Flight and How to Curb It

[Grey Watcher]

So, I'm gearing up to run Curse of Strahd when it comes out in March. One of my players wants to play a bird-person (I can never remember how to spell their right name.) Now, I'm fine with this, but it got me thinking. Assuming the castle's layout is similar to AD&D and 3.5 E versions, I need to figure out the best way to handle flight. After all, simply flying up to the tops of towers could potentially trivialize part of the game. But I don't want to come down too hard on a build either.

So I'm thinking I can do two things:

Wind: Obvious obstacle is that, given that Castle Ravenloft is a tall building situated on top of a mountain, the winds would be such that flying higher than the height of the outer wall would be hazardous. Ability checks or saving throws to avoid getting slammed against the masonry and such. The higher you go, the higher the DCs. The question is, what should the numbers looks like? And what, exactly, should happen? Just straight up you hit the wall, take XdY damage, and fall? Anything else?

Monsters: Between bats, vampires, gargoyles, and other nasties, flying seems like a good way to say "Here I am! Attack me!" These would be more straightforward, but I worry that my players might just try to overpower them rather than take the hint.

Obviously, none of these would be an issue indoors, or down in the forests and other lowlands of Barovia (well, the flying monsters maybe a little). Seem like a fair way to let the player have their fun being a bird-archer without entirely breaking the flow of things?

Of course, given that only one character has flight, I might be over-thinking it.

I'd appreciate any help you guys might be able to offer.


Bird-woman archer
Know-it-all human bard
Warrior priestess
Fourth player's something of a question mark, wants something melee oriented and finesse-based, I think

[RickAllison]

One word: spiders. All it takes is one lucky hit with the Web attack and the Aarakocra plummets for very decent damage :smallbiggrin: Or he lands on top of the tower and gets eaten. It's a horror setting, you never go off alone!

[Sigreid]

I really don't think you have to worry. From what I remember of Ravenloft you don't really want to be alone and visible in the sky if you can avoid it.

[JoeJ]

How does one character flying to the top of a tower trivialize anything? Surely Strahd would be smart enough to have bars in his windows and keep his doors barred. And if the character does get through those, then they're alone inside the castle of a powerful vampire. Or, if they're clever enough to lower a rope to let the rest of the party climb up, then maybe the party should have a chance to catch Strahd when he's slightly less prepared, in return for not having an easy way to retreat if things don't work out as planned.

[Azedenkae]

>Sleep/petrify/charm/etc.
>Flying character falls and dies.

[Mhl7]

A flying archer smells of cheese from kilometers away. Every single guide on this forum, for every single class, rates Aarakocra as SUPERGOOD (or skyblue). You player is probably a min/maxer who read a guide and chose the best race available, then tried to fit a reasonable background to it. He will be a pain to handle.
You can think of thousand of tricks to avoid him spoiling the game, but he will always be ahead of you, simply because he started with a great advantage.
He gets for free, all day long what other people usually have at 5th level, for a 3rd level spell slot, for just one hour and at the cost of concentration! Something comparable (all day flight) is the cap stone ability of the Storm Cleric. They get that at lvl 18 (or something like that) and it is still good!

The problem is not only reaching to places where he shouldn't (which is a huge problem), it is also that many monsters are way stronger in melee, and sometimes they even lack ranged attacks. Hard encounters become easy and not because of tactics or clever playing by the PC (which is perfectly reasonable), but just because of a huge free boon some player got at lvl 1 (and probably the only merit of the PC was to find it written on a guide on the internet).

Also, if you have to spend a lot of extra time when you prepare the sessions and if you have to put in additional ad-hoc encounter to counter his flying ability, it is simply not worth it.

I would plainly ban the race.

EDIT: all the other suggestions given so far are good and very well thought. However there is this problem that you cannot take ad-hoc strategies more than once or twice, otherwise your player will be pissed and you will ruin the game from him much more than you would if you made him choose another race.

[Talamare]

A flying archer smells of cheese from kilometers away. Every single guide on this forum, for every single class, rates Aarakocra as SUPERGOOD (or skyblue). You player is probably a min/maxer who read a guide and chose the best race available, then tried to fit a reasonable background to it. He will be a pain to handle.
You can think of thousand of tricks to avoid him spoiling the game, but he will always be ahead of you, simply because he started with a great advantage.
He gets for free, all day long what other people usually have at 5th level, for a 3rd level spell slot, for just one hour and at the cost of concentration! Something comparable (all day flight) is the cap stone ability of the Storm Cleric. They get that at lvl 18 (or something like that) and it is still good!

