Domain Rules

[Username17]

Another thing to remember is that while migratory birds can fly at high altitude, most birds fly at lower than 150 meters.

Surely that's because they don't have any reason to, though, and would fly higher if they (or their riders) were aware of arrows likely to come up at them?

Putting a really low ceiling would help game balance immensely, but (excepting the Underdark), would seem hard to justify in universe.

It takes progressively more time and energy to gain altitude the more of it you already have. There are some birds that can only fly a few meters above the ground - famously chickens and peacocks can fly up into a tree but can usually be held in an open topped courtyard by a wall that's 4-5 meters tall.

The question then is why you would think that a winged horse with an armored rider would be able to fly like a goose and not like a pheasant. From a realizarm standpoint, obviously a winged horse shouldn't be able to fly at all, but obviously it should be able to fly from a "rule of cool" standpoint. Still, that argument doesn't specifically make a case for it being able to ascend like a vulture and hover like a hummingbird. It would be completely cromulent for it to make short, fast, low altitude flights like a finch. Or flocking and swooping at 80 meters like a crow.

The core issue is that there's no particular reason that flying monsters should be able to fly higher than archers can shoot. And for the purposes of a Mass Battle game the general rule that archers can fire upon flyers makes sense and is much better for game balance than assuming that Doom Bats can drop bombs from 6000 meters or whatever.

And the second thing to remember is that there's already a totally mundane non-fantasy military unit that uses archery and mobility to stay out of melee range. It's called the Horse Archer. And it's genuinely incredibly devastating to infantry not backed up by high quality archery of its own. There's no reason for Manticores to be the equivalent of World War 2 fighters and bombers, because if their maximum altitude is similar to that of bees they can be worked into a war framework that still has room for swordsmen.

-Username17

[OgreBattle]

The Pegasus was historically used to harass women from above until they submitted to the patriarchy yeah?

[MGuy]

That's a good way to reason out a low ceiling for flight. I'll take it.

[maglag]

@maglag

Look, I get it. Realism gets unduly shat upon by many gamers. Discarding verisimilitude shouldn't be done lightly because anything that makes intuitive sense to the players is one less thing you need to explain and hash out as a DM. But you know what? I'd be willing to bet that most fantasy fans aren't so invested in faithfully recreating the vagaries of long range deflection shooting and indirect fire that they're totally willing to rule out ground bound archers having competitive shootouts with flying archers of the same tier. There's enough demand for bad ass fantasy archers with absurdly fast projectiles traveling along absurdly flat arcs to justify some deviation from Earth-1218 physics. I'd happily be down for a setup where Tier 2 Pegasus Skirmishers roflstomp tier 1 Crossbow Militia with their magical flying pony bullshit but can expect casualties when bombarding Deadshot Minotaurs.

Then why limit that to the domains minigame?

Why is the D&D fighter still pretty much fucked when in normal combat he needs to face a flying ranged enemy?

Why do a bunch of faceless mooks get to roflstomp legions of flying monsters while the fighter struggles against a single one?

It's not a matter of realizmu vs magic, it's that whetever you go with either set of rules the lone fighter still gets creamed by flying ranged monster (or any flying monster since D&D rules allow you to drop stuff from as high as you want). There's no "you can only fly so high" rules in D&D like there's in realizm, and the same D&D gives rules for dropping stuff on top of people, so yes D&D fliers are expected to work as bombers against ground targets, and said ground targets are pretty much screwed to retaliate.

Hence why the underdark is so popular, it's the only place fliers don't dominate by D&D rules.

[Thaluikhain]

It takes progressively more time and energy to gain altitude the more of it you already have. There are some birds that can only fly a few meters above the ground - famously chickens and peacocks can fly up into a tree but can usually be held in an open topped courtyard by a wall that's 4-5 meters tall.

The question then is why you would think that a winged horse with an armored rider would be able to fly like a goose and not like a pheasant. From a realizarm standpoint, obviously a winged horse shouldn't be able to fly at all, but obviously it should be able to fly from a "rule of cool" standpoint. Still, that argument doesn't specifically make a case for it being able to ascend like a vulture and hover like a hummingbird. It would be completely cromulent for it to make short, fast, low altitude flights like a finch. Or flocking and swooping at 80 meters like a crow.

