The Fly spell says creatures can descend at double their speed. The fly skill says creatures can descend at their normal speed.
I understand that the effects of the spell should supersede the skill description, but is this intentional? Can a character using the spell actually fall faster than a diving creature with wings?
Creative Director
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The Fly spell says creatures can descend at double their speed. The fly skill says creatures can descend at their normal speed.
I understand that the effects of the spell should supersede the skill description, but is this intentional? Can a character using the spell actually fall faster than a diving creature with wings?
Yes. Part of the power of the fly spell is that it gives you better flight than a winged creature.
Some creatures might have a similar ability, like a Dive or Swoop type special attack, though.
"Ascend at half speed" is kind of tricky language.
Would it be accurately described this way?
"You can ascend 5 feet by paying 10 feet of movement. If you do this more than once without lateral movement, a DC 20 Fly check is required."
Ascending at 45 degrees could be viewed as: up(-10), across(-5), up(-10), across(-5), which is 30ft spent to achieve 15ft at 45 degrees.
Is this correct?
Also, how tall is your threatened area? Presuming the average combatant is taller than 5 feet, do you threaten the area 10 through 15 feet above your head? 5 through ten feet on any side of you?
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Creative Director
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"Ascend at half speed" is kind of tricky language.
Would it be accurately described this way?
"You can ascend 5 feet by paying 10 feet of movement. If you do this more than once without lateral movement, a DC 20 Fly check is required."
Ascending at 45 degrees could be viewed as: up(-10), across(-5), up(-10), across(-5), which is 30ft spent to achieve 15ft at 45 degrees.
Is this correct?
Sounds good to me!
For most effects, think of the whole world made up of boxes and the people in them traditionally a 5' box. They might be 6'3" but in game terms when it comes to reach/threatening/etc they're only a 5'x5' box, usually on a grid.
Eh... Normally I'm in favor of this kind of granularity, as it speeds up the game. In this instance, especially when it comes to characters using jump to hit flying targets, I think a few clarifications are worth the additional complexity.
I think what I will do is this:
Allow a medium character to hit a creature who's feet are 10 feet in the air directly above them with a "short jump" (no roll). I think even shortest medium creature should have no problem hitting that height with an item that gives them 5 foot reach normally.
You can hit an "adjacent" target (not directly over head) that is 5 feet off the ground even without a "short jump".
Hitting taller areas requires a 5 foot vertical jump for each "layer".
Also, how tall is your threatened area? Presuming the average combatant is taller than 5 feet, do you threaten the area 10 through 15 feet above your head? 5 through ten feet on any side of you?Your threatened area is as tall as your reach.
If this is true, a 6 foot tall character cannot hit a target directly in front of his face? Pinata sales would plummet!
Surely you mean 5 feet plus reach? That makes more sense, although it still seems incongruous with the horizontal reach weapons normally have. :/
Also, how tall is your threatened area? Presuming the average combatant is taller than 5 feet, do you threaten the area 10 through 15 feet above your head? 5 through ten feet on any side of you?Your threatened area is as tall as your reach.If this is true, a 6 foot tall character cannot hit a target directly in front of his face? Pinata sales would plummet!
Surely you mean 5 feet plus reach? That makes more sense, although it still seems incongruous with the horizontal reach weapons normally have. :/
As tall as your reach from your square. Helps to think in cubes really. This does present the interesting situation though were a six foot tall person sticks "out of" his cube, but heck it's all an abstraction anyways.
As tall as your reach from your square. Helps to think in cubes really. This does present the interesting situation though were a six foot tall person sticks "out of" his cube, but heck it's all an abstraction anyways.
So you offer that a six foot tall guy can't hit something standing at 10 with a 5 foot reach weapon?
I'm okay with abstraction, but there's a point where the results are too silly for me.
Maybe I'll just use Height + Reach, and round to the nearest multiple of 5.
As tall as your reach from your square. Helps to think in cubes really. This does present the interesting situation though were a six foot tall person sticks "out of" his cube, but heck it's all an abstraction anyways.Also, how tall is your threatened area? Presuming the average combatant is taller than 5 feet, do you threaten the area 10 through 15 feet above your head? 5 through ten feet on any side of you?Your threatened area is as tall as your reach.If this is true, a 6 foot tall character cannot hit a target directly in front of his face? Pinata sales would plummet!
Surely you mean 5 feet plus reach? That makes more sense, although it still seems incongruous with the horizontal reach weapons normally have. :/
But is kind of make sense when you realize the only part of a 6ft tall person that would stick out of the cube is your head.