The problem is not only reaching to place where he shouldn't (which is a huge problem), it is also that many monsters are way stronger in melee, and sometimes they even lack range attacks. Hard encounters become easy and it not because of tactics or clever playing by the PC (which is perfectly reasonable), but just because of a huge free boon some player got at lvl 1 (and probably the only merit of the PC was to find it written on a guide on the internet).

Also, if you have to spend a lot of extra time when you prepare the session and if you have to put in additional ad-hoc encounter to counter his flying ability, it is simply not worth it.

I would plainly ban the race.

EDIT: all the other suggestion given so far are good and very well thought. However there is this problem that you cannot take ad-hoc strategies more than once or twice, otherwise your player will be pissed and you will ruin him the game much more than make him choose another race.

I agree with all of this, but I wouldn't ban the race... Just the effect

He may fly 50ft, and at the end of his turn he falls without damage
Making it closer to a super jump, than actual free flight.

edit - which thinking about it, it's still really REALLY strong

[ShikomeKidoMi]

Well, it's a castle, right?

Just make all the windows too small for a medium creature to fit through for security/defense reasons on the part of the builders.

If most of the fighting takes place indoors with low ceilings, flight's impact will be lessened, though it will still be an advantage.

Personally, I just usually ban Aarakoa characters.

[JellyPooga]

You player is probably a min/maxer who read a guide and chose the best race available, then tried to fit a reasonable background to it. He will be a pain to handle.

I would plainly ban the race.

That's...a large conclusion to jump to based on the statement "a player of mine wants to play an Aarakocra".

Aarakocra are good, but no matter which way you cut it, they don't break the game unless your game is so weak that any character could. All-day flight is good, but it's not an automatic "win button" by any stretch of the imagination.

Especially not when you're invading Castle-freakin'-Ravenloft! Every entrance should be guarded and those that aren't are definitely not to be trusted. I think the OP has his answer, really; this guy (girl?) shouldn't go off alone, Strahd isn't a fool and the OP knows it, there's plenty of ways to limit flying without even coming up with rules for winds and such and there's not going to be many opportunities for this character to actually fly anyway.

If anything, if I was GMing this campaign I advise this player not to play an Aarakocra, not because it'd break the game, but because I don't think they'll get as much use out of their primary racial feature as, perhaps, they might want to. They simply won't enjoy playing that race so much; they'll feel constrained and claustraphobic...wait...scratch that, it's perfect for a horror game!:smallamused:

[Kurt Kurageous]

One word, really.

Fog.

[Shaofoo]

Do note that even the game itself says that bird people are restricted and to ask your DM if you can do so. While the player did ask you the point is to basically temper the player for disappointment when the DM says no since not even the game is easy with giving at will flying.

If you want to you can do the 4e version of at will flight and impose a height restriction that they can't fly over without help. Say that bird people must end their movement at most 10 feet above ground, this both helps you since now the player doesn't have unlimited z-axis access and helps the player because it limits falls to 1d6 damage. And ending their movement above the limit will just let them fall till they reach their limit if they are conscious.

[mephnick]

If some fool wants to fly to the top of Castle Ravenloft by himself, let him. The problem will sort itself out.

In terms of at-will flight: it's only really a problem as an archer and even then not really. Abilities like flight only become game-changing when the entire party can do it. I mean, archers in D&D rarely get hit anyway if they're careful. It secludes you from the party in terms of protection if something does attack you in the air. It adds extra danger of damage from falling (not that you should add that danger in every combat). It actually allows the DM to add flying enemies to early combat without worrying the PCs will never hit them. Add a wyvern to later combats and see how long the bird-man decides flying outside the reach of the party makes sense. Even out of combat it's limited by what one person can do. OK, he flew to the top cave in the mountain and bypassed the dungeon. Now what? Oh, he never got stuck in the quicksand...but everyone else is...now what? It can add some interesting elements to the early game, but it's not a win button for any adventure.

[RickAllison]

I would like to point out that a giant eagle or wyvern with Expertise (Athletics) can fairly consistently knock ancient dragons out of the sky, so just establishing he has a few of those flying around gives you a permanent anti-air defense :smallwink:

EDIT: Maybe not ancient dragons, I was thinking of the Shapechange rules and using the base form's proficiency, which isn't applicable. Still, who wants to be eaten by a bigger bird?

