Dealing with persistent flight as a GM

[Hal]

My players are getting into late paragon levels, and one of them just picked up a flying broom. (Incidentally, our session was side-tracked significantly with Harry Potter and Wizard of Oz jokes.)

None of my games have ever reached a level where easy flight was available. He's an archer, too, so his strategy at the table was to fly at 20 squares up and rain arrows onto the enemies below.

I don't want combat to become a triviality for him, but clearly my answer can't be to ground him at every opportunity. Any suggestions?

[neonchameleon]

Several things.

1: Doesn't the Broom impose a to hit penalty or require one hand to steer?
2: Ignore him. He's just encouraging you to focus fire on everyone else, weakening the party as a whole.
3: Once in a while mug him in the air. If he's too far away for most enemies to attack him, he's too far away for the rest of the party to rescue him. And if you do knock him off that broom (or he jumps off as the fastest way down) leave the broom hanging in mid air until they can find a way to retrieve it - and have an opportunist come to try to snatch the mid-air broom (it can be easily foiled the first time - that time's the warning that leaving a broom in mid air for a couple of minutes is a bad idea if they want to keep it).

[Shpadoinkle]

Are all of your fights taking place in flat, featureless open fields? No ceiling or roof? There's no obstruction of any kind, like trees? Also I'm really rusty on 4e, but in 3e if you were firing into melee there was a chance you could hit someone besides your intended target, I don't know how you feel about implementing something like that, but it's something to consider.

Also, separating himself from the group is going to make him a tempting target- hey, if he's running away there must be a reason, right? He must be carrying something valuable that these guys don't want to lose! It's no unreasonable that one or two of the enemy number might focus specifically on taking him down because of those tactics.

[Wymmerdann]

Dispel effects that interrupt the fly affect long enough for him to fall.

Non-traditional atmospheres (you're late-game enough for plane-jumping) which make being more than 20 feet of the ground dangerous. (Gas clouds; maybe dire mosquitos can't come closer to the ground than that).

Some kind of disruptive or chaotic magical affect, either from an area profoundly damaged by magic, or the intentional spellcasting of a wizard, that makes controlling the broom much more difficult, hazardous, or downright impossible. (Quirrel did it in Philosopher's stone, and he was a downright chump compared to what they should be facing).

Other people's advice was good. The idea of a party is that people stick close enough together to help each other out. If he's not doing that, punish the group (who'll blame him) and more importantly punish him directly.

Flying ghouls grabbing him in mid-air. Vampires grabbing him in mid-air. Mind-flayer's grabbing him in mid air.

The broom could legitimately start malfunctioning (maybe after an encounter with a chaos sorcerer or other random magical affect). Give warning that it should be checked out. If they don't, roll a d20 each time it's used to move in a combat situation. On a 1 the broom malfunctions and continues in that trajectory until forcible stopped (gravity, solid object) or destroyed. Either crunch into the ground, or burn up in the atmosphere.

The broom is stolen and replaced with some kind of dire astral mimic. Next encounter he's in mid-air, it transforms and attacks him.

The wizard spell blur makes you invisible to enemies more than a certain distance away. Use affects like that to punish extremely long range combat.

[Hal]

Interesting suggestions, I appreciate the ideas. Obviously, some will work better than others in the current campaign, but I think I can utilize some of them to make things more interesting if my player decides to stick to the (soon to become much less) friendly skies.



1: Doesn't the Broom impose a to hit penalty or require one hand to steer?


It's a -2 penalty to hit, which is not a complete hindrance. And like any other mount, there is nothing that requires a free hand attack while mounted.


Are all of your fights taking place in flat, featureless open fields? No ceiling or roof? There's no obstruction of any kind, like trees? Also I'm really rusty on 4e, but in 3e if you were firing into melee there was a chance you could hit someone besides your intended target, I don't know how you feel about implementing something like that, but it's something to consider.


In 4e, there's no penalty for firing into melee. Also, the broom debuted while they were fighting a beholder ghost on the roof of a tower (it's a long story.) I usually try to make the terrain varied and interesting, but in this case there wasn't really any justification for having something block his view.

[Kurald Galain]

Use cloud spells liberally; either on the ground so he can't see where he's aiming, or on him so he can't see period.

Have enemy archers target him, and point out that he's now out of range of the cleric's healing word.

Note that any prone or stun effect should cause him to plummet.

[Grey Watcher]

Even without exotic magical or extra-planar effects, surely you can mess with him by altering the weather. A windstorm, rain, or even lightning that might be mere flavor text for the guys on the ground suddenly become a real problem for anyone flying around. Now, granted, if you overuse it, it can get cheap, just like anything else, but it's one of many tools in your box for making life more interesting for you airborne player.

You might also consider throwing in an encounter or two specifically designed to incorporate him. Maybe a villain has a flying cohort who normally rains down fire and lightning on their enemies, and if the two flying guys engage each other, you have an opportunity for a proper dogfight.

[Epinephrine]

Note that any prone or stun effect should cause him to plummet.

I think he's safe from stuns, since it grants hover, but a prone should drop him. 20 squares is more than his flight speed, so he'd take some damage (6d10, reduced by his acrobatics check if he's trained).

If he stays low he wouldn't be at any risk of going prone when knocked prone (say, 30 feet up); he's out of range 5 attacks, within the range 10 of his healer, and if knocked prone he descends his flight speed (8) safely, landing on his feet.

[Tegu8788]

Let the artillery fire away. Up there he has no cover of any kind, and as mentioned, can get no aide from the party. The defender would be hard pressed to help him too.

[NecroRebel]

You could also endeavor to make sure the whole party has some means of encounter-long flight at least once per day and then design encounters where every combatant is flying.

The main way to deal with this, though, would be to simply have cover on the ground where he can't always shoot everything with impunity. Outdoors, there might be nearby buildings that block line of effect from places, those buildings might have awnings or other covered areas, or there might be trees whose canopy gives total concealment against flyers as well as providing obstacles that hinder flight.

[Epinephrine]

I had a similar problem with an epic-level invoker flying about. Low ceilings, enemies that blind, obscuring terrain (fog, etc).

[illyrus]

Let the artillery fire away. Up there he has no cover of any kind, and as mentioned, can get no aide from the party. The defender would be hard pressed to help him too.

^^ This. Also flying melee elites/solos are more likely to go after him so they'll have to deal with less damage from the rest of the party.

Sometimes flying high is a great way to avoid damage, sometimes separating yourself is a terrible idea.

As a GM I'd rather have the monsters react to the party's tactics than the world itself. The latter just seems like you're picking on that player and really both seem to work just as well in my experience.