The shoulders of a 6ft tall person would be right at the top of the cube, and your reach extends up from your shoulders, not your head.
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Creative Director
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Also, how tall is your threatened area? Presuming the average combatant is taller than 5 feet, do you threaten the area 10 through 15 feet above your head? 5 through ten feet on any side of you?Your threatened area is as tall as your reach.If this is true, a 6 foot tall character cannot hit a target directly in front of his face? Pinata sales would plummet!
Surely you mean 5 feet plus reach? That makes more sense, although it still seems incongruous with the horizontal reach weapons normally have. :/
I mean that your space is a five-foot cube. Your reach is five feet beyond that five-foot cube.
So, a 15 x 15 x 10 area with you at the center, and you do not threaten the space beginning at 10 feet directly overhead?
Nor do you occupy the space at 5 feet above your feet, even if you are 6 feet tall? Because if you do, it is possible for flying creatures to be in locations where they can reach you but you cannot reach them.
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So, a 15 x 15 x 10 area with you at the center, and you do not threaten the space beginning at 10 feet directly overhead?
Nor do you occupy the space at 5 feet above your feet, even if you are 6 feet tall? Because if you do, it is possible for flying creatures to be in locations where they can reach you but you cannot reach them.
Something like that. The easiest way to imagine it is that everyone (medium sized) takes up a 5x5x5' cubic space. Normally, we just think of squares since vertical combat doesn't happen often. When it does, we go back to the cubes. So you threaten one 5x5x5' cube in all directions. In front, behind, and above.
So someone who has their personal cube's bottom at the 10' mark from the ground would be out of reach for your average medium creature.
Please note that if you could somehow reach throw the earth (maybe with a brilliant energy weapon) you would also threaten down 5 feet as well.
So it is a 15'x15'x15' threatened area... it's just normally that last five feet vertically is blocked by a solid object.
Please note that if you could somehow reach throw the earth (maybe with a brilliant energy weapon) you would also threaten down 5 feet as well.
So it is a 15'x15'x15' threatened area... it's just normally that last five feet vertically is blocked by a solid object.
Or if you were standing on an object that had space underneath it.
Like a rope bridge or something similar, you could squat down and stab under the bridge.
While we have a thread about flying going on...
What is the speed of a high level fighter wearing heavy armor, while under the fly spell?
"In addition, a fighter can also move at his normal speed while wearing medium armor. At 7th level, a fighter can move at his normal speed while wearing heavy armor."
My guess is that magical effects that grant additional types of movement are NOT considered "normal speed", thus a 40' fly speed from the spell. I would lean toward allowing armor training to work for Climbing and Swimming, and perhaps even flying creatures who have natural fly abilities.
The fly spell has provisions for armor/encumbrance and speed. I don't think class features will supercede that...
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells---final/fly
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While we have a thread about flying going on...
What is the speed of a high level fighter wearing heavy armor, while under the fly spell?
African or European?
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I still use the following in those weird situations, even if it got dropped when the PRPG rules were made:
3.5 JUMP SKILL:
"Obviously, the difficulty of reaching a given height varies according to the size of the character or creature. The maximum vertical reach (height the creature can reach without jumping) for an average creature of a given size is shown on the table below. (As a Medium creature, a typical human can reach 8 feet without jumping.)
Quadrupedal creatures don’t have the same vertical reach as a bipedal creature; treat them as being one size category smaller.
Creature Size Vertical Reach
Colossal 128 ft.
Gargantuan 64 ft.
Huge 32 ft.
Large 16 ft.
Medium 8 ft.
Small 4 ft.
Tiny 2 ft.
Diminutive 1 ft.
Fine ½ ft"
...so a guy with a sword I would allow 8ft + 5ft reach = 13 feet round up to 15 (hence attacking anything between the edge of your 5-foot cube and the edge of 15-foot cube). However I houseruled that you have a -1 penalty to hit (i.e. the opposite of the +1 you'd get from high ground) I'm a softie, I know... :)
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Reaching for the point of jump was how high you could stretch your hands and grab, it really isn't a good measure for swinging your weapon. The weapons you have 5 ft. reach with range anywhere from a foot in length to five feet, and you typically aren't swinging them while standing on your tippy toes and stretching your arms as high as they can go.
To be honest though, it's off a bit either way. If you use 15 ft. as the reach for above you, it's a bit too high, if you use 10 ft., some people (the taller ones) could reasonably hit higher.
