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To hover from above and attack, it has to eat one of your three shared actions.
How is this at all worth it at that level? Should be MUCH lower level, like 8th perhaps.
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You can use evolution surge to get it at 9, a little later then ancestries limited flight options, otherwise on par with presedence.
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Mark Seifter covered why permanent flight is a high level feat in the main thread.
See also the Cloak of the Bat, Greater (more specifically, note its item level).
Players are not supposed to have access to this effect until higher levels - until then, there are temporary flight options that cost one sort of resource or another.
Persistent flight options at lower levels - like a Broom of Flying - have significant restrictions.
Luckily, as Orochi noted you get one for absolute free in Evolution Surge.
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To hover from above and attack, it has to eat one of your three shared actions.
How is this at all worth it at that level? Should be MUCH lower level, like 8th perhaps.
Because Aasimars and tieflings get perma-flight at 17 and the Druid and Champion get perma-flight at 18. Temporary flight is easy, permanent is alot harder.
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I can't wait until strix come into PF2e and lose their wings until 17th level.
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I can't wait until strix come into PF2e and lose their wings until 17th level.
More likely such a race will be tagged as Rare (as opposed to Uncommon) in order to allow GM's to curate whether this will be disruptive toward their personal campaign.
Then just slap rare on the lower level flight class feat?
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Then just slap rare on the lower level flight class feat?
There's not really any place in a primary class entry for options that aren't intended to be used in most campaigns.
Especially since all Eidolons can fly at level 9 anyway. A lower level flying feat is entirely redundant capability wise.
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Mark Seifter covered why permanent flight is a high level feat in the main thread.
See also the Cloak of the Bat, Greater (more specifically, note its item level).
Players are not supposed to have access to this effect until higher levels - until then, there are temporary flight options that cost one sort of resource or another.
Persistent flight options at lower levels - like a Broom of Flying - have significant restrictions.
Luckily, as Orochi noted you get one for absolute free in Evolution Surge.
Mark Seifter said, in Welcome to the Summoner Class Playtest!, comment #373,
I can speak to one thing, though. When it comes to constant flying on something that can attack from out of the foes' reach (or "kiting"), the game cannot handle it before a certain level without the GM doing some pretty big lifts. After we hit the highest levels, every opponent gets a pass where we look at it saying "Does it have a way to deal with an opponent attacking from out of reach in the air, even if that's just 'OK I'm leaving, burrow away' " but before that, they don't (and frankly if they all did at low levels, it would be pretty verisimilitude breaking) and the GM has to do it and can't really use prepublished adventures The bird animal companion, for example, can fly right away but is incapable of attacking or supporting unless it comes into reach, and it can't carry along another character capable of kiting.
Which levels are too low to give permanent flying? The Aerial Form and Fly spells are 4th level, so a 7th-level arcane, occult, or primal caster has access. Fly lasts for 5 minutes, longer than almost every combat, so for practical purposes, it lasts through combat. The only difference permanent flight would make is that it would be available every combat. At 11th level, the spellcaster can cast Phantom Steed from a 6th-level slot to gain a flying phantom steed for 8 hours.
Evolution Surge allows a 9th-level summoner to grant his or her eidolon flying for 1 minute at the cost of a focus point. A 10-minute refocus between every battle would grant flying to the eidolon for every battle, at the cost on not using Evolution Surge for anything else.
The Broom of Flying, item 12, occupies one hand to ride and requires a two-action command regularly in order to not outfly the combat area. Cloak of the Bat, item 10, allows flying or transforming into a bat for 10 minutes, once a day. Greater Cloak of the Bat, item 17, loses the "once a day" restriction. However, I believe that feats should appear at lower levels than items that grant the same abilities as a feat.
