Does anyone else see the flying speed of a dragon to be rather... lackluster? RAW shoes 80 ft per 6 seconds, which is basically 9 mph. That seems sluggish. Maybe it's meant as a speed minimum.. the minimum mph they would need to fly in order to stay aloft (doubtful but more realistic IMO). IRL, hawks can fly at speeds of up to 20-50 mph during ordinary flight, while they can reach up to 120 mph when diving. Game stats for a hawk puts it at 7 mph. IRL Peregrine Falcons can fly twice this speed. I would expect a dragon to match a hawk if not exceed. I'm going to homebrew a rule mod that boosts the flying speeds of all flying creatures to a more realistic number, but before I do, I wanted to see what y'all think and if anyone has devised a better rule for their flight speed. Thanks in advance!
The game mechanics are human centric... Dragons have 80 ft per 6 second because 80 feet per 6 seconds is sufficiently more impressive than 30 feet per 6 second. 30 feet per 6 seconds is decently average. The fastest human sprinters go approximately 300 feet in 10 seconds. That give us 30 feet per second--uncomplexly. 30 per six is actually 60 per 6, and can rise to 90 per 6, which is 10 or 15 per 1. The place where the rules are out of pace with reality is at the long march section, where humans can run multiple sequential marathons in a way the rules poorly describe. These are all balancing concerns that arise in game... Players would love to be in two places at once, would love to outrun the wind, would love to escape from the limits of biology... The game mostly provides for that already.
I anticipate that changing movement speeds--especially changing movement speeds for monsters which already have higher movement speeds than most PCs--won't change the game much. But you have identified one of the parts of the game that could have a lot of unintended interactions. I would say that so long as the change facilitates fun, it's a good one. The game's capacity to simulate reality is not likely to be it's best quality...
Any creature can use their action to dash, essentially doubling their speed. In addition, the speed per round is assuming combat, as that is almost the only time that timing by rounds matters. Due to this, any per-round speeds are assuming that the creature is not solely concentrating on moving as fast as possible, but is also manoeuvering and changing directions to defend themselves, etc. Finally, the entire game is an abstraction and demanding strict realism on innumerable points is detrimental to D&D working as an effective set of game rules. Digging too deep into the rules and deciding to change them for the sake of "realism" can then allow players to exploit the changed, more "realistic" rules in ways that are sometimes game breaking.
In short, if you want your dragons to travel more quickly outside of combat where it does not affect game balance as directly, I would say you should feel free to allow that. If you want two or more creatures to just flat out race, you can either use/modify the chase rules or figure out a system for yourself that seems reasonable.
Any creature can use their action to dash, essentially doubling their speed. In addition, the speed per round is assuming combat, as that is almost the only time that timing by rounds matters. Due to this, any per-round speeds are assuming that the creature is not solely concentrating on moving as fast as possible, but is also manoeuvering and changing directions to defend themselves, etc. Finally, the entire game is an abstraction and demanding strict realism on innumerable points is detrimental to D&D working as an effective set of game rules. Digging too deep into the rules and deciding to change them for the sake of "realism" can then allow players to exploit the changed, more "realistic" rules in ways that are sometimes game breaking.
In short, if you want your dragons to travel more quickly outside of combat where it does not affect game balance as directly, I would say you should feel free to allow that. If you want two or more creatures to just flat out race, you can either use/modify the chase rules or figure out a system for yourself that seems reasonable.
Also, a dragon can use their wing attack legendary action even when no target is around if they just want to fly up to half their speed outside their turn. So if they want to, a dragon can fly 200 feet in a round, which is enough to get them out of the range of most spells and outside the normal range of just about any ranged weapon. And then it gets them right back in to wreak havoc on the next turn. I would say they are some of the most mobile creatures in the game.
Any creature can use their action to dash, essentially doubling their speed. In addition, the speed per round is assuming combat, as that is almost the only time that timing by rounds matters. Due to this, any per-round speeds are assuming that the creature is not solely concentrating on moving as fast as possible, but is also manoeuvering and changing directions to defend themselves, etc. Finally, the entire game is an abstraction and demanding strict realism on innumerable points is detrimental to D&D working as an effective set of game rules. Digging too deep into the rules and deciding to change them for the sake of "realism" can then allow players to exploit the changed, more "realistic" rules in ways that are sometimes game breaking.
In short, if you want your dragons to travel more quickly outside of combat where it does not affect game balance as directly, I would say you should feel free to allow that. If you want two or more creatures to just flat out race, you can either use/modify the chase rules or figure out a system for yourself that seems reasonable.
