Hello!
Just wanted to see if this is correct. For flying straight up, it looks like it takes 1 action to do the flight straight up manuever with an acrobatics roll, then 1 Anton to move your speed straight up. Since rules say straight up it's difficult terrain, does the below example look ok?
PC spends 3 actions:
1st action is a successfull acrobatics check for manuever.
2nd and 3rd actions are to fly straight up. Fly speed is 40fr, so with these 2 actions devoted to moving up, the PC will end up 40 above.
What y'all think?
While I admit they kept the rules vague, part of the Maneuver in Flight action includes actually moving as you do (it says the GM usually won't allow you to move faster than your fly speed as you do). So for flying straight up, I think I'd treat it as difficult terrain and require an acrobatics check for every action. Each successful check allows 20' of movement up.
Honestly I never saw Maneuver in Flight being used in practice. Most players rarely abruptly move in this way and many GMs simply forget that this action exists.
I don't use Maneuver in Flight to allow a straight up in practice also because you can avoid it just move a square in any direction (so you are no more straight up and don't need to waste and action with it). With exception to fly vs strong winds you basically can avoid it just moving a bit horizontally.
It's a overcomplicated and ease to cheese rule IMO.
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What makes you think you would need to use Maneuver in Flight to fly up?
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Maybe Maneuver in Flight to go upward is just to do so without the difficult terrain, but you need to succeed on the check to pull it off.
Nothing in the Maneuver in Flight states that you can ignore difficult terrain.
The main idea of Maneuver in Flight is to check if you are able to do abrupt moves like an L curve or some similar movement that a flying creature like a bird would have some difficult to do or to work like an aerial "Balance" when you are facing stronger winds that can force move you or if you are trying to flight in your full speed through small corridors, tunnels, caves and similar places where you risk to colide.
But I agree with Errenor that purely "steep ascent or descent" is a pretty bad example and double punishes the flight. First what is the definition of this? Fly pure vertically is considered a "steep ascent or descent"? If it is what is the angle considered as "steep ascent or descent"? If I ascent moving one square horizontally this is considered "steep ascent"? If not why the hell I will waste an action to Maneuver in Flight making a check with risk of failure if I can simply move a bit horizontally and prevent the "steep ascent"? And "steep descent" is not mean a fall? Why I will waste an action to Maneuver in Flight making a check with risk of failure if I can simply use a reaction to Arrest a Fall or if I don't want to go down so fast why not just do the same as I made to ascend just moving one square horizontally?
Honestly I just ignore this example and only require Maneuver in Flight when the character is in a dangerous flight situation.
The way I rule it is steep ascent/descent is anything beyond 45 degrees and manoeuver in flight replaces fly for the actions that are required for it.
E.G. flying vertical requires the check and you move up to your fly speed as a part of that action. Speed adjustments for moving up or down are then applied as appropriate.
As for reasons why:
- Actions that grant fly subordinate actions or let you take fly actions in place of strides do not allow for manoeuvre in flight actions.
- "If not why the hell I will waste an action to Maneuver in Flight making a check with risk of failure if I can simply move a bit horizontally and prevent the "steep ascent"?"
Because it restricts how you can move and what spaces you can go through.
- "Why I will waste an action to Maneuver in Flight making a check with risk of failure if I can simply use a reaction to Arrest a Fall or if I don't want to go down so fast why not just do the same as I made to ascend just moving one square horizontally?"
Same as above but with the added element of, you may not have a reaction (either through spending or denial) or may have already spent your reaction... and you might want to actually choose where you move to. If I am arresting a fall I may take no damage and fall 50 ft. But I may only want to descend 20 feet.
As for rolling only when in a dangerous situation... that imo is just a good call in most cases. Don't make players roll when failure would have no consequences at all. Just slows games down and causes players to check out, even if players profess to liking the click clack of dice.
You basically is ruling that anything that goes up more than Air Walk requires a Maneuver in Flight.
Again nothing in the rules states that more than 45 degrees is a steep ascent/descent you are basically house-ruling here.
- "If not why the hell I will waste an action to Maneuver in Flight making a check with risk of failure if I can simply move a bit horizontally and prevent the "steep ascent"?"
Because it restricts how you can move and what spaces you can go through.