For other creatures, a young black dragon, creature 7, has fly 100 feet. A young white dragon, creature 6, has fly 80 feet. A young brass dragon is also a flying creature 7. The other young dragons in PF2 Bestiary 1 are higher level. The drakes, creatures 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8, fly 50 feet. If dragons and drakes seem too special, Giant Eagle, creature 3, flies 60 feet. Gargoyle, creature 4, flies 40 feet. Griffon, creature 4, flies 60 feet. Harpy, creature 5, flies 60 feet. Manticore, creature 6, flies 40 feet. Pegasus, creature 3, flies 80 feat. Pteranodon, creature 2, flies 40 feet. Sphinx, creature 8, flies 40 feet. Giant Wasp, creature 3, flies 40 feet. I believe that feats should appear at higher levels than creatures for whom the same ability is their most notable feature.
Thus, 10th level appears good to give an eidolon permanent unrestricted flying ability. Perhaps 8th level for an angel or dragon eidolon.
Another problem in PF2 is that the 3-action system allows Fly-Strike-Fly for a flier to keep out of reach of melee attacks except for reactions. Making low-level flight require two actions would prevent this. Visualize it as an eidolon with undersized wings that can barely lift its weight while flapping furiously. Restricted forms of permanent eidolon flight given before 10th level should avoid easy strafing.
Remember, an eidolon is a specialty monster and maybe flight is its specialty. It does not have to follow the general-purpose PC rules for permanent flight.
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How many 8th level adventure exploration and travel plots would be trivialised by a perma-flying PC?
I ran the Jade Regent adventure path. A significant part of that adventure is traveling from Varisia on the Avastian continent to Minkai on the Tian Xia continent. The 7th- to 9th-level module, The Hungry Storm covers traveling across the north polar continent the Crown of the World.
The big issue at the Crown of the World is the morozko storms. Flying through one of those would be as deadly as walking through one. And to survive on the ice cap, the party needs a caravan, which cannot fly. The module also offers trouble with frozen undead. Flying could avoid those during the day, but what about when camped at night? What about the caravan?
However, my greatest experience with flying was that I let a player play a strix skald. Strix can fly. Some GMs ban strix and others insist on Clipped Wings, but I let her fly. She made a great scout, but she prefered melee combat to ranged combat due to the advantage of the Death from Above feat and that put her within reach of her opponents. Flight at 1st level changed some encounters, but the increased speed was a bigger advantage than flight itself.
I ran a bloodrager NPC of Air Elemental bloodline in that campaign, who could temporarily join the strix in the air at 8th level. I gave the bloodrager Airy Step at 10th level and Wings of Air at 12th level for permanent flight, though she had to lighten her armor for Wings of Air.
Finally, at 15th level, I gave the fighter some powered armor, an artifact-level technological item, and he could permanently fly, too, but at a pitiful speed of 20 feet.
Meanwhile, the magus could cast Fly and the gunslinger had a grapple-hook gun, so they have no trouble scaling walls, either.
Also I have no idea how you fight flyers in the open when they can drop rocks om you from 1500 feet up.
As the GM, I would rule that the dropped rock would need fins like an airplane's bomb to have 1% accuracy in hitting the right square. And 1% at 1500 feet up is 15 feet, so that means hitting a random square out of 37 squares. Good for bombing a castle, terrible for bombing a party of four.
Thus, 10th level appears good to give an eidolon permanent unrestricted flying ability. Perhaps 8th level for an angel or dragon eidolon.
I don't know how you came to this conclusion, based on the quotes you used.
Mark made it quite clear why flight is restricted, and no other player options get persistent flight short of the 16th or so level range.
I would not expect to get this ability any sooner than that.
Who knows, I could be wrong - but I doubt it, especially since Eidolons can serve as mounts which would essentially be the same thing as granting the player character access to persistent flight earlier as well.
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I can't wait until strix come into PF2e and lose their wings until 17th level.
We'll get to see an ancestry whose bestiary entry has permanent flight when Lost Omens: Ancestry Guide releases with the Sprite, so we'll know how Paizo wants to handle that sort of thing then.
I can't wait until strix come into PF2e and lose their wings until 17th level.We'll get to see an ancestry whose bestiary entry has permanent flight when Lost Omens: Ancestry Guide releases with the Sprite, so we'll know how Paizo wants to handle that sort of thing then.