[lebefrei]

Considering that Strahd is a powerful vampire and wizard constantly besieged by adventurers looking to do him in, he must be aware of flying invaders. It isn't unreasonable to think that he can send thousands of bats like Batman did in the first Nolan movie. Even if a player can fireball some of them, that won't stop such a massive swarm. This will keep the player on the ground with the rest of the party and make perfect sense in Barovia. And of course as another post said, once actually inside the castle, why shouldn't every dark corner be covered in giant spider webs?

[Addaran]

A flying archer smells of cheese from kilometers away. Every single guide on this forum, for every single class, rates Aarakocra as SUPERGOOD (or skyblue). You player is probably a min/maxer who read a guide and chose the best race available, then tried to fit a reasonable background to it. He will be a pain to handle.
You can think of thousand of tricks to avoid him spoiling the game, but he will always be ahead of you, simply because he started with a great advantage.
He gets for free, all day long what other people usually have at 5th level, for a 3rd level spell slot, for just one hour and at the cost of concentration! Something comparable (all day flight) is the cap stone ability of the Storm Cleric. They get that at lvl 18 (or something like that) and it is still good!

The problem is not only reaching to places where he shouldn't (which is a huge problem), it is also that many monsters are way stronger in melee, and sometimes they even lack ranged attacks. Hard encounters become easy and not because of tactics or clever playing by the PC (which is perfectly reasonable), but just because of a huge free boon some player got at lvl 1 (and probably the only merit of the PC was to find it written on a guide on the internet).

Also, if you have to spend a lot of extra time when you prepare the sessions and if you have to put in additional ad-hoc encounter to counter his flying ability, it is simply not worth it.

I would plainly ban the race.

EDIT: all the other suggestions given so far are good and very well thought. However there is this problem that you cannot take ad-hoc strategies more than once or twice, otherwise your player will be pissed and you will ruin the game from him much more than you would if you made him choose another race.

That's a lot of assomptions. Also, i doubt the player needed to read guides to think of an flying archer concept. Anyone with a least 5 int can make the connection with having strong ranged attacks and staying at range. It's not rocket science. =P

[RickAllison]

That's a lot of assomptions. Also, i doubt the player needed to read guides to think of an flying archer concept. Anyone with a least 5 int can make the connection with having strong ranged attacks and staying at range. It's not rocket science. =P

Especially if they have read the DMG rules for calculating CR (unlikely, but it emphasizes how obvious the connection is). A creature with both flying and ranged attacks gets an automatic 1/2 CR for that if they are CR 10 or less, so it doesn't exactly take a great leap of logic. Incidentally, that is the only occurrence in the calculation where flight is considered an increase in power :smallsmile:

[Tarvil]

I'd use bunch of floating ghosts in strategic places, so Aaracocra won't get there too early. Ghost are extra terryfying for bird persons, as the can magically age PC. And you know, Aaracocras lifespan is something like, 20 years?

During sessions, players can get rid of that obstacles, by, let's say, destroying physical remains of poor souls trapped by vampires. This way, bird player will rely more on his friends.

[swrider]

I had an Aaracokra PC in my game get separated from the group by flying ahead to scout a decrepit necropolis. When asked how high he wanted to fly he decided to go high. Unfortunately for him the encounter was with a gargoyle and it almost killed him before he could get back into range of the rest of the party. Since that experience he has stuck closer to the ground.

[tieren]

I think you can set the scene to get the point across too.

If you describe a few bat swarms swirling around the upper towers which appear to be covered in spider webs with multiple stone balconies festooned with fearsome gargoyles, the lone flier will be less inclined to go check it out for himself alone.

[RickAllison]

I'd use bunch of floating ghosts in strategic places, so Aaracocra won't get there too early. Ghost are extra terryfying for bird persons, as the can magically age PC. And you know, Aaracocras lifespan is something like, 20 years?

During sessions, players can get rid of that obstacles, by, let's say, destroying physical remains of poor souls trapped by vampires. This way, bird player will rely more on his friends.

