One of the players in my campaign is a Aarakocra. I've seen people mention that creatures with Flying not Flying(hover) have to move each turn or they start falling but I haven't been able to find that information in the PHB or DMG. Can someone point out where I can find the rules for Flying?
There is no rule saying that a flying creature must move on each of its turns without falling.
So an Aarakocra can fly 50 feet in the air and spend each of their turns shooting arrows at stuff without using any movement and not fall?
This is why flying races are not a valid choice in Adventurers League play. They can really unbalance some encounters by flying into the air and sniping. At level 4 they could take sharpshooter and demolish outdoor encounters from 600' up with little of countering them ... unless everyone runs inside :)
There is no rule saying that a flying creature must move on each of its turns without falling.
So an Aarakocra can fly 50 feet in the air and spend each of their turns shooting arrows at stuff without using any movement and not fall?
This is why flying races are not a valid choice in Adventurers League play. They can really unbalance some encounters by flying into the air and sniping. At level 4 they could take sharpshooter and demolish outdoor encounters from 600' up with little of countering them ... unless everyone runs inside :)
But if they do get hit with an effect that knocks them prone or reduces their speed to 0, they will probably not survive the fall from 600 feet.
Yeah, they can also be shot in the open, alert enemies in the distance that players are coming, and if while shot in the open or targeted by spells that immobilize them fall and get instant splatted by death.
Low level flyers are more vulnerable to instant death than high level flyers, flying becomes more useful but more risky. Is quite the trade off.
That said, I've had on again off again rules involving flight and spacing. My Flight homebrew rules, which only works for creatures with wings.
While flying you count as one size larger in terms of spacing and target area for enemies, you must have enough space to move as if you were one size larger or flight is impossible except on a dive. As a result you need reach weapons to melee in the air as your reach does not increase except on a dive, which you can only do if you both move, attack, and move again as part of the same action (which might provoke an attack of opportunity), or land at the end of your attack. During the downswing of a dive attack you reacquire your normal spacing but regain your increased spacing on the upswing. Also, while hovering, meaning any turn in which you maintain flight without moving, all ranged shooters gain advantage on attacks against you, which might cancel out any disadvantage they have for range or any rough version of aerial cover they might attempt to use.
There is no rule saying that a flying creature must move on each of its turns without falling.
I don't understand how most flying creatures would be able to do this, though. Forward momentum is part of what keeps most flying creatures airborne. Hummingbirds are the rare exception and they're tiny birds that use huge amounts of energy to hover. This is an aspect of in-game flight mechanics that pretty much just plain ignores how air resistance and gravity work.
Not saying this is realistic, but how relevant would a rule handling hovering be ? I feel like in most cases, the flyer could just do a bullshit movement to satisfy the move condition.
I've never had a flying PC at my table (not without magic anyway), but I'd rather have a rule for taking a hit while in flight (and possibly plummeting, or just losing altitude) than hovering. But maybe i'm missing something here.
Not saying this is realistic, but how relevant would a rule handling hovering be ? I feel like in most cases, the flyer could just do a bullshit movement to satisfy the move condition.
I've never had a flying PC at my table (not without magic anyway), but I'd rather have a rule for taking a hit while in flight (and possibly plummeting, or just losing altitude) than hovering. But maybe i'm missing something here.
The thing with hovering vs. movement for the sake of maintaining flight is that the latter requires more space. Let's say that your character is an aarakocra in a 4-story tower that is 15' by 15' square in width/length. A medium sized creature should have difficulty maintaining altitude in such an enclosed setting b/c you would be crashing into the walls to stay in the air. A creature that flies by hovering or using pure magic would not have this problem b/c forward momentum plays no part in their remaining aloft. My point is, there should be a minimum speed necessary for most winged flight creatures in order to stay at the same altitude.
There is no rule saying that a flying creature must move on each of its turns without falling.
So an Aarakocra can fly 50 feet in the air and spend each of their turns shooting arrows at stuff without using any movement and not fall?
This is why flying races are not a valid choice in Adventurers League play. They can really unbalance some encounters by flying into the air and sniping. At level 4 they could take sharpshooter and demolish outdoor encounters from 600' up with little of countering them ... unless everyone runs inside :)
But if they do get hit with an effect that knocks them prone or reduces their speed to 0, they will probably not survive the fall from 600 feet.
I would say that if they get knocked prone it would only damage them if they would hit the ground within 6 seconds, otherwise they would recover at the start of their next turn and be able to keep themselves in the air.
The rules for falling from great heights is that you descend 200 ft immediately and then another 200 ft thereafter. So as long as your bird can right himself in 2 rounds, he’ll be fine.
