Ascending While Flying

[ckdragons]

A creature wants to ascend while flying forward. How much movement is spent to move up 5 ft and forward 5 ft?

Is it 15 ft? It has to spend 10 ft to ascend 5 ft and another 5 ft to move forward.

-or-

Is it 10 ft? It is moving forward as it ascends so it gains 5 ft of altitude as it moves forward 5 ft.

Is this specifically referenced in the rulebook?

Thanks.

[Lady Asharah]

RAW to move Diagonally upwards (ascend at 45 degree angle) it's half speed.

And that's it, no "move forward, then move up". Just "ascend diagonally" so you move 10ft to move 5ft foward and 5ft upwards.

I generally use, the d20pfsrd site and sources are cited there:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/fly/

[willuwontu]

It's still movement, so diagonals alternate between 5ft and 10ft of cost.

[Thedmstrikes]

FAQ wrote:

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.

Taken from the FAQ page. Making it truly three dimensional will be a house rule.

Here is the rule extract from the Fly skill:

Fly wrote:

It can also turn up to 45 degrees by sacrificing 5 feet of movement, can rise at half speed at an angle of 45 degrees, and can descend at any angle at normal speed. Note that these restrictions only apply to movement taken during your current turn. At the beginning of the next turn, you can move in a different direction than you did the previous turn without making a check. Taking any action that violates these rules requires a Fly check.

[RAWmonger]

willuwontu wrote:

It's still movement, so diagonals alternate between 5ft and 10ft of cost.

This is a general rule, and is overruled by the specific rules found in the Fly entry that were referenced above.

Here's where it gets *really* complicated though. You fly at half speed going diagonally *up*, but if you are also flying diagonally horizontally on the normal 2D screen, you then have to alternate 5 ft, 10 ft. See Diagram below.

THIS DIAGRAM IS A BIRD'S EYE VIEW DOWN ONTO YOUR NORMAL 2D PLAY MAT

OOO > OOO > OXO
OOO > OXO > OOO
OXO > OOO > OOO

We'll use cardinal terms to explain horizontal movement, and up/down to explain flying. Moving North 2 squares, and up vertically 2 squares, this character has used 20ft of fly speed (he moved north and up a total of 10ft).

OOO > OOO > OOX
OOO > OXO > OOO
XOO > OOO > OOO

Moving Northeast 2 squares (diagonally in a horizontal manner), and up 2 squares, this character has used a total of 30ft of fly speed. The first square used 10ft, since he moved one diagonal at half speed, the second square used 20ft, since he moved a second diagonal at half speed, for a total of using 15ft of horizontally diagonal movement at half speed, thereby he used 30ft of fly speed since he also climbed 10ft.

Essentially, you use the same amount of movement flying diagonally *and* up as you would walking diagonally through difficult terrain

[blahpers]

Move as though you were moving on the 2D plane alone, but move at half speed to account for ascent. That's pretty much it.