Hello! I'm an aspiring DM who has played D&D for some time now. I want to run my games with nearly all of D&DB's species (save LotR species, 2014 human & var human, & Ekorre Ratatosk). One thing that has been bugging me a bit however is flight & gliding. There are quite a lot of different species with flying & gliding done differently: some have armor penalties, some have temporary flight on cooldown between days, some gliding is simple, some isn't, & some species don't even have penalties! The worst part, some DMs just straight up don't allow flying races, which as someone with a fairy character in his arsenal of D&D PCs, is lame. So, I wanted to streamline all of these species' flight or gliding, change any outlying features that are too free or too limited, & want to make a more whimsical & fun experience whilst not making combat completely avoidable; all for 2024 rules.
Here's what I got for the species:
•Azureborn cannot use their flight with Medium or Heavy armor (like the Aarakocra, Fairy, & Owlin). Variant Feral Tieflings can't use flight with Medium armor either.
•Any & all gliding features (such as those for Humblewood races) will use the glide mechanics of the Hadozee. Same rules for flight are added though: no gliding if wearing medium or heavy armor.
•Dragonborn & Aasimar (2024 PH versions) gain inate flight equal to their walking speed at the levels where they'd gain a temporary flight ability (Level 3 for Aasimar, Level 5 for Dragonborn). You can determine the nature of your wings & how you've come to gain the ability to fly with them all of a sudden & they need not be spectral. (Same armor rules for flight apply)
Combat stuff for balance:
•Some indoor spaces will only have a 10 foot headspace, forcing encounters with ground enemies.
•Places with higher ceilings will either have enemies that can also fly (or even glide or climb walls & ceilings), ranged enemies, or hazards like falling icicles or dripstones (maybe even all of these will be in play)
…And there you have it. Again, I'm an aspiring DM & I still need to get my foot in the water with some oneshots first, but I'd still appreciate some feedback from more experienced DMs.
And no, I don't wish to hear how I should just use RAW rules or how Humblewood races shouldn't be in any other setting. I want my players to have creative fun & not explain to them why their Dragonborn can only fly 10 minutes a day & save myself the trouble of learning two entirely separate glide mechanics & which races have what armor penalties they do or don't have.
I want a streamlined experience that's balanced yet doesn't make flight unusable. And I want all you to help with that :]
Patch 1 Edits (kudos to Agilemind):
•Removed DC 10 Con Save for flying upwards more than 20 feet.
•Removed getting hit by birds as a mechanic. How it worked is below for archival purposes.
—————————————————————————————
In open, outdoor areas where combat is mainly on the ground, moving up too far into the sky (let's say usually at the 50 foot range as an example) will impose you getting struck by some sort of bird or flock of birds
You must make a DC 15 DEX Save. On a success, you take half as much of damage & are pushed down 10 feet. On a failure, you take full damage & plummet to the ground taking fall damage & are knocked prone.
The type of bird will be determined by a D4:
1. Angry Crow: A particularly viscous crow swoops in & starts to fight you. It deals 1d6 Bludgeoning damage.
2. Group of Hummingbirds: A peck-happy squad of hummingbirds think you are a flower somehow & start picking at you painfully. They deal 2d6 piercing damage.
3. Flock of Pigeons: a flock of pigeons on their way to migrate fly into you at full force. They deal 3d6 Force damage.
4. KAMIKAZE EAGLE: An eagle dives down from above with a miniture scroll of fireball strapped onto it's breast as it homes in specifically on you, exploding on impact. You take 4d6 fire damage & take an additional 1d4 fire damage for 2 turns after from afterburn.
These birds will only appear in such a case & not in: RP, scouting, combat with verticality in mind, fighting flying enemies, & indoors (duh)
Additionally, there is no way to kill or fight against these birds for they appear & leave in seconds.
The "you get hit by a bird" mechanic seems arbitrary and unfun, same for the "if you fly upwards make a con save". If you want your players to be creative and fun, allow them to be creative and fun, don't impose artificial height limitations on their flight.
Flight in combat isn't really an issue, just include a bunch of flying / ranged enemies in every combat and flight doesn't really matter anymore. Flight is mostly OP in non-combat situations, and your arbitrary limitations doesn't address that at all.
