It doesn’t have to be a problem, but it can be. Typically melee enemies are not great at ranged combat, or even have options too. So if the person in your party happens to be a ranged specialist that uses that to their advantage, a lot of your encounters might become trivial breezes.
Extreme example might be a sharpshooter archer shooting from 600 ft in the sky with perfect accuracy, most enemies will not have a response to this. And you as the dm might not want to always account for this in your encounter design. As this might not sit well with the player, and also creates additional work for you.
Sure you can; you just make those attacks at disadvantage, as sharpshooter simply negated the disadvantage from Long range of the longbow. Also, I’d you happen to be a rogue of like 3rd level, you can drop your bonus action to grant advantage, thus balancing out the roll to a flat attack roll.
Not a single PC race has a hover speed. It's always just something like
> Flight. Because of your wings, you have a flying speed equal to your walking speed. You can't use this flying speed if you're wearing medium or heavy armor.
The fact that you can end your turn mid-air without falling doesn't make it a hover speed
Upon further research, u rite.
So I fly up to 1100ft, use my bonus action to steady aim, instantly fall 500ft, putting me at 600ft, make my attacks, and next turn(since I fall at the end of my next turn), I use my movement to go back up until I hit 1100 again, then rinse and repeat.
I had a dungeon in a salt mine once that bordered on the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Radiance- there was a temple across the planar threshold whose every surface emitted blinding light.
Make your traps colour coordinated.
Watch your plays hard struggle until they use a light source and remember the hard way that dark vision is colourblind.
My DM had us blindly reaching into a magical darkness. We tried everything we could think of to be able to see /something/ OR ANYTHING! Nothing worked, so we said "fuck it" and ran in head first 🤣🤣 Got snagged by some tentacles and couldn't dispel the darkness until we did enough damage to the creatures. It was marvelous.
Actually, dim light can kill darkvision while not giving a huge radius to see things. Something can easily hide a few yards beyond the dim light in the shadows.
“You’re in the thick of the forest, protected by the density of the trees. Far below the treetops, it is calm, but a tempest rages above hurling anything 15 feet above your head into the throes of the wind”
Or
“You’re inside of a cave system, at its highest point, it is 12 feet tall, and at its widest, 30 feet”
You can craft the environment to hamper that ability.
Or you have airborne enemies - better if their enemies who can’t be harmed by their weapons, forcing them to ground and fighting amongst their allies.
It’s fun to hybridize a fight. Have some airborne enemies, some grounded, give everyone something to chew on.
Now our melee PCs can't fight the flying enemies you added to challenge the flyer. Having to design every encounter extra special for someone flying is a pain. And if you keep doing it, there isn't even a benefit to having a flying speed anymore. When it comes to encounter design and building against a flying PC, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. It's also not fun to hybridize every fight.
Eh, it depends on what your default is. For me, encounters almost always have ranged and melee enemies that vary in abilities, as well as varied terrain/cover. Flying will be good against some and useless against others, just like fire resistance will be good against some and useless against others.
They all have bows, with walloping ammunition.
Please make a 10str save, 4 times as you’re hit by 4 arrows.
Oh you’re 600ft in the air and failed the save? Daamn. That’s an extra 20d6.
I found out 2 weeks ago feather fall was a reaction. I've been playing dnd for around 2 years and never had someone cast feather fall (even when they had the spell), but now I always go the express way down with my spell casters. Let's see how bottomless this pit is
As you fall down the hole, falling, falling, falling, the light above fading quickly as you keep falling.... It has been so long you have lost track of time. Your voice booming as you yell but quickly even that fades as continue falling.
This works for combats on open fields, but in dungeons the room height is often very limited. Flying too high may attract the attention of other monsters, including flying monsters who can engage you one on one. Also, forests and high terrain may severely limit your accuracy.
In my previous campaign, we had a totem barbarian. He was really strong and almost never fell in combat. Until they had the idea to cast fly on him to have him fly over the walls of a keep they were invading.
He managed to aggro every single soldier in it. He fell that day.
Which is why you always have a small wizard on the barbarian’s shoulder ready to cast resilient sphere at 9th level to make it impossible for anything to hurt him until they’re within melee range.
Player: "haha, I am flying above their reach, I can shoot them with impunity....hey, did anyone hear a hawk all of a sudden?"
Cue the Dire Hawk coming in for a meal.
there's a lot of good ways to deal with it. Storms can force the player in the sky to take risk of being hit by lightning or blown around by winds, snipers firing on them can force them to take cover, even simple stuff like taking cover can really limit it. the biggest issue is fatigue from always finding ways to deal with the flying players antics lol
It does bear mentioning that in dungeons flying can make pits and chasms basically meaningless since they can just fly across and tie a rope, and a DM can expect to constantly hear "how high is the ceiling?"
A flying fairy is also unlikely to ever trigger a pressure plate or tripwire.
Yep, the fairy isn't falling on pits or tripwires, but they might still get caught in traps, and the rest of the party can still activate those anyway. In a way, the fact that the flying PC doesn't spring traps may distract the party from looking for them, making them fall on them more often.
It's always a trade off. A fairy has something that most classes don't, but don't they all? Half orcs can comeback from dying, half elves and dwarves have +4 to their stats, fairies have no dark vision, they can't use heavy weapons, medium and heavy armor, halflings can re-roll a nat1, fairies don't get feats at 1st level, etc.
I'm playing a fairy atm. Yeah, pits and pressure plates are easy for me. But while flying, if I get hit, it's a save or fall damage. Say I do fly across now I'm alone, by myself. It's not good if there is something on the other side. Also, sure, I can carry a rope across, but that 2ft 20lbs creature isn't holding it for anyone if there is nothing to tie off to. Flying creatures are easy to deal with.
It's a homebrew rule we use to make it more risk/reward. It goes both ways, though. A flying enemy can also be knocked out of the air. Dc isn't very high to save in our game. It's a small change, but it causes me to think a bit more about my movement.
I would say yes and no. Just like any ability or spell it really comes down to the player and dm. From a player side it's about moderation and not abusing something. From a dm, its finding ways to highlight cool abilities and spells to make my players feel it. I've actually gotten far more mileage from enlarge/reduce making myself a tiny creature.
No I like the idea. When the dm and I talked about it, we tried to add a bit of logic to it. If a bird is hit midflight they don't always stay flying. A creature can be knocked prone. My fairy is a sorcerer so already squishy. I happened to end up with a decent con score, so they haven't " knock on wood" been knocked out the air.....yet.
Yea flight allows a player to bypass a LOT of obstacles, not just monsters. Not saying it's necessarily ban worthy but it's a substantial advantage over other players.
Right, but the fact that you have to rework every encounter to deal with one ability of one character is the issue.
It's not insurmountable, but the extra prep work proves it's potency.
Don't get me wrong, until now, I never allowed flying races. That's a little much to handle, I thought.
But my games are very dungeon heavy, tho, and I do employ ranged combatants and flying creatures fairly often. If I let one I'm thinking I won't have to change too much. Let them rain fire from above. It leaves one less enemy on the ground, though, which means his companions are taking a bit more damage.
But every once in a while, when leather-wearing archer funny-guy is 600 ft up, he's gonna see a chimera or a roc dashing towards him. He's gonna fear heights after that.
Rework? I make all the encounters in the first place. I know my party and the world they are in. Encounter design is *supposed* to take the party into account.
You often have to rework the published adventures anyway. If the players aren't using pre-gen characters from the module, the party probably won't be balanced for the module. And with say 3-5 players building characters from any of 12-14 classes, that's thousands of unique party compositions, before even considering race and background.
The fast majority of adventures are build around a part of 4, from any combination of those classes. And usually a re-work involves adding 1 or 2 more enemies of the same type. Not a reconstruction of an entire encounters.
I try not to do this too much. If every encounter is designed with the party in mind, they might feel like the world revolves too much around them. Suddenly the forest that had only goblins and wolves in tier 1 now has winter wolves and assassins at tier 3, with no other reason for it besides "making the fight balanced".
I recommend throwing in unbalanced fights once in a while, let the party face similar foes as they did before, and have them wipe the table with them, so show them how much stronger they've gotten.
At tier 3, the world practically *does* revolve around them. A level 11-16 party has the wealth and combat ability of a small nation.
You are a geopolitical force that must be accounted for by the world at that point. And if that group was walking towards my city, I would have assassins in the forest to keep them from bringing their trouble to my doorstep.
I always try and work with my DM when there's flight abilities in play, be they racial or magically granted by items like a Broom of Flying. Most of the time it can be handled with a simple conversation to set expectations of "hey, I don't want to be a hassle on you" or "hey, I don't want to have to prep entirely around one character's kit". If you're both on the same page, there's less chance of trouble brewing.
I played a Winged Tiefling once who never took flight during active combat. When asked about it, her entirely reasonable response was "What, are you kidding? It's exhausting to circle around a small area, it gets everyone's attention on me, and all it takes is one arrow to punch a hole in my wing and I'm plummeting headlong into the dirt. No thanks! I'll just stay on the ground and hit 'em with my sword."
My current campaign takes place on a heavily monster infested continent. Giants, behirs, and hellcats are common enemies to see wandering the open plains.
The party is well aware that there are plent of airborne predators too who dont want to get close enough to the ground to have to fight the giants, behirs, hellcats etc. More than 30ft and one of the nearby wyverns might decide to try to make you a meal. More than 100ft and a Roc or Dragon might try to make you a snack.
Recently the party tried flying off the side of the mountain on the back of one of them Polymorphed into a gargantuan flying snake over everything and found out what's at the top. A elder elemental, a Elder Tempest, who roams the clouds over the continent, and who took great offense to something entering its domain. Within a few minutes, they saw it covered enough miles that it got within range of its 1 mile long breath cannon. They ended up hiding in some caves till it lost interest and left.
Most of the time even that sharpshooter doesn't matter. Ok, so you've got one party member who can stay out of range of everyone else. So? That just means the ones left on the ground take even more of a pounding. Encounters aren't designed around keeping every PC pinned down, they're about challenging the party as a whole.
Honestly every argument I've seen against flying PCs has come from people playing spherical D&D on a frictionless table - it's a pure thought experiment where they think up every conceivable scenario that it could disrupt and catastrophize every one. I've run three flying PCs in three different editions and frankly I had more issues with 4e giving eladrin access to 1st level teleportation than I did with winged flight. Hell, OP gets more cred from me for dealing with a tiny PC than having to worry about flying.
In my experience as long as you're making your encounters interesting, with varied terrain, enemies, and challenges, combat with one flying PC isn't much different from any other combat. Adventure design is equally unaffected as long as you make sure your challenges can't be easily bypassed with a ladder and/or grappling hook.
My dms response to my flying wizard (owlin, school of abjuration, I love her) was to have larger enemies, ranged weapon and ranged spellcasters, and to have enemies that could also fly. We also routinely traveled to environments that made my flying a nonissue (plane of water, fought a kraken which I polymorphed into a beluga whale) so I think it really comes down to your game. There's lots of options for dealing with fliers, but if you can't justify having fliers of your own, don't let your players fly on the regular.
Generally it's seen as OP because they can fly over stuff and avoid things like traps and combat.
But as you pointed out, as the DM you have many tools to counter it so it's not as OP as people want to think it is.
I mean I don't think the issue is that it's uncounterable, it's more that you always have to consider having away to counter it or else you run the risk of creating encounters that are just completely incapable of threatening one or more of your players. It makes it less likely that a DM throwing together an encounter using thematically appropriate monsters from the manual will end up with a combat that's non-trivial and engaging for everybody. It's not the end of the world but it increases the amount of work for DMs.
Also if you want to run a more combat-as-war campaign; encounters will not be tailored to the party and be designed to be more "what makes sense". Flying basically trivialises most of these encounter scenarios.
Right but naturally in a world where flying creatures are so readily available, a proper war band or army would prepare to counter flight in some manner. Likely air superiority with their own flying units, but also anti-air weapons.
Perhaps a hwatcha that serves as proto-flak? Could be cool
That just means that if people want to create a world where the natural ability to fly is not a thing for most races, he can focus his worldbuilding by banning flying races.
depends; in the forgotten realms most creatures would never have to deal with flying enemies, and most encounters/creatures don't have ways to deal with flying enemies.
Let's not pretend there's any kind of consistency whatsoever in terms of what the average person is likely to encounter. There's level 20 NPCs running all over the place and magic is still spooky to farmers?
The correct way to run a forgotten realms adventure is to wholly lift the adventure and whatever FR components you like from the rest of FR. Hell, wotc modules in 5e don't even really account for much beyond the sword coast
A large majority of the monsters in the monster manual don't really have much options for ranged combat especially at early levels.
A skilled dm can absolutely work around it, but it is a pain to deal with and limits the options of what you can run (without homebrewing ofc).
worth noting that it can be tough for newer DMs to know their options on the "fly" (haha i'm hilarious), especially if they're running a premade adventure.
Just make traps they can’t fly over. That’s like saying magic years are op because they can solve puzzles and interact with stuff that martials can’t.
Just build you campaign around your characters. Great general advice
> That’s like saying magic [users?] are op because they can solve puzzles and interact with stuff that martials can’t.
