That always struck me as a bit weird, even if they are official rules.
They seem to have picked simplicity of use over rigorous modeling. It would produce fewer anomalies to say that you keep the same percentage of your remaining movement, but it means multiplication every time speed changes.
i read something about a fly check in order to hover flying creatures need to make check in order to hover, even when they have a natural flight speed but theyre often so good at thise checks that they can automatically succeed...unless stated otherwise in the creatures discrption, a flying creature that wants to hover needs to make a fly check in order to do so.
RAW: You just hover even if your speed isn't (hover).
But that answer is lame and if you do aerial combats often you'll quickly see that there needs to be more to it than that. Flying combat is a reasonably large part of my campaigns so over the years it needed to get fleshed out significantly: Below is what I do these days.
Non-Hover -
Natural Flight always requires unoccupied space at least one size larger than the flyer actually occupies. (Medium flyer needs a large sized space to fly in, minimum)
If you end your movement for your turn without moving your full movement speed, it instead requires 2 sizes larger than the flyer until the start of your next turn.
If this space is ever not available, you fall. (Multiple flying creatures can share the these larger spaces, but objects block it. So no tight corridors or low ceilings, sharp corners, or trees!)
You are presumed to be moving around within this larger 'flight' space with any and all unused movement to remain aloft.
If you used less than half your fly speed on your turn, this 'aloft' movement provokes opportunity attacks, if applicable, at the end of your turn.
If falling or caused to fall, you can use your reaction to: stop falling if you have the unoccupied space 2 sizes larger available, or if not, continue falling but not take damage from the fall, and landing on your feet.
You cannot move directly up, only diagonally up, and even this costs 1 extra ft per ft moved. (A winged man fallen into a deep well has a real problem on his hands)
If you are carrying over half your carrying capacity or are wearing heavy armor, flying is considered difficult terrain for you.
Hovering -
A creature with a hover speed can simply choose to not fall as a non-action at any time (and can't take fall damage) unless unconscious, or somehow bodily (or magically) forced to move against their will.
They do not take up additional room when flying, whether moving or not moving. Their flying space is their normal space.
If ejected from a space they can halt their fall immediately outside of their opponents controlled flying space. (see below)
You can move directly up without issue, but upward movement cost 1 extra ft per ft moved. (Go rescue that dude down the well!)
General flying contests for control of the air -
Aerial Collision: Any flying creature sharing their flying space with any number of other flying creature's flying spaces may attempt to eject any number of them that they choose, potentially even all of them in range. As an action, roll contested Athletics vs Target(s) Athletics or Acrobatics. Target rolls with advantage if they choose Acrobatics. Success if you rolled Acrobatics means you are not ejected from your space. Success, if you rolled Athletics means you eject your opponent. Roll all checks and determine all result simultaneously. (Yes, the flyer initiating this action is at risk of being ejected too!)
Any creature, even without a flying speed, can attempt to perform the above action if either through jumping or some other means, can get within reach to touch them, (or to occupy any portion of their larger flying space, if applicable).
Not-flying while airborne options -
Dive: Any flying creature can voluntarily dive instead of taking their normal movement on their turn, and when doing so descend rapidly. When doing so they can significantly exceed their normal velocity, and drop up to 300ft on their turn. They can angle this controlled voluntary dive, moving straight down or diagonally downward only. Non-Hovering Flyers can expend their reaction to end this fall at their desired stopping point, Hoving Flyers can do so as a non-action. This movement doesn't provoke attacks.
Fall: You can just choose to straight up fall, too, at any point on your turn. You just fall straight down using fall rules. You could potentially recover from a fall as normal, described above. This movement doesn't provoke attacks.
Rationale/Reasoning:
So, in general this means flying creatures need more space to fly around, less so as long as they stay in motion. If they slow down, it gets even more restrictive, and they need an area free of obstacles 2 whole sizes larger than they are. So a medium sized flyer would need a 15ft cube of free space to slow down in. And, even worse, if they really slow down, and go half their move speed or less, at the end of their turn they provoke attacks as if they occupied that full 15ft cube, since in effects they are circling inside it, flapping wildly to stay aloft.
If a flyer does get knocked out of flight, either from clipping an obstacle or getting bodily halted, they have a solid chance to recover the wind in their wings. If the space is available, they can either regain flight or at least slow their fall, but as a reaction. This means getting knocked around in quick succession, or while they're preoccupied with some other reactive-business, could spell their doom.
And, with all these wings flying all around, there really needs some stakes for getting just crashed into. You think an aarakocra can just fly in the way of an angry dragon? Enter: the aerial collision action. Any flyer can try to "control" the flight space he needs, and bodily eject any enemies that try to get in too close. Athletics v Athletic means someone is getting ejected, and falls. Athletics v Acrobatics means the target might get ejected, or might avoid the ejection entirely. target's choice if they think they can take you or chicken out by ducking out of your way.
