Domain Rules

[Foxwarrior]

Oh, you mean the thing where climbing a mountain is still a lot of work if you use wings to do it. Yeah, that's a thing, got a bit confused when you were referring to it as a "ceiling"... although I think if you gave crows a weapon for hunting people from out of bow range and taught them how to use it, they'd find a reason to go "the extra mile" (or 500 feet or whatever).

[jt]

I don't know if getting flight ceilings via an appeal to realism is the best choice. If we're being realistic, projectiles at the peak of their arc have much less energy than when they land back on the ground, and pegasus archers are going to dunk on grounded archers even if they're in range. You need to apply some selective realism to get what you want here.

If we're not going to be realistic, people seem to accept that pegasus knights are weak to bows in Fire Emblem, with no questions about height asked.

Another option is to just limit the effectiveness of archers in mass combat in general. Maybe any infantry unit equipped with shields can ignore archers at the cost of being pinned down. Or some other consequence that matters but isn't game-winning. There are a lot of potential dumb outputs in this space, I don't think you want every army that's themed as not specializing in ranged weapons to get obliterated by centaurs and harpies.

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(Also, from like three pages ago: yes, computing the number of tarrasques to win at Agincourt was intended as a spherical cow example. Hopefully some abilities would break out of the abstraction. But you have a limit to how many things are allowed to break out of an abstraction before it ceases being an abstraction.)

[Foxwarrior]

[Iduno]

I don't know if getting flight ceilings via an appeal to realism is the best choice. If we're being realistic, projectiles at the peak of their arc have much less energy than when they land back on the ground, and pegasus archers are going to dunk on grounded archers even if they're in range. You need to apply some selective realism to get what you want here.

Nah, it's fine. Arrows are hitscan.

[merxa]

Im certainly not a biologist, but the more I research the more I see that many, many birds live in mountainous habitats, we're talking 1000+ meters. And a variety of species have been spotted much higher during migrations.

It does make sense for something with mammal lungs, like our magical Pegasus, to not be well suited in pulling oxygen out of thin atmospheres, but this also doesn't support the source material as the hero did try to reach Olympus on the back of his steed. Same goes for Icarus. But if the ttrpg told me I had to walk my Pegasus over the doom mountains I wouldn't argue much, modern helicopters have the same issue.

Now, an archer atop a Pegasus 400, 800m above isn't likely to be especially accurate.

Accuracy penalties could probably be used for something like a 90/10 breakdown assuming both sides are using the same bows. By 90/10 I mean the same archer atop a Pegasus and one not, would be 9x more effective, these numbers could be moved around a bit, like 91/9 or even 95/5 96/4, once you hit 99/1 or 99.9/.1 it's pretty much a foregone conclusion.

On the other hand shield walls, forest cover, 'magic' could smooth this out.

I think everyone agrees the laser guided rocks need to go, it's the sort of theory craft that I doubt many groups actually (ab)used in play. Writing rules for falling objects needs some context adjustments.

We're still left with the outcome that flying archers have a significant, even overwhelming advantage over non flying units and that's also just true in real life.

Some other balancing conditions could be flight time, flight complications from injury, an even relatively minor injury for a Pegasus could be enough to make it unperformant. And supplies, feeding these units could be prohibitive.

Of course as written our troop of vrocks or whatever don't need to eat or sleep, and have supernatural flight that's probably not as exhausting and teleport without error. I also agree the.liberal handing out of teleport at will for outsiders needs a few passes.

Writing a satisfying mass battle game requires keeping it in mind when writing the base rules for your heartbreaking ttrpg.

[Foxwarrior]

So it takes roughly 13 thousand Calories to lift a 40 ton monstrosity with scales like supple adamantine 500 feet into the air. A sheep is roughly 100 thousand Calories. So a dragon can only dive bomb the army a few times before going back to its lair for a snack. But a ballista would be almost completely useless against it, it's really hard to precisely aim those things. You're better off tracking it home and stabbing it while it's on break.