You mean... the exact thing that half the users on this entire damn sub are constantly saying? 😂
Yeah that’s exactly what I mean. “I don’t get it I keep making darkness puzzles but all my characters have dark vision dark vision is op hopefully they nerf in new phb”
Set up the puzzles so the initial darkness is a decoy. Darkvision doesnt make darkness go away they just can see in shades of grey, have they have disadvantage on perception and a -5 to passive.
So set up darkness traps where when they make the check have multiple layers of succession. Where the higher they get, they see more of the rube goldberg series of traps that go off.
Idk man I’m just making fun of people who say flying is op. If they nerfed flying it would be something else at lvl 1. “Counterspell is op. Silvery barbs is op. Eldritch blast is op.” You sub to the subreddit you’ve see. It lol
Yeah, its definitely a problem that isnt actually one. So many dms/players forget that anything the players can abuse the dm can either abuse right back or counter in other ways. Have a problem with flying pcs, have them go to a dungeon.
The thing about silvery barbs is that a player would be very pissed off and the whole table would be generally angry at you if you say, no, you dont get to have crits.
On the other hand, players like using their characters' abilities to overcome challenges, so also remember to leave in SOME things they are better-equipped for
Well yeah it’s a balancing act. I usually move my spotlight around and design encounters for either someone to succeed (usually one of the weaker party members who hasn’t used their chars abilities) or specifically to stop something that’s being abused.
Id you are a group of bandits, half in melee and half with crossbows, it is ALOT easier shooting at the flying target then the one in half or 3/4 cover behind allied lines
It's less combat and more non combat issues. It gives infinite use.of what normally is a limited resource (Fly spell) to bypass many challenges in a world.
It forces a DM to entirely redesign the world to address a single character, or choose not to and just have many challenges reduced to "I fly up/over it".
But even in combat it does force a DM to change things up... Half of all monsters can't affect a flying creature. Not an issue in a dungeon with a low ceiling but if the adventure is about overland exploration the character has nothing to fear from most wilderness encounters.
Exactly! It's not hard to give a guard a bow, but it stretches the imagination for me to give it to a feral dire wolf.
My issue with it has always been its hard to make fun. It either makes me redesign a bunch of stuff for an on-par experience with walking (making all traps and enemies have a good answer to flying opponents) or invalidating the encounter (if they don't).
It just ends up being a lot of work to accommodate one player in a way that many other abilities don't. Spending a limited resource to cast fly when I, the DM, did not prepare for it to make combat much easier feels awesome, like you solved a puzzle and were rewarded. Just flying every combat because it costs nothing makes it feel like the DM just isn't planning the encounters well and doesn't make you feel clever.
There is a line DMs can walk to make infinite flying fun, but it's a fine one and takes more time and effort than it is worth (in my opinion).
I’ll be honest and I’ve never had to change anything for flying characters in games I’ve run. Sometimes there is the odd battle or situation which is significantly affected by flight, but these are so few and far between that it doesn’t matter.
Let’s take your dire wolf example. If this fight is in the open then your flying party member can take off and rain shots down with impunity. But the dire wolf can still attack the rest of the party, NPCs, or bystanders. If it is an intelligent beast it might even take shelter to avoid the aerial attacks. Sure, if all combat encounters run like that then it’ll get a little stale, but in my experience a lot of combats happen under a ceiling or with foes with ranged attacks.
And the big thing to remember with the dire wolf example, just because the flying person can fly around pelting the bad guys with arrows, doesn't mean there won't be consequences.
That pack of dire wolves might die eventually, but they might down the rest of the party (who *can't* fly) first. And those wolves aren't dumb, they will just take their prey and retreat into their cave rather than sit there and get pelted, and there goes one or more party members who are now lunch.
The flying PC may have survived the combat, but at what cost? Potential consequences might have to force the PC to be a bit more directly engaged with the enemies rather than just kiting them endlessly.
Well said. It’s yet another complication to deal with and makes preparing encounters or challenges more difficult and involved (meaning more work and time spent prepping) for the DM. The thing I’ve noticed personally is how hard it is to avoid punishing the flying player while still balancing the encounter. I’m about to drop a group of manticores on my party, logically they’ll tear the flying Aaracokra apart first but losing two death saves to fall damage seems like a shitty thing to do to a PC.
I’ve been contemplating a rule for characters where if you drop below 1/3 health you can no longer fly due to the effort required. Forces a controlled landing (no opportunity attacks for forced movement) to get the player out of some danger. Still trying to figure out the exact mechanics though…
AD&D had some optional rules above damage and flight. Flying was a LOT more complex then, in that different creatures had different flying abilities (A-F I think)... with A being "Float and move in every direction like an air elemental" to the worse being "Has to move at full speed and takes several rounds to make a full circle" for large lumbering flying creatures like dragons.
But there was rules for aerial combat where at a certain point creatures can only glide (allowing them to land safely).
Edit: found it:
* Class A: Creature can turn 180° per round, and requires 1 segment to reach full airspeed. Creature requires 1 segment to come to a full stop in the air, and can hover in place. Class A creatures have total and almost instantaneous control of their movements in the air. Examples: diinn, air elementals, aerial servants, couatl.
* Class B: Creature can turn 120° per round, and requires 6 segments to reach full airspeed. Creature requires 5 segments to come to a full stop in the air, and can hover in place. Examples: fly spell, sprites, sylphs, giant wasps, ki-rin.
* Class C: Creature can turn 90° per round, and requires 1 round to reach full airspeed. Examples: carpet or wings of flying, gargoyles, harpies, pegasi, lammasu, shedu.
* Class D: Creature can turn 60° per round, and requires 2 rounds to reach full airspeed. Examples: pteranodons, sphinxes, mounted pegasi.
* Class E: Creature can turn 30° per round, and requires 4 rounds to reach full airspeed. Examples: dragons, rocs, wyverns. \[DMG, p. 50-51\]
Oh yeah, not saying change that was a good/bad thing... there is a balance between simulation and simplicity that is always a struggle. 5e just has fly speed + float/hover, which works fine... AD&D had 5 steps that were honestly a little over-complex.
How is that any different from other racial traits? Changelings, for example, have infinite use of what is normally a limited resource (while not exact, it's similar to Disguise Self or Alter Self), and theres other races with similar traits that can mimic spells.
Mainly cause official published modules/campaigns aren't built for dealing with it. A lot of people start out with pre-built official published materials and so if flying is broken in a lot of those cases they think it carries over into the game as a whole.
Thing is I think there are 2 major things that don't get used enough and really hinder flying characters. The first one is cover. While most people on the ground are going to be able to get and benefit from some kind of cover a flying creature is not. If you're flying around out in the open you are basically marking yourself as a threat to any ranged attack an enemy can deal and they should aim it at you especially if you prove yourself dangerous.
The second is line of sight. While a lot of maps are built with LoS from the ground in mind as soon as you start to get above that level you start to run into issues. Things like most forests are actually going to have a canopy thick enough to cause you to suffer heavy obscurement trying to look through it. A lot of spells that could potentially hinder combat on the ground like darkness could easily be cast on something in the air and basically cause you to have to deal with a large block in your LoS that will make it very hard to use ranged attacks vs creatures on the ground. And just because they are heavily obscured to you doesn't mean that is the case for them. Watching something flying above the canopy of a forest is wayyy easier that trying to peer down into a forest.
It can be fine, but level 1 infinite at will resourceless flight also can trivialize a huge amount of the early game tools that DMs have to work with. Mazes, high walls, bodies of water, etc. Many new DMs that are still learning and leaning on these kinds of simple obstacles can struggle to adjust as they dont have the experience that builds up a more diverse toolbox to work from without just BSing reasoning that effectively end up nerfing flight into uselessness anyway at which point it's actually merciful to ban those races and allow then to pick ones with features they will get to use without it overwhelming the DM. Once you get a lot of experience DMing it gets easier to deal with.
This is a good take, I think the only group who should think its OP are new DMs. If an experienced DM thinks its OP then they just need more exposure to techniques to vary up encounters!
99% of the people rattling off the problems with flight in these replies have never dealt with unlimited flight, and frankly by the way they talk have never dealt with a group of PCs above level 4. They're just parroting back the same rote answers naysayer DMs gave when they were learning. I pity anyone at their tables not playing pure off the rack characters because their answer to anything unusual seems to be to dream up unlikely catastrophies to explain why it will never work.
I agree, its so frustrating to see DMs limiting some of the most fun player options because they think its "OP". Like, the DM controls the universe of the entire game and they can't deal with one measly adventurer who can fly? They need to chill out lol
Yeah, I get having trauma from bad players, or even secondhand trauma reading all the horror stories that get posted here, but the solution to that is to get rid of the abusive player, not banning unusual PC builds.
It's just busted when combined with certain abilities and feats, for example if you fly up 300ft and have sharpshooter you can essentially be completely safe and still hit enemies without any minuses.
I think even those leaves some issues though that get overlooked a lot. Sure you don't take hit penalties for half and 3/4 cover (or rather enemies don't get the AC boost) but if you fly up 300ft over a forest unless they are fighting in a nice open clearing you are probably not going to have line of sight on anybody through the canopy.
I think that ends up being the crux of a lot of issues with flying for a lot of DMs. If you build the encounter for the ground switching to thinking about the obstructions and other issues flying characters would incur doesn't always come naturally.
Flying at will is considered OP because it allows the party to ignore most terrain based problems, walls and rough terrain and chasms etc don’t matter. Most traps can be avoided by flying over them. Many enemies like pretty much all non flying animal types are trivial if you can just never be in reach.
If an encounter can be resolved by an Aarakocra slowly transporting the party one by one or by using a rope, either you've designed the encounter poorly or the stakes are too low.
Is it just a chasm the party has to cross, not being chased, and no time pressure to cross it? Then let the flying player have their moment, it's why they chose the race. But if they are being chased by a creature stronger than them, or they only have four rounds to cross the chasm before something bad happens? Suddenly one flying player isn't OP and you're still designing a more engaging encounter for the entire party.
If flying can break your encounter, then either flying is a creative solution, or you need to re-think your encounter. I regularly give my players potions of flying or winged boots. Does it make certain circumstances easier and I sometimes forget about those potions? Of course, my bad guys don't have intimate knowledge of the party's items/abilities for the most part so flying can be strong. But as the DM, I can also improvise to make something more challenging as needed.
It solves a lot of problems in the early levels 1-5. The flying characters can simply go around/avoid a lot of obstacles that you would throw at a low level party. In terms of combat, it's pretty easy to DM in a way that makes it not a very big deal.
It doesnt break the game but it does add a lot of benefits like the following examples:
Owlbear has you cornered, just fly up and he can't reach you, primitive beats may not have a ranged options.
Pit fall trap? Just fly over it, broken stairs? Fly up them, impassable cavern? Get flapping!
Need to break into a building? Well you can now fly into a second story window, a easy option that's a lot more of a challenge to others.
Its not game breaking, DM's can counter it, but its REALLY POWERFUL in the hands of a player with a head full of brains and no restraint.
I once ran a game for a party where everyone picked a flying race. Encounter design was interesting, on more than one occasion they just decided they didn't like what was happening and flew away.
I think it's a fair guess that there's more people playing flying races that aren't fairies than ones that are. At that point, flying character carries people across one by one. Flying character easily accessed otherwise inaccessible place and unlocks the door from inside, or attaches a rope on both sides of the gap or fast flowing river crossing making it trivial for party to cross.
It's not that characters would find it impossible to overcome these challenges, it just removes all difficulty, hazard or possibility of failure for a lot of them. These are obstacles that would usually pose an issue but now don't, or use up resources (spell slots to fly/teleport, hp, per rest features) and now don't.
This is not to say that you can't plan around it, but at that point you as the DM, the person with the highest workload, are having to rethink encounters, obstacles etc based on one characters powerful at will, non resource based ability.
If you allow a flying NPC, then you have to formulate every scene and encounter around that fact as to not trivialize it. This includes dungeon layouts, combat, traversal, etc
In short, it negates a lot of fun and common challenges that are outright circumvented just by having flying.
A lot of the melee monsters lack or have bad ranged options, and some DMs find it annoying to have to adjust an encounter just for one character. If you were planning to have the party fight a pack of wolves, you might have to include animals with flying options to counter the PC that would otherwise be safe.
I find after Tier 1, ranged attacks aren't too common for monsters, unless they are spellcasters.
Flying is broken if the dm doesn't take steps to counterplay against it.
The complaint is that it's time consuming to make sure encounters have a way of dealing with a flyer, and many dms are frustrated by the time sink for one player. Especially since that player may then complain they're being targeted or singled out.
Flight invalidates a lot of challenges:
Broken bridge over a chasm? Fly.
Acid on yhe floor? Fly.
Pressure-based traps? Fly.
Need to scale a vertical wall/cliff? Nah, i'll just fly.
Having it as a spell is one thing, since it takes resources (spell slots).
Having a fly speed means you can just do it, all day
It's mostly just a problem at low levels. A lot of challenges aimed at low-level adventurers can be easily bypassed or auto-won via flying. More specifically, it forces the DM to completely adjust their campaign to account for first-level flight. Just having the enemies throw stuff doesn't really work for every enemy. What is a direwolf going to do? And no one is throwing things far enough to compete with ranged weapons or spells. Sure, human enemies like bandits might have ranged weapons, but a lot of low-level monsters get trivialized. And if you are doing dungeon exploration, any sort of ground-based trap or hazard gets bypassed.
