Goblin Squad Member
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It's off-topic, but I do have some experience with the perspective you mention, Andius. I'm not(yet?) wheelchair-bound, but I do have to walk with a cane when leaving my place. The MS started to affect my walking in 2007 when I was playing LotRO a lot, and there were some emotional times when I realized that my character could run while I no longer could. Eventually I learned to better appreciate what I have while I have it, rather than messing up today by mourning yesterday or dreading tomorrow.
Hang in there. I'm in a similar position, except it's my perception checks that are hurting. I still won't play an oracle with the clouded vision curse, that's something I get to do when I'm not gaming.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If PFO is going to work as a true sandbox then the devs will have to keep flying type abilities in mind from the very start of design.
Spells fly, overland flight, wind walk, etc. Potions, magic items, supernatural abilities from certain classes (Sorcerers).
Dragons, Griffons, Beholders, etc.
These are all hugely important to a proper dnd Pathfinder world.
Flying goes hand in hand with any fantasy setting like peanut butter and jelly.
If I am part of a large settlement and we have taken the time and resources to invest in a group of heroes who use flight as a tactic then good for us and the enemy better have a plan to deal with us. Sandbox.
Will flight be used for griefing? Absolutely however even without flight those same people will still be griefing. Don't punish everyone because your worried about a few people and limit flight.
When we come across a dragon rampaging through a hex, I want to see it flying around and sowing destruction, not waddling around the landside!
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Goblin Squad Member
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If PFO is going to work as a true sandbox then the devs will have to keep flying type abilities in mind from the very start of design.
Spells fly, overland flight, wind walk, etc. Potions, magic items, supernatural abilities from certain classes (Sorcerers).
Dragons, Griffons, Beholders, etc.
These are all hugely important to a proper dnd Pathfinder world.
Flying goes hand in hand with any fantasy setting like peanut butter and jelly.
If I am part of a large settlement and we have taken the time and resources to invest in a group of heroes who use flight as a tactic then good for us and the enemy better have a plan to deal with us. Sandbox.
Will flight be used for griefing? Absolutely however even without flight those same people will still be griefing. Don't punish everyone because your worried about a few people and limit flight.
When we come across a dragon rampaging through a hex, I want to see it flying around and sowing destruction, not waddling around the landside!
A dragon would not willingly fight on the ground, but if a small team could force him to the ground... yeah that could make everybody happy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Here, I see a good mix of them.
My opinion on flying: Should be expensive. Transporting goods via flight should not be cheap. You are essentially skipping everything that made the River Kingdom dangerous, and pretty much that.
Because there aren't incredibly dangerous flying monsters that you could run into while flying right?
Griffins, Harpies, Dragons, Drakes, Wyverns etc...
Hobgoblins on flying mounts.
Giant Eagles
Rocs
Giants hurling boulders...
Absolutely none of those things are a threat to you while flying?
I don't think it's that people can't fathom a threat that is still a challenge when flying is implemented, they aren't happy with the idea of the other 70% of encounters essentially being downgraded to "For the poor newbies before they get to the real game".
All concepts of "well it will be late in the game", High level etc... make the problem worse. Either A. Flying needs to be weakened to the point that it is used occasionally, sparingly for brief amounts of time, Given a blaring weakness to make it worse than being on the ground in some situations, something like "projectiles do 2x damage to airborn characters" etc... or flying becomes one of the "OK you are in the tutorial/training phase of the game before you get flying". IE flying must come soon.
One of the key described intentions of PFO, is that new characters should very early on feel like they have a visible impact on what goes on in the world. IE the segment of time where they are in the kiddy pool, and everyone else they interact with is other people in the kiddy pool, should be an extremely minimal portion of the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Flight is not a cure-all, omnipotent ability. Not every highly experienced character is going to fly - or going to want to fly, at least often.
Does that mean there won't be people who will do it as much as they can? No, not at all. People like flying, and will do it because it's flying.
But there are plenty of classes (should we start calling them archetypes?) - MOST of them - that will not have ready access to flight. They might have a friend who can cast it, but then they depend on the friend for it. They might be able to afford to purchase some potions for temporary flight, but doing so is a hassle, and far more expensive than say, having a mount to use for travel. For that matter, a mount is more reliable, often faster, and doesn't have to worry about say... a wind picking up. Nobody is going to squander flying on travel unless they are a spellcaster with a long duration flight spell, such as Overland Flight - in which case, that's the entire point of the spell anyhow.