Mainly put that there in case there's a scenario in which a player wants to just straight up avoid combat & fly away. That, & I really thought a kamikaze eagle was funny. But yeah, probably best to just keep things simple & save kamikaze eagles for a more special event.
As for non-combat scenarios, magical forcefields, guarded skies, heavy winds, & whatnot seems logical; but do correct me if I'm missing a big part of the picture.
Magical forcefields require a very powerful mage to set up, so it isn't logical for them to exist just everywhere in the world and it's even less logical for them to specifically block flight but nothing else. Guarded skies is simply turning a non-combat scenario into a combat scenario. Heavy winds likewise doesn't make sense to be everywhere constantly. An environmental challenge like scaling a cliff on a mountain path you can get away with a heavy wind making flying risky, or crossing a narrow bridge over a stone chasm. But something like crossing a river in a jungle, crossing a broken bridge in a bunch of ruins, or retrieving something from the top of a tree or the ceiling in a dungeon is made obsolete by flight.
E.g. if the whole party (or majority can) then something like: "you must journey through the dark dangerous wood to reach the ruined temple" becomes "you fly over the forest and land on the roof of the temple". Or "you must cross the lake that rumours say is home to an ancient monster" turns into "you fly across the lake noticing only a ripple across the surface below". Similarly, a magically defended Wizard's tower might have a magical forcefield around it, but if it does it makes no sense for the beefy barbarian or acrobatic rogue to be able to climb up the outside and find a window to peak inside/break into but for the flying fairy to not be able to simply fly up and look through a window.
It's not that it's impossible to DM a flight-heavy game, it is certainly possible and many do it just fine. It's just that it fundamentally changes how the DM has to run the game, which is why the guidance is always to ask the DM first, because some DMs are fine with the more narrow quest & combat options available when much of the party can fly vs when they cannot. Similar with the examples above your choices for combat encounters are similarly narrowed - because you must include ranged / flying enemies something like "there's a displacer beast stalking the party as they travel through the jungle" isn't a threat to a flying party, same for "a purple worm suddenly bursts from the ground in front of you!", or "a pack of starving wolves approaches the party's campsite", or even "a group of bandits have set an ambush on the road."
You also have to be a bit careful about things you add to make flying a risky solution, because they can introduce new things for players to interact with. Kamikaze Eagle could be a druid's new best friend and companion after they nurse it back to health. A flock of birds can be a guide or a witness to a player character with Speak to Animals. A magical forcefield could be a target for Dispel Magic. A swirling bunch of razor blades on the ceiling could be a way for the party to deal damage to enemies by shoving them into them.
Lastly, players want to use their class & species abilities to solve challenges, arbitrarily preventing the use of flight to solve problems but allowing an elf's magic, or a dwarf's tremorsense, or a halfling's sneakiness to solve challenges will feel unfair to the players. If you want to give lots of PCs flight, then you should want them to use that flight to overcome challenges in your game. If you don't want flight to be a way the party overcomes challenges it is better to simply ban it. Taking a position of "I want to allow player characters to fly for aesthetics but not for the mechanical benefits" isn't a good choice.
I said it kinda broad, but I never really intend for forcefields, heavy winds, or guarded skies to be everywhere; not to say I won't use them, just sparingly whilst not making flight completely useless.
For instance:
•The section of the bustling city dedicated to lavish homes for nobility & the rich which the party must steal an ancient artifact from. Unfortunately, due to its sheer exclusivity, a magical dome barrier encompass all the estates despite the rest of the city being fairy lenient with flight. Unfortunately, diving in from above & climbing over the walls is a no-go; the party must find another way in. However, the dome only reaches so high. A PC with flight & a keen eye could get a good view from above to try & find any areas in which they could sneak in through. And just to make sure, this would likely be at around lvl 6 for our party so dispelling this barrier of obviously much higher magic is a no go.
As for what you mentioned with the examples that could be completely negated with flight, here are a few way's I'd go about it:
•You wave bye to the rest of a party for a time as you fly ahead to the ruined mansion in the dark woods. Tis a smooth flight, if a bit chilly. Once you arrive at the mansion & perch on the roof, a feeling begins to creep along your back, a feeling that you are being watched. You look around to find no other obvious living beings, but do find stone statues perched on the corners of the manor for decor. (Let's say if the player wants to see if they're living. Let's also say the corresponding check results in failure). You think nothing more other than they are finely carved, if very aged, stone statues of the creature. You attempt to enter the mansion through a window, but you then here the cracking of stone & a screech as the stone gargoyle springs to life & charges at you. The other gargoyles follow suit. Roll initiative. (Then here, the player could choose whether to fight, run into the building, or fly as fast as they can back to the party so they could have a chance of survival).