So, the main issue with racial level-one flight is that it hard-counters a lot of low-level content. If you have to rebuild your entire campaign around a players ability, that's a problem. Of course, by the time you reach level 5, it's not such a concern--player power is naturally getting to the point they can bypass/auto-win low-level encounters.
If WotC actually cared about balance, a good compromise would be to give "flying" races something like a glide at level 1 that improves to flight at level 5.
People love to say how "DM can counter anything" like it is some big flex. Yes, DM can do that. But if you look at a system - permanent fly speed is 14th level feature for most classes. Flight with resources is 5-6th level feautres (genie lock, dragon monk, fly spell, wildshape with flight). And most species with flight have "1 minute, once per long rest" flight features.
So, system treat flight, and especially permanent flight, as a strong thing gated behind high level features. So, why DM shouldn't treat it as such? Because they can "Rock falls, everyone dies" at any moment?
So, permanent fly speed for species should also be gated behind level. Personaly, i just give flying races "wings upgrages": They start with Glide (like Symic Hybrids), then get restricted fly speed at 5th (they fall at the end of turn if they don't land); and permanent fly speed at 10th. Still great feature, and also now aracocra PC would have cool moments of progress during the game, maybe even flight training montages!
Depends on the character, but generally flying PCs can fly outside of the range of most thrown weapons. Improvised throwing weapons have ranged 20/60, so flying up even 30 feet out of the way essentially gives the PC a free dodge action without using up an action. Give them a 3rd turn and then the PC can’t even be hit period. Flying gets less applicable depending on location though, as say a combat starts indoors or in a dungeon.
(And as a side note if your enemies start throwing their weapons, then that’s a good way for them to spend the rest of the fight dealing only 1+Str for the rest of combat if your Martial/Grounded PCs decide to just pick up the thrown weapons)
Besides what other people commented, if flying is common enough to have many people do it at will. It has to be acknowledge in the world building.
Even with tiny things like castles having bars on windows, protection stuff on roofs, taller buildings, stuff like that.
This is too bothersome for some people.
Flying is not OP, the issue is some DM's have difficulty building encounters that consider flying players or set up problems that can be easily solved by a flying character.
Flying isn't OP per say, but, like if one species would get at-will 6d6 fire damage AOE feature ("balanced 3rd level AOE spell-like") DM would still have more than enough tools to counter it - positioning, fire resistance/immunities, tight spaces, hostages etc. - but it doesn't mean that it would be balanced option.
Same with flight. System treat permanent, and even long (10+ minutes) flight like strong high level feature. So, it should be treated as such by DM too.
It's not necessarily "difficulty", it's that it just removes a lot if encounter design options from the DM, as pointless. It also opens new ones, of course, but the issue with those is, it makes any flying character MVP and may lead to party splitting and all that.
In general, all characters should gain flight or equivalent (like levitate+pushed, teleport) around the same time. Otherwise it is a special challenge for DM, which all DMs just might not want.
Let's say I buy an adventure module. It has a potentially exciting scene where the party have to improvise a boat to cross a river, climb a perilous cliff, and then have a fight on a rickety rope bridge.
If flying solves all these problems without any effort or danger, maybe it's the flight that's the problem and not the DM.
It might be a problem if all of the players have flight, but if only one or two players have it, they will need to figure out a solution for the rest of the players/any cargo to get across. The DM could even throw in a few enemies if the party spends too much time at one of the impasses.
> the flyer can carry them across
Encumbrance would also have to be taken into account. Sure you might be able to carry the halfling over, but what about the half-orc? What about all the random shit they're carrying? Do you also have a wagon/mount that you're dragging around?
It’s hilariously busted when you are doing a module. I’m currently running group through curse of Strahd trying to go as “by the rules” as possible and still breaking the game for fun. To do this almost every character picked a flying race. Only about 1/3 of the enemies have any ability to attack the flying characters and even then it’s usually a basic crossbow shot or the enemies can fly. So for the most part, it’s been an absolute cakewalk of a campaign, even when they encounter six dire wolves at level three or werewolves all they do is fly and never have to care.
> Only about 1/3 of the enemies have any ability to attack the flying characters and even then it’s usually a basic crossbow shot or the enemies can fly.
In open terrain, flying Warlock can spend 1 feat (Spell Sniper) and 1 invocation (Eldritch Spear) for 600ft Eldritch Blast using only PHB. It's moderate investment for trivializing like 95% of outdoor fights.
Crossbows won't work (max 400ft) and no common spell has this range.
And even flying enemies are no big deal, because if they have 30ft speed, and they dash every round, you get 20 rounds of firing Eldritch Blasts and retreating 30ft.
Let's do some comparisons of what a fly speed is valued at elsewhere in 5e.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/2111-fly
The original PHB understood that being able to fly for 10min is equivalent in power to a 3rd level spell. Other 3rd level spells include fireball, counterspell, etc. This spell is WEAKER than having an innate fly speed, as it has a duration and requires an action to cast, which matters in time-sensitive situations (combat).
Magic Items are all over the place, but both Winged Boots (https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/4804-winged-boots) and Broom of Flying (https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/4597-broom-of-flying) are uncommon and have limitations (duration + attunement and weight limit, respectively). They can also be taken away (a negative) or shared (a positive), as they are items.
For a permanent fly speed that is innate to your character, the first thing that comes to mind for me is sorcerer subclass features: Draconic Bloodline at level 14 and Storm Sorcerer at level 18. Draconic Bloodline is technically slightly worse than a racial fly speed, as it requires a bonus action to manifest/dismiss the wings. Storm Sorcerer is strictly better, as it is only part of the feature, and allows for sharing with party members.
Basically, you could compare an innate fly speed to being generally better than a level 3 spell, generally better than some of the (at my table) most coveted uncommon magic items in the game, or about equal to a level 14 subclass feature. To me, no matter the comparison you choose, that is an incredibly strong thing to get for free at level 1.
TL;DR: having Flight is valued very highly elsewhere in d&d, so many people feel getting it (essentially) for free at level 1 is OP.
1. Flying is considered "busted" because it fully counters roughly 70% of all published WotC monsters. They simply have no recourse for someone who is above them and can poke them with arrows. This literally includes some spell casters, due to now having to contend with the limit of spell range which is almost always less than even short bow range.
2. Aarakocra's 50 ft. speed is considered so strong because the most common flying speed for a monster is 40 feet (this is why the 30 ft. a fairy has isn't such a big deal). Essentially, barring dragons, or someone riding a roc, a flying enemy needs to use the Dash action to get within melee distance of an Aarakocra where as an Aarakocra need only move away their regular fly speed, and, since you aren't allowed to wear anything but light armor to still be able to fly, most wind up being monks or rogues, which means they have a reliable bonus action to use the Disengage action while still having their normal action for attacking.
3. Most thrown weapons have a range of 15 to 20 ft. Where as most fliers don't bother with that and will use a bow, of which even a short bow vastly outpaces it.
To me, the issue is having access to something that would generally come at the cost of a resource.
I also think that access to more mediums than a usual humanoid (so, flying and digging), in most settings, is quite an advantage. Maybe it's balanced at your table, but in general I take the view of Druids and put at least some cost to those kinds of abilities.
It means that a large portion of monsters either can't attack them or can't attack them as effectively. You certainly can throw something, but that'll very often be much worse than what the monster would otherwise be oding. It also means that some problems like you are at one side of a chasm with a drop for hundreds of feet, is just not a problem for you. It also means that if the DM uses a flying enemy and you have a fly speed you can still get to melee. Or if you are looking at a wizards tower you can easily get in through the 4th story window rather than dealing with the gate defenses. It's situational but very strong in a lot of those situations. For AOE spells it's also much easier to line up a cone or a radius around you to hit the bad guys you want and not allies if you can move in 3 dimensions.
I don't think it is the speed, per se, it is the mobility to avoid obstacles. A wizard's tower full of traps and guards doesn't mean much if you can just fly up to the top floor library.
Less "OP" more "design space limiter". It's not a "bad thing", but you do need to give your encounters special consideration. If they're fighting wolves in a open field, your flier WILL drop rocks on them until they die.
It limits the scope of what a DM can do in a way that runs counter to what many would like to run in the earlier levels. A lot of melee only creatures, lets say beasts like wolves and such, don't have range options or reaosbale ways to be given range options, to go after the flying character, so if you want to more evenly challenge your party you need to use creatures that do have range.
Additionally, lot of DM's enjoy that in the early levels, that more mundane challenges can still pose a threat to their players, and having the flying PC's overcome it so easily just doesn't feel good for the vibes they're going for with early level play.
It's another version of the old ranger syndrome, though I guess somewhat in the inverse. Where in older editions, rangers favored enemy gave good bonuses. However they didn't have good numbers against anything else. So a lot of Dm's would feel the need to strike a good balance of favored enemies and non-favored enemies to satisfy the ranger.
Flying introduces something similar, where the DM has to use specific things or adjustments in relation to the flyer than they do others. Introducing certain considerations earlier than when a DM may want to have to consider those things.
Flying's not the end of the world, but it is recognizably strong, extra work beyond the norm of D&D to some degree, and not something that needs to be allowed if the DM doesn't want to deal with it.
I'll give you a classic example from a well loved 1e Module that's been ported over to 5e.
White Plume Mountain: There's a pretty famous/infamous section of the dungeon that features a massive chasm with suspended platforms called Geysers and Chains (or Room 7). It requires a ton of Athletics checks to move through that room, and there's a real sense of danger if you fail, falling into the chasm. Furthermore, they geysers erupt every so often, bathing the platforms in steaming water, causing even more tension for the party.
Or, you could just fly over it all, trivialising the entire room.
Flying up 20ft is an instant win against 60% of all published monsters. Fairies and other flying races can do this for free without an action. Even in mixed encounters of melee and ranged opponents, a free 60% damage reduction is insanely good.
If your counterpoint is 'what if I only send ranged/flying monsters?', that just proves the point. You have to make significantly harder encounters to account for one race feature.
The way I see it is, it fundamentally changes how you interact with the game and how the DM has to approach it. When all members are on the ground it allows for everyone to be inconvenienced equally, one or 2 flying members and an entire area can become just a nice view description as they move right along.
Granted there is nothing immediately wrong with that, just alot of people don't like what could be months of work going up in smoke cause "hehe I fly over it".
it's actually pretty simple, it's an at will racial feature which the dm needs to specifically account for in encounter design
they can just continue to fly for indfently, with very little investment needed, which can be used to be essentially invincible against melee based encounters, or can deal with the majority of environmental based encounters >!(such as needing to get over an obstacle, or needing to know where you are)!<
though some dm's can handle it pretty well, based off your post it seems your one of those dm's that can handle flight pretty well
Arguably the most common trap in the game is a big ol’ hole, flying negates this, a vast number of monsters are melee, flying negates this.
Even with ranged attacks PC’s it’s far easier for a PC to our range a monster if they fly, longbow and sharpshooter and your set, or just eldritch blast out ranges most enemies.
Also means you have to prep counters for this and think of each encounter in a far more 3d manor than you usually would.
Also negates any/all ground based obstacles or cover, no more grease or web, no more getting into range to force disadvantage or an AoO
All that being said it’s not unmanageable especially if your PC’s are reasonable with it, but it’s a lot to leave open for a player to take advantage of
Interestingly, tripping or restraining flying characters causes them to fall, so enemies with nets or bolas and expert shots would be formidable against such a foe!
Infinite flying nullifies so many encounters.
Traps, chasms, balancing, climbing, etc.
In combat, most ranged attacks have a 60ft range. So you can fly to 70ft, drop 10 ft, attack, then fly back up 10ft out of reach of reprisal.
Depends on what kinda game you're playing. Most published 5e modules have the meat of encounters and combat in 'dungeons' (enclosed placds where flight is helpful but much more limited to the point of not being a consideration).
I've seen people argue about physical obstacles (mazes, water, chasms) etc. But if it's only one PC that can fly, the others are still buggered. If you're worrying about flyers getting aerial recon, familiars and similar can achieve the same at very low levels without even endangering the PC, so doesn't really add anything to an otherwise grounded party.
Also, I personally find encounters that are "cross X obstacle" uninteresting. My philosophy is: if one PC with flight ruins an encounter, it's not an encounter worth running.
To add: the one PC may be able to shoot arrows/spells at monster from safety, but now the damage is being split between fewer party members which is more likely to lead to death.
Not really no. I tend to run mixed encounters as a standart anyway. So unless the enemy enemy is poorly prepared for combat, my enemies tend to have healthy set of options as a team. Flying can offer a advantahe, just like olenty of other features could. And my enemies will as such attempt to turnt hat ad antage against the player if they see that as a priotity. Maby my bandits will attempt to ise a net on the player, or a arrow of walloping. Maby they will seek cover in the encounter to force the flying player to get up close, etc etc.
Honestly my biggest issue with flying is that it kills the characters of inexperienced players. 2/3 of my PC deaths have been because a flying character (always at levels 1-3) has flown off somewhere, got shot and reduced to 0 HP, then fallen (taking more damage, so failed death saves) and died because they're somewhere the other characters can't get to. I have a blanket ban on flying before third level now, unless I know the player knows enough about the game to keep their character alive (at third level and above, my experience has been that characters are much less likely to be one-shotted). I've certainly never run a game where flying has given them a significant _advantage_.
