Director of Games
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WHY?! So every six seconds inertia, gravity, friction, and centrifugal force all totally fail? This rule needs to go.Its an artifact of the facing rules. I think Jason is trying to get all the movements systems to follow the same rules. Its part of why he made fly a skill.
The difficult maneuvers come up alot in combat, where you can't take ten on them, making them punishing.
BM is absolutely correct here. We want all of these movement skills to work in the same way. There are things you can do without a skill, and extra things you need a skill to perform.
We originally did not have this rule, but then we realized that it reintroduced facing into the game, something we did not want. Remember, you can already take a run action, moving 120 in one direction, then on your next turn, run exactly back the way you came without having to make any check. Why should flying be any different.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Same here. The comparison to climb and swim makes sense, except anyone can attemp to climb or swim, not everyone can fly. I think this might be more of a corner-case monstrous skill like control shape or whatever it is lycanthropes use.
Good point - I hadn't thought about the Control Shape skill.
The more I think about it, the more I think that perhaps the Fly skill should stay. There's enough case (natural Climbers using Climb and natural Swimmers using Swim) that it can be argued for at least for monsters. Though I still think the "turning" part should be dropped. If flyers aren't going to have facing imposed on them, limiting their turning gets really screwy.
Hmmm...now I'm wondering if we can use Control Shape on Polymorph spells.
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I'm being persuaded in favor of the Fly skill. However, I still think it needs some work. For example, an air elemental with innate flying ability must make a check for a 180 degree turn and spend 10 feet extra movement to do it. Shouldn't these be effortless actions for creatures with perfect flight? Other than small gripes with 'perfect' flight, the skill looks like it could really be balanced and useful.
I think a skill for flying is really uneeded, why not for Burrowing then. When a creature has the ability to fly its something natural to them, like walking for us humans, i don´t think it makes sense at all.
A big dragon is not as quick as a hummingbird because he is too big and cumbersome, not because he hasn´t learned to fly decently; he is actually pretty fast, but for turning 180 degrees in a second as a hummingbird does is physically impossible (considering he doesn´t have turbines).
Definitely in favour of the fly skill.
After all, flying has to be the least natural activities a human can perform, while simultaneously being one of the most commonly used methods of movement in the game after walking (high level characters probably fly more often than they swim).
Besides, think of the potential for chase scenes. Picture a series of complex maneouvres within a canyon as your wizard desperately tries to throw off the angry dragon on his tail. Don't you want a skill that can adjudicate something like that, rather than having to kludge something together on the spur of the moment?
I know I do.
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I don't mind having Fly as a skill; however, as it is currently written, I would not use it in my games. Here is why:
A clumsy colossal dragon will never fail a fly check if it takes this skill. A creature flying without the need for wings will never be more maneuverable than said dragon as long as the dragon has high hit dice contributing to its check.
Once a PC and an enemy reach a certain level, there is no opposed mechanic to determine who can outmaneuver the other. Both the PC and enemy will always make any movement check at high level. I propose a couple of changes to the Fly skill:
1. Creatures with perfect flight reduce the movement spent on turning by 5 feet. For example, an air elemental turning 90 degrees during its move would not spend extra movement, and an air elemental turning 180 degrees would lose 5 feet of its movement.
2. Creatures with perfect flight can climb at greater than 45 degrees at either half movement speed or (normal movement -10 feet), whichever is greater.
3. Air elementals might deserve a racial trait bonus to Fly checks vs. wind conditions, +4 perhaps.
Ah yes... the Fly skill.
So, it occurred to us very early on in the process that it was odd that Climb and Swim both had a skill check, due to their chance of failure and harm, but Flying, which is perhaps even more perilous, did not. Instead, fly has an odd subsystem that works on its own mechanic. This led to a number of corner case problems as well, such as tripping a flying creature, or grappling a flying creature. There are no rules for determining how to bring down a flyer.
This made the Fly skill an obvious choice from that angle. I realize that it is not a very useful skill for PCs, since they do not generally have the ability. That said, I still feel that it has a place in the game.
Of course, I am open to your thoughts and ideas. Keep em coming.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Fly should be a feat as it represents specialized training. You could tier it if desired, but it shouldn't be a general-purpose skill.