The core issue is that there's no particular reason that flying monsters should be able to fly higher than archers can shoot. And for the purposes of a Mass Battle game the general rule that archers can fire upon flyers makes sense and is much better for game balance than assuming that Doom Bats can drop bombs from 6000 meters or whatever.

And the second thing to remember is that there's already a totally mundane non-fantasy military unit that uses archery and mobility to stay out of melee range. It's called the Horse Archer. And it's genuinely incredibly devastating to infantry not backed up by high quality archery of its own. There's no reason for Manticores to be the equivalent of World War 2 fighters and bombers, because if their maximum altitude is similar to that of bees they can be worked into a war framework that still has room for swordsmen.

-Username17

Well, I'd have said it seems strange for every flying thing to have a low ceiling and it sorta clashes with a lot of popular fantasy tropes, but ok, game balance and all.

However, does that mean you have to disallow/severely limit flying carpets and broomsticks and other forms of magic flight or give them the same ceiling for some reason? And what happens when flyers launch from clifftops or other elevated positions?

[Username17]

Then why limit that to the domains minigame?

Why is the D&D fighter still pretty much fucked when in normal combat he needs to face a flying ranged enemy?

The issue of the D&D Fighter is that they need to have a ranged attack. That has always been the case and will always be the case. The 4e concept of the Fighter who only has one weapon and always uses that single weapon to solve all problems is super dumb and also totally unworkable as a concept.

Regardless of how flying creatures work, you still have Centaurs. And just, regular Horse Archers. Fucking Goblins on Wolves. The idea that you'll never encounter a mobile enemy with a ranged weapon is deeply absurd and even trying to make that be true would be horrible for the game. I mean, just look at the shit show they turned 4th edition into trying to actualize that idea.

But when the Fighter goes up against Dragons and Gargoyles and Harpies and whatever, they really shouldn't be able to meaningfully attack the Fighter from outside bow range. Which in turn means that a Fighter with a bow should be able to interact with flying enemies. The Erinyes Archer issue is exactly the same as the Goblin Wolf Archer issue - the Player Character Fighter cannot be melee only.

Of course in the Mass Battles game, it's entirely plausible that you have Infantry Cohorts that simply cannot meaningfully fight against Horse Archer Cohorts. For the same reason that it's OK if the Druid has a summoned Bear. If you have multiple units on the field, they don't all need to be useful against every opponent. But the Fighter is your only character, and having him be a dumb melee brute who becomes invalidated by a Halfling Slinger on a Pony is unacceptable.

Well, I'd have said it seems strange for every flying thing to have a low ceiling and it sorta clashes with a lot of popular fantasy tropes, but ok, game balance and all.

However, does that mean you have to disallow/severely limit flying carpets and broomsticks and other forms of magic flight or give them the same ceiling for some reason? And what happens when flyers launch from clifftops or other elevated positions?

Towers and cliffs are a whole different issue. Yes, holding a specific terrain feature that allows you to attack with ranged weapons without being attacked in return is powerful, but it's also not mobile. A Fortification can allow its occupants to attack enemies with ranged attacks who cannot fight back, but only if those enemies come within range in the first place.

Flying Monkeys may be able to take off from a tower, drop rocks, and return all without dropping into archery range. But while that may extend the size of a fortress's kill zone, it doesn't change the fact of the fortress's killzone. And I'm not really sure it would make much difference on the scale of six mile hexes. You still have to take the fortress through siege, treachery, or through costly storm. Whether they have archers or Manticores on the walls doesn't seem to matter at all.

The Pegasus was historically used to harass women from above until they submitted to the patriarchy yeah?

That. But it was also used to beat Chimera in a lance joust and to make an attempt to storm Olympus only to be thwarted with a ranged attack (or horse fly, depending on version). The harassing women with thrown rocks until they submitted to the patriarchy thing is the only kind of 'Horse Archer' success had by Pegasus in the original story.

-Username17

[Whatever]

[merxa]

don't worry, flying castles will have a flight ceiling.

If we're talking about 'realizm', I really am not seeing this flight ceiling argument. There are plenty of birds that fly plenty high, well outside longbow range, and this is before we get into fantastical monsters, demons, magical flight etc.

If the base game has the necessary changes to incorporate the concept of a flight ceiling that is one thing, but adjusting or adding in such fundamental changes for a mass battle game system isn't for me. I don't worship at the alter of game balance.