I could imagine flight on low level PC ancestries as something along the lines of initially gliding, then short bursts of flight before finally getting a permanent fly speed.
I guess that such ancestries will be able to fly at the cost of a much reduced actions availability while they do.
Something like: you can fly, but it uses up both your hands. A 'Strong Wings' feat will later free them up.
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Thus, 10th level appears good to give an eidolon permanent unrestricted flying ability. Perhaps 8th level for an angel or dragon eidolon.I don't know how you came to this conclusion, based on the quotes you used.
Mark made it quite clear why flight is restricted, and no other player options get persistent flight short of the 16th or so level range.
I would not expect to get this ability any sooner than that.
Who knows, I could be wrong - but I doubt it, especially since Eidolons can serve as mounts which would essentially be the same thing as granting the player character access to persistent flight earlier as well.
I am mainly interested in the theoretical problem of at which level is flight appropriate for Pathfinder 2nd Edition.
My gut feeling is from PF1 experience. I had a PC in my Jade Regent campaign buy Winged Boots, which allow 5 minutes of flight 3 times a day, at 10th level, which is an appropriate time to invest in 16,000 gp items in PF1. I had a strix flying at 1st level in my Iron Gods campaign, followed by the bloodrager flying intermittently at 8th level and permanently at 12th level. These characters faced permanently flying enemies frequently starting at 7th level--and the PF1 flying monsters have not lost their flight in PF2.
Experienced players know that their melee characters should carry a bow or sling, even if they have terrible Dexterity, because they could run into flying creatures. Mark Seifter's remarks are based on monsters that cannot pick up a ranged weapon like the PCs can. Giving a mythological ground-bound creature a way to attack a flying strafing PC could ruin the myth. But at some level, the monsters have to be able to battle flying PCs. A 5th-level druid or wizard can Summon Elemental a Spark Bat, creature 2 with fly 50 feet, for 1 minute. At 7th level they can cast Fly for 5 minutes. At 13th level, that Fly spell can last 1 hour.
I already gave the example of an 11th-level spellcaster casting Phantom Steed from a 6th-level slot to gain a flying phantom steed for 8 hours. Nothing stops a wizard from flying 485 feet above the enemy on a phantom steed and casting Chain Lightning on them and following up with a few Fireballs. Crossbows and longbows can reach that height, since PF2 has no penalties for shooting straight up, but at a -8 range penalty to hit. Thus, I view 11th level as the level when arcane, occult, and primal casters can claim the skies. Their martial friends can ride other phantom steeds and fly lower to shoot with longbows.
Monsters need defense against flying PCs as early as 7th level and long-term defense at 11th level. These monsters also live in the same world as 6th-level manticores and 7th-level young dragons, so they need defenses against those to be plausible, too. That is the upper bound to Mark Seifter's argument about monster design. Surely, 10th-level eidolons are as rare at 7th-level dragons.
Since a 9th-level spellcaster has enough spell slots to send an entire 4-member party into the air, let's see how the 9th-level monsters in PF2 Bestiary 1 fare against a flying party:
1. Alchemical golem - bomb, thrown 20 feet.
2. Deinosuchus - swim 40 feet, can stay underwater 2 hours
3. Dragon turtle - swim 30 feet, 50-foot cone breathe weapon
4. Drakauthix - Obscuring Spores, 30-foot reach
5. Efreeti - plane shift at will, gaseous form, invisibility (×2)
6. Firewyrm - fire mote range increment 60 feet
7. Frost giant - throw rock range increment 120 feet
8. Leukodaemon - composite longbow range increment 100 feet
9. Marid - swim 40 feet, plane shift at will, Rush of Water 60-foot line
10. Megalodon - swim 80 feet
11. Mummy pharaoh - Sandstorm Wrath 60-foot cone, Rejuvenation
12. Nessian warhound - NO DEFENSE
13. Night hag - ethereal jaunt at will
14. Roc - fly 60 feet
15. Stone mauler - throw rock range increment 80 feet, earth glide
16. Storm lord - fly 75 feet, lightning lash range increment 50 feet
17. Tidal master - swim 80 feet
18. Vampire mastermind - turn to mist, ranged spells such as fireball
19. Vrock - fly 35 feet
20. Young blue dragon - fly 100 feet, breath weapon 80-foot line
The Nessian warhound can breath fire in a 15-foot cone, but that is no defense against a wizard flying 30 feet above it and casting Acid Splash. Unless it goes into a building with 15-foot ceilings, since the warhounds are often guarding treasure. Three aquatic creatures defend against fliers by swimming deeper underwater. Genies can defend by shifting to their home plane; however, they are humanoid and could return with a bow. For the most part, 9th-level creatures can handle fliers.
