Has probably been asked before, but can't find answer... Ranks in Fly Skill?

[DarkMidget]

Hey everyone! Hope you're all doing well.

I've been looking around at some things, and was thinking of making a Storm druid or Master of Storms or some such that requires flying at some point. The Fly skill says that you can't take ranks in it unless you have a natural or magical way of flying, basically.

So, does this mean that even though druids do eventually get the ability to by shapeshifting, I can't take ranks in it until level 5 or so?

Would weird back-story allow some way to take ranks in it at level 1? I just don't want to put ranks into something else, then circumvent points later to start tossing them into fly. For some reason I am picky or OCD-style about my skill ranks. I generally pick a few skills and stick with them as I level without just randomly throwing points into other skills on occasion. I dunno, I'm just... picky.

So I guess what it boils down to: Is there any way to put ranks into fly from level 1 onward without being a non-core race?

[Whale_Cancer]

Take the rich parents trait and buy a glider (500 gp); gliders can be flown with the fly skill.

[Kayerloth]

Homerules? If so it's up to your GM but logically if you have no way to go out and practice daily it gets a bit trickier to justify (but not out of the question).

Like the method Whale Cancer posted while I typed this.

[DarkMidget]

Sounds legit to me.

[Avatar-1]

What book is glider in?

[Whale_Cancer]

Ultimate Combat

[LazarX]

DarkMidget wrote:

Hey everyone! Hope you're all doing well.

I've been looking around at some things, and was thinking of making a Storm druid or Master of Storms or some such that requires flying at some point. The Fly skill says that you can't take ranks in it unless you have a natural or magical way of flying, basically.

So, does this mean that even though druids do eventually get the ability to by shapeshifting, I can't take ranks in it until level 5 or so?

Unless your race is Strix, that's essentially correct. You're not generally going to get flight available as a PC before 5th level in most cases. When you do hit 5th you can put up to 5 skill ranks if you so desire, and have the points available to do it. (no saving up from earlier levels though)

[DarkMidget]

I dunno why, but that part bugs me... the not being able to save skill points or whatnot, but I guess it's to prevent some form of exploitation with rogues, or bards, or whathaveyou with skill points.

[Rynjin]

Rogues, I have no clue, but I guess Bards could "exploit" that if they saved their points until they got Versatile Performance.

I think though it's more a bookkeeping limitation than a balance one. Hard to keep track of things if you allocate them sometimes but not others.

[DarkMidget]

I guess... too bad there wasn't just like, a skill pool where every level, you gain points into it, and just have the same general limit on ranks and such. I dunno. I'm just being huffy about the fly skill, mostly.

[GreenMandar]

I see skill points as an abstract system to represent what you learned each level. Saving skill points would be like us not learning from lots of experiences and them one day far down the road knowing a whole bunch more.

[SenahBirdR]

Choosing skills and feats is the last step of advancing a character level.See page 30 of the Core book under Advancing Your Character. At the point of choosing skills when advancing to a 4th level Druid the character will already have the capability to fly every day reliably and may spend skill points on the fly skill. If you are a single classed druid with no Intelligence penalty, this allows you to rank to the maximum ranks of the fly skill at the same time you gain flight from wild shape.