Personally I view speed on character sheets and stat blocks as 'within the confines of combat'. There's an entirely different subset of rules in the PHB for overland travel, and even those are suggestions; the DMG has additional info as well. Adventurers on foot travel at a "slow" pace, which works out to about a speed of 17 which is less than the standard 30. So how fast you want things to move when people aren't fighting them is entirely up to you.
Also, things don't always travel at their top speed because it's not sustainable.
Generally speaking, the movement speeds are designed to fit on a standard game map, which covers roughly 120-150 feet in any direction (more or less given the size of your map, but the large format one I use is 200' x 140' which is a 30"x42" sheet (with 1" margins). Giving creatures speeds that exceed that basically makes miniature play very difficult if not impossible, so most creatures are designed with speeds relative to each other, but not relative to real life (or typical "live" depictions).
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Does anyone else see the flying speed of a dragon to be rather... lackluster? RAW shoes 80 ft per 6 seconds, which is basically 9 mph. That seems sluggish. Maybe it's meant as a speed minimum.. the minimum mph they would need to fly in order to stay aloft (doubtful but more realistic IMO). IRL, hawks can fly at speeds of up to 20-50 mph during ordinary flight, while they can reach up to 120 mph when diving. Game stats for a hawk puts it at 7 mph. IRL Peregrine Falcons can fly twice this speed. I would expect a dragon to match a hawk if not exceed. I'm going to homebrew a rule mod that boosts the flying speeds of all flying creatures to a more realistic number, but before I do, I wanted to see what y'all think and if anyone has devised a better rule for their flight speed. Thanks in advance!
The game mechanics are human centric... Dragons have 80 ft per 6 second because 80 feet per 6 seconds is sufficiently more impressive than 30 feet per 6 second. 30 feet per 6 seconds is decently average. The fastest human sprinters go approximately 300 feet in 10 seconds. That give us 30 feet per second--uncomplexly. 30 per six is actually 60 per 6, and can rise to 90 per 6, which is 10 or 15 per 1. The place where the rules are out of pace with reality is at the long march section, where humans can run multiple sequential marathons in a way the rules poorly describe. These are all balancing concerns that arise in game... Players would love to be in two places at once, would love to outrun the wind, would love to escape from the limits of biology... The game mostly provides for that already.
I anticipate that changing movement speeds--especially changing movement speeds for monsters which already have higher movement speeds than most PCs--won't change the game much. But you have identified one of the parts of the game that could have a lot of unintended interactions. I would say that so long as the change facilitates fun, it's a good one. The game's capacity to simulate reality is not likely to be it's best quality...
Any creature can use their action to dash, essentially doubling their speed. In addition, the speed per round is assuming combat, as that is almost the only time that timing by rounds matters. Due to this, any per-round speeds are assuming that the creature is not solely concentrating on moving as fast as possible, but is also manoeuvering and changing directions to defend themselves, etc. Finally, the entire game is an abstraction and demanding strict realism on innumerable points is detrimental to D&D working as an effective set of game rules. Digging too deep into the rules and deciding to change them for the sake of "realism" can then allow players to exploit the changed, more "realistic" rules in ways that are sometimes game breaking.
In short, if you want your dragons to travel more quickly outside of combat where it does not affect game balance as directly, I would say you should feel free to allow that. If you want two or more creatures to just flat out race, you can either use/modify the chase rules or figure out a system for yourself that seems reasonable.
Great answer, I love it!
Also, a dragon can use their wing attack legendary action even when no target is around if they just want to fly up to half their speed outside their turn. So if they want to, a dragon can fly 200 feet in a round, which is enough to get them out of the range of most spells and outside the normal range of just about any ranged weapon. And then it gets them right back in to wreak havoc on the next turn. I would say they are some of the most mobile creatures in the game.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Glad I could help.
Personally I view speed on character sheets and stat blocks as 'within the confines of combat'. There's an entirely different subset of rules in the PHB for overland travel, and even those are suggestions; the DMG has additional info as well. Adventurers on foot travel at a "slow" pace, which works out to about a speed of 17 which is less than the standard 30. So how fast you want things to move when people aren't fighting them is entirely up to you.
Also, things don't always travel at their top speed because it's not sustainable.
seems off.
a movement of 80 flying is about 9.09 miles per hour. Which is a pretty good clip.
At that size a dragon I think would glide as much as flap their wings.
However, I agree I think it should be faster.
Generally speaking, the movement speeds are designed to fit on a standard game map, which covers roughly 120-150 feet in any direction (more or less given the size of your map, but the large format one I use is 200' x 140' which is a 30"x42" sheet (with 1" margins). Giving creatures speeds that exceed that basically makes miniature play very difficult if not impossible, so most creatures are designed with speeds relative to each other, but not relative to real life (or typical "live" depictions).