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No offense, but this doesn't sound like it is making the game more fun, enjoyable or satisfying for your players.
If it isn't, then why are you adding it to the game?
If the players want to use it as a quick travel option without jumping through hoops then let them, unless you have a really good reason (rule of thumb: if you expect that you could tell your reason to the players' faces after the campaign finishes and they would all agree with your assessment, then it might be a good reason).
As for the mechanical details of what you are suggesting...
Yeah, flocks of birds aren't really a problem. You travel 600ft per round. That's 100ft per second. It takes under a third of a second to react to something. Lets say noticing and adjusting course to avoid something takes half a second That's 50ft. So long as they spot birds from 100ft away they can dodge them. Flying 500ft up? No problems. They have several seconds to stop or adjust their course. 5000ft? Very few birds fly that high (here, there is even a list). Atmospheric pressure is going to be something like 80% of sea level(assuming roughly earth-like conditions, which I believe Golarion is), so breathing isn't a problem. You aren't likely to miss a lone vulture and slam into it, so birds aren't worth worrying about.
Weather isn't something that players are going to be caught by surprise by. It takes strong winds before characters start suffering any penalties whatsoever. They have to be flying in a windstorm to actually have problems moving forward(assuming a medium character). It's only when they are flying in a Hurricane that there is actually any life threatening danger at all. The winds will also gradually pick up, meaning the PCs will have a chance to decide whether or not to land, go around or go through the area containing the hazardous weather. The only other things that could be an issue are rain and lightning. Rain is about as damaging as it is when driving in a convertible in the rain(unpleasant but not horrific before using things like endure elements). As far as I know, lighting is about as likely to hit you in the air as it is on the ground. The chance of a flying PC getting hit is close to 0 (and they will almost certainly survive the damage, so it only costs a few healing spells/charges).
Overall, most environmental hazards while using wind walk are either so trivial as to be meaningless or generally very rare outside specific locations (the fantasy equivalent of Wellington, for example). Unless your campaign is set on a deathworld where there are hurricanes and lightning storms every 50 miles, Wind Walk really should work without any issues 99% of the time.
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One of my players has just taken Wind Walk. I don't like prohibiting any options but so it isn't used just as different teleport spell in the world, I am wondering what has been people's experience with making this more interesting?
So far I am considering rolling for weather conditions once every x/hundred miles (I roll once or twice a day already) and constructing a random encounter table consisting of flying creatures and spot natural effects (low pressure drops, flocks of birds, etc). In my mind flying poorly at 60 mph means these types of thing aren't necessarily easily avoided so it will make it more challenging. The higher they fly the more chance they would have to re-roll fly checks, but the more devastating it would be if they fail.
Any thoughts/ideas?
Sounds like a solution in search of a problem to me. What's wrong with allowing clerics access to travel spells?
More specifically,.... millions of people live at 5000 feet without issue; that's more or less Denver's altitude, so even if the spell didn't magically take care of conditions, there's nothing there. In terms of driving into a flock of birds, or something, 60 mph is next to nothing (cars drive at that speed routinely) and can stop in less than 300 feet -- people are, of course, much more maneuverable than cars, and visibility at 5000 feet is measured in miles.
So, "realistically," none of the problems you suggest would actually be problems, and all they do is make cleric spells even more inferior to wizard spells than they already are.
Travelling high up simply results in encounters with flying creatures.
Like Dragons.
:D
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They're wind-walking in gaseous form. Most creatures won't notice them. Most that do can't catch up with them. If a very fast dragon is able to intercept and attack them in flight, they're pretty much doomed - they can't fight back unless they first land and then spend five rounds solidifying.
To make an interesting threat, you'd probably have to create it from scratch - some kind of aerial ghost that tries to possess them, perhaps.
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You don't necessarily need to have things up in the air to stop them, you can create things of the ground that they will see while flying over.
Some can be combat encounters they can choose to engage, such as a village being attacked by (level appropriate monsters) that they can see below. Describe the plume of smoke they can see for miles, the sounds of combat as they draw near, the sights below as they are overhead. If they are a good party, they'd better land to help out. Or if evil, they'd better land to loot what's leftover!
Others can be social encounters, like a large caravan they spot where they could possibly buy interesting magic items. Or maybe it's market day in a city they pass. Maybe they spot a super rare non-hostile creature that it would be worthwhile to say hi too.