Flight does have limited usefulness, inherently. It does you no good in a single level cavern where there is no 'up' to go to. It does not allow you to carry extra weight - so using it to get to some loot might work, but good luck getting out with it. It is generally long-lasting enough to last throughout a battle, but it is not so long-lasting that you can just cast it for no reason.
Flying has both advantages and disadvantages - remember the whole thing about taking negatives to actions in Pathfinder? I'm sure similar penalties will be carried over into this game.
Overall, I think there is a lot of concern over how the ability to fly might be implemented in this game that is just unfounded. If Goblinworks follows the feel of how flying works in the tabletop at all - and we have no reason at all to suppose that they will not - then it will be reasonable and balanced.
Complaining about how everyone in the whole river kingdoms seems to be flying would be like complaining that everyone in the area seems to be a heroic adventurer, anyway - sure, that's unusual for many reasons, but that's what you're going to get in any MMORPG.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Flying has both advantages and disadvantages - remember the whole thing about taking negatives to actions in Pathfinder? I'm sure similar penalties will be carried over into this game.
Yeah as I mentioned in my example of if say taking double damage from ranged attacks etc... were plausible.
a general port of P&P concepts... well there's no contest really.
Flying
Can be hit from range (YES)
Can be hit from groundbound mellee (No)
Can fire range (YES)
Can swoop and attack chosen targets in mellee (YES)
P&P speed with fly spell or related objects 60 ft
Not subject to difficult terrain
Landbound
Can be hit from range (YES)
Can be hit from groundbound melee (YES)
Can fire range YES
Can attack groundbound melee (YES)
P&P Speed on ground: 20-30 ft
Succeptible to difficult terrain.
As you can tell, with the P&P type rules... having flight at will has a handful of scenerios where it clearly is superior (Namely the speed, and of course the lack of vulnerability to be hit by melee attacks from non-flighted opponents), with the drawback of.... well a weakness in the event of a severe windstorm.
Now if additional risks/cons to flight are added, and it actually is a strategic choice.
in many cases I hear people describe weaknesses that are simply non-stregnths. Like "an archer can still shoot you", If an archer can shoot an airborne target, the same way he can shoot a landbound target... that isn't a weakness for flying, it's an equal footing. Being better in 25% of situations, and equal in the other 75%, doesn't count as having a weakness.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Getting cover while in mid-air is more difficult than when grounded.
You have difficulty turning around while flying - it takes skill to do.
You can fall from a height and take damage(even die), especially if you are disabled.
It has inherent risks as something to be relied upon. That said, sure, let's hinder it a little more. I have no problem with tacking on additional flaws.
If you - like me - would be willing to take the issue of stability into account such as it functions in Levitate, then you have two more flaws.
A levitating creature that attacks with a melee or ranged weapon finds itself increasingly unstable; the first attack has a –1 penalty on attack rolls, the second –2, and so on, to a maximum penalty of –5. A full round spent stabilizing allows the creature to begin again at –1.)
You take penalties to ranged attacks made from the air.
You take penalties to any 'swooping' melee attacks made from the air. (Or agains another flying target in melee range.To take those even farther, I would suggest you could lose stability after being hit - accruing these penalties further.
Does that seem fair yet?
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Goblin Squad Member
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a general port of P&P concepts... well there's no contest really.
Flying
Can be hit from range (YES)
Can be hit from groundbound mellee (No)
Can fire range (YES)
Can swoop and attack chosen targets in mellee (YES)
P&P speed with fly spell or related objects 60 ft
Not subject to difficult terrainLandbound
Can be hit from range (YES)
Can be hit from groundbound melee (YES)
Can fire range YES
Can attack groundbound melee (YES)
P&P Speed on ground: 20-30 ft
Succeptible to difficult terrain.
Without getting too much into specifics that are irrelevant here, some of those issues are hotly debated in P&P tabletop games and may well depend on the DMs interpretation.
For example tabletop rules for charging specify a straight line which - depending on your DM - can cause all sorts of issues when trying to swoop especially as a fly-by-attack. Some DMs will make you swoop down to melee range and hover to attack. If your mounts fly ability is too poor you cannot hover so you must land.
