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Thread: Rolling Back Flight
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2015-05-31, 12:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
Spoiler: Response
There are two ways to make movement skills interesting and useful without rolling for the sake of rolling. The simplest are flat barriers that require an auto-succeed take 10. These should be used like a lower-tier version of Passwall, Teleport or Plane Shift--spells which give the party strategic flexibility in how they approach challenges without actually contributing much drama. Success in this case should lead to immediate or almost immediate success for the less physically capable specimens--you put in pitons, open a gate, whatever. This barely intrudes at all on playtime or flow, but it does let the party fighter contribute something outside of combat.
In combat, climb and acrobatics (FWIW, I'm using Pathfinder's skill list -fly, because screw the fly skill. I'm not making people invest skills into a movement type only available to them at another player's sufferage. I've referred to 3.5 skills like jump because I'd like this to be as broad a discussion as possible) should open up tactical options created by terrain. Two examples from my own game, which just hit 6th level and only has a (frequently absent) cleric in terms of full casters:
Last session, they had to fight their way through a graveyard built into several concentric, broken rings of low cliffs, with a wide staircase going through it. At the top of the hill is cleric who is the focal target of the encounter. Without flight, the terrain creates a layered challenge which affords skill-users the interesting choice of either trying to punch through the knot of enemies on the stairs or outflanking them and going after the cleric directly. With flight the encounter becomes a brawl in an empty football field, basically. As it turned out, the Ranger and Rogue stealthily took door number two and the rest of the party waited until the two were in position, then assaulted head-on to draw the cleric's defenders away from him.
Coming up either tomorrow or next session, the party is probably going to be fighting in the canopy of a forest with immense trees. The branches provide a bunch of snaky catwalks which require acrobatics to maneuver at any speed, and the foliage provides cover and concealment that makes ranged combat less effective. Climb lets the players maneuver between levels of the canopy, opening up new paths across the battlefield.
At too low of a level, the movement challenges in these encounters might be too difficult for even skillmonkeys to succeed at consistently enough, especially challenge 2. The fight would be either a slog or a swingy mess. By around 6th level though, characters who want to be acrobatic are really acrobatic, and can reliably auto succeed on most of these tasks. Getting into the thinner, higher branches is a higher-risk higher-reward proposition that the really talented can consider.
Or a wizard could just give everybody flight. The other side better have access to flight too then, or this is going to be an ugly rout. Expanding the level space where flight isn't available would expand the number of stories and encounters available by widening the band where a characters bonus to a movement skill is high and also useful.
SpoilerThis is a good point. Keep in mind though, if flight bumps a creature's CR anywhere from 1 to 3 points higher, there should be a very narrow range where the party is facing flying creatures without having access to flight itself. This doesn't perfectly solve the problem though, since the opportunity cost of casting flight relative to other ranged options has increased.
This is a good point.
If you want the Climb and Swim skills to get some use, I'd steal from 4th edition. Wrap up Swim and Climb into a general Athletics skill (which also works well as a 'Smash stuff' skill, if you are so inclined), so skill monkeys don't have to spend as much to get some usage out of their skills. Also, combining other skills (I'm looking at you, Disable Device. What, is a lock not a device now?) will probably help more then nerfing a very powerful buff.
Also, let your players climb the monsters. People love that in my experience.
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2015-05-31, 01:04 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2015
Re: Rolling Back Flight
I think you'd be better off adding a grapple maneuver called "ride unwilling mount". Remove size modifiers, treat it like pinned with the exception that the creature can still move(unless you put it over it's encumberance) and you move with it. Maybe throw in a feat "improved ride unwilling mount" that lets you ride mounts of inappropriate size and shape and always land on top of the opponent when they fall out of the sky.
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2015-05-31, 01:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
So failure to climb leads to the same encounter. That isn't very interesting.
I don't know if you know this, but I don't have time for the fighter to take off his pants every time I get to a small incline. Any advantage a fighter would have from high strength is canceled out by wearing armor. They aren't good at climbing.
