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[Emberashh]

If only there were a published document bound between two covers that everyone at the table could reference without dumping it on the GM or giving players excuses like "oops I lost that sheet" & "you have so many house rules & a lot of them are nerfs" . Something like that kind of publication seems like a logical place for wotc to include completed rules for flight that do not automatically grant hover & magneto style flight with any form of flight.

I think its rather revealing that you decided to skirt around what he said with whatever you want to call this rant of yours.

You don't seem to be all that great of a DM which just illuminates your motivations in this topic.

 

[mamba]

Thats too much. You can't seriously expect anyone to design something else other than blank white rooms.

because flight is a problem in rooms

 

[Emberashh]

because flight is s problem in rooms

May be if we had some complicated unfun rules the point wouldn't have been able to do this to you?

 

[Asisreo]

I'm curious, so how about an exercise:

Let's have those that think fly is or is not a problem design their idea of a bog-standard encounter that they'd expect to have in a generic game.

For example, off the top of my head, my random encounters are often made like this:

Level 1 Random Encounter ex table:

1d4 commoners and 2 bandits. (Easy-Hard)

1 goblin boss and 1d2 goblins. (Hard-Deadly)

1 winged kobold and 1d4 kobolds. (Easy-Hard)

That's just off the top of my head with no specific adventure in mind. I usually add a hook or bonus info but that's just the encounter itself. I also usually don't include terrain unless its important, that way I can have the terrain be something I come up with right before initiative is rolled.

I also calculated the encounter difficulty after the fact, I didn't budget it out I just did what makes me feel like its appropriate which is what I usually do.

 

[Emberashh]

I also usually don't include terrain unless its important,

It should always be important. Otherwise you're just setting your encounters in blank white rooms.

 

[Asisreo]

It should always be important. Otherwise you're just setting your encounters in blank white rooms.

What I mean is that I don't include it in my adventure writing because it'd make things too specific. I also have a map so if I made some distinct feature like floating rocks on a regular plain, it might get complicated since the players might decide to use those as landmarks. Plus, it lets me do things like have the same encounter in the foresty area as the cave area without having to change things up like trees, stalagmites, or rivers.

The interesting terrain is wherever they're at. I try to include interesting terrain in every area of my maps, even if its still mundane.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You don't seem to be all that great of a DM which just illuminates your motivations in this topic.

Mod Note:

Don’t make things personal like this. Just DON’T.

 

[Chaosmancer]

"You aren't flying, that terrain is going to slow/damage/etc you (think difficult terrain & web grease caltrops etc for a couple examples)"

They didn't state what they were doing & left it to the GM to sort out when they are flying & when they are walking as a quantum best of both. Something problematic on the ground? "Oh I'm flying". strong wind or something? "Well I wouldn't be flying". The GM should not need to unpack quantum actions for players and the system should not go to such lengths inviting players to make them.

That isn't an issue with flight at all then. It is an issue with communication between the GM and the player. Because, yes, if you didn't mention (or they forgot) there was a strong wind... then they wouldn't be flying. I'm not going to put on a heavy winter coat if it is boiling hot, for example. So, again, this seems like something completely unrelated to the rules of flying.

"You aren't flying, that terrain is going to slow/damage/etc you (think difficult terrain & web grease caltrops etc for a couple examples)

• No bob you need to fly up because it's flight not hover, you can't fly with your feet on the ground"

You are kinda proving the point about being unreasonable to the GM here. What the heck edition of d&d are you playing where a player can move three feet on a five foot grid? There's also the fact that this tends to come up after being told about an obstacle of some form at ground level that they want to simply ignore without consuming any movement to do so or being out of reach of their target after doing so.

It is called 5th edition, where the 5ft grid is not assumed. There were plenty of UA abilities (can't remember if it was the harengon or the Satyr) that had abilities that would move them a 1d10 feet. Which led to them potentially being moved less or more than 5ft. Or even the normal jumping rules, which explicitly allow you to jump anywhere from 4 to 20 ft. And that includes jumping 7 ft or 13 ft or 19 ft. You can even extend your high jump by 1.5 times your height, which for a 5ft 3in character would be 7 ft 10 and a half inches.

What I said was not "unreasonble" to the GM, it was perfectly within the rules of the game. Now, I admit it is challenging to do that on a 5ft grid, and why I argued the UA abilities should be changed, but you can't complain about the rules of the game being incomplete and you needing to rewrite them... then ignore the rules of the game.