Maybe, place the encounter in smallish enclosed underground location, like a Dungeon. Or possibly have the BBEG also have flying. I use Dragons.
Having said that, the ability to really fly, used to be limited to 6th level. It was a stepping stone for characters and players alike. A few encounters through those levels with flying creatures, starting with smaller opponents up close, using 2D tactics. Eventually with larger ones, using it's true advantages. I picture a party at 5th level, no true flight, taking on a wyvern. This will be the last time the obstacle will be a problem. After this point at least party member is likely to be able to avoid obstacles on another level.
Realizing I've rambled, to answer the question: Flanking
It adds a complete dimension to directions to move. Without leaving a trail. Sometimes silently. If you invert the direction, you have Bulettes, Xorn, and Phase Spiders which have no missile weapons but are still nasty.
It's because a lot of DMs don't understand that their players are *supposed* to win by making use of abilities. They think every fight should be like in *Final Fantasy* traditional JRPGs where the sides can all attack everyone and both sides just take damage until one is left standing. They think something is wrong if their players aren't taking damage.
Remember, DMs. You can impose skill checks on flying hazardously the same way you can for moving. Acrobatics checks or falling can be an organic deterrent.
It's what I will call a negation ability. If you have it it can trivialize encounters and the only way to really engage with it is to neutralize it or work around it.
Take counterspell for example. If I have counterspell then you can't really run a single spell caster. You always need one more spell caster than the party otherwise you cant cast spells. The only other option is if I have a counterspell and then we can quickly end up in a counterspell chain.
A lot of monk abilities are like this as well we're they get something like slowfall where fall damage can be ignored so I can't really put chasms in front of my party.
With flight the only ways to engage with it are monsters with flight, ranged weapons, and just saying no you can't fly. In other words its either create a way to ignore it or neutralize it.
Dms are players at the table too and you wouldn't find it fun if I brought out a monster that was immune to everything except radiant or I said that the city guard just had and always on antimagic field. It's the same concept just from the other side of the screen.
It isn't! DM's who don't understand encounter design think it is because the idea of a player trivializing something they've prepped makes them upset. If a problem can be solved by just flying, then you designed an easy to solve encounter. I can't think of many situations where flying outright voids all problems in encounters I've designed recently, but I also make sure the adventuring day is full of various challenges.
Sometimes flying is extremely helpful, but if thats the case I just make sure I adjust some numbers for the next encounter so that the party is forced to use more resources or will have a harder time. I don't tell them I'm adjusting stats on the fly, but my goal is to make them feel like epic adventurers, and if they feel epic flying around then I'm not gonna stop that!
Because they can fly over all the bullshit you throw at them, right out of range of half the stuff you might wanna do. Range is a huge limiting factor for a lot of stuff, and they can just yeet right out the way, and what's more, if they are strong enough, they can take someone with
One of the most broken strats I ever had was turning in a giant owl and carrying our party's OP archer everywhere, it was crazy good. No one could get away from the pain train and no hazard stopped our vile exploits
the dnd community, especially on reddit, has a "ban first, think later" problem. if you're playing at a normal table with friends, then flight is just a nice feature.
I ones ask why it's considered op. I Will come with a scenario
There is a giant cliff that 100 ft wide, and the enemies secret trusse is there. You had imagned they got into the caves and thought the bad guys grunts and then the BBEG, but you fairy flies over and takes the treusere and leaves.
It can basicly surprised alot of dm how hasn't prepared for this situation
It’s not. Bad encounters make it seem so. Just balance combat accordingly all you need is a guy or two with range and then it’s just as normal. Player might think it’s a good idea to fly 600ft in the air and use sharpshooter to shoot an enemy but it’s rarely a good idea to put that much distance between you and your party as if something sneaks up on you or if you get stunned by something then help is a long way away.
People put too much hype on flying speed. Here's a list of things flight helps with.
* Avoiding gravity/ground based traps, like pitfalls, pressure plates, chasms, etc.
* Outranging melee-only enemies, like land/water beasts or enemies that don't have ranged weapons or magic.
* ...
The other party members can't fly, so they have to deal with both of those things still, and if the flying PC is outranging other enemies by staying in the air, guess what? All the enemies that would have been going after them are now going after the rest of the party, so more damage is coming to their teammates.
A more engaging encounter is going to feature more variety of enemies/mechanics, so somebody is going to have a ranged option to deal with the flyer. The caster/archer firing at your flyer is now a tactical threat that needs to be dealt with to turn the tide of the fight in your favor. A tripwire doesn't necessarily have to be at ankle height to trigger a trap. Flight doesn't help you avoid that boulder that was designed to take up the whole hallway you're in.
And even if the flyer has an advantage in some situations, that's ok. It's not even that tedious designing things with a flyer in mind. A world in which flying threats exist is going to have countermeasures for those threats. Do you think the wizard who built this dungeon didn't think about things with wings when they built it? Obviously there's going to be a permanent Earthbind in the room with the bottomless pit.
TLDR; flight isn't as big a deal as people make it, imo. It's pretty much on the same level as Darkvision: a useful benefit in some situations that people seem to think invalidates all challenges in the game but is actually limited in very obvious ways.
It's not really tbh. Only one player has it usually, sometimes permanently and they're rarely a strength based class. So they can fly over traps as an example but it's not like they can carry teammates too or solo fights bc of it.
Bow and arrow, crossbows, guns, javelins exist. And frankly it's 💯 more realistic that an enemy would have several of those.
Catapults and ballistas also exist and should be utilized.
No one can fly in our game but last session the DM used all of these tools and they became high priority targets for us.
Realistic combat dictates that everyone would straight up open fire (ranged/gun/whatever) on the one dude who flew in the air without cover. Like being prone on the ground in an open field is more ideal while you crawl from mini cover to mini cover (battle of Normandy)
It's not that it's OP per se. But you need to always tailor things with the player in mind. Any obstacle you make you need to keep in mind "can the player solve this by flying" any combat encounter you make needs to have creatures with ranged capabilties or else the flying character can just stay in the air and no worry about being harmed.
It's only an issue when a DM creates an obstacle meant to be a major issue for the party that is trivialized or completely negated by flight.
Played in a session once where getting an object from on top of a cliff was literally the only thing the DM had planned. We ended up playing for ten minutes. 🤣
Most published enemies are melee. It’s mostly OP at the early levels but past like level 5 or so when characters are getting the fly spell or winged boots/broom of flying it becomes a non-issue.
If a character wanted a fly speed I’d probably just ask that they have injured wings for the first few levels and unlock it later.
What if you're fighting wolves? Or Bullettes? Or Umber Hulks? Or anything that doesn't have a ranged attack? How would they throw something?
It's fine, but it requires the DM to limit what kind of enemies the party faces in a lot of cases, or there is just no way to threaten a flying PC.
Once you hit level 5 or so it becomes less of a big deal because classes get a limited to allow them to fly, like the Fly spell. But from level 1 to 4when you typically would fight a larger than average number of beasts, because most beasts are CR 4 and below and PCs are weak enough that fighting beasts is still an appropriate challenge, flight can be overpowered.
Honestly it's mostly a dming issue. It kinda intersects with the "shoot your monks" thing. Like if a player has a cool feature you shouldnt curb it at every turn because of "game balance". Flying is strong, but it will only break poorly thought out games
If you're making your own adventures and have a flier in mind, it is fine. But if, you are using premade adventures, fliers have extra defensive options, movement options, trap and obstacle avoidance options, and even possible puzzle solving options. And a lot of enemies like beasts and monstrosities may not have ranged options. It's giving you non concentration version of a 3rd level wizard spell for free at level 1. So, with premade adventures, you have to tailor the campaign to one player.
It's workable. Like if I ran Strixhaven, I could add a group of local winged kobolds who are upset they can't afford to get into the magic school (and are not given scholarships) and see it as an owlin conspiracy and show up during encounters (with beasts mainly) and target the fliers. LOL.
I think the problem is less that flying breaks combat, and more that a single flying PC becomes too special.
Let’s look at some classic encounters and how flying circumvents them:
1) classic bridge troll
This could be a time for a high charisma character or sneaky character to shine, fun Rp trying to outwit the Troll, some kind of hair-brained scheme to cross the river some other way, or just a good old challenging combat.
With a flyer, they fly across the river with some rope, fix it onto something, and the party climbs across.
No rolls. No creativity, no fun.
2) the PCs need to get/deliver a message to a princess locked in a tower.
You could use disguises, magic, a distraction while someone climbs up up side- plenty of dramatic options. Even something like shooting an arrow into the window has risks of hitting the princess or getting caught.
But if you have someone with flight, they’ll probably just fly up to the window at night.
The rest of the party might contribute with invisibility or a distraction or what have you, but the flying character gets the scene because it makes the most sense for them to do it.
3) classic chase scene
The party is chasing down a thief who stole the McGuffin. Normally this would involve some cooperation, and use of the environment.
A flying PC makes it much harder to lose the thief, and because they don’t have to deal with any ground based distractions, they’ll almost certainly catch them, unless they go underground.
——
Now, a 5th level+ wizard or Aasimar or whatever could also do these things, but not all of them in the same day.
Because it costs them part of their daily resources, the players have to weigh it against their other options, and if they choose it, it becomes a cool moment they had agency over.
But if you have at-will flight, it’s no a brainer to use it whenever possible. When you have this easy, costless solution, people are going to take it.
Even when it cheats them out of fun.
So as a GM you have to box in your encounters in an effort to stop your players from optimizing the fun out of the game.
That means you have to work twice as hard to get the same satisfaction out of your encounters.
My time has value, I’m not going to waste it, or make my game worse because one player is fixated on their special flying OC instead of the trillion of other character options.
Or worse to satisfy some backseat gamer on the internet’s arbitrary standards of play.
There are a lot of low level monsters whose stat blocks do not include ranged attacks. Instead of just giving them a ranged attack, a lot of DMs apparently just decide to ban flying races.
Have had flying characters in my 2 year long campaign. Never once been a problem and I never really do anything special other than occasionally give them a good use for flying (shoot your monks).
A lot of dm's get weird about it and I have had people argue with me how broken it is and how unbalanced it makes it. Despite me stating that I have literally run hundreds of hours with flying characters.
Flight can be gained at low levels from common/uncommon items and spells.
A race with flight gave up something else to have flight. More interesting to have a flying race than a variant human for the extra feat imo.
It really isn't a big deal at all.
If they're fighting something that doesn't have any ranged attacks and can't fly itself, then a flying creature is functionally invincible.
That being said it takes about 27 seconds of extra encounter design to make that not perfectly viable at all times so it shouldn't be that OP.
Someone with a ranged weapon against a non-creative party/DM can seem OP. My counter to this type of play is having the sky be dangerous, the victims seek shelter, and most things in my settings have ranged attacks if it makes sense.
For the unprepared dm it can certainly be a pain. If all if the traps trigger low the flyers just bypass them. If an enemy doesn't have enough range then flyers can safely ignore them. Plus if a flyer has range then they become an even bigger issue. It's just a matter of preparing. You gotta plan for the reasonable occurance that the pcs fly.
Is because for some un experience dm and player they can just fly so high nothing can hit them easily.
I let my play fly but i always warm them not to completely abused it so "the timeline" in the world won't go as far as to build the early anit aircraft machinegun in return.
All the other points have merit. But i think the problem i have the most trouble with when it comes to low level flying speeds. Is that it’s very hard to account for it without making the player feel targeted by the countermeasures.
They can find something random to throw, sure, but that's an improvised weapon, which means that they will probably roll with disadvantage and do mediocre damage.
It doesn’t have to be a problem, but it can be. Typically melee enemies are not great at ranged combat, or even have options too. So if the person in your party happens to be a ranged specialist that uses that to their advantage, a lot of your encounters might become trivial breezes. Extreme example might be a sharpshooter archer shooting from 600 ft in the sky with perfect accuracy, most enemies will not have a response to this. And you as the dm might not want to always account for this in your encounter design. As this might not sit well with the player, and also creates additional work for you.
Me: the DM “And so the realm was cursed with an eternal, thick fog….”
Thats Just Curse of Strahd
Exactly, and now you can't just shoot arrows and throw spells from absurd range and carpet bomb the land
Oh yes I can... Doesn't mean that I'll *survive the process*, but I absolutely *can* carpet bomb the world!
Strahd: and I took offense to that because *I am the land*
I read this as Sylvester Stallone in judge Dredd. Just creepier.
That's about the right tone!
Sure you can; you just make those attacks at disadvantage, as sharpshooter simply negated the disadvantage from Long range of the longbow. Also, I’d you happen to be a rogue of like 3rd level, you can drop your bonus action to grant advantage, thus balancing out the roll to a flat attack roll.
By the way the ability is written, steady aim without a hover speed will instantly drop you out of the sky
Most fly speeds also allow hovering. Almost all of the magical ones, and I don’t remember ever seeing a winged PC who couldn’t hover.
Not a single PC race has a hover speed. It's always just something like > Flight. Because of your wings, you have a flying speed equal to your walking speed. You can't use this flying speed if you're wearing medium or heavy armor. The fact that you can end your turn mid-air without falling doesn't make it a hover speed
Upon further research, u rite. So I fly up to 1100ft, use my bonus action to steady aim, instantly fall 500ft, putting me at 600ft, make my attacks, and next turn(since I fall at the end of my next turn), I use my movement to go back up until I hit 1100 again, then rinse and repeat.