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2015-05-31, 01:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
I've got a new fantasy TTRPG about running your own fencing school in a 3 musketeers pastiche setting. Book coming soon.
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2015-05-31, 01:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
The way I see it is: The main problem with pushing back flight magic further is that it would make the magic items based off those spells that allow the noncasters to keep up w/ the mages to become even more outrageously expensive.
I can understand not liking how easily available flight is. But on the other hand, if you went to the other extreme and everyone had it, it wouldn't be special anymore.
I think in general the game fails at the caster/martial paradigm. Martials should have slow/clumsy all day flight and the casters should have limited use tactical flight, if the two groups actually lived up to their "fight all day!" vs. "good at nova", it'd be that way. Instead...casters get both.
You know, there are other martials in the world besides just fighters. We shouldn't decide things just based on what the generic dude in full plate wants. It's not the more thematic and balanced-designed (in terms of having social and combat roles) classes' fault if the full plate fighter sucks at climbing.
Monks, Rangers, and Rogues would do well if climbing were more useful. Paladins can just get a winged mount.Last edited by StreamOfTheSky; 2015-05-31 at 01:51 PM.
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2015-05-31, 02:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2015
Re: Rolling Back Flight
Heavy armor seems pretty much built for splitting the party. You can't sneak, climb, swim or even keep up at a run, hell you even suck at flying.
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2015-05-31, 02:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
As other's have said — pushing back flying is only an issue if the DM makes it one. In a world where flight is delayed presumably the situations where it is required are delayed also ?
Most of the counter arguments would lead to the logical conclusion that everyone should have flight from level 1. Well you could have a game where everyone play Raptorians or similar I suppose ?
So this begs the question: at what level should flight be available. In the standard game this is level 5-6, though it tends to be common later than this anyway because of opportunity cost and the shortage of spell slots.
I don't think it's such a big deal to delay flight so long as the challenges presented reflect this. You could always just make your setting very windy, which would make it less useful anyway, as is the case on certain planes.
Incidental are you also going to nerf spells which boost climbing, or skills generally ?π = 4
Consider a 5' radius blast: this affects 4 squares which have a circumference of 40' — Actually it's worse than that.
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2015-05-31, 02:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
SpoilerOh whatever, mentioning the fighter was a throwaway comment and siezing on it like it means anything is obnoxious. Besides, in the context where I mentioned it the fighter is in a non-threat situation where he can take ten. He can take the gear off and put it back on in zero game time and everyone is fine. If you're unwilling to handwave his limitations in such a low-stakes situation he probably has much bigger problems anyway, being that he's a fighter and isn't very good at much of anything.
Personally, I'm playing a modified pathfinder and between MW agile breastplate, armor training, a high strength and the additional ranks per level I gave her, my party's fighter is just fine at climbing "small inclines."
In the combat application, choosing the climb option and failing leaves you out of position for a round, leaving the encounter's enemies still up differentrankly, the low DC barrier is interesting less because of the low probability of failure, but because you can't take the cleric with you. You can muscle up the path through the caster's minions, giving him more time to cast or escape, but keeping the party better able to cooperate and support each other directly. The flanking option has a different set of risks and rewardOh
SotS: What if you just didn't make the flying gear more expensive? Wands and scrolls would have to be, and potions would be out, but boots of flying or owlfeather armor could just stay the same price. At higher levels, I agree that flying shouldn't be special, or should at least be easy enough to come by that its not an undue burden, but I don't think that dynamic has to exist so early.Last edited by Mendicant; 2015-05-31 at 02:50 PM.
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2015-05-31, 02:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
I've got a new fantasy TTRPG about running your own fencing school in a 3 musketeers pastiche setting. Book coming soon.
Check out my NEW sci-fi TTRPG about first contact. Cool alien races, murderous AIs, and more. New expansion featuring rules for ships! New book here NOW!
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Amazing Princess Mononoke avatar by Dispozition
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2015-05-31, 03:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
Incidental are you also going to nerf spells which boost climbing, or skills generally ?