Dives and falls don't specifically count as flight, since they're more or less just gravity doing the work for you. As such, you wouldn't require extra flight space while in these descents, so could dive through a opening as large as your normal space. And because it is so fast, and not entirely under your direction, they don't provoke attacks from any other flying creature you come careening past. (Maybe a good way to divebomb and force an aerial collision? Just watch out for fall damage in that case.)
Aside from environmental/weather stuff, these homerules have made flying combat far more interesting. I can see being content with the RAW rules if flying isn't very common in your games but if it is common and you want there to be more to it, maybe this has some ideas in it for you.
That is a lot of rules for a ruleset that is meant to be 1)simple, and 2) accessible to anyone. It is also quite a lot of homebrew in there. Here are the rules:
A creature with a flying speed does not need to use movement to stay aloft, or land by the end of its turn (unless the ability/effect granting the speed says so)
A creature with a flying speed does not have to "watch its weight" or what it wears to fly (unless the ability/effect granting the speed says so)
A flying creature without the hover trait falls if it would be knocked prone, have its movement speed reduced to 0, or otherwise loses the ability to move (grapple, restrained, paralyzed)
Certain weather effects (like Strong Wind) can impose restrictions on flight.
A creature with the hover trait or who is held aloft by magic does not fall even if subjected to any of the above (though you could rule that it falls if it dies)
So, we have “movement” as an action or part of an action, primarily bipedal, but not exclusively. Most player characters and many Animals walk and run. snakes slither. Birds fly, as do a few character classes. Some as magic, some as physical characteristics. Fish and sea mammals swim, including now tritons as PCs. Some are amphibious. Almost all of the above creatures can do some or all of the above movement types.
for bipeds, do we want to have a rule set for walking, how the feet are picked up and out down and how long it takes a running character to slow and stop, turn and step sideways. I hope not! Why would we do it for flying?
DMs can bring common sense to this question like so many others not explicitly or onerously defined in the rules.
I think it’s a wonderful simplicity that the rules don’t have charts and tables defining the physics and magics of flight, fluid dynamics or any of the above.
Flight in general breaks some early level gameplay: a broken bridge isn't a hurdle, a fortress wall isn't as intimidating, etc, etc. As you move away from the early levels flight becomes more common as do methods of dealing with flying creatures. Besides, unless the whole party is flying, traps that would trigger from pressure plates are still typically hitting them, even if their not the ones triggering them.
That being said, at all stages of the game, falling tends to be deadly, a low level flyer getting knocked prone is probably instantly dead. As someone pointed out earlier, there are a lot of conditions would drop them out of the sky as well, like a lot. Dropping to 0 while flying in the air means no death saves as they would probably die on impact just from the damage.
Specifically talking about the Aarakocra, they give up a lot just for the ability to fly. Essentially no racial traits, skills, or even usable languages outside a few niche circumstances. Inside dungeons their not really getting to use their speed.
As it's own separate point, strong wind already limits flyers, "A flying creature in a strong wind must land at the end of its turn or fall." Strong wind is very common among spells and effects. I do homebrew one thing, inclement weather acts as difficult terrain for them. Heavy water and snow makes their wings heavy :)
EDIT: That's my 2 cents on the whole thing anyhow :)
D&D is about superhumans and monsters with magic and gods, nitpicking flight is ridiculous.
I wish DMs would familiarize themselves with all the mechanics and features that interact with flight and use native solutions rather than trying to reinvent the game.
Hang Time: You may remain airborn for a number of turns equal to your CON modifier. For each turn after, the player must make a DC 15 CON saving throw or fall. This effect does not reset until the player completes one full turn without using any form of movement speed while grounded.
I find this to bring a realistic balance, and have never had complaints. Beware, with this rule CON dmg can also yeild some nasty falls.
For a muscle based flight, I can see seom limit on turns in the air. Con modifier seems cheap, designed for someone that has trouble flying. I would not even think of using that for something like a bird.
Honestly, the truth is D&D needs a better exhaustion system. Something along the lines of Stamina, similar to Mana or HP, with a whole bunch of rules for things costing you stamina, and how to recover it. Each attack, bonus action, reaction costs a set amount of stamina. Special attacks might cost more (or less) than normal. Fighter types would get more than mage types, explaining how they can do multiple attacks. Finally , different movement types, including Flying, swimming, climbing etc. would cost different amounts of stamina.
For a muscle based flight, I can see seom limit on turns in the air. Con modifier seems cheap, designed for someone that has trouble flying. I would not even think of using that for something like a bird.
