What are the reference rules for flying and flying combat? I didn’t see very much in PHD, DMG, and Xanthars Guide.
Specifically, I want to DM a situation where the players are engaged with flying creatures. I w at to know about advantages/disadvantages, attacks of opportunity, initiative rounds, etc
It works using the normal rules for combat. The only relevant special rule is that flying creatures without the ability to hover will fall if they have their speed reduced to zero or are knocked prone.
Shouldn't the flying attacker have some sort of advantage or extra damage? I mean, a knight charging on a horse should do more damage than a guy standing there (but now that I think about it, maybe by D&D rules he wouldn't). So I would think that a flying steed would add even more of an advantage. I suppose I could always make my own ruling on it, but I was hoping there was something already written.
I would argue that the inherent ability to fly itself would constitute a massive advantage over enemies that can't. For example, a martial enemy with no ranged weapon can literally do nothing against a flying creature. Find a rock I guess, and hope you have a really good Dex mod? Such creatures, if smart enough, can easily abuse the longest of long range spells or abilities, to keep as far as possible from their targets, reducing the potential for harm to reach them.
The other inherent advantage of many creatures with a flying speed is that they can generally move more than 30 feet. The increased mobility makes then very agile and evasive, forcing enemies to do a lot more work to continue interacting with them. This gets significantly more powerful in rough, broken terrain. A flying creature can ignore that 40 foot tall wall, but anything on the ground has to walk around it or climb over it. This creates a safe space for the flying creature, providing total cover against anything on the other side of the wall.
This is why a lot of DMs ban the Aaracokra as a player race, despite it's otherwise thin racial traits. The 50 foot flying speed is extremely powerful, and will inevitably skew the CR of encounters and force the DM to resort to small caves and indoor spaces to level the playing field.
I would argue that the inherent ability to fly itself would constitute a massive advantage over enemies that can't.
Extreme example: level 1 Aaracokra cleric vs the Tarrasque. It has no ranged attacks, will fail a DC 13 Dex save vs Sacred Flame 36% of the time, and has less move than the Aaracokra, so 417 rounds later it dies.
Of course, a lot of that is that it's a badly designed monster, any party that's actually expected to fight fight the tarrasque would be easily able to kite it indefinitely. For a competent boss fight you'd need to give it a bunch of additional abilities.
tl;dr: 5e D&D assumes a 2D grid for tactical combat. There are lots of opinions and ideas on how to make it work at your table, but none are official. Go with what feels right to you and your table.
You may want to go and get a 1e or 2e dm’s guide and look for some ideas that you can extract and “convert”. There were whole chapters devoted to Ariel and underwater combat.
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What are the reference rules for flying and flying combat? I didn’t see very much in PHD, DMG, and Xanthars Guide.
Specifically, I want to DM a situation where the players are engaged with flying creatures. I w at to know about advantages/disadvantages, attacks of opportunity, initiative rounds, etc
thanks
It works using the normal rules for combat. The only relevant special rule is that flying creatures without the ability to hover will fall if they have their speed reduced to zero or are knocked prone.
Shouldn't the flying attacker have some sort of advantage or extra damage? I mean, a knight charging on a horse should do more damage than a guy standing there (but now that I think about it, maybe by D&D rules he wouldn't). So I would think that a flying steed would add even more of an advantage. I suppose I could always make my own ruling on it, but I was hoping there was something already written.
If so, it would be listed specifically in its stats; there's no generic bonus.
Though you could just give your flying creatures such. Like PCs can have the Mounted Combat feat.
I would argue that the inherent ability to fly itself would constitute a massive advantage over enemies that can't. For example, a martial enemy with no ranged weapon can literally do nothing against a flying creature. Find a rock I guess, and hope you have a really good Dex mod? Such creatures, if smart enough, can easily abuse the longest of long range spells or abilities, to keep as far as possible from their targets, reducing the potential for harm to reach them.
The other inherent advantage of many creatures with a flying speed is that they can generally move more than 30 feet. The increased mobility makes then very agile and evasive, forcing enemies to do a lot more work to continue interacting with them. This gets significantly more powerful in rough, broken terrain. A flying creature can ignore that 40 foot tall wall, but anything on the ground has to walk around it or climb over it. This creates a safe space for the flying creature, providing total cover against anything on the other side of the wall.
This is why a lot of DMs ban the Aaracokra as a player race, despite it's otherwise thin racial traits. The 50 foot flying speed is extremely powerful, and will inevitably skew the CR of encounters and force the DM to resort to small caves and indoor spaces to level the playing field.
Extreme example: level 1 Aaracokra cleric vs the Tarrasque. It has no ranged attacks, will fail a DC 13 Dex save vs Sacred Flame 36% of the time, and has less move than the Aaracokra, so 417 rounds later it dies.
Of course, a lot of that is that it's a badly designed monster, any party that's actually expected to fight fight the tarrasque would be easily able to kite it indefinitely. For a competent boss fight you'd need to give it a bunch of additional abilities.
Will no, the Knight would get a charge bonus and that does add a damage die, I forgot what damage die but it does add damage
For convenience, here's a prior discussion with lots of thoughts on the topic:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/rules-game-mechanics/3252-flying-combat
Here's a shorter and simpler conversation with similar results:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/dungeon-masters-only/18844-aerial-combat
tl;dr: 5e D&D assumes a 2D grid for tactical combat. There are lots of opinions and ideas on how to make it work at your table, but none are official. Go with what feels right to you and your table.
You may want to go and get a 1e or 2e dm’s guide and look for some ideas that you can extract and “convert”. There were whole chapters devoted to Ariel and underwater combat.