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2015-05-31, 03:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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2015-05-31, 03:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
π = 4
Consider a 5' radius blast: this affects 4 squares which have a circumference of 40' — Actually it's worse than that.
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2015-05-31, 03:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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2015-05-31, 05:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
Venger, are you seriously arguing that taking away spells hurts mundanes more than spellcasters? If that were true, then the way to fix balance would be to give casters more spells.
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2015-05-31, 05:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
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2015-05-31, 05:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
I think the point was that with the increase to spell level, the magical items to make mundanes be able to acquire such increase by a hefty amount, and increase the amount of resources the caster spends to make the mundane worthwhile, and could even make it so casting the spell to make the fighter be able to contribute might not be the best idea tactically. I mean, if you could end the combat or help Boris the Strong and Fair get in a few whacks, what option would YOU pick? Increasing the level of the spells that aids in making the mundanes useful, not feel overshadowed, and helps party cohesion is often a very bad idea. I don't even think any mundane would complain terribly if Haste became a 1st level spell for instance!
Last edited by Honest Tiefling; 2015-05-31 at 05:43 PM.
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2015-05-31, 06:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
If Venger isn't, I am. I'll say it explicitly.
Taking spells from spellcasters hurts mundanes. Here's why.
The entirety of D&D is built around spells. At higher levels, if your weapons are not magical, they are worthless. If you do not have magical items, your options are sorely limited. The most powerful effects, whether offensive or defensive, are magical. A party without magic will fail, absent a specific decision in the course of designing the campaign to make it low-magic.
Adding new spells doesn't make casters more powerful. They already have them in abundance. But removing any spell that helps mundanes as well as casters hurts mundanes more than it hurts casters. Casters have options. They have a plethora of options.
Not now, El Guapo.
My point is, a mundane's options are limited by what a caster can do, while a caster always has alternatives. Remove one option, the caster can get by; the mundane, on the other hand, suffers.
That's the point. A caster's options are effectively NI; adding or subtracting one doesn't change them much. But a mundane's options are sorely limited, and removing even one hurts them tremendously.My headache medicine has a little "Ex" inscribed on the pill. It's not a brand name; it's an indicator that it works inside an Anti-Magic Field.
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2015-05-31, 06:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
I'm saying taking away spells specifically used as a crutch to help mundanes hurts mundanes, since they are now forced to spend their WBL on some stuff to fly. they are already more item-dependent than casters, so that takes away money they could spend on weapon/armor enhancements or utility item like a cloak of displacement.
yeah, that's basically exactly the point I'm trying to convey. thanks.I've got a new fantasy TTRPG about running your own fencing school in a 3 musketeers pastiche setting. Book coming soon.
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Amazing Princess Mononoke avatar by Dispozition
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2015-05-31, 07:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2012
Re: Rolling Back Flight
Yes, you could keep the items the same price, if you're ok with not basing the price on the spell effect's level.
I couldn't disagree more strongly. And it's that attitude, "what's one more spell going to hurt?" repeated over and over and OVER and OVER that makes the power disparity as bad as it is. Even in "core," those spells didn't just magically appear. They're there as now-legacy sacred cows of the stupid bs that prior editions added to that "plethora" and became popular (usually because they were really strong...you think it's an accident that core is filled with broken spells?).
What matters is quality, not quantity, if that's what you're trying to say. I could do far more damage to the wizard's power level by banning (across core and all splats) 100 spells of my choosing than by banning 500 of them at random. But it absolutely does affect a caster's power if you add or remove spells, if those spells are at all useful.
Your argument only works when it's one spell and no more, now or in the future. It fails epically when regurgitated every time an issue is raised with a spell. The OP wasn't even talking about increasing the level cost of just one spell (and definitely not removing them entirely). He intended to increase ALL the flight-granting ones. Which when you include incidental options like Alter Self, is going to be a decent sized list.