Sorry but I don't understood what do you want to say here. What restricts how I can move and what spaces you can go through?
- "Why I will waste an action to Maneuver in Flight making a check with risk of failure if I can simply use a reaction to Arrest a Fall or if I don't want to go down so fast why not just do the same as I made to ascend just moving one square horizontally?"
Same as above but with the added element of, you may not have a reaction (either through spending or denial) or may have already spent your reaction... and you might want to actually choose where you move to. If I am arresting a fall I may take no damage and fall 50 ft. But I may only want to descend 20 feet.
I just need to descend in circles like a vulture (that why I said that I just need to move a bit horizontally without need to use Maneuver in Flight).
As for rolling only when in a dangerous situation... that imo is just a good call in most cases. Don't make players roll when failure would have no consequences at all. Just slows games down and causes players to check out, even if players profess to liking the click clack of dice.
But usually the failure consequences are just don't move. But I agree that just slows down the game.
Nothing in the Maneuver in Flight states that you can ignore difficult terrain.
For some reason, I thought the difficult terrain for Flying up thing was specific to the Fly action.
Manoeuvre in Flight feels pretty clearly like an answer to and holdover from he's significantly more robust (and complicated) rules for Fly checks. It seems to be intended as a catchall for anything the GM considers more difficult than normal (including ascending at steeper than a 45, hovering, flying in a rlstrong wind, etc) that used to be codified by difficulty, but simply no longer has a strict definition.
It's definitely left open to the GM, but I'm not sure that quite accurately fits the description of houserules..
Nothing in the Maneuver in Flight states that you can ignore difficult terrain.For some reason, I thought the difficult terrain for Flying up thing was specific to the Fly action.
Because it's in the Fly action but Fly Speed rules reinforces that this is valid to Fly Speed in general (so the fly action is just remembering the situation).
Do that mean that the Whirlwind spell, have a hidden extra check for everything stuck in it?
if this is intended i would love if they atleast mentioned that in the spell description, like "dont forget that Maneuver in Flight might be nessasasry" its not mutch text in an already short spell text.
Cause every creature get a fly speed when they are up in it. and it always felt wierd that they just walked down from it.
Powerful winds coalesce into a devastating tornado. You can Cast this Spell only if you are outside or the ceiling is 80 feet or higher. All squares in the whirlwind are difficult terrain.
All creatures in the area take 5d10 bludgeoning damage as powerful winds and debris buffet them, with a Reflex save. Each time you Sustain the Spell, you can move the whirlwind up to 30 feet in a straight line. Each creature the whirlwind moves through takes the damage, also with a Reflex save. A creature can be affected by a whirlwind only once per round.
Critical Success The creature is unaffected.
Success The creature takes half damage.
Failure The creature takes full damage and rises 10 feet into the air. If it doesn't have a fly Speed, the creature gains one equal to its Speed until it either reaches the ground or ceases to be in the whirlwind's area, potentially falling when the spell ends or when it leaves the area.
Critical Failure As failure, except the creature takes double damage and rises 20 feet into the air.
if so what DC should it be?
Trained: for just flying down?
Expert: for flying against the wind? (or can you just ignore that part by flying with the flow, but that should be up)
Legendary: is it gale force winds?
Gale force wind speed is: 31 mph or 50 km/h and a maximum speed of 63 mph or 102 km/h.
and Tornado classifications gives: 65 - 200 mph or more, so way faster then gale force winds
so it prob should be a Legendary DC to try to fly then.
Yes IMO Whirlwind requires a Maneuver in Flight to get out from the winds when a creature failures or to descend to the ground what can potentially stuck a creature without acrobatics in the spell. That said it's not so bad as it looks once the most martials usually have some acrobatics proficiency (to get kip up, to keep balance in uneven grounds and to Tumble Through enemies) and the spell don't prevent casters to cast ranged spells from the air.
About the Maneuver in Flight's DC it's a spell. Use the spell caster's DC.
And another example for Maneuver in Flight difficulty, have you seen this:
"Sample Maneuver in Flight Tasks
Master reverse direction"?
You do remember that this game doesn't track PC's direction at all, right? (Apart from vehicles movement) So what does this even mean?
These examples really look like something remaining from playtest and never revised.
Yeah, I wouldn't call for that check unless the PC double-backed on their flight path in the same action.
