more powerful that they naturally exterminate everything else. In fact, dragons, on their own, fill all predatory niches completely. The mechanical implications of D&D imply various sized winged herbivores constantly trying to avoid winged predators and a small number of entirely winged humanoid races (and maybe some burrowers).

Superpredators exterminate all competitors and create monocultural environments, like these gals. In D&D, all fliers are superpredators compared to all ground-pounders. Things that can't fly in D&D, above very low levels (if at all) die horribly to things that do.

The solution to this is not to give everyone else flight, just as the solution to the existence of military airplanes was not to develop flying tanks. The solution is to develop a flight mechanic that doesn't suck, or a commensurate downside for the advantage of flight - like how MtG fliers generally cost more.

There are absolutely games where everyone should fly from chargen: Superheroes, Shonen, mecha, certain really high fantasy like playing angels or demons, etc. D&D isn't one of those games, at least not for the first 10 or so levels.

[SlyJohnny]

Griffins have to land to attack things, so they don't immediately make fighters feel useless. Manticores don't, but that's kind of their thing, and they're pretty overpowered even without fly-sniping tactics.

But yeah, fighters still get boned by teleporting flying demons, and that's a problem. Probably more so with fighters than with the existence of flying monsters, though.

[Kaelik]

Every word you type is basically evidence that you are insane. Why you think Dragons are a super predator that exterminates Ropers who live under the fucking ground is beyond me.

[PhoneLobster]

The solution

The problem with your posts isn't your intended "solution", it is everything fucking else. Your ideas about how the natural world works are the shallow thoughts of a child who has barely heard of super predators but doesn't really know anything of real substance about biology, nature or the real world in general. Your conclusions you reach about what is or isn't a (super super) "super predator" in D&D and what that implies for game balance are the conclusions of a manic wanker who can neither identify the nature of issues in game design nor properly propose solutions.

But, by random fucking chance, as a it turns out. "I dunno, some sort of better flight mechanics" by its own vague definition WOULD be better. You just don't get there by saying things like "Hawkman armies cannot conquer shit, and dragons have eaten every other character in the world!".