What classes would best take advantage of bieng able to fly? Without being too troublesome.

[Merellin]

So, This is a random question, I had a discussion with a few people of my group yesterday and, I want to play one of the flying races sometime (Probably Gathlain or Strix or Syrinx), No worries there, All GMs in my group allow them and we never had any trouble with them. But here is the problem, I dont know what class to make them... (Also dont have any game for it yet so this is currently just speculation)

So I decided to ask the mighty veterans and holders of knowledge here on the official forums, What classes do you think take good advantage of bieng able to fly? (Without being too troublesome for the GM) Or is just fun for these flying races? I was thinking potentially some kind of archer maybe with a flying animal companion. But mayhaps something else would be more interesting? A swashbuckler or maybe a magic user?

Sorry for this rambling aimless question, I just want to hear peoples opinions on classes for these three flying races! Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask...

[Pizza Lord]

I would imagine a ranged attacker, like a ranger or other archer would make the most sense. Otherwise a reach user could also work, if you could learn dive attack. Be able to stay out of their reach and, unlike ground troops, they can't just 5-foot step into your reach.

[Toshy]

I would go in the same direction as Pizza Lord.
If you have a racial ability to fly from, go for an archer/caster/support. Their biggest weakness in early levels is getting caught up in melee.

I could imagine a ranger/archer-fighter/eldritch archer/musketeer hailing arrows or bullets from above, without worrying about allies providing soft cover for the enemies.

Casters of any kind wizard/cleric/bard love to worry less about the enemy beeing able to step up to them and hinder their casting.

I personally would avoid sneak attack classes, as they usually want to be in melee and flank, so you would often end up staying on the ground with your non-winged allies.

[Melkiador]

I’m not sure what we are looking towards regarding “troublesome”. I think the main problem with flying is independent of class. Some encounters assume that something is out of the way or hard to reach. Flying trivializes those encounters. There are few classes that are generally considered troublesome though. The summoner comes to mind and summoning while flying is a decent strategy

[Neriathale]

It seems to me there are two. advantages to flying, first to avoid ground based threats or second to get to airborne or terrain benefitting ones. Most of the replies so far are looking at the first approach so I’m going for the second, and say monk or brawler. You don’t want to be wearing heavy armour if you are flying, instead go for something fast moving and agile that can deal with those pesky goblins on top of the tower or the one bandit who turned and ran.

[Mysterious Stranger]

You mentioned 3 races, the first thing to do is to choose which race you are going to play. One of the races has a bonus to DEX and CHA and a penalty to CON, one has a bonus to DEX and a penalty to CHA, the last has bonus to WIS and a penalty to DEX. Two of them are medium with average flight, and the other is small with poor flight. Each of those races are going to be better at different classes.

The Gathian is a small fey that has bonus to both DEX and CHA and a penalty to CON. To me this suggests a CHA based caster or maybe an archery focused paladin. If you go caster the Gathian FCB for bard and oracle lets you gain spells from another list. The bard can gain druid spells, which do have some decent attack spells, the oracle gains enchantments from the sorcerer list. Gaining extra spells is always useful for a spontaneous caster and gaining them off another spell list is even better. A paladin archer can deal some serious damage when using smite evil with a bow. Being able to do so while flying is even better. But your damage when not using smite will be a bit less than normal due to being small.

A Strix is a medium humanoid with a bonus to DEX and penalty to CHA. This suggests an archer with limited or no magic. A Ranger could work as they do not need a lot of WIS to cast their spells. Fighter would also work well. The FCB for fighter increases the hatred bonus vs humans which are usually fairly common foes.

The Syrnix is a medium humanoid with a bonus to WIS and a penalty to DEX. That makes an archery based character a poor choice. The penalty from DEX is going to make fighting in melee slightly more dangerous. I would avoid A monk for this reason despite the WIS bonus. A monk really should have both a WIS and DEX bonus to AC to help with not using armor. Druid would seem the logical choice for a Syrnix, but druids can gain flight from wild shape and cast spells in wild shape with natural spell. To me that seems like a waste of using a flying race. Another WIS based caster class could work but I would avoid the hunter as it still focuses on fighting and you have no physical bonuses to help in that. As a 6th level caster hunter do not do well as focused casters.

[Keep Calm and Carrion]

Go for high stealth and perception as well, since flying will make you an extraordinary scout in many environments. A class with easy access to invisibility makes sense too.

With the Syrinx bonus to Wisdom, perhaps a cleric with Sacred Summons and the Trickery domain? They tend to be CN, CE, or LE, but you can find a few better-natured ones. Or heck, go LE, it matches the typical Syrinx pretty well.

[Sysryke]

I don't know if these are great from a mechanical/optimization standpoint, but a few ideas

Make a flying Barb/Monk/Brawler. Boost Str as much as possible, go for grapples, fly up and drop enemies for damage

Play a Transmutation or Conjuration specialist (but have Floating Disc). Shrink items, drop and dispell for big falling objects; or summon creatures on the disc and have them pounce from above.

Use some Polearm and do Aerial charge attacks.

Go Bard or some other Performance route. Take advantage of unimpeded sight lines to be as distracting as possible. Taunt, provoke, disrupt, or fascinate as best as you can.

Aerial ranged combat or casters are all fine choices, but perhaps more predictable, and certainly more troublesome, in the same way that Tiny or smaller "Pocket Blaster" casters, or invisibility casters can be. That said, all of the above have been good suggestions as long as your GM and group don't mind.

[Merellin]

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone! Many good options for fun characters! :D

[Aristophanes]

Air Kineticist can get constant flight at 6th level.
Witch can get limited flight at 5th level.

[Azothath]

any class that's in free fall...

[Azothath]

Basically there are several strategies for flight type movement;
1) getting to the enemy quickly, ignoring difficult terrain etc. This includes keeping them in your threatened squares and tactical movement (getting to the top of an embattlement rather than climbing...).
2) movement for isolation to avoid attackers on the ground. You DO usually draw ranged attacks, and conversely targets on the open ground don't have a lot of cover, soft or otherwise. You can also avoid ground based encounters.
3) travel. Unfortunately Phantom steed is way faster, then Teleport.
4) avoiding falls and trip.

What the class DOES is going to determine how the above is used.

Wizards are the best at generating and using it, and at granting it. They tend not to use #1 often but use it for avoiding hindrances to movement.

Progression: Air Step, Glide, Alter Self/polymorphs, Fly, Overland Flight. Levitate is very situational. Gaseous Form is both highly situational and a great debuff.