Such as when using a darting attack, or to set off a trap then move back the way they came, for example.
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You basically is ruling that anything that goes up more than Air Walk requires a Maneuver in Flight.
Again nothing in the rules states that more than 45 degrees is a steep ascent/descent you are basically house-ruling here.
- "If not why the hell I will waste an action to Maneuver in Flight making a check with risk of failure if I can simply move a bit horizontally and prevent the "steep ascent"?"
Because it restricts how you can move and what spaces you can go through.Sorry but I don't understood what do you want to say here. What restricts how I can move and what spaces you can go through?
- "Why I will waste an action to Maneuver in Flight making a check with risk of failure if I can simply use a reaction to Arrest a Fall or if I don't want to go down so fast why not just do the same as I made to ascend just moving one square horizontally?"
Same as above but with the added element of, you may not have a reaction (either through spending or denial) or may have already spent your reaction... and you might want to actually choose where you move to. If I am arresting a fall I may take no damage and fall 50 ft. But I may only want to descend 20 feet.I just need to descend in circles like a vulture (that why I said that I just need to move a bit horizontally without need to use Maneuver in Flight).
As for rolling only when in a dangerous situation... that imo is just a good call in most cases. Don't make players roll when failure would have no consequences at all. Just slows games down and causes players to check out, even if players profess to liking the click clack of dice.But usually the failure consequences are just don't move. But I agree that just slows down the game.
Slow down and read "the way I rule" is my being fully aware that it is my ruling and not my saying this is how the system is written.
As for your comment vs air walk, yeah? Not sure what your point is. My players prefer stable guidelines and this makes the rules at my table clear for them and angles past 45 degrees are objectively steep. Something being steep is generally considered to be when its vertical axis exceeds its horizontal axis.
Why you can't just circle down/up, because if you don't have the space or don't want to be moving through areas of danger (say reactive strike) then it restricts you. It isn't something that always matters, which is why it isn't a problem as a mechanic.
And for failure consequences, not moving in combat matters. In scenarios like high winds, chases or with something else going on it matters. My point is out of combat with no risk attached I just assume PCs can take their time and do it.
So at my table manoeuver in flight rarely comes up, because PCs and NPCs can do things in other ways most of the time or have large bonuses and or assurance so it can be ignored for those who plan to do it all the time.
But when it does come up it is because the PC wants to do something they are either not good at and the situation demands it or they are forced into it.
Keep in mind most true flight doesn't come into play until level 7 for PCs.
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Another issue.
The Manuver in Flight action lists hover midair as an Expert DC activity.
and the Fly action say "You can use an action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place."
Maneuver in Flight [one-action]
Source Player Core pg. 233
Requirements You have a fly Speed.You try a difficult maneuver while flying. Attempt an Acrobatics check. The GM determines what maneuvers are possible, but they rarely allow you to move farther than your fly Speed.
Success You succeed at the maneuver.
Failure Your maneuver fails. The GM chooses if you simply can't move or if some other detrimental effect happens. The outcome should be appropriate for the maneuver you attempted (for instance, being blown off course if you were trying to fly against a strong wind).
Critical Failure As failure, but the consequence is more dire.Sample Maneuver in Flight Tasks
Trained: steep ascent or descent
Expert: fly against the wind,hover midair
Master: reverse direction
Legendary: fly through gale force winds
Fly [one-action]
Source Player Core pg. 419
Requirements You have a fly Speed.You move through the air up to your fly Speed. Moving upward (straight up or diagonally) uses the rules for moving through difficult terrain. You can move straight down 10 feet for every 5 feet of movement you spend. If you Fly to the ground, you don't take falling damage. You can use an action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place. If you're airborne at the end of your turn and didn't use a Fly action this round, you fall.
So do you use the Fly action or are you forced to use Manuver in flight action to hover? or do you need to use both(unlikely)?
if the text on fly is just a reminder that you can do that it should also mention Maneuver in flight action with it.
and you cant really solve it with specific beats general cause both i would argue are on the same level of specificity/Generality
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Never mind, Nethys have not updated Maneuver in Flight For remaster, that removed Hover from its list and baked it into flying instead
Trained steep ascent or descent
Expert fly against the wind
Master reverse direction
Legendary fly through gale force winds
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Case by case for me again.