And really, there’s only two ways to realistically hit someone 600 ft away and that’s with a longbow at disadvantage or as a warlock with eldritch spear and spell sniper, so not much is going to be touching our far out friend.
As for comparing this to real life, there are many simplifications for the sake of convenience and game balance, so it’s best not to get hung up on any particular detail (personally I’d like a more in depth combat system, but the way it is is simpler).
Is flight in D&D physics or magic? There are races and creatures with wings whose size, mass and the size of the available wing area would not support flight based on physics considerations. I suspect that most of not all D&D races with flight are in this category. Based on physics, they wouldn’t be able to fly at all.
As a result, introducing ad hoc home brew rules to make flight more “realistic” don’t really make much sense since flight for these creatures based on physics is already impossible. They require inherent magic in order to fly at all and as soon as magic is required to make something work then why introduce rules to limit flight capabilities that must already be magical to some extent in the first place?
Creating varying rules for flight makes flight more interesting. Aerial maneuvers are not very different from maneuvering on land. There are three dimensions to consider always, as well as gravity. IMO, there should be optional flight rules that allow creatures increased or decreased aerial mobility. It would make combat on the wing more nuanced and tactical.
If you look at the monster lore and stats in the 4e Monster Manual, Copper Dragons had the Spider Climb ability. Why? Well, the lore description explains that Copper Dragons used it to out-maneuver other dragons in cave settings. If all flying creatures could hover, there would be no particular advantage to Spider Climb since flying in and around rock formations would be easy as walking around them. (Copper Dragons in 5e still have a Climb speed, BTW, but it's not explained why or how they use it.) But it's supposed to be difficult, which is why that got imagined and published in the first place. Does that match anything that we see in popular media? Why, yes! There's no point in sending the Millennium Falcon into an asteroid field to evade imperial TIE fighters if all ships have perfect maneuverability, right? Same thing applies here.
Also, by layering flight rules a little, you're also reducing the power level of most flying creatures. As noted above, being able to just hover hundreds of feet up and firing down is Huge at lower levels. Why not even the playing field a little so that PCs get to out-think their flying foes or create ways for NPC villains to mitigate the advantages of an always-on flight ability? This makes playing an Aarakocra both harder and somewhat less OP.
Is flight in D&D physics or magic? There are races and creatures with wings whose size, mass and the size of the available wing area would not support flight based on physics considerations. I suspect that most of not all D&D races with flight are in this category. Based on physics, they wouldn’t be able to fly at all.
As a result, introducing ad hoc home brew rules to make flight more “realistic” don’t really make much sense since flight for these creatures based on physics is already impossible. They require inherent magic in order to fly at all and as soon as magic is required to make something work then why introduce rules to limit flight capabilities that must already be magical to some extent in the first place?
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One of the players in my campaign is a Aarakocra. I've seen people mention that creatures with Flying not Flying(hover) have to move each turn or they start falling but I haven't been able to find that information in the PHB or DMG. Can someone point out where I can find the rules for Flying?
https://www.dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/phb/combat#FlyingMovement
There is no rule saying that a flying creature must move on each of its turns without falling.
So an Aarakocra can fly 50 feet in the air and spend each of their turns shooting arrows at stuff without using any movement and not fall?
Yes.
Thanks for the clarification!
This is why flying races are not a valid choice in Adventurers League play. They can really unbalance some encounters by flying into the air and sniping. At level 4 they could take sharpshooter and demolish outdoor encounters from 600' up with little of countering them ... unless everyone runs inside :)
But if they do get hit with an effect that knocks them prone or reduces their speed to 0, they will probably not survive the fall from 600 feet.
You can probably counter this problem by makeing more flying creatures and deveoping a stronger system of airial combat.
Yeah, they can also be shot in the open, alert enemies in the distance that players are coming, and if while shot in the open or targeted by spells that immobilize them fall and get instant splatted by death.
Low level flyers are more vulnerable to instant death than high level flyers, flying becomes more useful but more risky. Is quite the trade off.
That said, I've had on again off again rules involving flight and spacing. My Flight homebrew rules, which only works for creatures with wings.
While flying you count as one size larger in terms of spacing and target area for enemies, you must have enough space to move as if you were one size larger or flight is impossible except on a dive. As a result you need reach weapons to melee in the air as your reach does not increase except on a dive, which you can only do if you both move, attack, and move again as part of the same action (which might provoke an attack of opportunity), or land at the end of your attack. During the downswing of a dive attack you reacquire your normal spacing but regain your increased spacing on the upswing. Also, while hovering, meaning any turn in which you maintain flight without moving, all ranged shooters gain advantage on attacks against you, which might cancel out any disadvantage they have for range or any rough version of aerial cover they might attempt to use.