As for no other classes gaining persistent flight before 16th level, which other classes Alchemist, Barbarian, Bard, Champion, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Investigator, Monk, Oracle, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Swashbuckler, Witch, and Wizard suggest flight as part of the class rather than as a potion or spell? A sorcerer with air elemental bloodline can gain flight as a 1-minute focus spell at 6th level, and one with draconic bloodline can do so at 10th level. A druid or ranger could pair up with an animal companion that flies, such as a bat, bird, cave pterosaur, or vulture. I don't know which class can gain persistent flight at 16th level.
Winged ancestries are more believable as fliers, but ancestry feats are typically weaker than class feats. A skyborn tengu can learn Soaring Flight, ancestry feat 9, to fly for 5 minutes once a day. An aasimar with Celestial Wings, ancestry feat 9, can fly for 10 minutes once a day, and make that permanent with Eternal Wings, ancestry feat 17.
Finally, I suspect that a lot of summoner fans are not as interested in tactical flight in combat as they are interested in having an adorable eidolon with functional wings on its back. Thus, we could make low-level eidolons that fly almost uselessly under their own power to justify the wings at low level. A phantom steed summoned by a 9th-level spellcaster with a 5th-level spellslot can Air Walk, but with the restriction that the steed must end its turn on solid ground or fall. Paizo could give eidolons the same restriction.
Winged Evolution, Weak Wings version, Feat 2.
Evolution, Summoner
Your eidolon grows wings, allowing it to fly. Your eidolon gains a fly speed equal to 10 feet or half its speed, whichever is slower. It must end its turn on solid ground or fall.
At 4th level, if the eidolon is a dragon, then its fly speed increases by 10 feet but cannot exceed its Speed. Non-dragon eidolons gain this fly speed increase at 6th level. At 8th level, its fly speed equals its Speed.
[Two-actions] Persistent Flight, Feat 10
Evolution, Summoner
Prerequisite Winged Evolution
Your winged eidolon can work harder to stay airborne. It learns Extra Lift.
Extra Lift [one-action] If this turn you use Fly via Winged Evolution, you do not need to end this turn on the ground or fall.
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I think the problem is not the occasional flight.
An encounter with ground melee monsters won't be ruined if a PC spends resources to fly and then uses appropriate tactics: there are still other targets the enemies can reach, and after beating them down they can try to find a way to deal with the one up in the air - readying actions to hit when they come down, or hiding for a few minutes if they are pelting them with ranged attacks.
If the wizard spends their whole allotment of 4th level slots to make the whole party fly, or if everyone chugs a potion, yeah, the encounter can be bypassed; it still had a sensible impact on the group's resources.
It's much different when PCs can just fly for free all the time.
Besides encounters, you have to consider travel and large obstacles.
Do you need a ship to reach the treasure island? Nope, if you have permanent flight. The mountains you are crossing are insidious? Just fly over them. A lava lake? No problem.
As long as your ability to go airborne is limited, instead, you may have a big advantage in key moments, but you can't skip those hurdles entirely.
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Agreed about the importance of permanence. There's a big difference between "solving a fight" and "solving every fight".
Druids shapeshifting for a long duration at mid-levels requires a couple feats, reducing their combat power, and giving up access to their hands. And just a minor thing, but it can also be dispelled to great effect.