[Whipstitch]

Then why limit that to the domains minigame?

Why is the D&D fighter still pretty much fucked when in normal combat he needs to face a flying ranged enemy?

The issue of the D&D Fighter is that they need to have a ranged attack. That has always been the case and will always be the case. The 4e concept of the Fighter who only has one weapon and always uses that single weapon to solve all problems is super dumb and also totally unworkable as a concept.

-Username17

What Frank said. I've long really resented that the swordsman and the archer have a really hard time being the same dude in 3.x due to feat limitations, MAD and wealth-by-level. I am old enough to have played a bit of 2e in my youth and while a lot of things about that edition were super dumb the bit where most foes had way less hit points and modestly intelligent level 1 fighters rolled out of bed with the ability to fire 2 arrows a round was pretty aces and shut a lot of bullshit right the fuck down.

[Username17]

While Howl's Moving Castle does move, I would point out that it's a literal plot point that flying out of the castle doesn't put you out of range of ground based ranged attacks.

-Username17

[Whipstitch]

If the base game has the necessary changes to incorporate the concept of a flight ceiling that is one thing, but adjusting or adding in such fundamental changes for a mass battle game system isn't for me. I don't worship at the alter of game balance.

Serious question: What makes this such a fundamental change? There's actually an awful lot of critters who cannot meaningfully outdistance archers in D&D land. Spells and spell-like abilities routinely feature ranges short enough that the laser guided rocks read like unexpected outliers when compared to beholder death rays or dragon strafing runs. I mean, seriously, what is about getting rocks dropped on your head that makes people so happy that midrange fantasyland archers must be forbidden from returning fire? Is this one of those things where players did it to golems one time and everyone's pretending it's awesome because DM sandbagging means we never have to put up with it ourselves?

[merxa]

I'm not familiar with the laser guided rocks portion of the rules, I'm assuming they still require a roll to hit, unless this is some area of effect rule for rocks in particular that I'm not aware of.

I'm not strictly against some crossbow men shooting down some pagasi archers, and on the face of it allowing ranged units to attack flying units is a sort of 'duh, of course' argument.

What I am against is introducing new rules in a mass battle simulator that are not in the base rules. If you're already going to fix it so that a bunch of teleporting at will erinyes don't reck face against just about everything, then fix the base rules. If your mass battle rules tell me that as soon as 40 erinyes get together as a troop they stop getting teleport at will and can't fly higher then 400 ft I'll tell you that's bullshit, because it is complete bullshit that forming into a troop suddenly causes units to lose powers they have individually. How about you just fix these laser guided rocks instead?

I guess what I want from a mass battle simulator atop a fantasy ttrpg is to give me a reasonable outcome when hundreds or thousands of this or that individual stat block fight a few hundred or thousand of this other stat block. And that's probably going to be pretty hard once these stat blocks get complicated. For simple stat blocks I imagine deriving a few numbers like damage per round and rolling on a bell curve for unit performance would be good enough.

[Chamomile]

On the subject of ranges, I want to point out two things I discovered while writing aspect classes:

1) D&D 3.X spell ranges are really sensible as categories. Close range spells are sufficiently claustrophobic that they matter on a skirmish map, Medium range spells have comparable range to archers, and Long range spells considerably outrange archers. You might want to convert to static ranges or you might like that more powerful wizards get longer range spells gradually as they level, either way works.

2) D&D 3.X hands out Long range spells way too often. The Fighter's primary ranged weapon is the longbow, which comes with a 100-ft. range increment and thus has a usable range comparable to that of Medium range spells. Wizards' abilities should therefore also usually be Medium range, but instead half their bag of tricks is Long range and gets to murder archers from so far away they're taking range penalties of -8 or more.

[maglag]

I'm not familiar with the laser guided rocks portion of the rules, I'm assuming they still require a roll to hit, unless this is some area of effect rule for rocks in particular that I'm not aware of.

Yeaah, that's the thing.

Objects that fall upon characters deal damage based on their weight and the distance they have fallen.

For each 200 pounds of an object’s weight, the object deals 1d6 points of damage, provided it falls at least 10 feet. Distance also comes into play, adding an additional 1d6 points of damage for every 10-foot increment it falls beyond the first (to a maximum of 20d6 points of damage).