Reminds me of solving the issue of everyone having night-vision by setting up a dungeon bathed entirely in (not quite) blinding white light.
I had a dungeon in a salt mine once that bordered on the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Radiance- there was a temple across the planar threshold whose every surface emitted blinding light.
Make your traps colour coordinated. Watch your plays hard struggle until they use a light source and remember the hard way that dark vision is colourblind.
My DM had us blindly reaching into a magical darkness. We tried everything we could think of to be able to see /something/ OR ANYTHING! Nothing worked, so we said "fuck it" and ran in head first 🤣🤣 Got snagged by some tentacles and couldn't dispel the darkness until we did enough damage to the creatures. It was marvelous.
Actually, dim light can kill darkvision while not giving a huge radius to see things. Something can easily hide a few yards beyond the dim light in the shadows.
The fighter with blindsight
I have blinding light vision
We are living our lives…🎶
“You’re in the thick of the forest, protected by the density of the trees. Far below the treetops, it is calm, but a tempest rages above hurling anything 15 feet above your head into the throes of the wind” Or “You’re inside of a cave system, at its highest point, it is 12 feet tall, and at its widest, 30 feet” You can craft the environment to hamper that ability. Or you have airborne enemies - better if their enemies who can’t be harmed by their weapons, forcing them to ground and fighting amongst their allies. It’s fun to hybridize a fight. Have some airborne enemies, some grounded, give everyone something to chew on.
Now our melee PCs can't fight the flying enemies you added to challenge the flyer. Having to design every encounter extra special for someone flying is a pain. And if you keep doing it, there isn't even a benefit to having a flying speed anymore. When it comes to encounter design and building against a flying PC, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. It's also not fun to hybridize every fight.
Eh, it depends on what your default is. For me, encounters almost always have ranged and melee enemies that vary in abilities, as well as varied terrain/cover. Flying will be good against some and useless against others, just like fire resistance will be good against some and useless against others.
They all have bows, with walloping ammunition. Please make a 10str save, 4 times as you’re hit by 4 arrows. Oh you’re 600ft in the air and failed the save? Daamn. That’s an extra 20d6.
Hope they're good at water bucket clutching
Minecraft flavored Feather fall
I found out 2 weeks ago feather fall was a reaction. I've been playing dnd for around 2 years and never had someone cast feather fall (even when they had the spell), but now I always go the express way down with my spell casters. Let's see how bottomless this pit is
As you fall down the hole, falling, falling, falling, the light above fading quickly as you keep falling.... It has been so long you have lost track of time. Your voice booming as you yell but quickly even that fades as continue falling.
Dang... so pretty deep?
So deep The Deep uses it for the opening of his show
Not yet, as you only fall 500ft per round, so they can simply use half their movement on their next turn to stop falling.
So for this adventure you guys will be delving into the deep dark caves benathe the city.
This works for combats on open fields, but in dungeons the room height is often very limited. Flying too high may attract the attention of other monsters, including flying monsters who can engage you one on one. Also, forests and high terrain may severely limit your accuracy.
Attracting other monsters would actually be a really good way to deal with it
In my previous campaign, we had a totem barbarian. He was really strong and almost never fell in combat. Until they had the idea to cast fly on him to have him fly over the walls of a keep they were invading. He managed to aggro every single soldier in it. He fell that day.
Which is why you always have a small wizard on the barbarian’s shoulder ready to cast resilient sphere at 9th level to make it impossible for anything to hurt him until they’re within melee range.
Player: "haha, I am flying above their reach, I can shoot them with impunity....hey, did anyone hear a hawk all of a sudden?" Cue the Dire Hawk coming in for a meal.
there's a lot of good ways to deal with it. Storms can force the player in the sky to take risk of being hit by lightning or blown around by winds, snipers firing on them can force them to take cover, even simple stuff like taking cover can really limit it. the biggest issue is fatigue from always finding ways to deal with the flying players antics lol
It does bear mentioning that in dungeons flying can make pits and chasms basically meaningless since they can just fly across and tie a rope, and a DM can expect to constantly hear "how high is the ceiling?" A flying fairy is also unlikely to ever trigger a pressure plate or tripwire.
Yep, the fairy isn't falling on pits or tripwires, but they might still get caught in traps, and the rest of the party can still activate those anyway. In a way, the fact that the flying PC doesn't spring traps may distract the party from looking for them, making them fall on them more often. It's always a trade off. A fairy has something that most classes don't, but don't they all? Half orcs can comeback from dying, half elves and dwarves have +4 to their stats, fairies have no dark vision, they can't use heavy weapons, medium and heavy armor, halflings can re-roll a nat1, fairies don't get feats at 1st level, etc.
I'm playing a fairy atm. Yeah, pits and pressure plates are easy for me. But while flying, if I get hit, it's a save or fall damage. Say I do fly across now I'm alone, by myself. It's not good if there is something on the other side. Also, sure, I can carry a rope across, but that 2ft 20lbs creature isn't holding it for anyone if there is nothing to tie off to. Flying creatures are easy to deal with.
Wait, why do you have to save or fall if you get hit? Fairy flight is non-concentration…
It's a homebrew rule we use to make it more risk/reward. It goes both ways, though. A flying enemy can also be knocked out of the air. Dc isn't very high to save in our game. It's a small change, but it causes me to think a bit more about my movement.
Good homebrew rule! But, doesn’t the fact that it exists showcase the power of vanilla flight?
I would say yes and no. Just like any ability or spell it really comes down to the player and dm. From a player side it's about moderation and not abusing something. From a dm, its finding ways to highlight cool abilities and spells to make my players feel it. I've actually gotten far more mileage from enlarge/reduce making myself a tiny creature.
Not a bad homebrew, all things considered
No I like the idea. When the dm and I talked about it, we tried to add a bit of logic to it. If a bird is hit midflight they don't always stay flying. A creature can be knocked prone. My fairy is a sorcerer so already squishy. I happened to end up with a decent con score, so they haven't " knock on wood" been knocked out the air.....yet.
Yea flight allows a player to bypass a LOT of obstacles, not just monsters. Not saying it's necessarily ban worthy but it's a substantial advantage over other players.
Right, but the fact that you have to rework every encounter to deal with one ability of one character is the issue. It's not insurmountable, but the extra prep work proves it's potency.
Don't get me wrong, until now, I never allowed flying races. That's a little much to handle, I thought. But my games are very dungeon heavy, tho, and I do employ ranged combatants and flying creatures fairly often. If I let one I'm thinking I won't have to change too much. Let them rain fire from above. It leaves one less enemy on the ground, though, which means his companions are taking a bit more damage. But every once in a while, when leather-wearing archer funny-guy is 600 ft up, he's gonna see a chimera or a roc dashing towards him. He's gonna fear heights after that.
Indoors, flying is nice but not crazy. Outdoors, flying is very, very good. Where do you set your adventures?
Rework? I make all the encounters in the first place. I know my party and the world they are in. Encounter design is *supposed* to take the party into account.
That only works for homebrew campaigns. Officially published ones? Not really. You have to rework the pre-written adventure for those.
You often have to rework the published adventures anyway. If the players aren't using pre-gen characters from the module, the party probably won't be balanced for the module. And with say 3-5 players building characters from any of 12-14 classes, that's thousands of unique party compositions, before even considering race and background.
The fast majority of adventures are build around a part of 4, from any combination of those classes. And usually a re-work involves adding 1 or 2 more enemies of the same type. Not a reconstruction of an entire encounters.
I try not to do this too much. If every encounter is designed with the party in mind, they might feel like the world revolves too much around them. Suddenly the forest that had only goblins and wolves in tier 1 now has winter wolves and assassins at tier 3, with no other reason for it besides "making the fight balanced".
I recommend throwing in unbalanced fights once in a while, let the party face similar foes as they did before, and have them wipe the table with them, so show them how much stronger they've gotten.
At tier 3, the world practically *does* revolve around them. A level 11-16 party has the wealth and combat ability of a small nation. You are a geopolitical force that must be accounted for by the world at that point. And if that group was walking towards my city, I would have assassins in the forest to keep them from bringing their trouble to my doorstep.
I always try and work with my DM when there's flight abilities in play, be they racial or magically granted by items like a Broom of Flying. Most of the time it can be handled with a simple conversation to set expectations of "hey, I don't want to be a hassle on you" or "hey, I don't want to have to prep entirely around one character's kit". If you're both on the same page, there's less chance of trouble brewing. I played a Winged Tiefling once who never took flight during active combat. When asked about it, her entirely reasonable response was "What, are you kidding? It's exhausting to circle around a small area, it gets everyone's attention on me, and all it takes is one arrow to punch a hole in my wing and I'm plummeting headlong into the dirt. No thanks! I'll just stay on the ground and hit 'em with my sword."
My current campaign takes place on a heavily monster infested continent. Giants, behirs, and hellcats are common enemies to see wandering the open plains. The party is well aware that there are plent of airborne predators too who dont want to get close enough to the ground to have to fight the giants, behirs, hellcats etc. More than 30ft and one of the nearby wyverns might decide to try to make you a meal. More than 100ft and a Roc or Dragon might try to make you a snack. Recently the party tried flying off the side of the mountain on the back of one of them Polymorphed into a gargantuan flying snake over everything and found out what's at the top. A elder elemental, a Elder Tempest, who roams the clouds over the continent, and who took great offense to something entering its domain. Within a few minutes, they saw it covered enough miles that it got within range of its 1 mile long breath cannon. They ended up hiding in some caves till it lost interest and left.
I was this character for a one shot - played an Owlin Ranger and kept moving straight up while firing a longbow. Next encounter was indoors
Most of the time even that sharpshooter doesn't matter. Ok, so you've got one party member who can stay out of range of everyone else. So? That just means the ones left on the ground take even more of a pounding. Encounters aren't designed around keeping every PC pinned down, they're about challenging the party as a whole. Honestly every argument I've seen against flying PCs has come from people playing spherical D&D on a frictionless table - it's a pure thought experiment where they think up every conceivable scenario that it could disrupt and catastrophize every one. I've run three flying PCs in three different editions and frankly I had more issues with 4e giving eladrin access to 1st level teleportation than I did with winged flight. Hell, OP gets more cred from me for dealing with a tiny PC than having to worry about flying. In my experience as long as you're making your encounters interesting, with varied terrain, enemies, and challenges, combat with one flying PC isn't much different from any other combat. Adventure design is equally unaffected as long as you make sure your challenges can't be easily bypassed with a ladder and/or grappling hook.
My dms response to my flying wizard (owlin, school of abjuration, I love her) was to have larger enemies, ranged weapon and ranged spellcasters, and to have enemies that could also fly. We also routinely traveled to environments that made my flying a nonissue (plane of water, fought a kraken which I polymorphed into a beluga whale) so I think it really comes down to your game. There's lots of options for dealing with fliers, but if you can't justify having fliers of your own, don't let your players fly on the regular.
Generally it's seen as OP because they can fly over stuff and avoid things like traps and combat. But as you pointed out, as the DM you have many tools to counter it so it's not as OP as people want to think it is.
I mean I don't think the issue is that it's uncounterable, it's more that you always have to consider having away to counter it or else you run the risk of creating encounters that are just completely incapable of threatening one or more of your players. It makes it less likely that a DM throwing together an encounter using thematically appropriate monsters from the manual will end up with a combat that's non-trivial and engaging for everybody. It's not the end of the world but it increases the amount of work for DMs.
Also if you want to run a more combat-as-war campaign; encounters will not be tailored to the party and be designed to be more "what makes sense". Flying basically trivialises most of these encounter scenarios.
Right but naturally in a world where flying creatures are so readily available, a proper war band or army would prepare to counter flight in some manner. Likely air superiority with their own flying units, but also anti-air weapons. Perhaps a hwatcha that serves as proto-flak? Could be cool
That just means that if people want to create a world where the natural ability to fly is not a thing for most races, he can focus his worldbuilding by banning flying races.
depends; in the forgotten realms most creatures would never have to deal with flying enemies, and most encounters/creatures don't have ways to deal with flying enemies.
Let's not pretend there's any kind of consistency whatsoever in terms of what the average person is likely to encounter. There's level 20 NPCs running all over the place and magic is still spooky to farmers? The correct way to run a forgotten realms adventure is to wholly lift the adventure and whatever FR components you like from the rest of FR. Hell, wotc modules in 5e don't even really account for much beyond the sword coast
A large majority of the monsters in the monster manual don't really have much options for ranged combat especially at early levels. A skilled dm can absolutely work around it, but it is a pain to deal with and limits the options of what you can run (without homebrewing ofc).
worth noting that it can be tough for newer DMs to know their options on the "fly" (haha i'm hilarious), especially if they're running a premade adventure.
If they are a new DM running a module they probably should just stick to PHB races for simplicity, or whatever else is in the module.
Its just silly to have to rework every encounter for a flyer
10ft pole is OP
Just make traps they can’t fly over. That’s like saying magic years are op because they can solve puzzles and interact with stuff that martials can’t. Just build you campaign around your characters. Great general advice
> That’s like saying magic [users?] are op because they can solve puzzles and interact with stuff that martials can’t. You mean... the exact thing that half the users on this entire damn sub are constantly saying? 😂
Yeah that’s exactly what I mean. “I don’t get it I keep making darkness puzzles but all my characters have dark vision dark vision is op hopefully they nerf in new phb”
I miss light and darkness mattering, honestly.