30, but you are correct. Since a mature Aarakocra only has to be 3 years old, that means aging spells only have to age by 27 years to be maxing out their life :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: Running with the gargoyle story, those are fantastic and flavorful for the Aarakocra. Remember that the two races are mortal enemies :smallwink:

[Foxhound438]

"you're the flying lightning rod of being in clear view of everything with a ranged attack"
*many bows leveled at bird*

[RickAllison]

"you're the flying lightning rod of being in clear view of everything with a ranged attack"
*many bows leveled at bird*

Up flies a beacon of majesty and aerial superiority, down comes an arrow-riddled, Christmas turkey!

[M Placeholder]

And remember, its Ravenloft. A huge flying bird thing will have the inhabitants of 90% of the towns in the setting out with pitchforks - aarakocra are pretty much non existant in that setting, and the locals that live in fear of werewolves (which are pretty much always evil in Ravenloft) and other monsters will take one look at a huge bird-man, assume its a monster that wants to kill them, and form a lynch mob.

[greenstone]

I'd let them fly.

So, the aarakocra has flown to the top of a tower. The rest of the party is at the bottom of the tower, leaving the flying character alone and exposed!

Time for Strahd to appear and charm the lone aarakocra to be his servant, or just shapechange himself and take its place.

For even more horror, the characters at the base of the tower witness the fight, unable to help their flying companion.

Perhaps Strahd paralyzes the aarakocra and throws it off the tower. "I'm the only one allowed to fly in my domain!"

[Merbeast]

I have a teifling in my game that took the flight option (we take turns DMing, so another DM allowed it). I find simple "you see large shapes flying in the distance... they don't seem to have spotted you yet, but you can't be sure" quickly gets the player to land and take a normal route with the party.

[gfishfunk]

Bad weather often grounds birds, it would probably do the same to the PC.

Snow, high winds, rain, sleet. Don't use it all the time, but on occasion (or frequently within certain regions) is perfectly acceptable.

Also, tree cover can make the use of flight in combat far less effective.

[Crusher]

I really don't think you have to worry. From what I remember of Ravenloft you don't really want to be alone and visible in the sky if you can avoid it.

If anything, you're understating things. Splitting off from the party *while attempting to breach Strahd's castle* is like hanging a big sign on yourself saying "Please make me your vampiric thrall". Strahd can fly himself and has tons of minions who can fly. He's one of the bad guys *least* affected by flying PCs.

[Vogonjeltz]

After all, simply flying up to the tops of towers could potentially trivialize part of the game. But I don't want to come down too hard on a build either.

I'm not seeing the problem. What, if anything, stops them already from just climbing the tower walls?

Climbing - Everyone can do this, at worst it might require a Strength (Athletics) check.

However, even if the bird-woman flies off on her own, it's entirely likely that if she gets into trouble she's apt to just run away assuming the rest of the party can't immediately follow where she goes.

It's also not like every adventurer and virtually every monster don't already have a ranged option. Beyond which, flying in combat is not always desirable in that there's substantially less cover in most situations.

I'd unequivocally allow an adventurer to play an Aaracockra along with all the disadvantages it brings.

[Crusher]

While I wouldn't necessarily disallow an Aarachoa(sic) specifically for a Curse of Strahd campaign, I am against PCs playing them in general. The problem is that they're too binary, like Drow (when they're in a good situation they're at risk of being OP, but anywhere else they're crippled), but arguably worse. They're too good in the open but also way too weak when they're not.

I'd only let someone play one if they were experienced, I was comfortable they knew exactly what they were getting into, and that if we had 4 straight dungeon crawls they'd make it work out appropriately.

[JoeJ]

I would not allow an aarakocra in a Ravenloft game, but that would be for aesthetic reasons; the race just doesn't fit in that world IMO. I don't see flight as a problem.

[JackPhoenix]

I would not allow an aarakocra in a Ravenloft game, but that would be for aesthetic reasons; the race just doesn't fit in that world IMO. I don't see flight as a problem.

It looks like that's not a problem for the adventure as written...Curse of Strahd is crammed into Forgotten Realms, like the previous adventures. Stupid WotC, so many great settings, and they had to fit everything into FR.

[Rhaegar]

A player separating from the group can very often lead to player death. The risks seem like they'd be far greater than the benefits.

[eastmabl]

One word: spiders. All it takes is one lucky hit with the Web attack and the Aarakocra plummets for very decent damage :smallbiggrin: Or he lands on top of the tower and gets eaten. It's a horror setting, you never go off alone!

Unless you take the new background for the book, and you can inspire NPCs to fight on your behalf when you're alone.

