http://paizo.com/prd/skills/fly.html
Attacked While Flying: You are not considered flat-footed while flying. If you are flying using wings and you take damage while flying, 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.
It seems to me that when two creatures are engaged in aerial melee combat it would often be beneficial to take the 10' altitude loss for failing your flight check after being hit by damage in order to avoid full attacks. Is this something that is legal and works for creatures who are using wings to fly?
This is basically being able to take a immediate free 10 foot step downwards anytime you are hit for damage just by choosing to fail the skill check. There is a multitude of uses you could come up with for this, but the most obvious one is avoiding iterative attacks.
There doesn't seem to be anything specifically saying whether you can or can't (that I can find). You can voluntariliy give up a saving throw so I see no reason to disallow this.
I don't see a problem with this, same reason as robert said above.
Seems reasonable. It works both ways, and in most aerial combat situations melee full attacks don't happen very often anyway.
While I would have no issue with it, I also would not apply the roll (and option to fail) until the attack sequence is resolved, so it wouldn't help in avoiding full attacks.
While I would have no issue with it, I also would not apply the roll (and option to fail) until the attack sequence is resolved, so it wouldn't help in avoiding full attacks.
Why would you do it that way? When you trip someone as part of a full attack, they don't stay standing until the full attack is over. They fall and then the rest of the attacks go off.
If someone did decide to fall the 10 feet, you can still use a move action to fly down to them and close the gap. You can decide not to complete a full attack after the first attack and just take a Standard, Move, Swift as normal.
While I would have no issue with it, I also would not apply the roll (and option to fail) until the attack sequence is resolved, so it wouldn't help in avoiding full attacks.
If I were running the game, this is probably what I would do too. It doesn't seem that avoiding iterative attacks by purposefully failing a skill check is what was intended with this rule. For groups who play as close to RAW as possible though, this is something that should be accounted for anytime aerial combat is taking place (with winged creatures, of course).
Strangely, it actually makes positioning yourself below an enemy before starting a full attack sequence more advantageous than being positioned above them (for the +1 higher ground bonus). If you are positioned below them you will be able to at least get two hits off before they fall out of your attack reach, while being positioned above them, or on the same altitude as them, they will fall out of reach after 1 hit.
In addition, this opens up some clever tactics for a character using a polearm against opponents who are using regular melee weapons. The polearm wielder can fall away after being hit once, and then possibly threaten attacks of opportunity a second time if opponents try to close back in.
While I would have no issue with it, I also would not apply the roll (and option to fail) until the attack sequence is resolved, so it wouldn't help in avoiding full attacks.
Why would you do it that way? When you trip someone as part of a full attack, they don't stay standing until the full attack is over. They fall and then the rest of the attacks go off.
If someone did decide to fall the 10 feet, you can still use a move action to fly down to them and close the gap. You can decide not to complete a full attack after the first attack and just take a Standard, Move, Swift as normal.
It's not suddenly providing the option to move, which is why it's tied to a check to begin with. It's not that you're getting pushed back by the attack, otherwise you would move away from the target, not always down. What it represents is losing control and momentum while mid-flight, like stumbling. The results happen pretty quick, but not so quick that you're suddenly dodging your way out of a rapid string of attacks.
With tripping someone, the same logic can easily be applied. The very first hit knocks you off balance, which makes it easier for the rest of the hits to land as you're dropping just as well as if you were wriggling around on the ground.
The case for being allowed to voluntarily fail the check to begin with isn't something the rules specifically allow for, so if you're trying to rules lawyer into a technicality, it's already a no go.
As a personal GM judgement call, really, I also wouldn't apply this rule at all to a flying creature which was actively trying to lower its elevation as fast as possible. If you're diving down, you're already moving downward as fast as the laws of physics will allow. Getting jostled about isn't going to speed you up.