•After some time, you all reach the lake in which a sea monster is rumored to live. Despite all the hub-bub, the waters seem stiller than stone. (I'd call a group perception check, let's say at least one passes). You notice a nearby bird's nest on a tree. It's a mother with her young chirping for sustenance. You see the mother take off to find food, but once she gets far enough into the lake, THE BEAST RUMORED LEAPS OUT FROM THE WATER & EATS THE MOTHER BIRD IN ONE, GINORMOUS BITE! The creature then crashes back into the lake, disturbing the water. This beast seems VERY territorial of its home.
As for stuff like high-up chests & broken bridges, I'd say that'd likely just incorporate teamwork. It's not guaranteed the flying PC will notice the ledge where something could be hiding, but a non-flying PC might & could sense potential danger. Perhaps they could tell the non-flying PC to tread carefully or ask if they could bring them up there if possible as well. If climbing isn't the challenge, put another like enemies or traps.
And the broken bridge is simple: the flying PC(s) can make it across just fine, but the rest of the party is stuck with seemingly no other way to go around. Gives the flying PCs a problem they could solve in different ways: try to carry the party across one-by-one, try to make a way across with rope tied to a pike on either end, scout about for another way around, etc.
As for the 4th paragraph on hazards being used in the players favor, I don't see much an issue with that since it allows players to be creative with how they go about some encounters (plus a Kamikaze Eagle familiar would be pretty funny, if they could get one to be that is.)
And lastly, I'm fairly certain the whole party won't just be flying PCs. With all the other PC race options & varied character concepts players have, having a party of nothing but flying PCs would be a slim chance or would take some negotiation amongst players on if they're down for it.
Once again though, correct me if I'm missing something.
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Hello! I'm an aspiring DM who has played D&D for some time now. I want to run my games with nearly all of D&DB's species (save LotR species, 2014 human & var human, & Ekorre Ratatosk). One thing that has been bugging me a bit however is flight & gliding. There are quite a lot of different species with flying & gliding done differently: some have armor penalties, some have temporary flight on cooldown between days, some gliding is simple, some isn't, & some species don't even have penalties! The worst part, some DMs just straight up don't allow flying races, which as someone with a fairy character in his arsenal of D&D PCs, is lame. So, I wanted to streamline all of these species' flight or gliding, change any outlying features that are too free or too limited, & want to make a more whimsical & fun experience whilst not making combat completely avoidable; all for 2024 rules.
Here's what I got for the species:
•Azureborn cannot use their flight with Medium or Heavy armor (like the Aarakocra, Fairy, & Owlin). Variant Feral Tieflings can't use flight with Medium armor either.
•Any & all gliding features (such as those for Humblewood races) will use the glide mechanics of the Hadozee. Same rules for flight are added though: no gliding if wearing medium or heavy armor.
•Dragonborn & Aasimar (2024 PH versions) gain inate flight equal to their walking speed at the levels where they'd gain a temporary flight ability (Level 3 for Aasimar, Level 5 for Dragonborn). You can determine the nature of your wings & how you've come to gain the ability to fly with them all of a sudden & they need not be spectral. (Same armor rules for flight apply)
Combat stuff for balance:
•Some indoor spaces will only have a 10 foot headspace, forcing encounters with ground enemies.
•Places with higher ceilings will either have enemies that can also fly (or even glide or climb walls & ceilings), ranged enemies, or hazards like falling icicles or dripstones (maybe even all of these will be in play)
…And there you have it. Again, I'm an aspiring DM & I still need to get my foot in the water with some oneshots first, but I'd still appreciate some feedback from more experienced DMs.
And no, I don't wish to hear how I should just use RAW rules or how Humblewood races shouldn't be in any other setting. I want my players to have creative fun & not explain to them why their Dragonborn can only fly 10 minutes a day & save myself the trouble of learning two entirely separate glide mechanics & which races have what armor penalties they do or don't have.