[Username17]

Im certainly not a biologist, but the more I research the more I see that many, many birds live in mountainous habitats, we're talking 1000+ meters.

You know that altitude and elevation are different things and that the thing you just said is complete gibberish right?

I can stand on top of a mountain. I cannot jump and hover out of arrow range. Those are two different things.

The "High Flying" ability should absolutely exist, and it lets things fly outside of archery range. But it's a special ability that appears on creatures like Rocs, not something that appears on regular flying troops like Eagle Riders and Doom Bats.

The fact that a Roc can carry legit boulders and drop them on enemy military formations from too high to return fire with crossbows is weird and special and terrifying. The kinds of "normal" flying troops that appear in build trees can't do that and there's no reason for them to be able to do that. It isn't just that game balance is obviously easier and better with that as a rare super-ability, it isn't just that it makes the mechanics much easier to adjudicate if the normal expectation is that archers and flyers simply exchange fire normally - it's that the "roleplay not rollplay" arguments also favor that approach.

-Username17

[merxa]

You're cherry picking your responses Frank.

Even if a unit is only 200m above a group of archers, those archers on the ground are still going to be relatively ineffective, perhaps extremely ineffective, especially if the unit is directly above them ( are you going to model friendly fire in your mass battle simulator?)

And when it comes to discussions of flight ceilings it is actually total elevatation from sea level that determines many of the salient factors. You're talking like some Victorian philosopher ranting about phlogiston, are you going to suppose some new theory of gravity that's determined by distance from the ground as being the most influential factor for your fly ceiling?

If you care so much about game balance you should probably work on video games or board games instead dude.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

If you care so much about game balance you should probably work on video games or board games instead dude.

What an asinine thing to tell someone. "Why do you care about game balance dude, this is a TTRPG, not a video game!"

[violence in the media]

Im certainly not a biologist, but the more I research the more I see that many, many birds live in mountainous habitats, we're talking 1000+ meters. And a variety of species have been spotted much higher during migrations.

It does make sense for something with mammal lungs, like our magical Pegasus, to not be well suited in pulling oxygen out of thin atmospheres, but this also doesn't support the source material as the hero did try to reach Olympus on the back of his steed. Same goes for Icarus. But if the ttrpg told me I had to walk my Pegasus over the doom mountains I wouldn't argue much, modern helicopters have the same issue.

In the source material, Pegasus was a unique being, like Hercules or Medusa. You're arguing that because that Pegasus could attempt to fly to Olympus, all warriors must have been able to strangle the Nemean Lion to death.

[Foxwarrior]

If you care so much about game balance you should probably work on video games or board games instead dude.

You could say that about this entire forum.

[merxa]

shoehorning a flight ceiling concept to make flyers not completely dominant is:

A: not well supported by the available evidence

B: has mixed support from relevant literature

C: wasn't in the 3.x ruleset many of us grognards have played for nearly 20 years.

Of course there should be a flight ceiling, but that ceiling is probably too high for it matter for most archery battles, unless being a magical creature makes you worse at flying than a vulture, stork, eagle, duck, goose etc etc

I'm still trying to offer constructive feedback on other avenues to make flyers more balanced, such as more severe injury restrictions, flight times, significantly higher upkeep costs. Another person mentioned time to elevation as another factor.

Meanwhile Frank decides he rather act pissy and try to pretend I don't understand the difference between elevation and altitude. I've read enough of his posts, because they are awesome, to also know he gets pissy if people don't treat him like Moses coming down from the mountain top with the words of god.

A flying stat block, if we're serious about redeveloping one, should probably include an semi-hard altitude limit cap, a soft cap of what it can climb to relatively quickly, climbing beyond that requiring significant time using updrafts to ascend. Other factors like flight time and upkeep costs could probably be derived from common factors like creature type, size, relevant stats.

Or we can entertain ourselves by flinging shit at each other.

[Whipstitch]

Nah, it's fine. Arrows are hitscan.

I don't even know if this is sarcastic or not because I would legit be fine with magic anti-air archers coming online at the same tier/cr/whatever that flying archers start hitting the battlefield in threatening numbers.