Honestly, the truth is D&D needs a better exhaustion system. Something along the lines of Stamina, similar to Mana or HP, with a whole bunch of rules for things costing you stamina, and how to recover it. Each attack, bonus action, reaction costs a set amount of stamina. Special attacks might cost more (or less) than normal. Fighter types would get more than mage types, explaining how they can do multiple attacks. Finally , different movement types, including Flying, swimming, climbing etc. would cost different amounts of stamina.
But that would be a major re-write of the rules.
I did exactly this, once. A full rewrite of the rules to include stamina. It took a month or so and quite a bit of effort. Took just one playtest revealed that it was just way too much book keeping in practice. It slows down combat more than you'd think. Threw the whole thing out. Sometimes the simpler default rules, even if less realistic, genuinely are better.
I think if we wanted a stamina system, we would have to make it simple and designed to net out to 0 in normal circumstances. Something that just assumes you will never get exhausted, i.e. you get like 20 stamina and it regenerates at 3 points a round, enough for a bonus action, move and an action (each costing 1 stamina).
That way it would only come into play when you started doing weird stuff like swimming, flying, etc.
I think for my players non-magic flight will have the following rule: 1: Hight must be gained, usually achieved by climbing and/or jumping (either will require an acrobatics check). Once airborne a acrobatics check will be used at the end of each movement to determine if they stay airborne.
can hovering character stop hover and drop himself?
I'm asking because I play as a UA Fairy (race) so I can fly and hover as skill (not body property) and I'm a druid, and I want to know if I can make damage by falling as huge beast (wild shape) on enemies and how much damage from what height I can do
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You can use your move action to either walk 25 ft. or fly 50 ft. not both.
No, see using different speeds for how to handle this.
That always struck me as a bit weird, even if they are official rules.
It you have a fly speed of 60 and a walk of 30, then you could:
Walk 10 then fly 50
but you can NOT
Fly 50 then walk 10
They seem to have picked simplicity of use over rigorous modeling. It would produce fewer anomalies to say that you keep the same percentage of your remaining movement, but it means multiplication every time speed changes.
Not wanting to read the whole thread, 3.5 wiki srd has rules for flying. I suggest average maneuvering.
https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Fly
Same way seagulls just hover in place at times. Or how some birds circle or hover in place by flapping thier wings once or twice.
i read something about a fly check in order to hover flying creatures need to make check in order to hover, even when they have a natural flight speed but theyre often so good at thise checks that they can automatically succeed...unless stated otherwise in the creatures discrption, a flying creature that wants to hover needs to make a fly check in order to do so.
RAW: You just hover even if your speed isn't (hover).
But that answer is lame and if you do aerial combats often you'll quickly see that there needs to be more to it than that. Flying combat is a reasonably large part of my campaigns so over the years it needed to get fleshed out significantly: Below is what I do these days.
Non-Hover -
Hovering -
General flying contests for control of the air -
Not-flying while airborne options -
Rationale/Reasoning:
So, in general this means flying creatures need more space to fly around, less so as long as they stay in motion. If they slow down, it gets even more restrictive, and they need an area free of obstacles 2 whole sizes larger than they are. So a medium sized flyer would need a 15ft cube of free space to slow down in. And, even worse, if they really slow down, and go half their move speed or less, at the end of their turn they provoke attacks as if they occupied that full 15ft cube, since in effects they are circling inside it, flapping wildly to stay aloft.
If a flyer does get knocked out of flight, either from clipping an obstacle or getting bodily halted, they have a solid chance to recover the wind in their wings. If the space is available, they can either regain flight or at least slow their fall, but as a reaction. This means getting knocked around in quick succession, or while they're preoccupied with some other reactive-business, could spell their doom.
And, with all these wings flying all around, there really needs some stakes for getting just crashed into. You think an aarakocra can just fly in the way of an angry dragon? Enter: the aerial collision action. Any flyer can try to "control" the flight space he needs, and bodily eject any enemies that try to get in too close. Athletics v Athletic means someone is getting ejected, and falls. Athletics v Acrobatics means the target might get ejected, or might avoid the ejection entirely. target's choice if they think they can take you or chicken out by ducking out of your way.
Dives and falls don't specifically count as flight, since they're more or less just gravity doing the work for you. As such, you wouldn't require extra flight space while in these descents, so could dive through a opening as large as your normal space. And because it is so fast, and not entirely under your direction, they don't provoke attacks from any other flying creature you come careening past. (Maybe a good way to divebomb and force an aerial collision? Just watch out for fall damage in that case.)