Other DMs are fine with fly-bys and even allow shock trooper (Flying Paladins with shock trooper can be very very scary)
Anybody remember the arcade game Joust? :p
I could just see Griffon mounted characters harrying infantry troops dropping flaming oil bombs into their lines. Of course you have to dodge all those fireballs! Like flack I imagine.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As you can tell, with the P&P type rules... having flight at will has a handful of scenerios where it clearly is superior (Namely the speed, and of course the lack of vulnerability to be hit by melee attacks from non-flighted opponents), with the drawback of.... well a weakness in the event of a severe windstorm.
You know... that is actually a pretty severe weakness if you go up against a powerful druid or wind oracle. I give you:
Not that I expect that spell to be ported into the game exactly as is but I could definitely see something similar being used as a powerful weapon against fliers.
1000 fliers vs. 1 wind oracle and his 800 ft. of tornado force winds!
Seriously though the ability to cause a large severe windstorm could seriously hurt fliers and could be implemented in the game in a much more balanced way.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As a crafter/trader it pains me to say this.
If you upscale anything, especially game wise be it a call of duty or battlefield match to the size of Planetside 2 or a WoW or any other MMO server to a single shard like EvE Online or Pathfinder Online the importance shifts very sharp from individual skill and strength to Logistics ergo how fast and effective can you bring people to a location to do a task like fight or craft or what be it. If implemented without sufficient consideration the ability to fly is logistical easymode.
Thus I support the notion that flight should be either rare or that there should be sufficient countermeasures, so to speak.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm totally up for climbing, jumping, swimming, diving as skills(maybe similar to DDO, better swimming can hold breath longer etc).
Flying: maybe only as a wizard spell
I'm still thinking about a super-duper extra rare fly potion and sorcerer wings(maybe as graphics and ac boost or something), maybe... not yet there though
But meeting a guy who has wings growing from his back is just evil, pure evil unless they are feathery, in which case it's just too heavenly
If you build flying what ever kind in to an mmo and not everyone has it, imo it will just undermine some game mechanics and drastically decrease the amount of meaningful human interaction, which this game is said to be all about.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Flying has both advantages and disadvantages - remember the whole thing about taking negatives to actions in Pathfinder? I'm sure similar penalties will be carried over into this game.
Yeah as I mentioned in my example of if say taking double damage from ranged attacks etc... were plausible.
a general port of P&P concepts... well there's no contest really.
Flying
Can be hit from range (YES)
Can be hit from groundbound mellee (No)
Can fire range (YES)
Can swoop and attack chosen targets in mellee (YES)
P&P speed with fly spell or related objects 60 ft
Not subject to difficult terrainLandbound
Can be hit from range (YES)
Can be hit from groundbound melee (YES)
Can fire range YES
Can attack groundbound melee (YES)
P&P Speed on ground: 20-30 ft
Succeptible to difficult terrain.As you can tell, with the P&P type rules... having flight at will has a handful of scenerios where it clearly is superior (Namely the speed, and of course the lack of vulnerability to be hit by melee attacks from non-flighted opponents), with the drawback of.... well a weakness in the event of a severe windstorm.
Now if additional risks/cons to flight are added, and it actually is a strategic choice.
in many cases I hear people describe weaknesses that are simply non-stregnths. Like "an archer can still shoot you", If an archer can shoot an airborne target, the same way he can shoot a landbound target... that isn't a weakness for flying, it's an equal footing. Being better in 25% of situations, and equal in the other 75%, doesn't count as having a weakness.
Sorry, but I feel that your comparison between flying and landboud is a bit incomplete.
First, if you are flying, there are several sources of that ability. A flying mount can be killed and shot down, flying magic in the form of spells or wondrous items can be dispelled or suppressed.
Now the natural ability to fly – having wings on your back is quite popular – should be the best, but it has it's own disadvantages. An encumbrance limit, sometimes poor maneuverability and if you are stunned, turned to stone or even just grappled you fall to the ground.
Now regarding speed, while a flying character is quicker than a character without a mount, once he has mount like a horse, that difference disappears.
Regarding swooping in to attack, that is not quite that easy without feats like spring attack.
When you are flying, it is possible to gain concealment using the appropriate spells, but cover is quite hard to come by and stealth might not be an option. All those are things you can usually get in a forest on the ground.
So while flying can be good, it does use up resources (and in Pathfinder Online might take up a slot you could use for something else).
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Goblin Squad Member
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While it's hard to hide once spotted, few landbound creatures (at least PCs) will look up randomly. Especially true in 3rd person games like this where you usually run around staring at the ground.
True, until bandits with bows figure out that shooting down fliers results in easy kills.