I don't understand how most flying creatures would be able to do this, though. Forward momentum is part of what keeps most flying creatures airborne. Hummingbirds are the rare exception and they're tiny birds that use huge amounts of energy to hover. This is an aspect of in-game flight mechanics that pretty much just plain ignores how air resistance and gravity work.
Sounds like another thing I could add to my optional flight rules.
Would you might sharing those in the Homebrew section, Ardenwolf? I'm working on homebrew rules for purely underwater settings, myself. We can swap.
Not saying this is realistic, but how relevant would a rule handling hovering be ? I feel like in most cases, the flyer could just do a bullshit movement to satisfy the move condition.
I've never had a flying PC at my table (not without magic anyway), but I'd rather have a rule for taking a hit while in flight (and possibly plummeting, or just losing altitude) than hovering. But maybe i'm missing something here.
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Not saying this is realistic, but how relevant would a rule handling hovering be ? I feel like in most cases, the flyer could just do a bullshit movement to satisfy the move condition.
I've never had a flying PC at my table (not without magic anyway), but I'd rather have a rule for taking a hit while in flight (and possibly plummeting, or just losing altitude) than hovering. But maybe i'm missing something here.
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The thing with hovering vs. movement for the sake of maintaining flight is that the latter requires more space. Let's say that your character is an aarakocra in a 4-story tower that is 15' by 15' square in width/length. A medium sized creature should have difficulty maintaining altitude in such an enclosed setting b/c you would be crashing into the walls to stay in the air. A creature that flies by hovering or using pure magic would not have this problem b/c forward momentum plays no part in their remaining aloft. My point is, there should be a minimum speed necessary for most winged flight creatures in order to stay at the same altitude.
Done and expanded on. Really is more musings than anything. Though have implemented some of them in past.
I would say that if they get knocked prone it would only damage them if they would hit the ground within 6 seconds, otherwise they would recover at the start of their next turn and be able to keep themselves in the air.
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The rules for falling from great heights is that you descend 200 ft immediately and then another 200 ft thereafter. So as long as your bird can right himself in 2 rounds, he’ll be fine.
And really, there’s only two ways to realistically hit someone 600 ft away and that’s with a longbow at disadvantage or as a warlock with eldritch spear and spell sniper, so not much is going to be touching our far out friend.
As for comparing this to real life, there are many simplifications for the sake of convenience and game balance, so it’s best not to get hung up on any particular detail (personally I’d like a more in depth combat system, but the way it is is simpler).
Is flight in D&D physics or magic? There are races and creatures with wings whose size, mass and the size of the available wing area would not support flight based on physics considerations. I suspect that most of not all D&D races with flight are in this category. Based on physics, they wouldn’t be able to fly at all.
As a result, introducing ad hoc home brew rules to make flight more “realistic” don’t really make much sense since flight for these creatures based on physics is already impossible. They require inherent magic in order to fly at all and as soon as magic is required to make something work then why introduce rules to limit flight capabilities that must already be magical to some extent in the first place?
Creating varying rules for flight makes flight more interesting. Aerial maneuvers are
notvery different from maneuvering on land. There are three dimensions to consider always, as well as gravity. IMO, there should be optional flight rules that allow creatures increased or decreased aerial mobility. It would make combat on the wing more nuanced and tactical.If you look at the monster lore and stats in the 4e Monster Manual, Copper Dragons had the Spider Climb ability. Why? Well, the lore description explains that Copper Dragons used it to out-maneuver other dragons in cave settings. If all flying creatures could hover, there would be no particular advantage to Spider Climb since flying in and around rock formations would be easy as walking around them. (Copper Dragons in 5e still have a Climb speed, BTW, but it's not explained why or how they use it.) But it's supposed to be difficult, which is why that got imagined and published in the first place. Does that match anything that we see in popular media? Why, yes! There's no point in sending the Millennium Falcon into an asteroid field to evade imperial TIE fighters if all ships have perfect maneuverability, right? Same thing applies here.
Also, by layering flight rules a little, you're also reducing the power level of most flying creatures. As noted above, being able to just hover hundreds of feet up and firing down is Huge at lower levels. Why not even the playing field a little so that PCs get to out-think their flying foes or create ways for NPC villains to mitigate the advantages of an always-on flight ability? This makes playing an Aarakocra both harder and somewhat less OP.