So yesterday i really for the first time tried an encounter with flying creatures against my players. I was really just trying to gauge their ability to defend against such a thing because they are all very melee focused.
I'm currently running with a few important house rules, so you know what's going on in the situation i describe:
-One is that full attacks are standard actions now, and can be done on a charge as well, but with the +2 bonus only on the first attack, and no AC penalty. This also caused me to change vital strike and it's follow ups to instead of a single attack the extra damage is added to the first attack with a -2 penalty to attack (with an extra -2 for every other instance of the feat tree), and cleave would function on a full attack with only the first attack generating follow-ups and the iterative attacks all being resolved normally. The changes to these feats are still being tested, because i just came up with this whole thing between this session and the one before that.
-The other being that bear animal companions get a size increase, +4 STR and CON, -2 DEX, +2 Natural AC and a grab ability for their claw attacks at level 7 (which i think puts them just below par with big cats).
Now the party consists of three level 7 PCs, a fighter, a ninja with a summoner cohort and a druid with a bear companion and i used an encounter consisting of two Wyverns.
The first thing i had to notice, is that I really didn't have any idea how ascending, descending and simple turning with different maneuverabilities work in flight. After a bit of browsing i figured out, that turning arcs are all the same for all maneuverabilities and these just mean different bonuses and penalties to fly checks to reduce the arc.
What i still don't fully understand though, is how ascension, descension and vertical reach/range work.
I decided to just treat it like vertical movement on three-dimensional squares, cubes if you will. So if a flying creature descended at 45° angle i would count it as 15 feet movement for every two "cubes" it would go forward and down. accordingly i would also subtract 5 feet from its range if it cnaged its angle 45°, say it has now descended 10 feet while moving 10 feet horizontally and now wants to keep its height, so i subtract one "cube" from its movement speed to turn from 45° downwards to completely horizontal direction.
Then the next question that came up was, how does this work for weapon range, and melee reach, do i also count the cubes that i have to shoot throug? And how "tall" is a creature?
I ruled for my session that the space occupied by a creature is also treated as a cube shape, so large creatures would be 10' tall, medium and small creatures 5' and melee reach above would be the same.
So the bear animal companion was able to attack the wyvern that had just passed overhead at 10' height because it occupied a "cube" that was between the 10' and 15' marks within horizontal reach of the bear. (the bear eventually managed to pick both wyverns out of the air with its grab ability and mauled them together with the eidolon, which was the only flying party member, except for potentially the druid, who was calling lightning instead of wild shaping)
Thanks in advance for anyone who has read through this wall of text so far, my questions now are: Is this what the rules intended for flying or did i do something wrong here?
Does descending/ascending work differently, can i ignore turning restrictions for descension/ascension and just move full horizontal speed and descend the full distance at the same time (and ascend at half the distance while moving have the horiziontal distance at the same time) without having to worry about diagonal movement rules?
And does reach against flying creatures work like that?
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Most GMs I've encountered hate three dimensional combat, whether it be underwater or in the air. I have similarly used your idea that a medium creature takes up a five foot cube rather than just a five foot space, and it works well regarding reach, too. That means a party of medium sized adventurers is really at a disadvantage against anything large with Flyby Attack.
Not everything large actually has 10' reach though.
it is difficult to track one way or the other, is there no official ruling on the up/downward reach thing?
I also still don't know about the up and down movement. I think both versions make sense. If you can just go full speed down and full speed horizontally at the same time, it would make sense, because speed naturally picks up when going down, and the uward movement already is explicitly slowed.
Anyone who has an answer? Or at least a well-founded argument for either?
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Here is the full text of FLY.
If you are already thinking in terms of "cubes" for reach and occupying space, just extend that line of thought to movement. Your first cube of flight 45° downward or upward would cost 5' of movement, and the next cube would be 10', then 5', then 10', etc., just like moving in 2D. It might be a hassle to keep track of for some people, although I've seen others use clear plastic props to help with the calculations. Personally, I use a clear plastic 1" cube to place the figure on, and leave a percentile next to it to keep track of its height.
If your players can understand it all, 3D combats can add a challenging element to your games, but most ppl I've met stop at 2D. YMMV.
Here is the full text of FLY.
If you are already thinking in terms of "cubes" for reach and occupying space, just extend that line of thought to movement. Your first cube of flight 45° downward or upward would cost 5' of movement, and the next cube would be 10', then 5', then 10', etc., just like moving in 2D.
The full text of the fly skill is worth reading. It it incorrect, however, that moving diagonally up or down in flight is just like moving in 2D. The fly skill states that you:
can rise at half speed at an angle of 45 degrees, and can descend at any angle at normal speed
To put it another way, if you want to move up at 45 degrees it always costs two squares of movement. If you want to move down at any angle, it's just one square of movement. Simple.
The fly spell has additional freedom and grants you descent at double speed, in case you're curious.
If you wish to ascend at an angle steeper than 45 degrees, something like a Blue Angels vertical break, you make a DC 20 Fly check. The rules don't explicitly state what your ascent speed is when making such a maneuver but I'd probably say it still only costs two squares of movement for each 5' of altitude, just for simplicity's sake.
As I understand it, what Ansel Krulwich is saying is that, you don't move vertically like you move horizontally. He's saying moving 45° upwards is 10' up and forward every time.
Yep. Furthermore, d20pfsrd also links to a FAQ:
Fly: When a character or creature is flying, and that creature decides to ascend at a 45 degree angle, the rules states that it moves at half speed? Do the rules for diagonal square counting still apply when moving up diagonally in this way?
No. Since the game is generally assumed to be played in two dimensions, even when representing three dimensional combat, the rules for ascending are handled by the speed reduction instead of asking players and GMs to ascertain the diagonal vertical movement.
So, no diagonal counting. Just use the speed reduction (two squares of movement) when ascending.
Thanks, that cleared it up