Aside from environmental/weather stuff, these homerules have made flying combat far more interesting. I can see being content with the RAW rules if flying isn't very common in your games but if it is common and you want there to be more to it, maybe this has some ideas in it for you.
I got quotes!
That is a lot of rules for a ruleset that is meant to be 1)simple, and 2) accessible to anyone. It is also quite a lot of homebrew in there. Here are the rules:
So, we have “movement” as an action or part of an action, primarily bipedal, but not exclusively. Most player characters and many Animals walk and run. snakes slither. Birds fly, as do a few character classes. Some as magic, some as physical characteristics. Fish and sea mammals swim, including now tritons as PCs. Some are amphibious. Almost all of the above creatures can do some or all of the above movement types.
for bipeds, do we want to have a rule set for walking, how the feet are picked up and out down and how long it takes a running character to slow and stop, turn and step sideways. I hope not! Why would we do it for flying?
DMs can bring common sense to this question like so many others not explicitly or onerously defined in the rules.
I think it’s a wonderful simplicity that the rules don’t have charts and tables defining the physics and magics of flight, fluid dynamics or any of the above.
Flight in general breaks some early level gameplay: a broken bridge isn't a hurdle, a fortress wall isn't as intimidating, etc, etc. As you move away from the early levels flight becomes more common as do methods of dealing with flying creatures. Besides, unless the whole party is flying, traps that would trigger from pressure plates are still typically hitting them, even if their not the ones triggering them.
That being said, at all stages of the game, falling tends to be deadly, a low level flyer getting knocked prone is probably instantly dead. As someone pointed out earlier, there are a lot of conditions would drop them out of the sky as well, like a lot. Dropping to 0 while flying in the air means no death saves as they would probably die on impact just from the damage.
Specifically talking about the Aarakocra, they give up a lot just for the ability to fly. Essentially no racial traits, skills, or even usable languages outside a few niche circumstances. Inside dungeons their not really getting to use their speed.
As it's own separate point, strong wind already limits flyers, "A flying creature in a strong wind must land at the end of its turn or fall." Strong wind is very common among spells and effects.
I do homebrew one thing, inclement weather acts as difficult terrain for them. Heavy water and snow makes their wings heavy :)
EDIT: That's my 2 cents on the whole thing anyhow :)
D&D is about superhumans and monsters with magic and gods, nitpicking flight is ridiculous.
I wish DMs would familiarize themselves with all the mechanics and features that interact with flight and use native solutions rather than trying to reinvent the game.
House rule at my table:
Hang Time: You may remain airborn for a number of turns equal to your CON modifier. For each turn after, the player must make a DC 15 CON saving throw or fall. This effect does not reset until the player completes one full turn without using any form of movement speed while grounded.
I find this to bring a realistic balance, and have never had complaints. Beware, with this rule CON dmg can also yeild some nasty falls.
For a muscle based flight, I can see seom limit on turns in the air. Con modifier seems cheap, designed for someone that has trouble flying. I would not even think of using that for something like a bird.
Honestly, the truth is D&D needs a better exhaustion system. Something along the lines of Stamina, similar to Mana or HP, with a whole bunch of rules for things costing you stamina, and how to recover it. Each attack, bonus action, reaction costs a set amount of stamina. Special attacks might cost more (or less) than normal. Fighter types would get more than mage types, explaining how they can do multiple attacks. Finally , different movement types, including Flying, swimming, climbing etc. would cost different amounts of stamina.
But that would be a major re-write of the rules.
I did exactly this, once. A full rewrite of the rules to include stamina. It took a month or so and quite a bit of effort. Took just one playtest revealed that it was just way too much book keeping in practice. It slows down combat more than you'd think. Threw the whole thing out. Sometimes the simpler default rules, even if less realistic, genuinely are better.
I got quotes!
I am sure that is why they did not do it.
I think if we wanted a stamina system, we would have to make it simple and designed to net out to 0 in normal circumstances. Something that just assumes you will never get exhausted, i.e. you get like 20 stamina and it regenerates at 3 points a round, enough for a bonus action, move and an action (each costing 1 stamina).
That way it would only come into play when you started doing weird stuff like swimming, flying, etc.
Does Flying count towards your movement?
I think for my players non-magic flight will have the following rule: 1: Hight must be gained, usually achieved by climbing and/or jumping (either will require an acrobatics check). Once airborne a acrobatics check will be used at the end of each movement to determine if they stay airborne.
Each square is a 5x5x5 foot square so it might not be an actual hover. More like heavy flapping with slight glide.
can hovering character stop hover and drop himself?
I'm asking because I play as a UA Fairy (race) so I can fly and hover as skill (not body property) and I'm a druid, and I want to know if I can make damage by falling as huge beast (wild shape) on enemies and how much damage from what height I can do