I decided the plane shift to Eltruel would have them arrive 500-ish feet ABOVE the city. (cliffhanger of the last session) Obviously with Taxigor (arch mage) with them he has feather fall and fly.
So my plan is to have him cast fly on all of them right before they are ambushed by either a couple of Vrocks/Abiashi etc.
Anyone ever run a full aerial combat. We are playing via roll20 and would love some advice on how to handle a truly 3 dimensional encounter. Or should I just tell them to try to focus on the 2d (vertical aspect) to try and keep it simple.
I just loved the idea of this encounter so much so i just went into it at the end of a session, now I need to figure out how to run it smoothly to make it as epic as i think it could be.
Cool idea! Who says you have to show up on the ground?
Will your tool allow this the following idea (shifting coordinates)?: I would define 500 feet as "0." As your players move on the map, have them mark if they are above that level (color code blue), or below (color code green) with a number of how many feet above or below 500 feet. Estimate the math if they fly at a diagonal and change elevation.
(Or you can use something like this calculator, if someone is super fussy about numbers, where their movement speed would be the C dimension: https://handymath.com/cgi-bin/angle4.cgi Have them calculate numbers before their turn if they want to use it, so it doesn't become a time sink.)
Thanks. Yes Roll20 VTT will allow the altitude/horizontal (X/y axis) to be marked very easily. Was more just thinking conceptually. I don't see the encounter lasting too long, and the group is always pretty easy. So i don't foresee any major issues since I doubt they want to track movement on the Z axis any more than I do.
So, I picture looking down at the battle map from a point high in the sky, x-y as horizontal, z managed with +/- notations.
However, you could also have y be the vertical axis, and they can just imagine horizontal depth into the page. Either way is totally valid.
In real life, we've put miniatures on towers of blocks (or anything stackable). Each turn, you can move the towers, and then adjust the tower heights on by adding or removing blocks.
You’re right I think a top down view with the altitude rage might be easiest.
I’ve had ground battles with flying characters in real life. Which is usually pretty simple with risers. But starting everyone falling from 500ft of a VTT made me really have to think about it.
Hey Everyone,
Just hit Chapter 2 in Decent into Avernus.
I decided the plane shift to Eltruel would have them arrive 500-ish feet ABOVE the city. (cliffhanger of the last session) Obviously with Taxigor (arch mage) with them he has feather fall and fly.
So my plan is to have him cast fly on all of them right before they are ambushed by either a couple of Vrocks/Abiashi etc.
Anyone ever run a full aerial combat. We are playing via roll20 and would love some advice on how to handle a truly 3 dimensional encounter. Or should I just tell them to try to focus on the 2d (vertical aspect) to try and keep it simple.
I just loved the idea of this encounter so much so i just went into it at the end of a session, now I need to figure out how to run it smoothly to make it as epic as i think it could be.
Thanks!
Cool idea! Who says you have to show up on the ground?
Will your tool allow this the following idea (shifting coordinates)?: I would define 500 feet as "0." As your players move on the map, have them mark if they are above that level (color code blue), or below (color code green) with a number of how many feet above or below 500 feet. Estimate the math if they fly at a diagonal and change elevation.
(Or you can use something like this calculator, if someone is super fussy about numbers, where their movement speed would be the C dimension: https://handymath.com/cgi-bin/angle4.cgi Have them calculate numbers before their turn if they want to use it, so it doesn't become a time sink.)
Thanks. Yes Roll20 VTT will allow the altitude/horizontal (X/y axis) to be marked very easily. Was more just thinking conceptually. I don't see the encounter lasting too long, and the group is always pretty easy. So i don't foresee any major issues since I doubt they want to track movement on the Z axis any more than I do.
So, I picture looking down at the battle map from a point high in the sky, x-y as horizontal, z managed with +/- notations.
However, you could also have y be the vertical axis, and they can just imagine horizontal depth into the page. Either way is totally valid.
In real life, we've put miniatures on towers of blocks (or anything stackable). Each turn, you can move the towers, and then adjust the tower heights on by adding or removing blocks.
Aerial battles are cool.
In Roll20, the colored dots can have numbers put on them.
I use them to represent height above ground.
Thanks both of you.
You’re right I think a top down view with the altitude rage might be easiest.
I’ve had ground battles with flying characters in real life. Which is usually pretty simple with risers. But starting everyone falling from 500ft of a VTT made me really have to think about it.
For simplicity, you might consider constraining vertical movement to "tiers", rather than trying to keep track of actual elevations.
+2
+1
0
-1
+2
Each flight path corresponding to a ~60ft elevation change. Then within that tier, you're either High or Low.
This lets you determine "High Ground" in chunks, rather than having people constantly jockying for position.
It can also help to simplify calculating spell and attack ranges.