I like the idea that everyone doesn't turn into Superman once they can fly, though.
Just to offer my two bits...
I like the fly skill. The rules for flight currently in 3.5 are clunky and burried deep somewhere other than the phb... so for a player who does have flight (through a spell or naturally) to figure out how movement works, they need to start flippin' through books rather than simply turn to the skill section. So, it gets points for ease of use.
I also like that it includes modifiers to take into account natural flight ability. Although, I am confused, why a naturally flying creature that has a flight maneuverability of "poor" does worse than someone who has no natural flight ability at all.
The wingover issue that some people bring up... it strikes me that because there is a feat that allows someone to change direction while flying as a free action, to build that into the skill would pretty much nullify the feat. For backwards compatability, nullifying feats (particularly feats in the monster manual that monsters have taken) leads to DMs needing to do more work to revise the feat list of monsters before using them.
I haven't really play tested this much, so I can't offer much on the actual DCs listed, but I do think the skill is appropriate.
Now that I've read more about the rationale of adding a "Fly" skill into the game I'm not as negative about it.
That said, I think it should be folded into a broader skill... like Acrobatics.
why not a maneuver skill?
It can be balance, climb, swim, (run?) and fly all built into one.
I think Balance should remain in Acrobatics, and I think someone suggested running and climbing become Athletics or something like that. Personally, I think that Fly should be linked to Swim. In many ways, I imagine (having never actually pulled a Clark Kent myself), flying seems like swimming through the air. In fact, maybe the same armor and weight penalties apply to flying. (ooh!)
I like the idea of rolling Fly into Acrobatics, and having a sidebar explaining Acrobatics in Flying.
Oh, yeah, I can see this too. Still, I like the swimming connection. But then what would you call a Swim/Fly skill?
Actually, I like it because wizards with the fly spell and druids in bird form aren't immediately, perfectly proficient. The lack of proficiency balances out fly as an otherwise game-cracking ability.
But the druid nor wizard needs to take proficiency with Natural Weapons, and I'm sure they'd be as unfamiliar as attempting to take someone down with a bite as a wolf as they would be trying to fly as a bird.
Right, so is there going to be a Bite, Claw and Tail Swipe skill? This not only reflects on the Fly spell, but also on Polymorph.
And that brings up the difference between a bird flying aerodynamically using wings and the superhero style flying of magic. A bird knows how to fly instinctively, starting our pretty wobbly and not landing very elegantly. With practice, he gets better (just like walking, those of you who have children). But what is the propulsion for flying when it’s a spell? How do you change direction, slow down and land hard or soft? Is it your skill (as with my swimming analogy)? There’s no kicking or paddling. You might, as Reeves, point your hand in the direction you want to go, but do you have to?
Yeah, all said, I don’t think this makes sense as a skill.
- Would this be less of an issue if there was a base race that had wings and could fly?
All hail the mighty KENKU!
The wingover issue that some people bring up... it strikes me that because there is a feat that allows someone to change direction while flying as a free action, to build that into the skill would pretty much nullify the feat. For backwards compatability, nullifying feats (particularly feats in the monster manual that monsters have taken) leads to DMs needing to do more work to revise the feat list of monsters before using them.
Feature, not a bug.
We tring to move away from that.
A great point was raised here that I forgot. One of the big reasons we put this skill in was that if you actually played a character that could naturally fly, the rules were brutal on you if you wanted to do anything but move from one spot to another. You had to burn a lot of feats to get the job done in many cases.Please continue with the discussion. I will check back in.
I thought he was referring to feats like hover and improved maneuverability... if you're a raptoran and you want to increase to perfect flight, it costs 2 feats or so to do that. Then start looking at your aerial combat feats. The skill means that even if you're a poor flyer, eventually you can get good enough to do various things (through the skill) rather than taking feats. Improved maneuverability is still a useful feat to take, but not required. Same with Hover, by the skill you can do it, but it's easier with the feat. Wingover is something I'd leave as the feat, to represent specialized training beyond just being good at flying represented by the skill.