Is Paizo taking it too far? Eh, could be. But "flying in on the back of a dragon" does feel like a high-level thing.
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Outsmarting once is a thing. Being able to skip every land-based monsters and hazards all the time is different, and unless the GM is very creative and willing to rewrite a lot of stuff, it brings to cheap solutions like: "For the rest of this campaign, there's going to be a strong wind blowing everywhere - flying is impossible!"
A lot of times, 'winning' is not actually for the best.
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I think we are talking about different situations here. I'll try to be more clear.
Occasional flight is ok. It starts to be available around level 7, it consumes precious resources, it is limited in time (in the order or minutes, or it comes with additional restrictions if longer), so that you can't usually make the whole party fly, at least not long enough to completely skip a part of the adventure.
As I was saying in a previous post, a single PC flying during the fight won't break the game. By investing more resources (spells, scrolls, potions...) you can probably, once in a while, 'outsmart' some landbound enemies and have an easy win. That's ok.
As your level goes further up, you will have access to more spell slots, and consumables will become cheaper in comparison to your wealth. The GM seriously has to start considering tactics against airborne PCs, at least for smart enemies and bosses. But as flight still isn't permanent, it can't be used in every single combat, or to completely avoid a dangerous area.
When you get to the point that you can fly all the time, you are basically a demigod. It's a different game at that point. But accounting for this fact in the very high levels is a thing; having to do that for more than half the campaign is much different. The GM doesn't have access to infinite ideas, either.
@Temperans, I don't know if I get what you mean, but I wouldn't give early permanent fly to any class or ancestry. Doing that could be fine in some cases, but it could be abused as well (imagine a full party of Summoners, all flying).
It also creates a precedent: if you do it for eidolons, why not give it to that other class/ancestry too? Why don't you allow the Fighter to ride that hippogriff if the Summoner is already flying on their dragon eidolon? As options like that add up, the risk of losing control rises.
Yes, of course, we agree on this.
But are you arguing that eidolons could be granted early permanent flight, since that would just be a singular case? That's what I was answering to in the last part of my post.
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There's often not a lot of cover for flying creatures, leaving them heavily exposed to ranged attacks. It's also an action sink, since you need to spend an action to move or hover every round.
It's only an issue in encounters where the flyers have ranged attacks and the landbound enemy doesn't. Even then though, that same problem of encounter balance disparity would exist even without flight being a factor.
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There's often not a lot of cover for flying creatures, leaving them heavily exposed to ranged attacks.In my experience most GMs will apply a range penalty to anyone shooting up into the air. Perhaps not for spells, but certainly for bows.
What? Unless you're talking about ranged penalties, that's clearly a house rule (and a bad one at that) and should have no bearing on this discussion.
There's often not a lot of cover for flying creatures, leaving them heavily exposed to ranged attacks.In my experience most GMs will apply a range penalty to anyone shooting up into the air. Perhaps not for spells, but certainly for bows.
Never heard of anything like this... its definitely a houserule and definitely an odd one.
For me, the big concern is that forcing the party to switch entirely to ranged weapons is generally a pretty massive reduction in effectiveness for most characters.
Theyre typically switching at least one tier down in weapon enhancement, and losing 2-4 points of ability bonus to attack rolls.
In short, while a flying foe has no cover, its still crippling to engage this way for anyone who isn't an archer or a spellcaster with notably good range in their spell selection.
I am okay with limited flight at levels in line with the spells. Not okay with permanent flight, even with action economy limitations flight is still a hugely useful problem solver both in and out of combat and having it limited to levels 7+ has been godsend for my games. Having it be temporary at 7+ has also been godsend, after years of having whole parties with perma flight at or even before 7 it has been so freeing.
Even with party members investing in wands and trick magic item it hasn't been an issue and the players have treated with with more love/joy than in 1e because it is a relatively special feel to be able to fly.