Personally I prefer to go with the 10 ft., if only because it's just easiest to say '5 ft. reach in all directions, you take up a single 5 ft. cube yourself'.
Also remember that very very few people actually take up 5ft x 5ft of space. Most people take up an area of maybe 1ft by 2.5ft.
That 5x5 area represents space under your immediate control and within which you can move easily. By moving to the extremes of this area and reaching as far away as you can with most weapons, you can penetrate easily the adjacent 5x5 area with your weapon.
However, when dealing with 3 dimensional movement, most creatures can't adjust to the height extremes of a 5ft by 5ft cube. They are stuck on the ground. Thus, their reach up is limited by the length of their reach (actual arm reach) and the length of their weapon.
An average human can reach probably about 2.5 ft, give or take a few inches. A typical bladed weapon would have a blade of 30 inches, although some could be as much as 40 inches or larger. Going from the shoulder to straight up, you might just get 10ft with any non-reach type weapon for a relatively tall person, but it would probably be a little bit shorter than that for most people. Thus, most non-reach weapons wielded by medium sized creatures aren't going to be long enough to effectively attack more than 10ft off the ground.
Allow a medium character to hit a creature who's feet are 10 feet in the air directly above them with a "short jump" (no roll). I think even shortest medium creature should have no problem hitting that height with an item that gives them 5 foot reach normally.
Except Elephants. They are the only mammal who can't jump. Period ;-)
Allow a medium character to hit a creature who's feet are 10 feet in the air directly above them with a "short jump" (no roll). I think even shortest medium creature should have no problem hitting that height with an item that gives them 5 foot reach normally.Except Elephants. They are the only mammal who can't jump. Period ;-)
The heck with that. My druid's Elephant companion is maxing out his Acrobatics ranks just to prove you wrong... :P
I still use the following in those weird situations, even if it got dropped when the PRPG rules were made:
3.5 JUMP SKILL:
"Obviously, the difficulty of reaching a given height varies according to the size of the character or creature. The maximum vertical reach (height the creature can reach without jumping) for an average creature of a given size is shown on the table below. (As a Medium creature, a typical human can reach 8 feet without jumping.)
Quadrupedal creatures don’t have the same vertical reach as a bipedal creature; treat them as being one size category smaller.
Creature Size Vertical Reach
Colossal 128 ft.
Gargantuan 64 ft.
Huge 32 ft.
Large 16 ft.
Medium 8 ft.
Small 4 ft.
Tiny 2 ft.
Diminutive 1 ft.
Fine ½ ft"
I really don't see why they removed the vertical reach from the Pathfinder rules... :(
My players are accustomed to doing things like jumping off a cliff and reaching for an overhanging vine a few feet out. When doing such things, knowing how much further your arm extends AFTER the jump distance makes a hell of a difference.
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The Fly spell states that you have a maneuverability of "good" as well as the recipient receiving a bonus to their Fly skill of 1/2 Caster Level.
If a 5th level Caster uses Fly on himself and already has a Fly Skill of +8...
Does his Fly Skill check benefit from the Caster Level bonus as well as an additional +4 from having "good" maneuverability?
Would it be:
8(base skill score) + 2(Caster Level Bonus) +4(good manuv) = +14
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If you read the Fly skill again you'll see that only creatures with a natural fly speed get any kind of bonus based upon maneuverability.
Creatures with a fly speed treat the Fly skill as a class skill. A creature with a natural fly speed receives a bonus (or penalty) on Fly skill checks depending on its maneuverability: Clumsy –8, Poor –4, Average +0, Good +4, Perfect +8. Creatures without a listed maneuverability rating are assumed to have average maneuverability.
So the wizard gets no additional bonus except what the spell provides, plus ranks and so forth.
*shudder*
I hope that's unintentional.
This particular rules domain does not need more exceptions.
Also, keep in mind the physics of swinging a sword. Attacking straight up isn't as easy as attacking something 5' in the air in front of you. Even more so, jumping to hit the bottom of something doesn't give your blow the force it'd normally get from momentum.
It's hard thinking in 3D like that, but I think the 5' squares rule makes the most sense, even if you're technically 6 feet tall. Height or no, you can only reasonably inflict damage on objects in that 5-10' range off the ground.
Also, a lot people forget that, on a six foot tall person, that last foot is the head and neck. Your arms actually start lower than that, at your shoulders.
So your threatened space starting at 5 feet and extending out to 5 feet makes perfect sense to me.