[Legend] Flight mechanic homebrew PEACH

[maysarahs]

So this is a cross-post from RuleofCool forums, but in interest of getting the most feedback for this as possible, I hope people who frequent both boards won't mind (I really have no idea if I am breaking protocol, so if this is a tactic commonly regarded as rude or annoying, one can remove this.) I hope to hear as many opinions as possible!

The current iteration of Legend has flight rules that are fairly binary. Either you are flying or you aren't, and melee between the two is prohibited. Flyers can ignore terrain, and walls without ceilings, but are otherwise treated as if they are just hovering 25 feet above the ground. There is no difference between 25 and 250 feet. I wished for a rule change that used the same (very effective) simplicity of the current ruleset, but still had some way to make flying feel a little more than a yes/no ability.

I have heard that using layers isn’t a new idea, so if my idea happens to be identical to someone elses, I promise I thought it up myself, and we just think alike. Without further ado, please enjoy!

I decided to call this mechanic the [Flight Z] method of handling height, and flying, and I believe it should be able to handle most if not all situations where flight could have an effect to a sufficiently simulationist degree without sacrificing too much of the designers original intent to keep it relatively simple.

In essence I believe that a large part of the issues of flight come from having to handle diagonal movement. My system removes that hassle by essentially making flight almost purely Z axis ability, though for purposes of being easy to add, flight speed has an x component (measured in feet) and a z component (measured abstractly by an integer). For example, the fly spell gives a fly speed of 60 and has [Flight 2]. But more on that later.

The basic setup is that the ground and any distance you can feasibly reach while still being considered on the ground is [Elevation 0]. All horizontal movement is handled as it always is. Once you have the ability to fly, your horizontal movement is handled exactly as it normally would, using whatever speed you’d normally have (in the current rules, it is the given flight speed). Vertical speed is handled by the second number, [Flight Z]. Basically every layer is an abstract “maneuver zone” where distance isn’t necessarily concrete, but a construct where everyone in a given layer will be able to interact (in melee) with anyone else in that layer (within horizontal range) Thus with the two numbers, an x coordinate handling horizontal movement, and a z coordinate handling vertical, a move action to fly can be used to move any combination of vertically, horizontally, or both. (basically splitting the x and z components of a triangle and removing trigonometry). I believe this keeps to the same feel of the current flight rules, with just enough adjustment to model different heights.

To bring back our fly example, if there is a creature flying at [Elevation 2], and 50 feet away from yourself, you can cast fly on yourself, and take your move action to move 50 (45 for nitpickers) feet, and up two [Elevation] levels to be adjacent to the creature. If the creature is at [Elevation 3], it will take a second move action, but your horizontal movement during that time is independent of your y movement.

Reasons why I think this system works well is that it includes room for adjustment. If you believe that flying upwards shouldn’t be as easy as flying down, You can say that flight upwards is [Flight Z-1] and downwards is [Flight Z+1]. Terminal velocity is [Flight 4] (estimation). Thus if you are falling, you move 4 [Elevation] down per round. There is now a variable in the amount of falling damage that you take, 1d10 per flight level sounds reasonable to me!

Moreover, you can use this to simulate height differences as well! If you think that a window in a castle is too high to fly up in 1 round, you can say it is at [Elevation 3], and thus any attempts later to run out of the kings chambers after you get caught trying to seduce the queen are handled as if you had to move three categories down (3d10 in 1 round, or perhaps some more elegant manner). That pit there, is [Elevation 1] deep (or [Elevation -1] high if you want to keep global track). That means that anyone who falls isn’t really going to be accessible with just a hand, you may need a ladder.

I hope this isn’t getting too complicated (I thought it was pretty simple in my head) but one place I need advice on is how to handle spells with an area of effect. Currently, I think it should be fair that any area of effect is able to extend one [Elevation] up and down of the level that the targeted square was on. If to model a sphere better, it could affect the [Elevation] level above and below at radius -5 feet, but this may get needlessly complicated.

Finally, I think the most powerful of the two places this system can be expanded into play is in range increments. [Flight 1] ([Elevation 1] from the ground) is close range as this seems like a reasonable range to be able to throw your daggers at things. Medium range is [Flight 2], Long is [Flight 4], and Extreme is [Flight 8] (I originally thought long should be Flight 8, so maybe extreme should be 12 or 16?) This system can now handle targeting distance for snipers on an airship covering their allies on the ground.

The second place this comes into play is sizes larger than large. I know the only place this currently comes into effect is the legendary ability, but if the rules were ever to include bigger sizes, the flight rules would be able to take that change by adjusting the melee range of any size larger than large by adding [Flight 1+X] where X = number of size increases above large. Huge could melee something in [Elevation 1], gargantuan, something in [Elevation 2] etc.

This was thought up in the hour it took to get home from work, so theres a lot of room for adjustment and work, I understand that the system is currently against the addition of flight rules, so I’ll just put this up on the homebrew thread in the hopes that I can refine this mechanic to one that people might use. Please PEACH, and thank you for any input in advance!

[TuggyNE]

I don't use Legend, so I can't comment on much of this, but I do have one question: Why are you using the Y axis instead of the conventional Z axis?

[maysarahs]

Haha, I think I originally thought of it as the flight "x" approach, as in flight is handled by adding a variable, but thought it was stupid when I was talking and wanted to refer to the normal plane of movement as the x distance you can move. I think I chose Y because there is never a situation where your movement in the XY plane is restricted on one axis, that is, your max movement parameters are X,X. Y was just "the next variable up". Thats how I was thinking as opposed to it being the coordinate plane. Were I to use that system, there would only have been a reference to X's and Z's which when I think of it isn't cripplingly hard to follow... Should I change it?

[TuggyNE]

Haha, I think I originally thought of it as the flight "x" approach, as in flight is handled by adding a variable, but thought it was stupid when I was talking and wanted to refer to the normal plane of movement as the x distance you can move. I think I chose Y because there is never a situation where your movement in the XY plane is restricted on one axis, that is, your max movement parameters are X,X. Y was just "the next variable up". Thats how I was thinking as opposed to it being the coordinate plane. Were I to use that system, there would only have been a reference to X's and Z's which when I think of it isn't cripplingly hard to follow... Should I change it?

Yeah, if you're using X, Y, and/or Z when referring to coordinates, it's assumed you're using Cartesian coordinates, which typically use Z for the vertical axis. So changing would be better.

[maysarahs]

Done. I realize I refer to the coordinate axis erroneously more than once. Thank you for the clarification. This mechanic tries to model the simplicity in design of the Legend system. Doesn't it make you at least want to check it out?