So is it just that wizards is telling us we have to deal with flying at lvl 1 or is it to be a new direction that boxed modals are going to be geared for lvl flight? With the fairy winged teifling and aakroka and maybe owl thing flight seems mighty common..
As with nearly everything in the game, it is as prevalent or as rare as you want it to be in your campaign at your table. The game offers lots of options. It's up to each DM to decide which options to incorporate into their campaign setting. If you don't want characters to be able to fly, that's fine. Just make that clear to your players during your Session Zero and you're all set. Personally, I'm playing a protector aasimar in a campaign right now, so I can bamf out my wings and fly for a whopping one minute per day, and honestly I hardly ever do it. I only resort to it if we get into a really nasty fight and I need to stay above melee range to keep dishing out heals. I don't think Wizards is intentionally trying to make PC flight more common. I just think that there have been so many new options added that eventually some of them will have a similar component.
But it's up to you as the DM to be the final arbiter. Your table, your campaign, your rules.
As long as everyone's having fun, that's all that matters.
The only material that is "Cannon" in 5e are the PHB, DMG and MM. Everything else is optional rules and features that have been added. They are not required at your table, or anyone else's. I've run a very rudimentary game strictly from the Basic Rules. Granted a very limited game, but no issues.
Second the sentiment that you are the DM, you set the restrictions on what PC races/lineages you allow in your game. Published adventure or homebrew makes no difference. You, as the DM, have full autonomy to alter or adapt anything in the game that you are running to achieve the game that you want. Simply restrict those choices prior to character generation.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I agree. When I run a campaign I pick which sourcebooks fit into that campaign world. Eberron’s races just don’t fit in the Forgotten Realms for example.
I do not restrict races (except for undead, half-dead, etc... tired of the un-imaginative emo wanna be vampires with a "tortured" past... you want to play that I StoryTeller a monthly WoD LARP for that) so the flight issue does pop up from time to time.
My solution is to restrict winged characters in some fashion. For the ones like Assimar those have in built limiters. For races like Aarakokra you get a ceiling limit (10') and gliding equal to your walking speed (must land at the end of your turn). Until level 7 (when the average non-flyer gains access to the fly spell). At that point the character gets a limit equal to 1hr of flight times the characters Con Bonus. Per long rest (this is part may get changed to short rest at a future date as I am still playtesting these rules).
I should mention I also allow Dragonborn and Tieflings to manifest wings if they desire. (I have had few takers on that front).
I find flying trivialises many of the types of encounters that I would like to include, which applies at higher levels as well as lower levels. At higher levels I'm fine with it - these are super powers that the PCs have earned by levelling up, but I still have to think "how do those winged boots make this encounter meaningless?" every single encounter I plan.
In my latest campaign I had a level 1 skill challenge whereby the PCs had to get off the beach they had washed up on by climbing up some difficult slopes, with rolls on a mishap table for ability check failures (slipping a bit, startling a nesting bird that attacks to protect its nest, falling all the way down etc). If someone had played a flying creature, that climb would have been meaningless. Recently I'd set up a room full of unmoving spirits with spinning blade traps, and knew that their cube of force would make it too easy, so I'd decided activatable magic items didn't work in the room. Fortunately this stopped the boots too, which would have made a mockery of it.
Wolves attack! Fly upwards and cast Firebolt until they die. Hmmm.
Personally I don't allow flying races at level 1 for those reasons.
My group finished Dragon of Icespire Peak last session.
DOIP Spoilers:
The final dungeon involves a traverse along a narrow mountain path, a guardhouse where I had an encounter planned, a series of rooms within a fortress with a few more encounters, up to the climactic battle vs. a dragon on the roof of the fortress. I had given the party one potion of flying, thinking at least one of them could have the ability to fight the dragon in midair when the dragon took to flight. What did my party do? The paladin drank the potion of flying on the path up the mountain before they even got to the gatehouse, flew straight to the top of the fortress, tied a rope to a chimney and lowered the rope for the rest of the party to climb up. And of course the other two both passed the athletics check to climb. So, they unwittingly skipped the entire fortress and went straight to the dragon. I actually thought it was pretty hilarious, and they had a really fun fight so it was all good. It did take me off guard though.