[Thaluikhain]

You're talking like some Victorian philosopher ranting about phlogiston, are you going to suppose some new theory of gravity that's determined by distance from the ground as being the most influential factor for your fly ceiling?

Actually, would it be a bad idea to come up with universal rules on how flight works? Understanding how to do it, and how to stop people from doing it, would come in handy if it's common. But out of scope for domains, though.

[Username17]

The weirdest thing about this whole tangent is that the real reason that most flying creatures don't fly very high is that it actually is more difficult to increase altitude the more of it you have.

I mean, similarly most animals that spend time in the ocean have a limit to how far down they go because it gets harder to dive the farther you go under the surface of the water. It's not kooky to mention that fact, it's just factually true.

It's seriously strange that people are making arguments of incredulity about the suggestion that the normal flying ability should assume you are spending your time at 150 meters of altitude or less. That describes more than 90% of real world species of birds. For fuck's sake!

-Username17

[Iduno]

Nah, it's fine. Arrows are hitscan.

I don't even know if this is sarcastic or not because I would legit be fine with magic anti-air archers coming online at the same tier/cr/whatever that flying archers start hitting the battlefield in threatening numbers.

Part just being glib, part "we've accepted that level of abstraction already."

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

I mean, similarly most animals that spend time in the ocean have a limit to how far down they go because it gets harder to dive the farther you go under the surface of the water. It's not kooky to mention that fact, it's just factually true.

I'm interpreting this as we need fucking crazy sky monsters that only exist on the upper edges of the atmosphere that look like alien horrors and shit. How many of those does D&D have? Do they all just live in the air plane Elemental Plane of Air?

[merxa]

Honestly, I think the more compelling reason many birds don't fly especially high is because it is a waste of vital resources better spent on surviving.

It's not like tiny mouse archers ride seagulls into battle against the beaver riding lizard tribe.

Now of course in a fantasy world we could have just that, and with intelligent creatures engaging in war a regiment of griffon archers are going to absolutely push their mounts to their limit if it means less of them die in battle.

[Foxwarrior]

I mean, similarly most animals that spend time in the ocean have a limit to how far down they go because it gets harder to dive the farther you go under the surface of the water. It's not kooky to mention that fact, it's just factually true.

Now it is you who is confusing altitude and elevation. It's hard to dive deeper because of pressure changes... if the reason it became harder to climb was also because of pressure changes, your comparison would be apt, but also birds wouldn't be able to live on mountains.

[jt]

Another reason most birds don't fly particularly high because there's no cover in the sky and a larger bird would eat them.

Here are a few workable proposals in this space:
[*] Bow ranges are cylindrical, with a finite horizontal range and a vertical range of "don't worry about it," because arrows are hitscan. Firing downwards has a damage bonus because gravity, but anything in the air takes extra damage because birds are fragile. Mounted archers are "You didn't bring any archers to this fight so fuck you," and flying archers are an upgraded fuck you.
[*] In mass combat, any infantry unit armed with shields that has more training than a peasant levy knows how to shield against archers. It's automatic, they take no damage and get a save versus reduced speed. More mobile archers let you more easily force this condition, and flying archers may even have a higher save DC. Fighting against things in the air takes special abilities that you may not even have, because air stuff is just better. Flying melee cavalry is still free to have a giant bonus to charging at ground positions, because the concern isn't that things have the same number, it's just that everyone gets to use their number.
[*] Flying units take significant time to get to full altitude, and get full high ground advantage. Flying archers are the dominant use of flying units, because they get to altitude before the battle, do loads of extra damage, and take little to no damage from return fire. Harpies and whichever kingdoms can tame pegasi are in charge of your setting now. Everyone who doesn't live underground has a counter-strategy because that's table stakes to being relevant.

A work of art

It's... beautiful.

[merxa]

flying archers should also be very vulnerable to flying cavalry, risky to deploy without suitable escort units.