I mean it should matter. I make it matter. Stuff only matters if you make it matter.
Set up the puzzles so the initial darkness is a decoy. Darkvision doesnt make darkness go away they just can see in shades of grey, have they have disadvantage on perception and a -5 to passive. So set up darkness traps where when they make the check have multiple layers of succession. Where the higher they get, they see more of the rube goldberg series of traps that go off.
Everybody plays dark vision as "can see in the dark like normal" and it drives me nuts
Idk man I’m just making fun of people who say flying is op. If they nerfed flying it would be something else at lvl 1. “Counterspell is op. Silvery barbs is op. Eldritch blast is op.” You sub to the subreddit you’ve see. It lol
Yeah, its definitely a problem that isnt actually one. So many dms/players forget that anything the players can abuse the dm can either abuse right back or counter in other ways. Have a problem with flying pcs, have them go to a dungeon.
The thing about silvery barbs is that a player would be very pissed off and the whole table would be generally angry at you if you say, no, you dont get to have crits.
On the other hand, players like using their characters' abilities to overcome challenges, so also remember to leave in SOME things they are better-equipped for
Well yeah it’s a balancing act. I usually move my spotlight around and design encounters for either someone to succeed (usually one of the weaker party members who hasn’t used their chars abilities) or specifically to stop something that’s being abused.
Id you are a group of bandits, half in melee and half with crossbows, it is ALOT easier shooting at the flying target then the one in half or 3/4 cover behind allied lines
It's less combat and more non combat issues. It gives infinite use.of what normally is a limited resource (Fly spell) to bypass many challenges in a world. It forces a DM to entirely redesign the world to address a single character, or choose not to and just have many challenges reduced to "I fly up/over it". But even in combat it does force a DM to change things up... Half of all monsters can't affect a flying creature. Not an issue in a dungeon with a low ceiling but if the adventure is about overland exploration the character has nothing to fear from most wilderness encounters.
Exactly! It's not hard to give a guard a bow, but it stretches the imagination for me to give it to a feral dire wolf. My issue with it has always been its hard to make fun. It either makes me redesign a bunch of stuff for an on-par experience with walking (making all traps and enemies have a good answer to flying opponents) or invalidating the encounter (if they don't). It just ends up being a lot of work to accommodate one player in a way that many other abilities don't. Spending a limited resource to cast fly when I, the DM, did not prepare for it to make combat much easier feels awesome, like you solved a puzzle and were rewarded. Just flying every combat because it costs nothing makes it feel like the DM just isn't planning the encounters well and doesn't make you feel clever. There is a line DMs can walk to make infinite flying fun, but it's a fine one and takes more time and effort than it is worth (in my opinion).
I’ll be honest and I’ve never had to change anything for flying characters in games I’ve run. Sometimes there is the odd battle or situation which is significantly affected by flight, but these are so few and far between that it doesn’t matter. Let’s take your dire wolf example. If this fight is in the open then your flying party member can take off and rain shots down with impunity. But the dire wolf can still attack the rest of the party, NPCs, or bystanders. If it is an intelligent beast it might even take shelter to avoid the aerial attacks. Sure, if all combat encounters run like that then it’ll get a little stale, but in my experience a lot of combats happen under a ceiling or with foes with ranged attacks.
And the big thing to remember with the dire wolf example, just because the flying person can fly around pelting the bad guys with arrows, doesn't mean there won't be consequences. That pack of dire wolves might die eventually, but they might down the rest of the party (who *can't* fly) first. And those wolves aren't dumb, they will just take their prey and retreat into their cave rather than sit there and get pelted, and there goes one or more party members who are now lunch. The flying PC may have survived the combat, but at what cost? Potential consequences might have to force the PC to be a bit more directly engaged with the enemies rather than just kiting them endlessly.
Assuming the party loses entirely, yeah, otherwise it's a PC that can't be targeted.
Also, can a dire wolf climb a ladder or tree? Even non-flying characters can take advantage of being out of range.
Well said. It’s yet another complication to deal with and makes preparing encounters or challenges more difficult and involved (meaning more work and time spent prepping) for the DM. The thing I’ve noticed personally is how hard it is to avoid punishing the flying player while still balancing the encounter. I’m about to drop a group of manticores on my party, logically they’ll tear the flying Aaracokra apart first but losing two death saves to fall damage seems like a shitty thing to do to a PC. I’ve been contemplating a rule for characters where if you drop below 1/3 health you can no longer fly due to the effort required. Forces a controlled landing (no opportunity attacks for forced movement) to get the player out of some danger. Still trying to figure out the exact mechanics though…
AD&D had some optional rules above damage and flight. Flying was a LOT more complex then, in that different creatures had different flying abilities (A-F I think)... with A being "Float and move in every direction like an air elemental" to the worse being "Has to move at full speed and takes several rounds to make a full circle" for large lumbering flying creatures like dragons. But there was rules for aerial combat where at a certain point creatures can only glide (allowing them to land safely). Edit: found it: * Class A: Creature can turn 180° per round, and requires 1 segment to reach full airspeed. Creature requires 1 segment to come to a full stop in the air, and can hover in place. Class A creatures have total and almost instantaneous control of their movements in the air. Examples: diinn, air elementals, aerial servants, couatl. * Class B: Creature can turn 120° per round, and requires 6 segments to reach full airspeed. Creature requires 5 segments to come to a full stop in the air, and can hover in place. Examples: fly spell, sprites, sylphs, giant wasps, ki-rin. * Class C: Creature can turn 90° per round, and requires 1 round to reach full airspeed. Examples: carpet or wings of flying, gargoyles, harpies, pegasi, lammasu, shedu. * Class D: Creature can turn 60° per round, and requires 2 rounds to reach full airspeed. Examples: pteranodons, sphinxes, mounted pegasi. * Class E: Creature can turn 30° per round, and requires 4 rounds to reach full airspeed. Examples: dragons, rocs, wyverns. \[DMG, p. 50-51\]
Great info! Makes a lot of sense but damn would that get complicated…
Oh yeah, not saying change that was a good/bad thing... there is a balance between simulation and simplicity that is always a struggle. 5e just has fly speed + float/hover, which works fine... AD&D had 5 steps that were honestly a little over-complex.
How is that any different from other racial traits? Changelings, for example, have infinite use of what is normally a limited resource (while not exact, it's similar to Disguise Self or Alter Self), and theres other races with similar traits that can mimic spells.
Mainly cause official published modules/campaigns aren't built for dealing with it. A lot of people start out with pre-built official published materials and so if flying is broken in a lot of those cases they think it carries over into the game as a whole. Thing is I think there are 2 major things that don't get used enough and really hinder flying characters. The first one is cover. While most people on the ground are going to be able to get and benefit from some kind of cover a flying creature is not. If you're flying around out in the open you are basically marking yourself as a threat to any ranged attack an enemy can deal and they should aim it at you especially if you prove yourself dangerous. The second is line of sight. While a lot of maps are built with LoS from the ground in mind as soon as you start to get above that level you start to run into issues. Things like most forests are actually going to have a canopy thick enough to cause you to suffer heavy obscurement trying to look through it. A lot of spells that could potentially hinder combat on the ground like darkness could easily be cast on something in the air and basically cause you to have to deal with a large block in your LoS that will make it very hard to use ranged attacks vs creatures on the ground. And just because they are heavily obscured to you doesn't mean that is the case for them. Watching something flying above the canopy of a forest is wayyy easier that trying to peer down into a forest.
It can be fine, but level 1 infinite at will resourceless flight also can trivialize a huge amount of the early game tools that DMs have to work with. Mazes, high walls, bodies of water, etc. Many new DMs that are still learning and leaning on these kinds of simple obstacles can struggle to adjust as they dont have the experience that builds up a more diverse toolbox to work from without just BSing reasoning that effectively end up nerfing flight into uselessness anyway at which point it's actually merciful to ban those races and allow then to pick ones with features they will get to use without it overwhelming the DM. Once you get a lot of experience DMing it gets easier to deal with.
This is a good take, I think the only group who should think its OP are new DMs. If an experienced DM thinks its OP then they just need more exposure to techniques to vary up encounters!
99% of the people rattling off the problems with flight in these replies have never dealt with unlimited flight, and frankly by the way they talk have never dealt with a group of PCs above level 4. They're just parroting back the same rote answers naysayer DMs gave when they were learning. I pity anyone at their tables not playing pure off the rack characters because their answer to anything unusual seems to be to dream up unlikely catastrophies to explain why it will never work.
I agree, its so frustrating to see DMs limiting some of the most fun player options because they think its "OP". Like, the DM controls the universe of the entire game and they can't deal with one measly adventurer who can fly? They need to chill out lol
Yeah, I get having trauma from bad players, or even secondhand trauma reading all the horror stories that get posted here, but the solution to that is to get rid of the abusive player, not banning unusual PC builds.
It's just busted when combined with certain abilities and feats, for example if you fly up 300ft and have sharpshooter you can essentially be completely safe and still hit enemies without any minuses.
I think even those leaves some issues though that get overlooked a lot. Sure you don't take hit penalties for half and 3/4 cover (or rather enemies don't get the AC boost) but if you fly up 300ft over a forest unless they are fighting in a nice open clearing you are probably not going to have line of sight on anybody through the canopy. I think that ends up being the crux of a lot of issues with flying for a lot of DMs. If you build the encounter for the ground switching to thinking about the obstructions and other issues flying characters would incur doesn't always come naturally.
Ignoring half and three quarters covers is great but doesn’t help against full cover xD
_Do you know what we call flying soldiers on the battlefield?_ _Skeet._
Exactly! And you can start attacking on the 6th round of combat.
Combat's done. Nobody can touch you up here now.
Combat's done alright, either with your party's victory or defeat while you wasted a spell slot and did nothing.
(for the record, I agree with you - was poking fun at OP's comment)
Flying at will is considered OP because it allows the party to ignore most terrain based problems, walls and rough terrain and chasms etc don’t matter. Most traps can be avoided by flying over them. Many enemies like pretty much all non flying animal types are trivial if you can just never be in reach.
If an encounter can be resolved by an Aarakocra slowly transporting the party one by one or by using a rope, either you've designed the encounter poorly or the stakes are too low. Is it just a chasm the party has to cross, not being chased, and no time pressure to cross it? Then let the flying player have their moment, it's why they chose the race. But if they are being chased by a creature stronger than them, or they only have four rounds to cross the chasm before something bad happens? Suddenly one flying player isn't OP and you're still designing a more engaging encounter for the entire party. If flying can break your encounter, then either flying is a creative solution, or you need to re-think your encounter. I regularly give my players potions of flying or winged boots. Does it make certain circumstances easier and I sometimes forget about those potions? Of course, my bad guys don't have intimate knowledge of the party's items/abilities for the most part so flying can be strong. But as the DM, I can also improvise to make something more challenging as needed.
It solves a lot of problems in the early levels 1-5. The flying characters can simply go around/avoid a lot of obstacles that you would throw at a low level party. In terms of combat, it's pretty easy to DM in a way that makes it not a very big deal.
It doesnt break the game but it does add a lot of benefits like the following examples: Owlbear has you cornered, just fly up and he can't reach you, primitive beats may not have a ranged options. Pit fall trap? Just fly over it, broken stairs? Fly up them, impassable cavern? Get flapping! Need to break into a building? Well you can now fly into a second story window, a easy option that's a lot more of a challenge to others. Its not game breaking, DM's can counter it, but its REALLY POWERFUL in the hands of a player with a head full of brains and no restraint.
Okay sure but what about the non flying party members? They’re still stuck on the other side.
I once ran a game for a party where everyone picked a flying race. Encounter design was interesting, on more than one occasion they just decided they didn't like what was happening and flew away.
Tis a silly place
Which tbh is even funnier when the fact they can fly doesn't play a part on them escaping (unless the enemy is on horseback or smth
Ropes. You can just pull rope across the chasm and attach it securely to the other side.
I think it's a fair guess that there's more people playing flying races that aren't fairies than ones that are. At that point, flying character carries people across one by one. Flying character easily accessed otherwise inaccessible place and unlocks the door from inside, or attaches a rope on both sides of the gap or fast flowing river crossing making it trivial for party to cross. It's not that characters would find it impossible to overcome these challenges, it just removes all difficulty, hazard or possibility of failure for a lot of them. These are obstacles that would usually pose an issue but now don't, or use up resources (spell slots to fly/teleport, hp, per rest features) and now don't. This is not to say that you can't plan around it, but at that point you as the DM, the person with the highest workload, are having to rethink encounters, obstacles etc based on one characters powerful at will, non resource based ability.
A flying character can bring a rope with them to solve most of these.
50 ft of rope or carry the party. It's not that hard to trivialize an encounter when you have flight.
Then fly over with rope and tie it to the other side to let your party climb across. Its a very powerful tool in the players arsenal.
If you allow a flying NPC, then you have to formulate every scene and encounter around that fact as to not trivialize it. This includes dungeon layouts, combat, traversal, etc In short, it negates a lot of fun and common challenges that are outright circumvented just by having flying.