Moral of the story is, players will always surprise you. It was drastic enough with a single potion of flying, I can imagine at-will flight would really make you reconsider a lot of situations.
I have had moderate success by providing consequences for flying characters, mostly based on two principles:
a flying character getting to a place the walkers can't is separated from the party and thus vulnerable
a flying character is extremely visible
Character wants to scout a swamp? On the return flight she leads half the swamp denizens to the party's location.
Character wants to fly up the cliff and nullify the whole challenge? The cliff is populated with nesting birds who would flee from 4 characters but are happy to mob a single threat.
Dropping fire bolts on wolves from 100 feet up? You're basically a fireworks display in the middle of the woods. Everyone knows you're there and not many of them are going to be happy to see you slinging fire in their forest.
Dungeons, buildings, caves, thick woods, market awnings, fog, and high winds can force fliers down to the ground as well. At least half of most campaigns occurs under some kind of overhead cover.
It's true you still have to do extra thinking for most encounters, but that's true for a lot of features or classes. In general if you make it dangerous or risky for one character to go out on their own, you can cover a lot of the issues. Of course, don't go crazy shutting it down every single time. The flier should still be extremely helpful in a cliff-climbing challenge and useful as a scout. They just don't get to automatically win at those things without facing additional or alternate challenges.
I have no idea if WoTC are considering flying low level adventurers in future adventures.
However as a DM I like to remind the adventurers once in a while that ranged weapons or spells are rather handy against flying opponents - two winged Kobolds with bows can make the most hardened melee fighter really wish he had a bow or crossbow and a bit more than 8 DEX. Then an Adventurer playing an Araakocra recently reminded me that most of that Orc warband probably has a bow or a few javellins available to return the favour.
So is it just that wizards is telling us we have to deal with flying at lvl 1 or is it to be a new direction that boxed modals are going to be geared for lvl flight? With the fairy winged teifling and aakroka and maybe owl thing flight seems mighty common..
As with nearly everything in the game, it is as prevalent or as rare as you want it to be in your campaign at your table. The game offers lots of options. It's up to each DM to decide which options to incorporate into their campaign setting. If you don't want characters to be able to fly, that's fine. Just make that clear to your players during your Session Zero and you're all set. Personally, I'm playing a protector aasimar in a campaign right now, so I can bamf out my wings and fly for a whopping one minute per day, and honestly I hardly ever do it. I only resort to it if we get into a really nasty fight and I need to stay above melee range to keep dishing out heals. I don't think Wizards is intentionally trying to make PC flight more common. I just think that there have been so many new options added that eventually some of them will have a similar component.
But it's up to you as the DM to be the final arbiter. Your table, your campaign, your rules.
As long as everyone's having fun, that's all that matters.
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Tayn of Darkwood. Human Life Cleric. Lvl 10.
The only material that is "Cannon" in 5e are the PHB, DMG and MM. Everything else is optional rules and features that have been added. They are not required at your table, or anyone else's. I've run a very rudimentary game strictly from the Basic Rules. Granted a very limited game, but no issues.
Second the sentiment that you are the DM, you set the restrictions on what PC races/lineages you allow in your game. Published adventure or homebrew makes no difference. You, as the DM, have full autonomy to alter or adapt anything in the game that you are running to achieve the game that you want. Simply restrict those choices prior to character generation.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I agree. When I run a campaign I pick which sourcebooks fit into that campaign world. Eberron’s races just don’t fit in the Forgotten Realms for example.
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I do not restrict races (except for undead, half-dead, etc... tired of the un-imaginative emo wanna be vampires with a "tortured" past... you want to play that I StoryTeller a monthly WoD LARP for that) so the flight issue does pop up from time to time.