This is something totally odd but its now bugging my brain. Jump is the poor PCs Fly Speed. I know there are some major differences between the two but they both overcome the obstacles for a typical PC in a dungeon crawl (mainly clearing large pits). I though I would just point this interesting similarly. Its almost in line with Swim and Climb skills, and their respective Movement Modes.
Hm. Interesting points. I figured I'd break down the flight checks for dragons, as compared to wizards (matched by CR), just to see how exactly it all worked. Bronze dragons were used, as that's where my monster manual fell open. So.
Analysis and manipulation of the current skill levels:
Dragon Wizard Size quadrupled
Wyrmling: +9 lv3: +6 +11 (tiny) +17
Very Young: +8 lv5: +8 +9 (small) +12
Young: +11 lv7: +10 +11 (medium) +11
Juvenile: +14 lv9: +12 +13 (large) +10
Young adult: +17 lv12: +15 +18 (large) +13
Adult: +20 lv15: +18 +19 (large) +16
Mature adult: +23 lv17: +20 +21 (huge) +15
Old +26 lv19: +22 +24 (huge) +18
Very old +29 lv20: +23 +27 (huge) +21
Ancient +28 lv22: +25 +26 (huge) +20
Wyrm +31 lv23: +26 +27 (gargantuan) +15
Great wyrm +34 lv25: +28 +30 (gargantuan) +18
Edit: Okay, so the table's a mess. Too much effort to fix, so ignore it unless you really want to follow the progression.
So, the very occasional decreases in flight checks due to decreased maneuverability are no more than minor glitches, with the dragon routinely outclassing the wizard. Of course, these numbers are assuming a +0 dex bonus for the wizard, which may not be the case, and dex can certainly be augmented by magic (to say noting of directly augmenting the skill check itself). If the wizard then manages to improve his maneuverability to good or perfect, he overtakes the dragon.
On the third hand, those party members for whom fly is cross-class don't come near competing. And the gap between them and dragons only increases with the dragon's age.
It's worth noting that the same holds true for any flying creature whose skill ratings are based off of hit dice. It's just that the dragon provides a handy continuuum of values.
One possible solution is to add a modifier for size on top of maneuverability. The same modifiers as apply to AC seem appropriate. The results for this are included in the chart above. Still generally ahead of the wizard, but not by much. Unfortunately, those check values are still increasing overall, so we still face the prospect of a colossal dragon easily passing any test it is called upon to make. Quadrupling the modifiers gives some interesting results, but the huge dragons are still the best fliers, and the great wyrms are better than the wyrmlings.
I tried a couple more variations, but without much luck.
The problem is that in order to get what we want, we'd need to effectively decrease the degree of skill with increasing CR, which goes against everything in the mechanics. The dragons shouldn't actually be getting less skilled in any case, just less able to put their bulks through the necessary maneuvers quickly. A wyrm should still be able to thread the needle, if it can find a sufficiently large needle.
The solution, I think, lies in manipulating the DCs, rather than the skills themselves. Halve the necessary DC to perform a maneuver for small creatures, double for large, triple for huge, quadruple for gargantuan and so on. Decrease the DC by 10 for every extra 10 feet the flier is willing to spend on the maneuver.
As one cannot spend an extra 10 feet hovering, flying more slowly, or flying closer to the vertical, these maneuvers simply become more difficult, as they should be. On the flip side, small characters and creatures can simply flit about like hummingbirds, so it may be worth restricting halved DCs to tiny creatures (like wyrmlings).
This concludes your disjointed rambling for the day.
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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Please continue with the discussion. I will check back in.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
The skill is needed and makes sense. It's real use is for Raptorians (or other flying races) and doesn't come into play when riding a flying mount (Pegasus) or when flying via spell that grants perfect maneuverability.
You may want to do a translation table what default skill ranks should be for Good, Average, Poor etc so we can translate other effects that may come into play.
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Ah yes... the Fly skill.
So, it occurred to us very early on in the process that it was odd that Climb and Swim both had a skill check, ...
I agree wholeheartedly with the reasoning and I, personally, would like to see it grouped with swim in some sort of maneuverability skill as the three-dimensional movements hold some similarities.