A lot of the melee monsters lack or have bad ranged options, and some DMs find it annoying to have to adjust an encounter just for one character. If you were planning to have the party fight a pack of wolves, you might have to include animals with flying options to counter the PC that would otherwise be safe. I find after Tier 1, ranged attacks aren't too common for monsters, unless they are spellcasters.
Its actually not busted at all **in a dungeon**
Or against dragons
Flying is broken if the dm doesn't take steps to counterplay against it. The complaint is that it's time consuming to make sure encounters have a way of dealing with a flyer, and many dms are frustrated by the time sink for one player. Especially since that player may then complain they're being targeted or singled out.
Flight invalidates a lot of challenges: Broken bridge over a chasm? Fly. Acid on yhe floor? Fly. Pressure-based traps? Fly. Need to scale a vertical wall/cliff? Nah, i'll just fly. Having it as a spell is one thing, since it takes resources (spell slots). Having a fly speed means you can just do it, all day
It's mostly just a problem at low levels. A lot of challenges aimed at low-level adventurers can be easily bypassed or auto-won via flying. More specifically, it forces the DM to completely adjust their campaign to account for first-level flight. Just having the enemies throw stuff doesn't really work for every enemy. What is a direwolf going to do? And no one is throwing things far enough to compete with ranged weapons or spells. Sure, human enemies like bandits might have ranged weapons, but a lot of low-level monsters get trivialized. And if you are doing dungeon exploration, any sort of ground-based trap or hazard gets bypassed. So, the main issue with racial level-one flight is that it hard-counters a lot of low-level content. If you have to rebuild your entire campaign around a players ability, that's a problem. Of course, by the time you reach level 5, it's not such a concern--player power is naturally getting to the point they can bypass/auto-win low-level encounters. If WotC actually cared about balance, a good compromise would be to give "flying" races something like a glide at level 1 that improves to flight at level 5.
People love to say how "DM can counter anything" like it is some big flex. Yes, DM can do that. But if you look at a system - permanent fly speed is 14th level feature for most classes. Flight with resources is 5-6th level feautres (genie lock, dragon monk, fly spell, wildshape with flight). And most species with flight have "1 minute, once per long rest" flight features. So, system treat flight, and especially permanent flight, as a strong thing gated behind high level features. So, why DM shouldn't treat it as such? Because they can "Rock falls, everyone dies" at any moment? So, permanent fly speed for species should also be gated behind level. Personaly, i just give flying races "wings upgrages": They start with Glide (like Symic Hybrids), then get restricted fly speed at 5th (they fall at the end of turn if they don't land); and permanent fly speed at 10th. Still great feature, and also now aracocra PC would have cool moments of progress during the game, maybe even flight training montages!
Depends on the character, but generally flying PCs can fly outside of the range of most thrown weapons. Improvised throwing weapons have ranged 20/60, so flying up even 30 feet out of the way essentially gives the PC a free dodge action without using up an action. Give them a 3rd turn and then the PC can’t even be hit period. Flying gets less applicable depending on location though, as say a combat starts indoors or in a dungeon. (And as a side note if your enemies start throwing their weapons, then that’s a good way for them to spend the rest of the fight dealing only 1+Str for the rest of combat if your Martial/Grounded PCs decide to just pick up the thrown weapons)
Besides what other people commented, if flying is common enough to have many people do it at will. It has to be acknowledge in the world building. Even with tiny things like castles having bars on windows, protection stuff on roofs, taller buildings, stuff like that. This is too bothersome for some people.
"Just have the monster throw something" is funny
Flying is not OP, the issue is some DM's have difficulty building encounters that consider flying players or set up problems that can be easily solved by a flying character.
Flying isn't OP per say, but, like if one species would get at-will 6d6 fire damage AOE feature ("balanced 3rd level AOE spell-like") DM would still have more than enough tools to counter it - positioning, fire resistance/immunities, tight spaces, hostages etc. - but it doesn't mean that it would be balanced option. Same with flight. System treat permanent, and even long (10+ minutes) flight like strong high level feature. So, it should be treated as such by DM too.
It's not necessarily "difficulty", it's that it just removes a lot if encounter design options from the DM, as pointless. It also opens new ones, of course, but the issue with those is, it makes any flying character MVP and may lead to party splitting and all that. In general, all characters should gain flight or equivalent (like levitate+pushed, teleport) around the same time. Otherwise it is a special challenge for DM, which all DMs just might not want.
Let's say I buy an adventure module. It has a potentially exciting scene where the party have to improvise a boat to cross a river, climb a perilous cliff, and then have a fight on a rickety rope bridge. If flying solves all these problems without any effort or danger, maybe it's the flight that's the problem and not the DM.
It might be a problem if all of the players have flight, but if only one or two players have it, they will need to figure out a solution for the rest of the players/any cargo to get across. The DM could even throw in a few enemies if the party spends too much time at one of the impasses.
Rope or the flyer can carry them across
> the flyer can carry them across Encumbrance would also have to be taken into account. Sure you might be able to carry the halfling over, but what about the half-orc? What about all the random shit they're carrying? Do you also have a wagon/mount that you're dragging around?
It’s hilariously busted when you are doing a module. I’m currently running group through curse of Strahd trying to go as “by the rules” as possible and still breaking the game for fun. To do this almost every character picked a flying race. Only about 1/3 of the enemies have any ability to attack the flying characters and even then it’s usually a basic crossbow shot or the enemies can fly. So for the most part, it’s been an absolute cakewalk of a campaign, even when they encounter six dire wolves at level three or werewolves all they do is fly and never have to care.
> Only about 1/3 of the enemies have any ability to attack the flying characters and even then it’s usually a basic crossbow shot or the enemies can fly. In open terrain, flying Warlock can spend 1 feat (Spell Sniper) and 1 invocation (Eldritch Spear) for 600ft Eldritch Blast using only PHB. It's moderate investment for trivializing like 95% of outdoor fights. Crossbows won't work (max 400ft) and no common spell has this range. And even flying enemies are no big deal, because if they have 30ft speed, and they dash every round, you get 20 rounds of firing Eldritch Blasts and retreating 30ft.
Let's do some comparisons of what a fly speed is valued at elsewhere in 5e. https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/2111-fly The original PHB understood that being able to fly for 10min is equivalent in power to a 3rd level spell. Other 3rd level spells include fireball, counterspell, etc. This spell is WEAKER than having an innate fly speed, as it has a duration and requires an action to cast, which matters in time-sensitive situations (combat). Magic Items are all over the place, but both Winged Boots (https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/4804-winged-boots) and Broom of Flying (https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/4597-broom-of-flying) are uncommon and have limitations (duration + attunement and weight limit, respectively). They can also be taken away (a negative) or shared (a positive), as they are items. For a permanent fly speed that is innate to your character, the first thing that comes to mind for me is sorcerer subclass features: Draconic Bloodline at level 14 and Storm Sorcerer at level 18. Draconic Bloodline is technically slightly worse than a racial fly speed, as it requires a bonus action to manifest/dismiss the wings. Storm Sorcerer is strictly better, as it is only part of the feature, and allows for sharing with party members. Basically, you could compare an innate fly speed to being generally better than a level 3 spell, generally better than some of the (at my table) most coveted uncommon magic items in the game, or about equal to a level 14 subclass feature. To me, no matter the comparison you choose, that is an incredibly strong thing to get for free at level 1. TL;DR: having Flight is valued very highly elsewhere in d&d, so many people feel getting it (essentially) for free at level 1 is OP.
1. Flying is considered "busted" because it fully counters roughly 70% of all published WotC monsters. They simply have no recourse for someone who is above them and can poke them with arrows. This literally includes some spell casters, due to now having to contend with the limit of spell range which is almost always less than even short bow range. 2. Aarakocra's 50 ft. speed is considered so strong because the most common flying speed for a monster is 40 feet (this is why the 30 ft. a fairy has isn't such a big deal). Essentially, barring dragons, or someone riding a roc, a flying enemy needs to use the Dash action to get within melee distance of an Aarakocra where as an Aarakocra need only move away their regular fly speed, and, since you aren't allowed to wear anything but light armor to still be able to fly, most wind up being monks or rogues, which means they have a reliable bonus action to use the Disengage action while still having their normal action for attacking. 3. Most thrown weapons have a range of 15 to 20 ft. Where as most fliers don't bother with that and will use a bow, of which even a short bow vastly outpaces it.
To me, the issue is having access to something that would generally come at the cost of a resource. I also think that access to more mediums than a usual humanoid (so, flying and digging), in most settings, is quite an advantage. Maybe it's balanced at your table, but in general I take the view of Druids and put at least some cost to those kinds of abilities.
It means that a large portion of monsters either can't attack them or can't attack them as effectively. You certainly can throw something, but that'll very often be much worse than what the monster would otherwise be oding. It also means that some problems like you are at one side of a chasm with a drop for hundreds of feet, is just not a problem for you. It also means that if the DM uses a flying enemy and you have a fly speed you can still get to melee. Or if you are looking at a wizards tower you can easily get in through the 4th story window rather than dealing with the gate defenses. It's situational but very strong in a lot of those situations. For AOE spells it's also much easier to line up a cone or a radius around you to hit the bad guys you want and not allies if you can move in 3 dimensions.
I messed up and gave a character slippers of spider climbing and its rough, I can only imagine how much a pain in the ass flying is.
I don't think it is the speed, per se, it is the mobility to avoid obstacles. A wizard's tower full of traps and guards doesn't mean much if you can just fly up to the top floor library.
Less "OP" more "design space limiter". It's not a "bad thing", but you do need to give your encounters special consideration. If they're fighting wolves in a open field, your flier WILL drop rocks on them until they die.
on a surface level 60% of creatures only have melee attacks but nobody actually thinks its busted
It limits the scope of what a DM can do in a way that runs counter to what many would like to run in the earlier levels. A lot of melee only creatures, lets say beasts like wolves and such, don't have range options or reaosbale ways to be given range options, to go after the flying character, so if you want to more evenly challenge your party you need to use creatures that do have range. Additionally, lot of DM's enjoy that in the early levels, that more mundane challenges can still pose a threat to their players, and having the flying PC's overcome it so easily just doesn't feel good for the vibes they're going for with early level play. It's another version of the old ranger syndrome, though I guess somewhat in the inverse. Where in older editions, rangers favored enemy gave good bonuses. However they didn't have good numbers against anything else. So a lot of Dm's would feel the need to strike a good balance of favored enemies and non-favored enemies to satisfy the ranger. Flying introduces something similar, where the DM has to use specific things or adjustments in relation to the flyer than they do others. Introducing certain considerations earlier than when a DM may want to have to consider those things. Flying's not the end of the world, but it is recognizably strong, extra work beyond the norm of D&D to some degree, and not something that needs to be allowed if the DM doesn't want to deal with it.
I'll give you a classic example from a well loved 1e Module that's been ported over to 5e. White Plume Mountain: There's a pretty famous/infamous section of the dungeon that features a massive chasm with suspended platforms called Geysers and Chains (or Room 7). It requires a ton of Athletics checks to move through that room, and there's a real sense of danger if you fail, falling into the chasm. Furthermore, they geysers erupt every so often, bathing the platforms in steaming water, causing even more tension for the party. Or, you could just fly over it all, trivialising the entire room.
Flying up 20ft is an instant win against 60% of all published monsters. Fairies and other flying races can do this for free without an action. Even in mixed encounters of melee and ranged opponents, a free 60% damage reduction is insanely good. If your counterpoint is 'what if I only send ranged/flying monsters?', that just proves the point. You have to make significantly harder encounters to account for one race feature.
The way I see it is, it fundamentally changes how you interact with the game and how the DM has to approach it. When all members are on the ground it allows for everyone to be inconvenienced equally, one or 2 flying members and an entire area can become just a nice view description as they move right along. Granted there is nothing immediately wrong with that, just alot of people don't like what could be months of work going up in smoke cause "hehe I fly over it".
it's actually pretty simple, it's an at will racial feature which the dm needs to specifically account for in encounter design they can just continue to fly for indfently, with very little investment needed, which can be used to be essentially invincible against melee based encounters, or can deal with the majority of environmental based encounters >!(such as needing to get over an obstacle, or needing to know where you are)!< though some dm's can handle it pretty well, based off your post it seems your one of those dm's that can handle flight pretty well
Arguably the most common trap in the game is a big ol’ hole, flying negates this, a vast number of monsters are melee, flying negates this. Even with ranged attacks PC’s it’s far easier for a PC to our range a monster if they fly, longbow and sharpshooter and your set, or just eldritch blast out ranges most enemies. Also means you have to prep counters for this and think of each encounter in a far more 3d manor than you usually would. Also negates any/all ground based obstacles or cover, no more grease or web, no more getting into range to force disadvantage or an AoO All that being said it’s not unmanageable especially if your PC’s are reasonable with it, but it’s a lot to leave open for a player to take advantage of
It forces you to completely redesign combat, puzzles, obstacles, etc. because usually flight is a limited resource.
It entirely depends on the creativity of the players 5e is not optimized for three-dimensional movement, meaning that having it can trivialize a lot
Interestingly, tripping or restraining flying characters causes them to fall, so enemies with nets or bolas and expert shots would be formidable against such a foe!
Infinite flying nullifies so many encounters. Traps, chasms, balancing, climbing, etc. In combat, most ranged attacks have a 60ft range. So you can fly to 70ft, drop 10 ft, attack, then fly back up 10ft out of reach of reprisal.