My solution is to restrict winged characters in some fashion. For the ones like Assimar those have in built limiters. For races like Aarakokra you get a ceiling limit (10') and gliding equal to your walking speed (must land at the end of your turn). Until level 7 (when the average non-flyer gains access to the fly spell). At that point the character gets a limit equal to 1hr of flight times the characters Con Bonus. Per long rest (this is part may get changed to short rest at a future date as I am still playtesting these rules).
I should mention I also allow Dragonborn and Tieflings to manifest wings if they desire. (I have had few takers on that front).
I find flying trivialises many of the types of encounters that I would like to include, which applies at higher levels as well as lower levels. At higher levels I'm fine with it - these are super powers that the PCs have earned by levelling up, but I still have to think "how do those winged boots make this encounter meaningless?" every single encounter I plan.
In my latest campaign I had a level 1 skill challenge whereby the PCs had to get off the beach they had washed up on by climbing up some difficult slopes, with rolls on a mishap table for ability check failures (slipping a bit, startling a nesting bird that attacks to protect its nest, falling all the way down etc). If someone had played a flying creature, that climb would have been meaningless. Recently I'd set up a room full of unmoving spirits with spinning blade traps, and knew that their cube of force would make it too easy, so I'd decided activatable magic items didn't work in the room. Fortunately this stopped the boots too, which would have made a mockery of it.
Wolves attack! Fly upwards and cast Firebolt until they die. Hmmm.
Personally I don't allow flying races at level 1 for those reasons.
My group finished Dragon of Icespire Peak last session.
DOIP Spoilers:
The final dungeon involves a traverse along a narrow mountain path, a guardhouse where I had an encounter planned, a series of rooms within a fortress with a few more encounters, up to the climactic battle vs. a dragon on the roof of the fortress. I had given the party one potion of flying, thinking at least one of them could have the ability to fight the dragon in midair when the dragon took to flight. What did my party do? The paladin drank the potion of flying on the path up the mountain before they even got to the gatehouse, flew straight to the top of the fortress, tied a rope to a chimney and lowered the rope for the rest of the party to climb up. And of course the other two both passed the athletics check to climb. So, they unwittingly skipped the entire fortress and went straight to the dragon. I actually thought it was pretty hilarious, and they had a really fun fight so it was all good. It did take me off guard though.
Moral of the story is, players will always surprise you. It was drastic enough with a single potion of flying, I can imagine at-will flight would really make you reconsider a lot of situations.
I have had moderate success by providing consequences for flying characters, mostly based on two principles:
Character wants to scout a swamp? On the return flight she leads half the swamp denizens to the party's location.
Character wants to fly up the cliff and nullify the whole challenge? The cliff is populated with nesting birds who would flee from 4 characters but are happy to mob a single threat.
Dropping fire bolts on wolves from 100 feet up? You're basically a fireworks display in the middle of the woods. Everyone knows you're there and not many of them are going to be happy to see you slinging fire in their forest.
Dungeons, buildings, caves, thick woods, market awnings, fog, and high winds can force fliers down to the ground as well. At least half of most campaigns occurs under some kind of overhead cover.
It's true you still have to do extra thinking for most encounters, but that's true for a lot of features or classes. In general if you make it dangerous or risky for one character to go out on their own, you can cover a lot of the issues. Of course, don't go crazy shutting it down every single time. The flier should still be extremely helpful in a cliff-climbing challenge and useful as a scout. They just don't get to automatically win at those things without facing additional or alternate challenges.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I have no idea if WoTC are considering flying low level adventurers in future adventures.
However as a DM I like to remind the adventurers once in a while that ranged weapons or spells are rather handy against flying opponents - two winged Kobolds with bows can make the most hardened melee fighter really wish he had a bow or crossbow and a bit more than 8 DEX. Then an Adventurer playing an Araakocra recently reminded me that most of that Orc warband probably has a bow or a few javellins available to return the favour.
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