I was curious as to what people think about magical based flight while moving through water. Could it be used to move the full movement speed? For example, if you cast Fly on yourself underwater, without having a swimming speed, could you move the full 60ft of movement Fly gives you?
Iv seen many people saying "No, swimming is not flying" which I understand in the sense of winged flight, but I have not seen anyone mention winged flight would require being able to move your wings freely and swimming requires some sort of movement from your body, like the breast stroke, kicking your legs, moving your arms to stabilize yourself, etc. which is why that wouldn't work. However, magical flight does not require your body to move at all, as long as your conscious you may move around as you please.
The DM might allow you to use your flying speed rather than walking speed to swim, but it'd still cost you double. The rules don't address that explicitly, though Jeremy Crawford ruled it can be done, and there are monsters with 0 walking speed that ought to be able to function underwater (e.g. Flying Sword, Banshee.)
I agree with IC that magical flight should enable some movement underwater, but at 1/2 speed at best. Even though magical flight does not require a creature to move any appendage, that creature still has to deal with water resistance. Water is much denser than air, which is why top speeds for known IRL "fast" water creatures like marlins or sailfish does not compare well to top speeds of "fast" IRL air creatures, like peregrine falcons.
The rules actually do account for a 1/2 speed penalty when trying to "fly" in water. Whenever you don't have a speed for a defined type of movement, you incur a penalty to your movement, it can also be compounded by difficult terrain rules. Partial quote below.
Climbing, Swimming, and Crawling
Each foot of movement costs 1 extra foot (2 extra feet in difficult terrain) when you’re climbing, swimming, or crawling. You ignore this extra cost if you have a climbing speed and use it to climb or a swimming speed and use it to swim.
If you are flying in the water and have a fly speed of 60 feet, your movement distance in the water becomes 30 feet(where each foot moved eats up 2 of your 60 speed). If the water is choppy, with strong undercurrents, you might be cut down to 20 ft of movement distance(each foot moved eats up 3 of your 60 speed) as a difficult terrain penalty.
One weird thing I did notice is that a creature with a swim speed of 30 moves as far as a flying creature with a speed of 60 in normal water conditions but, the same creature with a swim speed 30 only moves 15 in difficult terrain in the water. That's assuming that the creature ignores the normal additional movement cost associated with swimming due to having a swim speed but, is still affected by difficult terrain penalties. I find it hard to imagine that the difficult terrain penalty is ignored as well but, that may be RAI.
It's possible they did consider it but decided it's such a minor corner case it wasn't worth imposing harsher penalties on difficult terrain while crawling and climbing. The difference is pretty small and having a swimming speed is still a big advantage for most characters since it frees you up to use any melee weapon you want.
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I was curious as to what people think about magical based flight while moving through water. Could it be used to move the full movement speed? For example, if you cast Fly on yourself underwater, without having a swimming speed, could you move the full 60ft of movement Fly gives you?
Iv seen many people saying "No, swimming is not flying" which I understand in the sense of winged flight, but I have not seen anyone mention winged flight would require being able to move your wings freely and swimming requires some sort of movement from your body, like the breast stroke, kicking your legs, moving your arms to stabilize yourself, etc. which is why that wouldn't work. However, magical flight does not require your body to move at all, as long as your conscious you may move around as you please.
The DM might allow you to use your flying speed rather than walking speed to swim, but it'd still cost you double. The rules don't address that explicitly, though Jeremy Crawford ruled it can be done, and there are monsters with 0 walking speed that ought to be able to function underwater (e.g. Flying Sword, Banshee.)
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I agree with IC that magical flight should enable some movement underwater, but at 1/2 speed at best. Even though magical flight does not require a creature to move any appendage, that creature still has to deal with water resistance. Water is much denser than air, which is why top speeds for known IRL "fast" water creatures like marlins or sailfish does not compare well to top speeds of "fast" IRL air creatures, like peregrine falcons.
The rules actually do account for a 1/2 speed penalty when trying to "fly" in water. Whenever you don't have a speed for a defined type of movement, you incur a penalty to your movement, it can also be compounded by difficult terrain rules. Partial quote below.
If you are flying in the water and have a fly speed of 60 feet, your movement distance in the water becomes 30 feet(where each foot moved eats up 2 of your 60 speed). If the water is choppy, with strong undercurrents, you might be cut down to 20 ft of movement distance(each foot moved eats up 3 of your 60 speed) as a difficult terrain penalty.
One weird thing I did notice is that a creature with a swim speed of 30 moves as far as a flying creature with a speed of 60 in normal water conditions but, the same creature with a swim speed 30 only moves 15 in difficult terrain in the water. That's assuming that the creature ignores the normal additional movement cost associated with swimming due to having a swim speed but, is still affected by difficult terrain penalties. I find it hard to imagine that the difficult terrain penalty is ignored as well but, that may be RAI.
It could be the designers just didn't give much thought to difficult water terrain.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
It's possible they did consider it but decided it's such a minor corner case it wasn't worth imposing harsher penalties on difficult terrain while crawling and climbing. The difference is pretty small and having a swimming speed is still a big advantage for most characters since it frees you up to use any melee weapon you want.
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