A dragon flapping its wings to keep hovering would have to roll, the wizard benefitting from Fly wouldn't.
you replied before i had time to edit, after cheeking the book it notised that Nethys was not updated on maneuver in flight and its not a issue. :)
A dragon flapping its wings to keep hovering would have to roll, the wizard benefitting from Fly wouldn't.
Dragons probably fly magically assisted. It's physically impossible to a such heavy creature to keep flying, specially hovering with just his wings.
Why are't pixies, strixes and other winged ancestries allowed to just fly as good as a wizard with a spell?Case by case for me again.
A dragon flapping its wings to keep hovering would have to roll, the wizard benefitting from Fly wouldn't.
Pixies usually flies like Hummingbirds. I don't see any problems with then hovering also I think that their fly is magically assisted too.
I think using your whole move to fly in one direction the whole way is the intention. Anything else is a maneuver, changing direction, in anyway at all requires a check. So if you want to fly, do so in straight lines unless your a fancy acrobat flyer, then swoop around in curves.
If you make a Maneuver in Flight for each corner I would feel so sorry for flying animals that would have at least a 5% risk of failure for every time they didn't fly straight.
I keep my point the main ideal of Maneuver in Flight is similar to Balance. It's to force acrobatics checks in dangerous situations where the flying creature needs a more precise flight.
This is why the Air Walk spell trumps any sort of flying abilities: If it means I don't have to deal with the stupid headache of having to make checks to Fly, which will likely result in failures and insta-character deaths, and I don't have to waste actions just to stay in the air or stand back up from falling down?
Sold. Thanks Paizo for turning Flight into a Trap Option.
Dragons probably fly magically assisted. It's physically impossible to a such heavy creature to keep flying, specially hovering with just his wings.
I recommend taking a look at the book, Flight of Dragons.
Dragons probably fly magically assisted. It's physically impossible to a such heavy creature to keep flying, specially hovering with just his wings.I recommend taking a look at the book, Flight of Dragons.
Hahaha fun! So these dragons are basically big balloons (dirigible) that can use their own self generated hydrogen to breath and fly! Creative!
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This is not to suggest that just because a rule existed in 1e, it should be treated as some kind of precedent for rulings in 2e, but it feels profitable to this discussion to at least have an idea what the rules for flight used to look like before this edition--particularly as I see disagreements about directional flight and the degree to which 2e leaves it open to the GM to decide how hard to make the restrictions.
In 1e, all creatures with a Fly Speed were rated by the quality of their flight, from clumsy to perfect. To use examples from this thread, A creature like a dragon might have a poor, or even clumsy fly speed if it was big enough, while a pixie would have a good fly speed. Perfect flight was generally reserved for creatures that could hover effortlessly, or were otherwise tied to the air (will-o-wisps, air elementals) but mind you that the Fly spell only conferred 'good' flight, akin to a small bird's. In even older editions, your flight quality directly dictated whether you could hover, turn on a dime, or make a steep ascent, but in 1e it rather simply added a substantial bonus or penalty to your Fly skill.
Basic flight i.e. without making a check required a creature to spend their turn moving a minimum distance (remember, this is before the elegance of the 3-action system) equal to half their fly speed. You could only turn up to 45 degrees during a single movement (at the cost of 5' of movement) although you could pick a new direction to move each turn, and you could only move upwards at the same angle, but at half speed.
With me so far? That leaves the following manoeuvres to requiring a Fly check: Fly less than half speed, Hover (i.e. fly 0 speed), Turn sharper than 45 degrees (cost 5'), Turn 180 degrees (cost 10'), and Steep Ascent. The DCs for these were notably different than the examples now given in Manoevure in Flight, presumably because the nature of the bonuses differs somewhat between games.
- Fly Slow - DC 10
- Hover - DC 15
- Turn Sharp - DC 15
- Reverse - DC 20
- Steep Ascent - DC 20
Furthermore, different strengths of wind would apply different penalties to your Fly check, and depending on your size you could be at risk of being blown away. If you were only tiny, you needed to succeed at a DC 20 to fly against a 'strong' wind. A windstorm could check up to medium creatures, but small and tiny creatures needed to succeed at a DC 25 not to be blown away.