[Foxwarrior]

Flying units take significant time to get to full altitude, and get full high ground advantage. Flying archers are the dominant use of flying units, because they get to altitude before the battle, do loads of extra damage, and take little to no damage from return fire. Harpies and whichever kingdoms can tame pegasi are in charge of your setting now. Everyone who doesn't live underground has a counter-strategy because that's table stakes to being relevant.

The reason you fight dragons in their lairs, where they get special lair actions they can only use there, is because that's where they're the least dangerous. It takes a lot of calories to lift big creatures, so they could reasonably have to spend most of their time eating and resting and stuff. Basically the pegasus archers can kite anyone they find to death, but anyone they don't find can easily try to sneak up on the aircraft carrier and blow it up.

[Username17]

The reason you fight dragons in their lairs, where they get special lair actions they can only use there, is because that's where they're the least dangerous. It takes a lot of calories to lift big creatures, so they could reasonably have to spend most of their time eating and resting and stuff. Basically the pegasus archers can kite anyone they find to death, but anyone they don't find can easily try to sneak up on the aircraft carrier and blow it up.

Why is it so weird to imagine that Dragons fight on or adjacent to the ground because they are more effective that way? When you're making the mechanics, you're making the mechanics and they can be whatever you want them to be.

Dragons can simply be vulnerable to ranged attacks while flying. That's not weird. Things can just work that way and then knights can go have lance fights with Dragons in open fields like they do in the vast majority of source material.

Fighting Dragons with swords like you were on the cover of a box labeled "Dungeons & Dragons" doesn't require contrived scenarios or the Dragon holding the idiot ball. It just has to involve Dragons being vulnerable to ranged attacks while airborne. If flying around in the presence of skilled archers is dangerous, Dragons will land and fight.


Fighting a Dragon is supposed to look like this.

If getting hit with ranged attacks causes you to risk plummeting out of the sky like you were a fucking arrow-struck swan, then you're damned right Dragons would get on the ground and use their claws and bites. It's weird that people are claiming attachment to rules that are bad, unbalanced, unrealistic, and also do a shit job of replicating source material.

I'm interpreting this as we need fucking crazy sky monsters that only exist on the upper edges of the atmosphere that look like alien horrors and shit. How many of those does D&D have?

There's some. Like the Skybleeder and the Windghost. It's not really an ecosystem that D&D much interacts with. But yes, the high skies should in fact have horrible monsters in them in addition to the fact that turbulence at higher altitudes makes flying nigh impossible and also that it takes progressively more energy to fly up the higher up you've gone and that most flyers couldn't do it even if they wanted to.

-Username17

[Foxwarrior]

it takes progressively more energy to fly up the higher up you've gone and that most flyers couldn't do it even if they wanted to.

The gravitational potential energy formula is GPE = mass * gravity * height. So going twice as high takes twice as much energy. Sure, lower pressure and such can make it harder to fly really high, but not on the 500 feet scale.

I think you're trying to make the argument that "You should believe the things I say about physics are literally true in real life because that would be good for game balance"
As a response to people saying "the things you say about physics aren't literally true".

I mean, I agree that fighting dragons who are fire breath strafing you while you're on the ground is a cool visual and making mechanics support it is a good goal, but I'm not willing to unlearn my existing knowledge of reality in order to avoid having any disbelief to suspend.

Oh, I guess I should mention that I liked K's suggestion last time we got on this topic, where you could spend an action every round to become immune to ranged attacks from beyond some set distance. Loosely justified by arrows moving kinda slowly.

[Grek]

Gaining altitude is about generating lift in excess of gravity. Lift scales with linearly with wing area and air density, but quadratically with velocity. This in turn means that gaining altitude is about going fast. Flying creatures can (obviously) go fast enough to gain a certain amount of altitude, but doing so is analogous to sprinting - they can only maintain that level of exertion for a certain amount of time before they exhaust their oxygen supply. Doubling a creature's maximum attainable altitude requires that it be able to 'sprint' for twice as long, which is very difficult to accomplish, even with selective breeding and intensive training. Three times is honestly implausible.

If you wanted to model this in D&D, you'd make it so the Run action is the only way to gain altitude during flight.