How do flying and melee work together?

[MoFiddy]

I am DM'ing Rise of the Runelords for a group of friends and we are all rather new to the game. I have a grasp of most of the mechanics, but one piece that I can't quite understand is flying creatures and melee.

Take, for example, a harpy. She flies up to a PC and attacks.

Can she hover while she attacks, so she can make full attacks? Does she have to make a fly check to do this?

Suppose she attacks with her first action and then chooses to fly away. Does the PC get an AOO?

Thanks for your help.

[Rathendar]

MoFiddy wrote:

I am DM'ing Rise of the Runelords for a group of friends and we are all rather new to the game. I have a grasp of most of the mechanics, but one piece that I can't quite understand is flying creatures and melee.

Take, for example, a harpy. She flies up to a PC and attacks.

Can she hover while she attacks, so she can make full attacks? Does she have to make a fly check to do this?

Suppose she attacks with her first action and then chooses to fly away. Does the PC get an AOO?

Thanks for your help.

1) yes

2) yes
3) yes

=)

[MoFiddy]

Rathendar wrote:

MoFiddy wrote:

I am DM'ing Rise of the Runelords for a group of friends and we are all rather new to the game. I have a grasp of most of the mechanics, but one piece that I can't quite understand is flying creatures and melee.

Take, for example, a harpy. She flies up to a PC and attacks.

Can she hover while she attacks, so she can make full attacks? Does she have to make a fly check to do this?

Suppose she attacks with her first action and then chooses to fly away. Does the PC get an AOO?

Thanks for your help.

1) yes

2) yes
3) yes

=)

I like your style :)

Thanks

[Ice Titan]

MoFiddy wrote:

I am DM'ing Rise of the Runelords for a group of friends and we are all rather new to the game. I have a grasp of most of the mechanics, but one piece that I can't quite understand is flying creatures and melee.

Take, for example, a harpy. She flies up to a PC and attacks.

Can she hover while she attacks, so she can make full attacks? Does she have to make a fly check to do this?

Suppose she attacks with her first action and then chooses to fly away. Does the PC get an AOO?

Thanks for your help.

Also make sure to read Flyby Attack and the fly rules. There's a lot of dumb auto-successful checks in fly, but they're there to help spread around annoyance. You're annoyed you have to make nine fly checks around, the PCs are annoyed they have to fight a flying monster.

Also this rule:

Quote:

Attacked While Flying: You are not considered f lat-footed

while f lying. If you are f lying using wings and you take
damage while f lying, you must make a DC 10 Fly check
to avoid losing 10 feet of altitude. This descent does not
provoke an attack of opportunity and does not count
against a creature’s movement.

I personally make it a DC 15 just so some monsters have a chance to fail.

I also make all squares flying up doubled and all squares flying down halved just so people with flight speeds (like wizards) don't get a free pass to five foot step directly up and out of all danger.

So like, under normal rules, a wizard with 30ft movement could fly 30ft up or down or take a 5ft step up or down.

In my rules, a wizard with 30ft movement could fly 15 feet up or take a 5ft step down, but not up.

Just felt like sharing house rules.

[LazarX]

Harpies tend to be skirmish types. and it's going to depend on the situation. They'll generally use flyby attacks content to get a swing and then get out of combat, whittling their foes down bit by bit. If they get savaged at range, then they'll consider either closing in on the ranged or just flying away in search of less expensive prey.

Now if they can charm a foe or two, then things get interesting.

[Cainus]

Ice Titan wrote:

I also make all squares flying up doubled and all squares flying down halved just so people with flight speeds (like wizards) don't get a free pass to five foot step directly up and out of all danger.

So like, under normal rules, a wizard with 30ft movement could fly 30ft up or down or take a 5ft step up or down.

In my rules, a wizard with 30ft movement could fly 15 feet up or take a 5ft step down, but not up.

Just felt like sharing house rules.

Actually, a wizard using the fly spell cannot take a 5ft step. You can only take a 5ft step while flying if you have an actual Fly speed.

The fly spell allows you to fly but it doesn't give you a Fly speed.

To note the difference, look at spider climb. It grants you an actual Climb speed, as opposed to just granting you a bonus to climb.

So PC's using fly cannot 5ft step while flying. Give the natural flyers a bit of an advantage.

And technically isn't it a move action to hover? So how could you do a full attack after that? I could be wrong on this, I'm just wondering.