Objects smaller than 200 pounds also deal damage when dropped, but they must fall farther to deal the same damage. Use Table: Damage from Falling Objects to see how far an object of a given weight must drop to deal 1d6 points of damage

For each additional increment an object falls, it deals an additional 1d6 points of damage.

Objects weighing less than 1 pound do not deal damage to those they land upon, no matter how far they have fallen.

1-pound objects need to fall 70 feet to start dealing damage. But dropping things is a free action so the flier can just carry a bunch of 1-pound rocks and drop them all at the same time from 1400 feet or something for "rocks fall, you die" damage.

By RAW there's no attack roll, no reflex save, nothing. If you're directly under the falling object, you automatically take damage depending on how far it has fallen and how much it weights. And even if you say there's an attack roll or reflex save for each rock and come up with actual DCs, that's still a lot of rocks being carried by a giant eagle or something each dealing 20d6 damage.

But then there's long range spells. Fireball gets laughed at sometimes for having relatively low range, but then you realize it's range starts at 400 feet and will most probably be some 600 feet at CL 5. While also being an Aoe and having laser acuraccy too and even if you save so you still take half damage. So a squad of flying/teleporting demon/whatever that get at-will fireball would wreck most archer squads. Or most anything squads actually.

What I am against is introducing new rules in a mass battle simulator that are not in the base rules. If you're already going to fix it so that a bunch of teleporting at will erinyes don't reck face against just about everything, then fix the base rules.

100% that.

[TiaC]

Arbitrary flight ceilings for everything doesn't feel great.

I do like starting with spell ranges. Close range is throwing weapons, it generally doesn't matter much vs melee as it's within charge range. Medium range is the limit of direct fire. Bows can be relatively accurate at this distance. Long range is volley fire only. You can be effective by firing a ton of arrows, but you have lowered accuracy. I would add an extra-long range that's the domain of siege weapons

How about saying that flying increases effective range by one category? (Or perhaps, that attacks against flying enemies that are affected by gravity have their range reduced by one category.) A flier with close range effects can't be hit by melee, but can be hit by archers. Not every flier can fly to any height, and ones that can fly high and shoot far would be rare, so that they wouldn't be unbalanced.

For example, Djinn archers can fly beyond bow range, but they would be reduced to inaccurate volleys that need large numbers to matter. Meanwhile, ground troops could shoot ballistas at them.

Things like Air Elementals can fly up and attack the Djinn, but have no ranged attacks.

Sure, a division of Vrocks would be crazy dangerous, with teleport to instantly get to long range and accurate long range SLAs, but if you can field significant numbers of CR 9 monsters, you should be winning most fights against mundane troops.

[Thaluikhain]

For example, Djinn archers can fly beyond bow range, but they would be reduced to inaccurate volleys that need large numbers to matter.

Ah, but then they could still hit large targets such as cities or ships with firebombs.

Up until relatively recently, "fly high or die" wasn't a given thing, there were good reasons for low level flying. Can't think of any that'd apply to D&D off the top of my head, but you probably could impose a de facto ceiling in hostile area.

[Username17]

Arbitrary flight ceilings for everything doesn't feel great.

All flying creatures have flight ceilings. Animals that can fly higher than an arrow can shoot are incredibly rare. We can name them easily because they include fairly mundane animals like Vultures and Geese, but there are over ten thousand species of birds and only ten of them have ever been recorded flying over 4500 meters. High flying birds such as Vultures are normally flying at about 400 meters, and some use thermals (essentially special air terrain) to reach higher altitudes. The vast majority of birds can't do that. It's not just that they don't do that, it's that they literally can't.

Sure you got some creatures like Air Elementals and Rocs that specifically can 'fly high' and go out of arrow range, but there's no reason that ability shouldn't be rare and special. The generic 'flying' state should assume an altitude of 150 meters or less because that's what it actually means for ninety percent of birds. From a Mass Battles standpoint that just means out of range for melee attacks but not out of range for ranged attacks.

-Username17

[violence in the media]

Arbitrary flight ceilings for everything doesn't feel great.

It should feel great. It's something that has been missing from the rules, and that's given rise to the unfortunate implication that something with flight can just go anywhere in the atmosphere as it pleases.

The flight ceilings shouldn't be arbitrary, but we have real-world examples we can start from and then extrapolate from there. Whether or not dragons or magic spells should have higher or lower flight ceilings than condors is something you can discuss.