And some can just be fluff that you use to make Golarion seem real. Descriptions of the patchwork farmland below, or a roaring fire burning across the plains, or jagged peaks of mountains heavy with snow that practically howl with fierce winds. Descriptions of the roads and rivers they pass over. Check out the Golarion maps, and when they fly near cities or landmarks, describe what they see. The dark twisted forests of Nidal, the crate pocked plains of Numeria, the gaping hole of the Worldwound.
You can make Golarion seem more real to them as they travel by doing more that just attacking them.
Hmm strange answers I feel but ok if I must justify my motivation it is thus:
Teleport already includes a chance of failure in the spell. It means my party sorcerer takes time to investigate certain areas to make sure he can use it as a reliable location. It also means he can't go anywhere he hasn't been before and if he isn't sure of the location he is genuinely concerned about the welfare of those he is transporting, should it go wrong. The RP aspect so far has included descriptions of glimpses of other planes during use, and the potential danger of accidentally ending up somewhere remote and potentially dangerous confers some mystery and atmosphere. Overall, this makes it more fun, at least for my players. I am seeking to do something equally interesting with Wind Walk so it ISN'T just another Teleport with the description "Ok you fly through the air on a magical current and now you're at your destination".
Golarion is a big world with many resources to flesh it out and if I simply railroad the party from one encounter to the next, it doesn't really exist as a world, more a sequence of changing rooms. I and (I think) my players like to feel that actions have consequences and if an airborne encounter with a dragon or some tension-creating (even if ultimately benign) atmospheric conditions encourage them to weigh up whether a longer journey by horseback, a slow, meandering trip on a barge or a riskier spell is the best course of action, then it gives them a degree of engagement that they so far have seemed to relish. And if they DO use the spell then the sense of relief after arriving means something.
So my "really good reason" is a combination of tension, texture, consequence which I think boils down to basically just good old RP for the sake of it.
As for which caster is better than which, although balance issues are a staple of this forum, and all power to those who are interested, they have no importance for my players who are more interested in living in a believable world.
Of course...
Wind Walk is not like Teleport. Wind Walk allow you travel 480 miles in a in 8 hour day. You can forced march up the duration of the spell by making fortitude checks and each additional hour adds 60 miles. That's like taking a trip to Mexico would take 5 days at 60 miles per hour driving. Wind walk would probably shave a day off by going as the crow flies. So that a 96 hour travel time. If I had teleport I'd be there instantly with risk of failure.
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Its a 6th level spell...why exactly do you think 12th level characters should have to think carefully about traveling by horseback? Its not just another teleportation spell because it doesn't serve the same function, its far slower and requires actual travel (IE potentially getting lost as mentioned above).
That said, if you are uncomfortable with players bypassing your rich textured world, why on earth are they of a level to cast 6th level spells? 2 levels ago they were bringing people back from the dead, and high speed aerial travel is a problem?
It sounds to me like you would be better off playing some variation of an Ex game, since there are going to be more and more such spells appearing in both divine and arcane lists as you progress. The game is basically designed around the idea that as you progress, things that used to be a challenge are now bypassed with a spell. That is deliberately built into the game. To play a high level pathfinder game and fight against that is going to create headaches all over the place.
Yeah - Windwalk takes actual time which can matter, as opposed to teleport's instant movement. Teleport has a chance of error, though it's relatively small especially when you've been there before.* Windwalk you actually need to know how to get to where you're going from where you are. Of course, being able to fly high up would probably help because you can see a large amount and determine a lot, but would still need to make survival checks not to get lost.
There is no need to create blockades to this. It's basically overland flight with some different drawbacks and perks. Windwalk lets you move faster, but you also can't fight effectively.
*I'm counting off-target as generally being "close enough" to the correct location.
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Wind Walk is not like Teleport. Wind Walk allow you travel 480 miles in a in 8 hour day. You can forced march up the duration of the spell by making fortitude checks and each additional hour adds 60 miles. That's like taking a trip to Mexico would take 5 days at 60 miles per hour driving. Wind walk would probably shave a day off by going as the crow flies. So that a 96 hour travel time. If I had teleport I'd be there instantly with risk of failure.Wind Walk does however not leave out the possibility of getting lost.
Good point, that's another encounter right there! Roll Knowledge: Geography to know where you are going. Don't have geography or fail the check? Land and ask directions.
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High level campaigns deal with PC being able to travel fast (or even instsntly). It comes with the territory.
