Flight and Space Needed


Rules Questions


Is there anywhere in the RAW that states how much space flying creatures of various sizes need to be able to fly?

If you lure a medium flyer into a space to eliminate their flight advantage, what is the largest space that would do so?

-Weylin

Liberty's Edge

Weylin Stormcrowe 798 wrote:

Is there anywhere in the RAW that states how much space flying creatures of various sizes need to be able to fly?

If you lure a medium flyer into a space to eliminate their flight advantage, what is the largest space that would do so?

-Weylin

The only place it has specific note is on the statblock for each creature with wings and a flight speed. For instance the dire bat and couatl, (At large) is quoted as having a wingspan of 15 feet. Whereas other large creatures are listed at 20 feet like the pit fiend or even 25 to 30 as in the case of the griffon and pterodactyl.

Each creature needs this much space to fly.


In addition to the wingspans mentioned in monster descriptions, as Themetricsystem mentioned, I would point out that a flying creature has to move at at least half it's listed fly speed every round to remain aloft. If it doesn't want to do this, it has to make a fly skill check, DCs listed for different maneuvers in the book. So if you get a big clumsy flier with a low Fly skill modifier in a fairly small space, flying isn't a great option, because it runs the risk of failing a fly check once airborne and having to fly in a direction it doesn't want to go in (at best).

Sovereign Court

A creatures wingspan as noted in it's description still doesn't change it's Space. That's all it needs, if it's a large creature it needs a 10 ft square, Huge is 15 ft., etc, etc.

--Vrock and Awe


Rules as Written, so long as the flying entity is in an area with enough room for a creature of it's space, the entity can fly.

Now here's where I throw in some common sense rulings, such as if the Large Dragon is trying to fly in a tunnel just barely large enough for its wings at full stretch, one Wall of Force, thrown boulder or other such shenanigans will result in one overgrown gecko crashing horribly and possibly sheering off a wing or shredding some other vital part of the body. Even better, do a bit of prep work with a Quickened Spike Stones spell and the Wall spell of your choice and watch the Dragon shred itself on the world's biggest cheese-grater!

So yes, the Ogre Mage can fly in a 10-foot by 10-foot area. Just ... consider that it has almost no room to damn move, you can pretty much give whoever is taking pot-shots at it a +2 to their attack rolls due to the fact the beastie has nowhere to go to avoid the damn missiles.


A quick and dirty method (if you want a bit more versimiltude than just using the creature's own space) is to simply require the creature to have space on either side of it equal to its own space. So a huge (3 squares) creature would require 9 squares of space to effectively fly.

Of course, this only matters for creatures with wings.

And the range of size within each size category can make it not work well either.

And....

Well, like I said, its a quick and dirty method.

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