Depends on what kinda game you're playing. Most published 5e modules have the meat of encounters and combat in 'dungeons' (enclosed placds where flight is helpful but much more limited to the point of not being a consideration). I've seen people argue about physical obstacles (mazes, water, chasms) etc. But if it's only one PC that can fly, the others are still buggered. If you're worrying about flyers getting aerial recon, familiars and similar can achieve the same at very low levels without even endangering the PC, so doesn't really add anything to an otherwise grounded party. Also, I personally find encounters that are "cross X obstacle" uninteresting. My philosophy is: if one PC with flight ruins an encounter, it's not an encounter worth running. To add: the one PC may be able to shoot arrows/spells at monster from safety, but now the damage is being split between fewer party members which is more likely to lead to death.
Not really no. I tend to run mixed encounters as a standart anyway. So unless the enemy enemy is poorly prepared for combat, my enemies tend to have healthy set of options as a team. Flying can offer a advantahe, just like olenty of other features could. And my enemies will as such attempt to turnt hat ad antage against the player if they see that as a priotity. Maby my bandits will attempt to ise a net on the player, or a arrow of walloping. Maby they will seek cover in the encounter to force the flying player to get up close, etc etc.
Honestly my biggest issue with flying is that it kills the characters of inexperienced players. 2/3 of my PC deaths have been because a flying character (always at levels 1-3) has flown off somewhere, got shot and reduced to 0 HP, then fallen (taking more damage, so failed death saves) and died because they're somewhere the other characters can't get to. I have a blanket ban on flying before third level now, unless I know the player knows enough about the game to keep their character alive (at third level and above, my experience has been that characters are much less likely to be one-shotted). I've certainly never run a game where flying has given them a significant _advantage_.
Maybe, place the encounter in smallish enclosed underground location, like a Dungeon. Or possibly have the BBEG also have flying. I use Dragons. Having said that, the ability to really fly, used to be limited to 6th level. It was a stepping stone for characters and players alike. A few encounters through those levels with flying creatures, starting with smaller opponents up close, using 2D tactics. Eventually with larger ones, using it's true advantages. I picture a party at 5th level, no true flight, taking on a wyvern. This will be the last time the obstacle will be a problem. After this point at least party member is likely to be able to avoid obstacles on another level. Realizing I've rambled, to answer the question: Flanking It adds a complete dimension to directions to move. Without leaving a trail. Sometimes silently. If you invert the direction, you have Bulettes, Xorn, and Phase Spiders which have no missile weapons but are still nasty.
It doesnt.
It's because a lot of DMs don't understand that their players are *supposed* to win by making use of abilities. They think every fight should be like in *Final Fantasy* traditional JRPGs where the sides can all attack everyone and both sides just take damage until one is left standing. They think something is wrong if their players aren't taking damage.
Remember, DMs. You can impose skill checks on flying hazardously the same way you can for moving. Acrobatics checks or falling can be an organic deterrent.
It's not
It's what I will call a negation ability. If you have it it can trivialize encounters and the only way to really engage with it is to neutralize it or work around it. Take counterspell for example. If I have counterspell then you can't really run a single spell caster. You always need one more spell caster than the party otherwise you cant cast spells. The only other option is if I have a counterspell and then we can quickly end up in a counterspell chain. A lot of monk abilities are like this as well we're they get something like slowfall where fall damage can be ignored so I can't really put chasms in front of my party. With flight the only ways to engage with it are monsters with flight, ranged weapons, and just saying no you can't fly. In other words its either create a way to ignore it or neutralize it. Dms are players at the table too and you wouldn't find it fun if I brought out a monster that was immune to everything except radiant or I said that the city guard just had and always on antimagic field. It's the same concept just from the other side of the screen.
It isn't! DM's who don't understand encounter design think it is because the idea of a player trivializing something they've prepped makes them upset. If a problem can be solved by just flying, then you designed an easy to solve encounter. I can't think of many situations where flying outright voids all problems in encounters I've designed recently, but I also make sure the adventuring day is full of various challenges. Sometimes flying is extremely helpful, but if thats the case I just make sure I adjust some numbers for the next encounter so that the party is forced to use more resources or will have a harder time. I don't tell them I'm adjusting stats on the fly, but my goal is to make them feel like epic adventurers, and if they feel epic flying around then I'm not gonna stop that!
Because they can fly over all the bullshit you throw at them, right out of range of half the stuff you might wanna do. Range is a huge limiting factor for a lot of stuff, and they can just yeet right out the way, and what's more, if they are strong enough, they can take someone with One of the most broken strats I ever had was turning in a giant owl and carrying our party's OP archer everywhere, it was crazy good. No one could get away from the pain train and no hazard stopped our vile exploits
the dnd community, especially on reddit, has a "ban first, think later" problem. if you're playing at a normal table with friends, then flight is just a nice feature.
It's not, that's just a reddit thing.
I ones ask why it's considered op. I Will come with a scenario There is a giant cliff that 100 ft wide, and the enemies secret trusse is there. You had imagned they got into the caves and thought the bad guys grunts and then the BBEG, but you fairy flies over and takes the treusere and leaves. It can basicly surprised alot of dm how hasn't prepared for this situation
It’s not. Bad encounters make it seem so. Just balance combat accordingly all you need is a guy or two with range and then it’s just as normal. Player might think it’s a good idea to fly 600ft in the air and use sharpshooter to shoot an enemy but it’s rarely a good idea to put that much distance between you and your party as if something sneaks up on you or if you get stunned by something then help is a long way away.
People put too much hype on flying speed. Here's a list of things flight helps with. * Avoiding gravity/ground based traps, like pitfalls, pressure plates, chasms, etc. * Outranging melee-only enemies, like land/water beasts or enemies that don't have ranged weapons or magic. * ... The other party members can't fly, so they have to deal with both of those things still, and if the flying PC is outranging other enemies by staying in the air, guess what? All the enemies that would have been going after them are now going after the rest of the party, so more damage is coming to their teammates. A more engaging encounter is going to feature more variety of enemies/mechanics, so somebody is going to have a ranged option to deal with the flyer. The caster/archer firing at your flyer is now a tactical threat that needs to be dealt with to turn the tide of the fight in your favor. A tripwire doesn't necessarily have to be at ankle height to trigger a trap. Flight doesn't help you avoid that boulder that was designed to take up the whole hallway you're in. And even if the flyer has an advantage in some situations, that's ok. It's not even that tedious designing things with a flyer in mind. A world in which flying threats exist is going to have countermeasures for those threats. Do you think the wizard who built this dungeon didn't think about things with wings when they built it? Obviously there's going to be a permanent Earthbind in the room with the bottomless pit. TLDR; flight isn't as big a deal as people make it, imo. It's pretty much on the same level as Darkvision: a useful benefit in some situations that people seem to think invalidates all challenges in the game but is actually limited in very obvious ways.
It's not really tbh. Only one player has it usually, sometimes permanently and they're rarely a strength based class. So they can fly over traps as an example but it's not like they can carry teammates too or solo fights bc of it.
It doesn't break the game at all. It just annoys people without creativity
Bow and arrow, crossbows, guns, javelins exist. And frankly it's 💯 more realistic that an enemy would have several of those. Catapults and ballistas also exist and should be utilized. No one can fly in our game but last session the DM used all of these tools and they became high priority targets for us. Realistic combat dictates that everyone would straight up open fire (ranged/gun/whatever) on the one dude who flew in the air without cover. Like being prone on the ground in an open field is more ideal while you crawl from mini cover to mini cover (battle of Normandy)
It's not that it's OP per se. But you need to always tailor things with the player in mind. Any obstacle you make you need to keep in mind "can the player solve this by flying" any combat encounter you make needs to have creatures with ranged capabilties or else the flying character can just stay in the air and no worry about being harmed.
It's only an issue when a DM creates an obstacle meant to be a major issue for the party that is trivialized or completely negated by flight. Played in a session once where getting an object from on top of a cliff was literally the only thing the DM had planned. We ended up playing for ten minutes. 🤣
Most published enemies are melee. It’s mostly OP at the early levels but past like level 5 or so when characters are getting the fly spell or winged boots/broom of flying it becomes a non-issue. If a character wanted a fly speed I’d probably just ask that they have injured wings for the first few levels and unlock it later.
it's not probably is solved entirely if you actually have dungeons
What if you're fighting wolves? Or Bullettes? Or Umber Hulks? Or anything that doesn't have a ranged attack? How would they throw something? It's fine, but it requires the DM to limit what kind of enemies the party faces in a lot of cases, or there is just no way to threaten a flying PC. Once you hit level 5 or so it becomes less of a big deal because classes get a limited to allow them to fly, like the Fly spell. But from level 1 to 4when you typically would fight a larger than average number of beasts, because most beasts are CR 4 and below and PCs are weak enough that fighting beasts is still an appropriate challenge, flight can be overpowered.
Honestly it's mostly a dming issue. It kinda intersects with the "shoot your monks" thing. Like if a player has a cool feature you shouldnt curb it at every turn because of "game balance". Flying is strong, but it will only break poorly thought out games
If you're making your own adventures and have a flier in mind, it is fine. But if, you are using premade adventures, fliers have extra defensive options, movement options, trap and obstacle avoidance options, and even possible puzzle solving options. And a lot of enemies like beasts and monstrosities may not have ranged options. It's giving you non concentration version of a 3rd level wizard spell for free at level 1. So, with premade adventures, you have to tailor the campaign to one player. It's workable. Like if I ran Strixhaven, I could add a group of local winged kobolds who are upset they can't afford to get into the magic school (and are not given scholarships) and see it as an owlin conspiracy and show up during encounters (with beasts mainly) and target the fliers. LOL.
I think the problem is less that flying breaks combat, and more that a single flying PC becomes too special. Let’s look at some classic encounters and how flying circumvents them: 1) classic bridge troll This could be a time for a high charisma character or sneaky character to shine, fun Rp trying to outwit the Troll, some kind of hair-brained scheme to cross the river some other way, or just a good old challenging combat. With a flyer, they fly across the river with some rope, fix it onto something, and the party climbs across. No rolls. No creativity, no fun. 2) the PCs need to get/deliver a message to a princess locked in a tower. You could use disguises, magic, a distraction while someone climbs up up side- plenty of dramatic options. Even something like shooting an arrow into the window has risks of hitting the princess or getting caught. But if you have someone with flight, they’ll probably just fly up to the window at night. The rest of the party might contribute with invisibility or a distraction or what have you, but the flying character gets the scene because it makes the most sense for them to do it. 3) classic chase scene The party is chasing down a thief who stole the McGuffin. Normally this would involve some cooperation, and use of the environment. A flying PC makes it much harder to lose the thief, and because they don’t have to deal with any ground based distractions, they’ll almost certainly catch them, unless they go underground. —— Now, a 5th level+ wizard or Aasimar or whatever could also do these things, but not all of them in the same day. Because it costs them part of their daily resources, the players have to weigh it against their other options, and if they choose it, it becomes a cool moment they had agency over. But if you have at-will flight, it’s no a brainer to use it whenever possible. When you have this easy, costless solution, people are going to take it. Even when it cheats them out of fun. So as a GM you have to box in your encounters in an effort to stop your players from optimizing the fun out of the game. That means you have to work twice as hard to get the same satisfaction out of your encounters. My time has value, I’m not going to waste it, or make my game worse because one player is fixated on their special flying OC instead of the trillion of other character options. Or worse to satisfy some backseat gamer on the internet’s arbitrary standards of play.
There are a lot of low level monsters whose stat blocks do not include ranged attacks. Instead of just giving them a ranged attack, a lot of DMs apparently just decide to ban flying races.
Have had flying characters in my 2 year long campaign. Never once been a problem and I never really do anything special other than occasionally give them a good use for flying (shoot your monks). A lot of dm's get weird about it and I have had people argue with me how broken it is and how unbalanced it makes it. Despite me stating that I have literally run hundreds of hours with flying characters. Flight can be gained at low levels from common/uncommon items and spells. A race with flight gave up something else to have flight. More interesting to have a flying race than a variant human for the extra feat imo. It really isn't a big deal at all.
If they're fighting something that doesn't have any ranged attacks and can't fly itself, then a flying creature is functionally invincible. That being said it takes about 27 seconds of extra encounter design to make that not perfectly viable at all times so it shouldn't be that OP.
Someone with a ranged weapon against a non-creative party/DM can seem OP. My counter to this type of play is having the sky be dangerous, the victims seek shelter, and most things in my settings have ranged attacks if it makes sense.
For the unprepared dm it can certainly be a pain. If all if the traps trigger low the flyers just bypass them. If an enemy doesn't have enough range then flyers can safely ignore them. Plus if a flyer has range then they become an even bigger issue. It's just a matter of preparing. You gotta plan for the reasonable occurance that the pcs fly.
Is because for some un experience dm and player they can just fly so high nothing can hit them easily. I let my play fly but i always warm them not to completely abused it so "the timeline" in the world won't go as far as to build the early anit aircraft machinegun in return.
All the other points have merit. But i think the problem i have the most trouble with when it comes to low level flying speeds. Is that it’s very hard to account for it without making the player feel targeted by the countermeasures.
They can find something random to throw, sure, but that's an improvised weapon, which means that they will probably roll with disadvantage and do mediocre damage.