Also, the dropped rock rules need a rework as well. WW2 bomber accuracy was measured as a percentage of the payload that landed within 1000 feet of the target (and was around 30%), and they were using bombs way more aerodynamic than a river stone. The idea that you're going to drop something off the back of a pegasus and have it unfailingly nail something in a vertical column directly below you is absurd. Not to mention that from the 1400' altitude example it will take those rocks about 3 rounds to land. I hope whatever you're aiming at isn't moving.

[OgreBattle]

Famous WWII dive bombers like the German Stuka started a dive bomb at around 4000 meter altitude



The bomb is released around 600-300 meters above the target

There's plenty of data and games simulating dive bombers of early WWII, seems a good anchoring point for how you want dragons to drop bombs

Data and accounts of WWII aerial dogfights... the top ace of WWII says he only started firing when within 20m behind an enemy plane that didn't know he was there. Shots above 100m are rare.

So the reliable range of a longbow in D&D is about the reliable range of WWII airplane cannons and machine guns

[Iduno]

The flight ceilings shouldn't be arbitrary, but we have real-world examples we can start from and then extrapolate from there. Whether or not dragons or magic spells should have higher or lower flight ceilings than condors is something you can discuss.

I'm not a biologist, but I would assume the maximum height is something of a bell curve. You need a certain size to take advantage of air currents without being thrown around, but you also have surface area to volume and oxygen intake concerns that increase with size.

Also, the dropped rock rules need a rework as well. WW2 bomber accuracy was measured as a percentage of the payload that landed within 1000 feet of the target (and was around 30%), and they were using bombs way more aerodynamic than a river stone. The idea that you're going to drop something off the back of a pegasus and have it unfailingly nail something in a vertical column directly below you is absurd. Not to mention that from the 1400' altitude example it will take those rocks about 3 rounds to land. I hope whatever you're aiming at isn't moving.

I'm not 100% on how, but yes.


Edit: typo

[Whipstitch]

Sure, a division of Vrocks would be crazy dangerous, with teleport to instantly get to long range and accurate long range SLAs, but if you can field significant numbers of CR 9 monsters, you should be winning most fights against mundane troops.

Yeah, I doubt you'll find much push back against that one. Breaking the tech tree over your knee via adventuring shenanigans is totally within genre, after all. You don't necessarily want every campaign or arc ending with the march upon Isengard but I definitely think it'd be a failure if you couldn't occasionally say "Yeah, we got ents now, so get fucked."

[maglag]

Data and accounts of WWII aerial dogfights... the top ace of WWII says he only started firing when within 20m behind an enemy plane that didn't know he was there. Shots above 100m are rare.

That's only because they were trying to hit an extremely high speed target (while moving at high speed themselves). Aiming is shit hard in those conditions. There's a reason why long-range artillery is static and there's also a reason why tank crews would always stop before taking a shot with their main cannon before modern targeting computers were added.

Now D&D lacks any kind of default AC bonus for moving really fast. An hovering dragon is just as easy to hit as one moving at max speed.

[quote="violence in the media]
Not to mention that from the 1400' altitude example it will take those rocks about 3 rounds to land. I hope whatever you're aiming at isn't moving.
[/quote]

Ballistaes and castles aren't known for moving around a lot indeed, and walking archers are pretty static as well.

Of course even being able to force the enemy to move out of an advantageous position or be vaporized is a massive advantage.

[Orca]

A believable altitude ceiling rather than one obviously included for convenience (IIRC D&D 4e had a maximum altitude of 20 squares, and characters couldn't stop above or below others - thus disallowing bombing without a power) doesn't sound like a terrible idea.

[Foxwarrior]

If you're flying over some hills and chasms, is the ceiling very bumpy?

[Username17]

If you're flying over some hills and chasms, is the ceiling very bumpy?

The "ceiling" is merely that it becomes progressively more difficult to gain altitude the more of it you have. Generally you'd expect a flyer who has taken off from high ground to be able to at least mostly maintain that elevation when passing over low ground.

Functionally what that means is that holding the high ground provides the same bonuses to a flying unit as it does to an archery unit. Your archers can attack their archers who hold the high ground, but they are at a disadvantage. Similarly, your archers can attack enemy flyers who hold the high ground, but are at a disadvantage when doing so.

-Username17