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Most games don't last till 16th level and a dragon without wings is hardly a dragon except the Chinese style of dragon.
another solution is the GM just accepting that they where out-smarted by the player and the fight is over. Air supremacy is king.
*Linnorms have entered the chat*
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7th or 8th sounds about right to me.
Maybe have a glide option that allows true flight for a short period of time at lower levels, then true unlimited flight at higher levels?
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Outsmarting once is a thing. Being able to skip every land-based monsters and hazards all the time is different, and unless the GM is very creative and willing to rewrite a lot of stuff, it brings to cheap solutions like: "For the rest of this campaign, there's going to be a strong wind blowing everywhere - flying is impossible!"
A lot of times, 'winning' is not actually for the best.
Its not really akipping unless everyone has fly. And if everyone does have fly than the GM has entirely different problems.
Its like all the players having mounts. It will mess with the regular mechanics of combat. And mounts are much easier to get.
If the eidolon were Huge sized, as with the 14th-level Tower Evolution, then the entire party could ride it as it flew. That reminds me of the TV series Avatar the Last Airbender, where the gang of heroes all rode on the back of the flying sky bison Appa. Note that the gang had plenty of meaningful adventures while doing so.
Flying is not the only way to avoid encounters on the road. Avoiding them could be as simple as taking a safer route. "Let's not go through the Great Deadly Swamp. We can book passage on a ship to Swamptown and a riverboat up the Swampy River to get to our destination much more safely."
Skipping encounters happens. In Fortress of the Stone Giants in my Rise of the Rulelords campaign after the giants raid the town of Sandpoint, the module expected the PCs to track the giants back to their origin. Instead, the party sorcerer charmed and interrogated a captured giant in some excellent roleplaying and they learned that the fortress was at the Black Tower. The party wizard was a scholar of ancient Thassilonian lore, and he succeeded at the Knowledge(history) check for the location the Black Tower. He teleported the party to the nearest familiar location, Hook Mountain, and they proceeded from there. That skipped the two encounters planned for the journey.
Encounters on the road while traveling are non-plot material that gives a sense of a time passing on the journey. Encounters at one's destination are plot relevant.
7th or 8th sounds about right to me.
Maybe have a glide option that allows true flight for a short period of time at lower levels, then true unlimited flight at higher levels?
I just dont see it. They've drawn invisible lines on Flight in this edition, with it becoming initially (generally) available at 7-9 (Eidolons gain guaranteed access at 9 via evolution surge) and perma flight becoming available after level 15.
I can't imagine a good game and balance reason to make an exception for Eidolons.
If they were to get access to anything sooner than this, I could see maybe a reduction in fall damage prior to the current schedule for Flight (ie, gliding).
But you rapidly run into issues with overcrowding low levels with a variety of really good options.
That is why you give Eidolons evolutions points like they are supposed to have instead of artificially limiting them via feats.
Alternatively, you can just rely on Evolution Surge to address your Winged eidolons limited flight needs until level 16.
At 5th level, your Eidolon can traverse and overcome vertical obstacles with ease by being granted a temporary climb speed, allowing them to ascend and descend as if flying.
At 9th level, your Eidolon can fly whenever the situation calls for it for a minute - every encounter.
At 16th level, your Eidolon can fly permanently.
The system works fine. It just requires you to be narratively flexible enough to work with it instead of against it.
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You can take them at a higher level if you want them. OPTIONS!!!
Yeah, but theres limited print space and therefore we can't have infinite options.
Further, the design paradigm for PF2E seems to indicate - based on a review of other classes - that class options are generally spread rather evenly across levels.
Therefore, we likely can't dedicate multiple feats to the concept of Wings and Flight, and there may not be room at lower levels for the Feat based on a need to fill out all of the feat tiers.
And helpfully, they already created an ability that literally 100% of summoners get for Flying prior to that.
Theres not a problem here. The implementation may not be to your taste, but literally all Eidolons can currently fly when its balance appropriate for them to do so, and those who want to invest further can fly permanently at level 16 when such an ability is appropriate.
That is options, presented within the limitations and context of the 2E format.