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2015-05-31, 07:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
I think the argument also applies more when it is a buff spell that mundanes need in order to do anything in certain fights, like flight. Less so for the class of spells I will now dub 'Reality-Diddling' spells, which...Aren't as benefical to the party as a whole unless they wish to become the god-king's maid or something because he's fixed the problem of the world ending last week. Adding more of the latter is a bad, bad, bad, idea. Adding more of the former? Yeah, technically makes the wizard better, but in such a way that is more likely to increase the usefulness of mundanes, as well as their enjoyment in many cases.
Overall, I think what the spell does and how it affects the game is a big factor on if it mucks up balance to remove, or can be ditched without problem. Not spells in general, but what they do.For all of your completely and utterly honest needs. Zaydos made, Tiefling approved.
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2015-05-31, 07:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
right, but no one's arguing that. no one in this thread is saying "casters need wish/miracle to support melee, they should have more spells in this vein"
what we're talking about is stuff like magic vestment or enlarge person. spells that basically only exist to give them a leg up.
Reality-DiddlingI've got a new fantasy TTRPG about running your own fencing school in a 3 musketeers pastiche setting. Book coming soon.
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Amazing Princess Mononoke avatar by Dispozition
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2015-05-31, 07:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
That was more in response to Stream of the Sky. Overall, giving Casters more spells is a typically bad idea, except in the case of buff spells, and some utility spells. There, you get to be an awesome caster without overshadowing Boris. It's not that it is one spell, it is what the spell IS and what it does in gameplay. Which is still why I would not recommend increasing the level of flight, because at that level it might be more efficient to go and whack the flying enemy yourself rather then relying on Boris to be useful because now he needs MORE investment from yourself to do his job. His ONLY job.
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2015-05-31, 07:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
I've got a new fantasy TTRPG about running your own fencing school in a 3 musketeers pastiche setting. Book coming soon.
Check out my NEW sci-fi TTRPG about first contact. Cool alien races, murderous AIs, and more. New expansion featuring rules for ships! New book here NOW!
Iron Chef Medals!
Amazing Princess Mononoke avatar by Dispozition
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2015-05-31, 08:17 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
Ah, sorry. Seemed like I didn't quite get something across...Again. Sometimes, I think I'm not good at communication. Other times, I know I'm not.
Through if you want skills to be relevant, maybe a wacky idea would be to have Acrobatics be relevant in controlling yourself? Like the Fly skill, but don't make it caster only and usable for a single type of spell and no other acrobatic feats.
Then again, I feel as if I just want a game of catapulting rogues into the sky to bounce around the head of a giant creature while the fighter climbs up their flank, preferably while hasted.For all of your completely and utterly honest needs. Zaydos made, Tiefling approved.
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2015-05-31, 08:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
I wholeheartedly agree with you. When certain spells are overly powerful for their level, positioning them at a higher level puts them in their proper place. I play in a game where the party is currently at 10th level. Of 5 characters, two fly regularly but only recently gained the ability to do so, one can fly but is generally tanking and so chooses not to fly, and two others are completely unable to fly. The game runs fine. The DM doesn't much care for the complexity of aerial combat, so he chooses mostly combats in indoor and dungeon environments. Flying monsters appear occasionally in outdoor combats, but they are generally melee flyers and so getting to grips with them is rarely an issue. In other words, the DM builds encounters to challenge the players, and combat runs smoothly. He's not even having to work hard at it -- he's a busy guy and I know he doesn't spend much time on encounter prep. The game runs fine.
Now, our group doesn't fly much because of player and DM preference, but if our not-flying was a result of scarce access to flight resources, the effect would be exactly the same. The game would still run fine. I need to respectfully disagree with the consensus crowd here -- regardless of what abstract theorycrafting might seem to suggest, we've got a group that's gamed together from levels 1 to 10 with limited access to flight magic, mundane characters have had their day in the sun, and the DM hasn't had to kill himself holding it together. Now, can disparate access to flight cause problems? Sure, I bet we can imagine a group where it would. Can disparate access to flight be present without causing problems? Yes, we know for a fact that this occurs too.