"You aren't flying, that terrain is going to slow/damage/etc you (think difficult terrain & web grease caltrops etc for a couple examples)

• No bob you need to fly up because it's flight not hover, you can't fly with your feet on the ground
• No you can't retcon in your movement just because I caught you"

are you serious? web caltrops grease & so on are literally traps. You're really going all in on demonstrating the problems these incomplete rules create for the GM here.

Really? If someone throws down caltrops... it isn't hidden. The character sees the caltrops. They know they are there. Same with webs. Same with grease. These are, as you stated difficult terrain in no way are these the same as a pit trap or any other ACTUAL trap.

And again... what incomplete rules? The rules are perfectly clear. You just seem to not like them, which is an entirely different situation.

"No, you can't fly backwards

• or upside down"

Name five common birds other than hover capable hummingbirds that can fly backwards tail in front head in back or upside down

Name me five birds with wings growing out of their backs, not replacing their arms. This may shock you, but the wing and joint structure for a bird like this

Is actually a completely different from the wing and joint structure of a being like this

So, yes, I would not be surprised if this hawkman could beat its wings in front of it, or down, and change direction, even throw itself backwards and "fly" back. Because the joint is completely different. And yes, it probably is a joint more similiar to a hummingbird... how is that a problem? Frankly, it seems your problem is that a six-limbed fantasy creature works differently than a four limbed flying creature.

Which, again, that isn't a rules problem.

Again, what game are you playing where you use a one foot grid rather than the 5 foot grid used by d&d?

D&D does not require the use of a 5ft grid. Seriously, maybe the rules seem incomplete to you because you didn't actually pay attention to what the rules are.

Water is a liquid where swimmers are buoyant & capable of floating. Air is a gas that provides very few creatures the level of buoyancy needed to do those...

And both are fluids. Bouyance and floating also have nothing to do with turning or spinning? I don't even understand why you would think bouyancy applies at all to this scenario.

No it reads like "hover is a thing and you are subject to the same restrictions on flight as an average bird if you lack it. You have seen how birds fly right?

And, shockingly, this isn't what birds look like

Also, again, the rules for 5e are clear. To quote an answer on the rules "The “hover” tag indicates that if the creature is knocked prone, has its movement restricted, or is otherwise reduced to zero movement, it does not fall to gravity, but hovers." You may not like the rules. But it doesn't say that hover is required to fly backwards, or that creatures lacking hover can't turn within a 5ft space, or anything else you are making up or bringing forward from older editions.

Heck, carts can't "turn on a dime" in the real world, but they can absolutely make a 90 degree turn on a 5e battlemap with no issues at all. It is completely unrealistic... but it is the rules.

If only there were a published document bound between two covers that everyone at the table could reference without dumping it on the GM or giving players excuses like "oops I lost that sheet" & "you have so many house rules & a lot of them are nerfs" . Something like that kind of publication seems like a logical place for wotc to include completed rules for flight that do not automatically grant hover & magneto style flight with any form of flight.

Not liking the rules =/= the rules being incomplete. The rules on flight are very clear, and follow the same rules for all other types of movement. That is a good thing in my book, because it means I don't need to memorize some subsystem just because someone drank a potion of flying.

None of your issues are that the rules are unclear. Your issue is you don't like the rules. Which is fine. But you can't complain that the book wasn't written with your hoserules, and somehow claim the book is incomplete for lacking your houserules.

 

[Bardic Dave]

I must have missed the part of the video where Crawford discusses the pros and cons of unfettered PC flight in excruciating detail. Can anyone give me a timestamp? Or is it covered in the survey?

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm curious, so how about an exercise:

Let's have those that think fly is or is not a problem design their idea of a bog-standard encounter that they'd expect to have in a generic game.

For example, off the top of my head, my random encounters are often made like this:

Level 1 Random Encounter ex table:

1d4 commoners and 2 bandits. (Easy-Hard)

1 goblin boss and 1d2 goblins. (Hard-Deadly)

1 winged kobold and 1d4 kobolds. (Easy-Hard)

That's just off the top of my head with no specific adventure in mind. I usually add a hook or bonus info but that's just the encounter itself. I also usually don't include terrain unless its important, that way I can have the terrain be something I come up with right before initiative is rolled.

I also calculated the encounter difficulty after the fact, I didn't budget it out I just did what makes me feel like its appropriate which is what I usually do.

I mean... I don't do random encounters really.

I recently had a fight I made that was a bandit raid on a caravan. They were gnolls, and, I don't remember the specific numbers because NPC guards were taking part, but I'm pretty sure I had a Fang of Yeenoghu, a dozen normal gnolls, and three gnoll hunters.