Lord of the Rings is an adventure from lvl 1 to 5 in PF rules. It deals with orcs, goblins, trolls, dire Wolves, 9 CR5 wraiths, and an ogre spider. Beyond lvl 5, PF isn't really a good option to model that kind of Adventure. I suggest looking for another ruleset, or play variations like Epic6, where maximum level is 6, to avoid the use of higher level stuff.
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High level campaigns deal with PC being able to travel fast (or even instsntly). It comes with the territory.
Lord of the Rings is an adventure from lvl 1 to 5 in PF rules. It deals with orcs, goblins, trolls, dire Wolves, 9 CR5 wraiths, and an ogre spider. Beyond lvl 5, PF isn't really a good option to model that kind of Adventure. I suggest looking for another ruleset, or play variations like Epic6, where maximum level is 6, to avoid the use of higher level stuff.
This all of this, finally someone who sees things as i do, i have mentioned this before and just got all kinds of flak on the boards, i was beginning to think i was the only one....
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Just to put things in another perspective, my 12th level druid would use transport via plants(6th level spell) to basically "teleport" around without any miss chance, i would just come out at the closest plant of the same type i entered. What i ended up doing was every place we went i would cast climbing beanstalk, in a place that can support plant life, and i instantly had a travel point, or "waypoint" that i could access at any point from then on.
Thank you for your advice but as previously stated our group is quite happy with the system. I can't really understand your point about character level having any relationship with experiencing of the world so I can't really answer that question.
Different characters have different capacities and therefore experience the game world differently. A fifty-foot stone wall is a nigh-impassible obstacle to a low-level character, but barely a nuisance for a moderate-level wizard or a high-level fighter with a pegasus mount.
This means that one of the key things a game master needs to do in order to make the game world interesting is to make sure the threats and challenges they face are thematically level-appropriate as well as level-appropriate in terms of CR.
For example, characters should be fighting different types of monsters at level 10 than you were at level 1; this gives the players the feeling of accomplishment. Even better, every so often, let them fight the same type of monsters, but utterly crush them so that the players can feel how much better they now are. ("Hey, remember when we nearly died from that ogre? Now we just walked into an ogre village and slaughtered everyone without even taking a hit.")
You really lose something if it turns out that, now that you're level 10, all of the ogres you face have ten character levels. That's a sign (in my mind) of an unimaginative GM. And a poor one, to boot.
Environmental hazards are the same. The environment hazards that will kill a first level character won't even slow down a fifth level character. The Reign of Winter adventure path handles that well. The first book stresses just how dangerous and deadly adventuring in the snow is, but by the third book, everyone is expected to be equipped with the appropriate gear and spells and it's not an issue any more. Invisible opponents are boss monsters at second level, but by 10th, it's just yet another SLA that some monsters have. The environmental hazards at high levels involve being thrown off a thousand-foot tower, or zones that suck the very life force out of you.
Travel stories (you need to go from point A to point B and face the challenges in between) really only work at low levels, in the same way that "shipwrecked" only works at low levels. Conversely, "we only have six hours to save the planet" generally works better at high levels, because it's believable that your team really is the best-of-the-best and so would be called upon for this kind of salvation attempt,.... and it makes sense that there's something epic and tricky you can do to save the planet and it's not just a DC 10 Disable Device check.
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What you're presenting is an interpretation of the system that appears to lay bare the system mechanics.
Well, you don't seem to understand the system mechanics, so I intended to.
I don't run my campaigns like that. If I want a cadre of 12th level goblins then I have them.
Well, that's rather poor form, frankly. It's a poor narrator who says in chapter 1 that goblins are nuisance level creatures that are only threatening to farmboys and aristocratic hobbits, and then,.... after many heroic adventures,... goblins have now become epic-level encounters that can only be taken out by the mightiest of heroes, just in time to be encountered by our now epic-level heroes.
The whole point of the narrative arc -- re-read your Campbell -- is that the heros are transformed by their adventures. If you just say "well, you're now level 12, so all the goblins are, too," then there's no transformation. The characters were running from goblins at level 1... and should be fighting Nazgul at level 12.
The adventure's plot, puzzles and mysteries, the exploration of the world and the characters arcs themselves, provide the motivation and the reward.
And part of the exploration is being able to do new things. That's the whole point of the leveling: to create new affordances for heroic actions for the characters, so that they're no longer stymied by what were barriers beforehand.
Stage 6 of the hero's journey (Vogler's summary) has been summarized as "an ever more difficult series of challenges that test him in a variety of ways." The key phrase there, of course, is ever more difficult. FIghting levelled-up goblins is not particularly new, nor does it feel more difficult to the characters, because it's the same thing you've always done. The point is that where you could defeat goblins before (and had to run from ogres), now you can crush ogres with ease, defeat giants, and even face dragons.