Something I'd caution you about Mendicant is that flight access comes from diverse sources. There are warlock invocations, druid wild shape forms, racial feats, grafts, summoned monsters, animal companions, and other sources as well. You'll need to either come up with a simple blanket rule that affects everything at once (hard) or modify dozens of powers across dozens of sourcebooks (tedious and complicated). While I think your plan is good strategically, executing it tactically may prove a challenge.Subclasses for 5E: magus of blades, shadowcraft assassin, spellthief, void disciple
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2015-05-31, 08:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
I don't know if that really fixes the problem. Your group does not need fly, as you do not encounter flying enemies. That doesn't make the skill more relevant, that means that encounters are geared to not need certain resources that most games do indeed demand. Flight can still be used to bypass climbing challenges or the like, because nothing has changed, these skills are annoying to take and often weaken skill-monkeys for bothering to do so, while casters zip around laughing at the puny mountain for thinking it was an obstacle.
Also, I don't think relying on Animal Companions, Warlock Invocations or Wildshape really helps the skill-monkeys as opposed to...Well, other casters. Warlocks aren't terribly powerful, I'll give you that, but they tend to be on the castery side of things regardless.For all of your completely and utterly honest needs. Zaydos made, Tiefling approved.
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2015-05-31, 09:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
Here's the point where I think we're talking past each other. It seems "the problem" is that mundanes can't fly while casters can. But if no one flies, "the problem" doesn't exist. You say that flight bypasses climbing challenges but the absence of flight doesn't make Climb more relevant. I'd respond that the absence of flight makes the Climb skill EXTREMELY relevant to a climbing challenge. You're concerned that "most games" demand flight. but the OP isn't trying to build rules that will function robustly in "most games." He wants rules that work in his game, which will be specifically geared to include challenges that are trivialized by flight but to exclude challenges that demand flight when flight is unavailable. You envision casters zipping around mountains -- but without access to the tools that obviate mountain-climbing, there is no zipping going on. Instead, the skills that are "annoying to take" because they will "weaken" a character are essential for success, and the character who has them gets his day in the sun.
Let me put it this way. Climb is a pistol. Flight is a gatling laser cannon. When no one has a gatling laser cannon and most make do with knives and clubs, the man with the gun is king.Last edited by jiriku; 2015-05-31 at 09:13 PM.
Subclasses for 5E: magus of blades, shadowcraft assassin, spellthief, void disciple
Guides for 5E: Practical fiend-binding
D&D Remix for 3.x: balanced base classes and feats, all in the authentic flavor of the originals. Most popular: monk and fighter.
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2015-05-31, 09:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
If you force a man with a gun to take a tennis racket because you have placed a tennis match challenge in front of him, you cannot blame him if he chooses to play the game with the Uzi instead and leave the annoying racket at home.
If climbing is so essential to success, all you've managed to force the Skill-Monkeys to take a skill that 1) they cannot fail at, else the game ends and 2) reduces their effectiveness in other tasks, and in 99% of cases, they didn't make a skill monkey to climb on stuff. They're probably not taking ranks in climbing because it isn't terribly useful in most cases and they have to weaken themselves to do it. So now you have the double punishment of no flight for mundanes AND you're expected to dump skill points into Climb else your progression won't continue. It is this type of situation that often leads to all Wizard parties in my experience.For all of your completely and utterly honest needs. Zaydos made, Tiefling approved.
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2015-05-31, 09:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
The entirety of D&D is built around spells.
I also don't think you should need spells per se in order to get magic, but that's for a different thread.
Through if you want skills to be relevant, maybe a wacky idea would be to have Acrobatics be relevant in controlling yourself? Like the Fly skill, but don't make it caster only and usable for a single type of spell and no other acrobatic feats.
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2015-05-31, 09:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rolling Back Flight
Perhaps address the problem you see with your players and see if they'd be willing to cooperate, in that if they are interested in a certain option that falls within certain parameters, they bring it up with you? I mean, why bother with the warlock if you have no warlocks? If someone is interested in Polymorphing, get them on board and have them bring potential spells they'd like to take next level to you so you have far less work to do.
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