How high can you fly? and Attacking while flying (Aerial-to-ground Combat)


Rules Questions


So my level 1 druid has a roc as a companion. I understand the compnaion's speed is the distance it can travel, but how HIGH can it fly?? Also, can I train it to attack a monster that is on the ground while the companion stays in flight without ever touching the ground? How would this work against a melee attack from the creature on the ground? Does the ground creature miss since the companion is flying in the air, or would the monster get a chance to hit the druid's companion?

Thank you!

Spiralout


Check out the Fly skill to see any specific rules regarding flight and movement. Beyond that, dealing with flight in combat more or less involves just extrapolating the five-foot grid into three dimensions.

The bird could fly down to its target and attack basically like any other creature except that it can attack from the "squares" above its target. Note, though, that a level 1 roc companion is medium and it has a 5-foot reach like most any medium creature. So just about anything that the roc can reach can also reach the roc.

If you're looking for something more along the lines of swooping down to attack and then swooping away in the same turn, look into the Flyby Attack feat. It's basically Spring Attack for flying creatures. Note, however, that moving through threatened areas with Flyby attack does provoke.


MacGurcules wrote:
It's basically Spring Attack for flying creatures. Note, however, that moving through threatened areas with Flyby attack does provoke.

Also note that this is true for the target of the attack which makes it nothing like spring attack. Your roc would always provoke an AoO from its target, at the very least, using flyby attack (unless the target is unable to take AoOs for some reason).

To answer your other question, nothing forces the roc to land to attack, it can keep flying, but in every round it moves less than half its speed it needs to make a fly check to hover.


Or you can roll a strix, do a flyby attack with vital strike with a Lucerne Hammer (reach) and laugh as the 5ft reach creatures try to hit you back.

The Exchange

spiralout wrote:
So my level 1 druid has a roc as a companion. I understand the compnaion's speed is the distance it can travel, but how HIGH can it fly??

This part of your question actually came up in our game last night. We were planning an ascent to the peak of a very high mountain, so we were examing the environment rules for high altitudes. One of our players also happens to be a scientist in real life, who brought up a very valid point - if you're flying by non-magical means (i.e. wings), then very likely when you get into altitudes where the air is so thin that you're risking altitude sickness, then the air is also likely too thin to support mundane flight. A brief recap of the altitude rules:

Up to 5000 feet elevation, you're fine.
5,000 - 15,000 feet elevation, make a fort save (DC 15, +1 per previous save) each hour or suffer fatigue.
15,000 feet and higher - every six hours, make a fort save (DC 15, +1 per previous save) or take 1 point damage to all ability scores, cumulative with all previous effects.

So the house rule we made was if you're flying below 5000 feet, there is no limit to how high you can fly, as long as your means of flight doesn't expire. At the 5000-15,000 feet altitude, you suffer the effects as described. At this point, it is wise to remember that any form of mundane flight other than gliding is a strenuous activity, so if you fail your save (or your mount fails) and gain the fatigued condition, there's a strong likelihood that you'll increase that to the exhausted condition and potential unconsciousness if you don't descend to below 5000 feet (at which point the fatigue goes away). You don't want to go unconscious at 10,000 feet. Once you get above 15,000 feet, it is practically impossible to fly by mundane means, because the air is too thin to support you. Aside from that, though, the sky is literally the limit on how high you can fly.


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Just an adition concerning flight height: it depends on the area the wings span over and the speed to a degree.

A Roc is a large creature, but essentially an oversized eagle.

Aquila chrysaetos weighs 2.8 to 6.7 kg (the heavier ones are female) and has a wingspan of 190cm to 230 cm, again the bigger are females. The feathers are 35 to 60 cm on the wings. Taking a photo of an eagle in flight I counted it covers 41 squares on a grid, while having a wingspan of 14 squares of the same grid. The Result is:
Area=41*(wingspan/14)
The 2.3 m wide eagle female so has 1.11 m² area which supports 6.7 kg, equalling rougly 6 kg per m² in flight, but being able to support up to 19.6 kg/m² when carrying away a 15 kg prey.

Let's take this formula for the roc. He is said to have 80-foot wingspan and weigh 8000 lbs. That is in metric... 24,38 m and 3 628.73 kg. Area covered: 71.4 m² (768,54 square feet); Weight/Area Ratio: 50.82 kg/m².

For compariosn: A Boing 747-100 has an area coverage of 511 m² weighs 333400 kg and has a Weight/Area Ratio of 652.44 kg/m², and that thing still flies.

The Result is easy: fixed wings like Eagles or Rocs can carry the bird better than an airplane - gliding birds should not encounter too much problems with the fact of flying in thin air even on the heights planes fly at, though they still might have problems with the thin air. But since rocs can sleep in midair, I guess they have far less problems with the height than the pilot, who should not go that high.


.... It is always fun to bring physics in, but really... They hold no bearing on RAW.
There is another altitude that holds significance. 21k (I think) feet and above, where you immediately start to suffocate.
By RAW, you can fly as high as you want, but you are going to suffer the different effects of the altitude zones. You had better hope your mount (or yourself) don't go unconcious while flying.

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