The point, of course, is that the audience, which in this case includes your players, need to have an opportunity to understand and to FEEL the increasing challenge and the increased rating as the hero approaches the ultimate test.
And then stage 10, the road back, establishes the reverse, where the hero returns home and learns (by comparison) just how powerful he has become. This is when Frodo and his friends return to the Shire and find they are now leaders and heroes, commanding the farm boys who stayed behind in their struggle. (There's a very good scene in the Return of the King describing exactly this, where some of the Shirefolk are saying "well, of course they wouldn't bother the likes of YOU," meaning heroic folk.)
Now there's nothing wrong with having a level 12 goblin king as special too-powerful-to-fight monster in the early stages, knowing that he's far more potent than an ordinary goblin, and then crushing the king underfoot in a later chapter. That's part of the story arc. But just saying "no matter how powerful you get, the goblins will always level with you" destroys any actual plot and mystery.
The Campellian monomyth, however, has little to do with the mechanics. But in order to support an actual narrative, you need to understand how the mechanics work.... because they actually work very well if you let them do what the designers have set them up to do.
Well, that's rather poor form, frankly. It's a poor narrator who says in chapter 1 that goblins are nuisance level creatures that are only threatening to farmboys and aristocratic hobbits, and then,.... after many heroic adventures,... goblins have now become epic-level encounters that can only be taken out by the mightiest of heroes, just in time to be encountered by our now epic-level heroes.
*Groan* If I have to listen to one more invocation of the hero's journey to justify entrenched thinking and lack of imagination I will drop a tarrasque on the grid. Sorry, that's my day job getting to me.
Let me see if I have this right: you're criticising a campaign played out in a group's imagination that you haven't actually participated in? Cool, then my reply is "no".
I figured out my own solution now anyway, in discussion with the player.
Don't put forward an idea and then get defensive about it being 'your game and no one can tell you different' when people don't like it. The minute you present your ideas in a public forum like this you ARE sharing a little bit of your campaign and opening yourself to the possibility of criticism. Accusing others of sabotaging your creative process because they gave reasonable and well constructed rebuttals to your -frankly- completely unimaginative and overdone proposals is disingenuous. Every fresh DM feels like it his duty to shut players down whenever they gain a new ability or come up with a novel concept, all the while congratulating himself for his 'imaginative ideas' while the community lets out a collective groan. If your players like it (or more likely, put up with it), that's great and carry on - but don't pretend you are somehow a liberator of the downtrodden, entrenched-thought masses.
Good luck with your level-matched goblins and random bird flock attack formations. It's pretty clear you are only going to listen when you get what you want to hear anyway.
I think the point he's trying to make is that in most situations, the difference between high and low level characters isn't just that the numbers are bigger and a key to keeping things interesting is to recognize that fact.
As for an organized team of 12th level goblins, at that point I'd have trouble believing them as goblins without a good reason. So they work as the exception, but if I want to have a village of credible threats to a 12th level party, I'm going to choose something other than goblins.
And from your disdain for always throwing "level appropriate" enemies at your players, I suspect that your feelings are closer to OQ's than you think. I think the main point he was making is that just because the players leveled up doesn't mean all the goblins should, too. If there's a reason, great. Otherwise it can just get silly.
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Good luck with your level-matched goblins and random bird flock attack formations. It's pretty clear you are only going to listen when you get what you want to hear anyway.
Yeah, does look like another case of someone saying "Give me feedback and ideas" when what they really mean is "Tell me how utterly brilliant and amazing my ideas are."
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And another inexperienced GM is painfully discovering the reality of the Martial-Caster Disparity and how higher level casters can shut down mundane things (like travel) with ease...
Consider this Barry....
A level 12 Cleric is literally more epic than Jesus...
Create Water from thin air? Check
Bless Water? Check
Turn Water to wine?Check
Cure Blindness? Check
Cure the Sick? check
Walk on Water? Check
Can tell falsehoods?Check
Speak such that all understand? Check[url]
Atone a person for their sins? [url=http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/atonement]Check
Break enchantments and such? Yup
Raise the dead? Yup
I mean... just think of that. A 12th level cleric is literally as epic (or more so) than Jesus. AND he can still open a can of Whoop ass in combat...
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That turned oddly hostile.