TL;DR I'm glad we don't have that level of complexity in the flight mechanics anymore, but if anybody was looking for any kind of basic guideline they could base their own MiF calls on, once upon a time it was assumed that anything greater than 45 degrees was 'steep' in either ascending or turning (descent was at any angle) and that tricks such as reversing or hovering also required a check.
Make of that what you may. I rather wish that maneovures with a little more codified than a list of examples for a vague skill action, admittedly, but not enough to miss 1e.
I think using your whole move to fly in one direction the whole way is the intention. Anything else is a maneuver, changing direction, in anyway at all requires a check. So if you want to fly, do so in straight lines unless your a fancy acrobat flyer, then swoop around in curves.Absolutely not. Maybe at some moment in a playtest, but not at release.
If this was the intention, they would have written exactly that. And these rules already exist, it's basically vehicles' movement. Flying is NOT this at all.
It's so fundamentally different that making this conclusion from some indirect mentions is just silly. Like, this thing is mentioned literally in one place in the book - in those mostly nonsensical 'examples'.
Even the Maneuver in Flight action itself says nothing like this. It's literally only a framework for GMs to use when they think circumstances are extraordinary, there's nothing concrete there. And there's definitely no instructions there to make these checks basically every time someone flies.
Maneuver in flight says trained allows you to try steep ascent or descent. Since we know you can go up, down and diagonally without maneuvering then what do you think that means? Likely implies changing direction. Especially since a master check is required to 180.
There's definitely not enough rules regarding this, but I much prefer most flight being treated as having velocity and mass instead of just flight being 100% perfect control.
Maneuver in flight feels similar to balance but looks like it have wider application, no real guidance when to use it other then the sample tasks
The fact that they changed the examples in the reprinting to remaster make me think they definitely intend us to use them and its not just a leftover ruling.
(they removed hover from the Maneuver in flight action.)
Trained steep ascent or descent (DC 15)
Expert fly against the wind (DC 20)
Master reverse direction (DC 30)
Legendary fly through gale force winds (DC 40)
Expert and Legendary feel straightforward, even if wind direction and speed is sometimes not spelled out even in spells. it can often be inferred by other texts in the spells.
the problematic tasks are:
Master reverse direction:
i would agree that this would only come into play if you do a 180 on you turn, flying straight in attack then straight out.
Trained steep ascent or descent:
This one would need some more examples or clarification, but straight down and straight up is definitely steep ascent and descent
so to gain the benefit of double movent when flying straight down you would need to use Maneuver in flight
but you can argue that anything more then 45 degrees are steep. and even if, it is only a DC 10, not really an issue when you get flight as a PC and if you take assurance you don't even need to roll
(Abit of a recap of what some have already said)
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which will likely result in failuresIt has a chance of failure, but a DC 15 isn't particularly difficult by the time flight comes in. As long as you have any investment in Acrobatics you're probably fine.
30% isn't an insignificant chance for failure when Fly becomes available. And really, a spell that has a 30% chance of either not doing anything for me, or even worse, resulting in me wasting even more actions, or just outright falling to my death, is a terribly designed spell and activity. And sure, we can argue "but Assurance is a feat, meaning no checks required," but it doesn't work for the harder checks, and it now means I have to invest feats and skill training into something that I probably wouldn't have invested in to begin with.
Again, Fly is a Trap Option if you force Acrobatics checks for everything, and it is already a downside because you must waste 1 Action every turn just to maintain your position, so making it even more of an already apparent downside is absurd. Also, a lot of dragons would be too fat/incapable of flight because they aren't Acrobatics trained by this logic. Congrats, we just clipped the wings of most all dragons with this ruling.
Here a list of flying creatures without acrobatics
But in fact only Bida is a dragon without acrobatics.
And for some "what a hell" reason Solars doesn't have acrobatics (the strongest of all angels doesn't have acrobatic :P).
It doesn't force checks all the time unless you're constantly doing the things listed. Most of which can be completely avoided.
And every dragon I look at that has a fly speed has Acrobatics, which dragons are you referring to?
The only one that might not force a check is flying in place. The rest require a check. Ascending or Descending, which is the main usage of flying, all requires checks.
Okay, fine, I admit that the dragon bit was hyperbole, but if there are creatures with Fly and not Acrobatics, the point still stands that they can't actually fly, and can really hover at best.