I want a streamlined experience that's balanced yet doesn't make flight unusable. And I want all you to help with that :]
Patch 1 Edits (kudos to Agilemind):
•Removed DC 10 Con Save for flying upwards more than 20 feet.
•Removed getting hit by birds as a mechanic. How it worked is below for archival purposes.
—————————————————————————————
In open, outdoor areas where combat is mainly on the ground, moving up too far into the sky (let's say usually at the 50 foot range as an example) will impose you getting struck by some sort of bird or flock of birds
You must make a DC 15 DEX Save. On a success, you take half as much of damage & are pushed down 10 feet. On a failure, you take full damage & plummet to the ground taking fall damage & are knocked prone.
The type of bird will be determined by a D4:
1. Angry Crow: A particularly viscous crow swoops in & starts to fight you. It deals 1d6 Bludgeoning damage.
2. Group of Hummingbirds: A peck-happy squad of hummingbirds think you are a flower somehow & start picking at you painfully. They deal 2d6 piercing damage.
3. Flock of Pigeons: a flock of pigeons on their way to migrate fly into you at full force. They deal 3d6 Force damage.
4. KAMIKAZE EAGLE: An eagle dives down from above with a miniture scroll of fireball strapped onto it's breast as it homes in specifically on you, exploding on impact. You take 4d6 fire damage & take an additional 1d4 fire damage for 2 turns after from afterburn.
These birds will only appear in such a case & not in: RP, scouting, combat with verticality in mind, fighting flying enemies, & indoors (duh)
Additionally, there is no way to kill or fight against these birds for they appear & leave in seconds.
The "you get hit by a bird" mechanic seems arbitrary and unfun, same for the "if you fly upwards make a con save". If you want your players to be creative and fun, allow them to be creative and fun, don't impose artificial height limitations on their flight.
Flight in combat isn't really an issue, just include a bunch of flying / ranged enemies in every combat and flight doesn't really matter anymore. Flight is mostly OP in non-combat situations, and your arbitrary limitations doesn't address that at all.
Fair enough & will be changing :]
Mainly put that there in case there's a scenario in which a player wants to just straight up avoid combat & fly away. That, & I really thought a kamikaze eagle was funny. But yeah, probably best to just keep things simple & save kamikaze eagles for a more special event.
As for non-combat scenarios, magical forcefields, guarded skies, heavy winds, & whatnot seems logical; but do correct me if I'm missing a big part of the picture.
Magical forcefields require a very powerful mage to set up, so it isn't logical for them to exist just everywhere in the world and it's even less logical for them to specifically block flight but nothing else. Guarded skies is simply turning a non-combat scenario into a combat scenario. Heavy winds likewise doesn't make sense to be everywhere constantly. An environmental challenge like scaling a cliff on a mountain path you can get away with a heavy wind making flying risky, or crossing a narrow bridge over a stone chasm. But something like crossing a river in a jungle, crossing a broken bridge in a bunch of ruins, or retrieving something from the top of a tree or the ceiling in a dungeon is made obsolete by flight.
E.g. if the whole party (or majority can) then something like: "you must journey through the dark dangerous wood to reach the ruined temple" becomes "you fly over the forest and land on the roof of the temple". Or "you must cross the lake that rumours say is home to an ancient monster" turns into "you fly across the lake noticing only a ripple across the surface below". Similarly, a magically defended Wizard's tower might have a magical forcefield around it, but if it does it makes no sense for the beefy barbarian or acrobatic rogue to be able to climb up the outside and find a window to peak inside/break into but for the flying fairy to not be able to simply fly up and look through a window.
It's not that it's impossible to DM a flight-heavy game, it is certainly possible and many do it just fine. It's just that it fundamentally changes how the DM has to run the game, which is why the guidance is always to ask the DM first, because some DMs are fine with the more narrow quest & combat options available when much of the party can fly vs when they cannot. Similar with the examples above your choices for combat encounters are similarly narrowed - because you must include ranged / flying enemies something like "there's a displacer beast stalking the party as they travel through the jungle" isn't a threat to a flying party, same for "a purple worm suddenly bursts from the ground in front of you!", or "a pack of starving wolves approaches the party's campsite", or even "a group of bandits have set an ambush on the road."