"How can I make travel by Wind Walk interesting for my players?"
"You shouldn't! Your GMing is bad and you should feel bad!"
Well the thing is that, it seems he doesn't quite understand how the game evolves at higher levels. At those levels, the game is VERY different.
Pathfinder is not like a video game where the game is pretty similiar from level 1 to level 20, just bigger numbers and explosions. In PF, level 20 you are doing things that most people would peg GOD LEVEL. Even at level 12, if you look at my prior post, you are literally as epic as JESUS. I mean, at this point, you have to shift your expectations, otherwise you end up frustrated like this where you need to create horridly contrived scenerios to railroad your players or to just ignore the rules all together.
Add in the fact that WIND WALK is giving him problems.... WIND WALK... that is a pretty negligible spell on the whole...what happens when he runs into Simulacrum? Clone? Wish? Miracle? What happens when a player gets the bright idea to bind an outsider? Or Create Demi-plane? It will only get MUCH worse. If he is having an issue with a minor spell like that, the best advice is to play something like E-6 or E-8.
EDIT:Forgot to mention... wait until one of his players discover the Kineticist....
That turned oddly hostile.
"How can I make travel by Wind Walk interesting for my players?"
"You shouldn't! Your GMing is bad and you should feel bad!"
I don't think his gming is bad, as long as the players have fun, it's ok.
But I still think that if he finds Wind Walk problematic, high level pathfinder might not be the best system for him and his group. There are a lot of things at that level and beyond that are far more "problematic" in that regard. That has nothing to do with GMing skills, it has to do with playstyle, the kind of story you and your group want to collectively storytell, and finding the best game for that playstyle.But if he has found a solution that makes both he and his player happy, more power to him
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That turned oddly hostile.
"How can I make travel by Wind Walk interesting for my players?"
"You shouldn't! Your GMing is bad and you should feel bad!"
Really? Because what I saw was more like:
"How can I make travel by Wind Walk interesting for my players?"
"By giving them interesting plot hooks and things to see from up above that can lead to new adventures."
"Yeah but I really want them to be attacked by birds. Isn't that interesting?"
"No, it's not really very interesting. It's nonsensical and serves no real purpose, and takes away from the world's verisimilitude."
"Yeah well, all you care about is the mechanics! My group doesn't play that way and they'll obviously love my idea more than you people with 'lack of imagination and entrenched thinking'!"
That turned oddly hostile.
"How can I make travel by Wind Walk interesting for my players?"
"You shouldn't! Your GMing is bad and you should feel bad!"
Not what happened.
The last line was "By using the spell as it's written as part of your narrative."
Overall things have been pretty civilized here, but the OP isn't getting the answer he's looking for not because everyone else is rude, but because majority consensus is that the answer he wants isn't ideal. It's all opinion.
I read stuff about "but teleport can fail", and I recognize there there's no Scry, Buff, Wind Walk meme. I recognize the spell doesn't let you go through solid walls and the like. I recognize that it takes time to travel. I recognize it's subject to a dispel. I recognize in short, that it's got its own drawbacks and flaws.
I further recognize that travel is tedious. After the first N levels of getting your horses slaughtered by dire cougars, and falling off cliffs, and getting waylaid by random bandits, personally I find I'm perfectly ready for the "get there and do what I need/want to do" stage of the game. I've done "travel is dangerous" stage of the game and had enough of it until the next campaign.
But that's my opinion.
So yeah, nobody's telling the OP they're having wrongbadfun. Just answering the question as we see it. Offering perspective.
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And another inexperienced GM is painfully discovering the reality of the Martial-Caster Disparity and how higher level casters can shut down mundane things (like travel) with ease...
Sure, they can shut down travel with ease, but that's not a big deal with respect to caster/martial disparity since it becomes more of a plot device (or avoider) that affects the whole party rather than simply powers up the caster at the martial character's expense. And in this case, wind walk does so in a way that opens up new vistas for encounters rather making it far better for a GM who wants to include such things than teleport.
...
Do people really care about min-maxing and class disparity? A GM can drop a meteor storm on their heads at any time; change dice rolls; invoke home rules. I don't get this interest in mechanics.
A lot of players expect fairness, consistency, honesty and generally working towards the fun of all the players from their GM. Breaking this by pulling "rocks fall" BS or using blatant fiat to remove control from the hands of the players that they expect to have (fairness), denying player agency without reasonable in-game justification (consistency), secretly fudging dice(honesty) and intentionally screwing over specific players by forcing house rules(working towards the fun of all the players) kind of ruins the fun times for them(shockingly enough), and more often or not they would rather walk away from the table than tolerate it. Some also enjoy the challenge of mechanically succeeding in a role playing game.