You also have to be a bit careful about things you add to make flying a risky solution, because they can introduce new things for players to interact with. Kamikaze Eagle could be a druid's new best friend and companion after they nurse it back to health. A flock of birds can be a guide or a witness to a player character with Speak to Animals. A magical forcefield could be a target for Dispel Magic. A swirling bunch of razor blades on the ceiling could be a way for the party to deal damage to enemies by shoving them into them.
Lastly, players want to use their class & species abilities to solve challenges, arbitrarily preventing the use of flight to solve problems but allowing an elf's magic, or a dwarf's tremorsense, or a halfling's sneakiness to solve challenges will feel unfair to the players. If you want to give lots of PCs flight, then you should want them to use that flight to overcome challenges in your game. If you don't want flight to be a way the party overcomes challenges it is better to simply ban it. Taking a position of "I want to allow player characters to fly for aesthetics but not for the mechanical benefits" isn't a good choice.
Yep! Makes absolute sense!
I said it kinda broad, but I never really intend for forcefields, heavy winds, or guarded skies to be everywhere; not to say I won't use them, just sparingly whilst not making flight completely useless.
For instance:
•The section of the bustling city dedicated to lavish homes for nobility & the rich which the party must steal an ancient artifact from. Unfortunately, due to its sheer exclusivity, a magical dome barrier encompass all the estates despite the rest of the city being fairy lenient with flight. Unfortunately, diving in from above & climbing over the walls is a no-go; the party must find another way in. However, the dome only reaches so high. A PC with flight & a keen eye could get a good view from above to try & find any areas in which they could sneak in through. And just to make sure, this would likely be at around lvl 6 for our party so dispelling this barrier of obviously much higher magic is a no go.
As for what you mentioned with the examples that could be completely negated with flight, here are a few way's I'd go about it:
•You wave bye to the rest of a party for a time as you fly ahead to the ruined mansion in the dark woods. Tis a smooth flight, if a bit chilly. Once you arrive at the mansion & perch on the roof, a feeling begins to creep along your back, a feeling that you are being watched. You look around to find no other obvious living beings, but do find stone statues perched on the corners of the manor for decor. (Let's say if the player wants to see if they're living. Let's also say the corresponding check results in failure). You think nothing more other than they are finely carved, if very aged, stone statues of the creature. You attempt to enter the mansion through a window, but you then here the cracking of stone & a screech as the stone gargoyle springs to life & charges at you. The other gargoyles follow suit. Roll initiative. (Then here, the player could choose whether to fight, run into the building, or fly as fast as they can back to the party so they could have a chance of survival).
•After some time, you all reach the lake in which a sea monster is rumored to live. Despite all the hub-bub, the waters seem stiller than stone. (I'd call a group perception check, let's say at least one passes). You notice a nearby bird's nest on a tree. It's a mother with her young chirping for sustenance. You see the mother take off to find food, but once she gets far enough into the lake, THE BEAST RUMORED LEAPS OUT FROM THE WATER & EATS THE MOTHER BIRD IN ONE, GINORMOUS BITE! The creature then crashes back into the lake, disturbing the water. This beast seems VERY territorial of its home.
As for stuff like high-up chests & broken bridges, I'd say that'd likely just incorporate teamwork. It's not guaranteed the flying PC will notice the ledge where something could be hiding, but a non-flying PC might & could sense potential danger. Perhaps they could tell the non-flying PC to tread carefully or ask if they could bring them up there if possible as well. If climbing isn't the challenge, put another like enemies or traps.
And the broken bridge is simple: the flying PC(s) can make it across just fine, but the rest of the party is stuck with seemingly no other way to go around. Gives the flying PCs a problem they could solve in different ways: try to carry the party across one-by-one, try to make a way across with rope tied to a pike on either end, scout about for another way around, etc.
As for the 4th paragraph on hazards being used in the players favor, I don't see much an issue with that since it allows players to be creative with how they go about some encounters (plus a Kamikaze Eagle familiar would be pretty funny, if they could get one to be that is.)
And lastly, I'm fairly certain the whole party won't just be flying PCs. With all the other PC race options & varied character concepts players have, having a party of nothing but flying PCs would be a slim chance or would take some negotiation amongst players on if they're down for it.
Once again though, correct me if I'm missing something.