What was your question again?
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From reading all of this thread, and its been really interesting read.
OPs original post sounded like:
Players got a new mode of travel, i want to limit it and show them my imaginative ways of limiting their new found powers.
What I think OP meant to say:
Players got a new mode of travel, i want ways to describe the surroundings and enhance their travel experience, maybe allow for a different type of encounter then they are used to.
A lot of posters read it as the first one and went on to describe power scales and level disparity like at level 1 starving because your poor might be a real threat, but at level 5 it is assumed you have amassed some wealth and starving cause your poor is not even remotely an issue.
Also i think you have taken offence to some statements were none was actively directed at you or meant at all.
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I think you mentioned you roll for weather and encounters when travelling overland, I'd say just change the encounters, and as someone pointed out not all encounters are monsters waiting to attack. I usually start them a few hundred feet away and players often ignore them esp if they are not evil creatures headed towards a town.
But I like the idea of many of the "encounters" beings things they see on the ground. After all, I assume the skies in your campaign are not full of monsters and huge predators, so the encounter tables should reflect that.
For weather - you could use the same tables you use already. In the Fly skill there are some descriptions of effects for bad weather if it is encountered. Oh, one thing, you could add "strong tailwind" as a possible weather pattern, let them get there a little faster sometimes. :)
Since Wind Walk is really just a little faster than ground walking, it's still overland travel so could be handled similarly.
In a game that is literally called a role-playing game, and relies upon the objectivity of the GM for the enjoyment and success of all involved, does it matter whether a caster seems more powerful than a martial or vice versa?
In a word, "yes."
More generally, the whole point of a role-playing game, is of course, that the players come in and play roles. I may want to be Batman, Susan may want to be Professor Snape, and Ted may want to be the Black Bart.
But in a rule-heavy system like Pathfinder -- which, let's face it, is a miniatures wargame with a few roleplaying elements airbrushed on -- I'm going to be very disappointed if I sit down to play Batman when my character sheet only supports Commissioner Gordon.
Here's a sample exchange:
Newbie player, wanting to be Batman, at first level: An ogre, eh? All right, you said I had an 18 Dexterity, so that means I'm fast. I'm going to rush in, underneath his guard, and sweep his legs out from under him, and then as he goes down, I'll hit him on the temple with my elbow for a knockout blow.
PFS GM: Um,... okay, since you don't have the pounce ability, you're only going to be able to make one attack per turn if you move. As you move through his threatened area, he gets an attack of opportunity on you. Do you have Improved Trip? No? Then he gets another attack of opportunity on you when you try to trip him, and then we can handle the trip attempt. If you're successful, he'll fall down and then he gets his turn, and you can get an elbow strike in on him....
Memo to self. Do not build Batman as a first level Pathfinder fighter.
But that's the key point. Pathfinder is a different game at different levels, and different roles demand different levels. If you're playing at level 2-3, you should be expecting something gritty and realistic (or darkly comedic), but if wind walk is in play, then you're playing with superheroic characters who are not going to be stopped by "running into birds," and you need to set your expectations -- and their challenges -- appropriately. (Bear in mind that wind walk is a spell of comparable power to spells that let you summon and command succubi, raise the dead, place unbreakable geas on people's souls -- as someone pointed out upthread, this caster is Jesus.)
Why is there so much emphasis on what the rules say, and the manipulation of those rules by the players,
Because you're playing what says "Pathfinder" on the label.
Except you seem to be "playing Pathfinder" in the sense that the Patriots play the Colts, not the sense that the Patriots play football. Pathfinder, to you, seems to be the opponent, and not the ruleset.
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I have just a couple of things to add but I want to say first that I applaud your thought process and how I think that you approach the game.
I think your main mistake was using the word prohibit. Many people have a strong negative reaction to that word due to having a poor GM/Player experience. Worded differently, I believe that your question wouldn't have garnered anywhere near the level of venom as it did.
One question I have for you is about the weather and the fly checks issue. The spell states that they are in gaseous form and THAT spell states that all fly checks are made automatically. To actually have the weather effect your characters this part of the spell description would have to be changed/ignored.
I, for one, am curious what you decided to do about this and also about what ideas you and your player came up with.
*Edited for spelling and grammar due to sleep deprivation.