[rlc]

If nothing else, Harvey Birdman just pulled a Booker T and let everybody know that the party is coming for Strahd. Goodbye any chance at being stealthy.

[Laserlight]

Any time a player asks for something you have doubts about, ask him why he wants that, what he has in mind.

You may need to point out "If you're thinking to circumvent things by flying straight to the top of the castle...well...this is Castle Ravenloft." If he decides to do it anyway, it's a self-solving problem.

[AstralFire]

A flying archer smells of cheese from kilometers away. Every single guide on this forum, for every single class, rates Aarakocra as SUPERGOOD (or skyblue). You player is probably a min/maxer who read a guide and chose the best race available, then tried to fit a reasonable background to it. He will be a pain to handle.
You can think of thousand of tricks to avoid him spoiling the game, but he will always be ahead of you, simply because he started with a great advantage.
He gets for free, all day long what other people usually have at 5th level, for a 3rd level spell slot, for just one hour and at the cost of concentration! Something comparable (all day flight) is the cap stone ability of the Storm Cleric. They get that at lvl 18 (or something like that) and it is still good!

The problem is not only reaching to places where he shouldn't (which is a huge problem), it is also that many monsters are way stronger in melee, and sometimes they even lack ranged attacks. Hard encounters become easy and not because of tactics or clever playing by the PC (which is perfectly reasonable), but just because of a huge free boon some player got at lvl 1 (and probably the only merit of the PC was to find it written on a guide on the internet).

Also, if you have to spend a lot of extra time when you prepare the sessions and if you have to put in additional ad-hoc encounter to counter his flying ability, it is simply not worth it.

I would plainly ban the race.

EDIT: all the other suggestions given so far are good and very well thought. However there is this problem that you cannot take ad-hoc strategies more than once or twice, otherwise your player will be pissed and you will ruin the game from him much more than you would if you made him choose another race.

Maybe some people just freaking like to fly.

[Segev]

Sorry for the tangent, but... under what special circumstances are 5e drow overpowered?

[AstralFire]

It looks like that's not a problem for the adventure as written...Curse of Strahd is crammed into Forgotten Realms, like the previous adventures. Stupid WotC, so many great settings, and they had to fit everything into FR.

FR is, for better or for worse (I would definitely opine 'worse') the setting of classic D&D. Only Eberron seems to have any substantial interest separate from FR and that's slowly atrophying, sadly -- it was the most well-built setting put out.

[JackPhoenix]

FR is, for better or for worse (I would definitely opine 'worse') the setting of classic D&D. Only Eberron seems to have any substantial interest separate from FR and that's slowly atrophying, sadly -- it was the most well-built setting put out.

I can't stand FR, personally. Great thing about Eberron is that the setting was inspired by and created to fit D&D rules. Even though it was 3.5 specific, it doesn't need much changes to make it work with 5e, as the rulesets are similar. FR, on the other hands, exists independently on the rules, and need either twisting the mechanics or the setting to fit in with each edition (Spellplague, Sundering, Time of Troubles, I'm looking at you). Also, ton of overpowered Mary Sue NPCs...while Eberron have some epic foes (mostly dragons and Lords of Dust, with Daelkyr and Quori little lower on the power scale), they exists behind the scenes and pretty much only for the high level characters to have something to fight with in otherwise low-powered setting. Though I understand why WotC made FR their default setting...it's bland, generic fantasy world, not something unique like Eberron.

Darksun is also interesting, and I like the originality of Spelljammer and craziness of Planescape. I would love to play in Ravenloft, though sadly, I'm eternal GM and I don't believe I'm capable of presenting the atmosphere correctly.

[Once a Fool]

A flying archer smells of cheese from kilometers away. Every single guide on this forum, for every single class, rates Aarakocra as SUPERGOOD (or skyblue). You player is probably a min/maxer who read a guide and chose the best race available, then tried to fit a reasonable background to it. He will be a pain to handle.
You can think of thousand of tricks to avoid him spoiling the game, but he will always be ahead of you, simply because he started with a great advantage.
He gets for free, all day long what other people usually have at 5th level, for a 3rd level spell slot, for just one hour and at the cost of concentration! Something comparable (all day flight) is the cap stone ability of the Storm Cleric. They get that at lvl 18 (or something like that) and it is still good!

The problem is not only reaching to places where he shouldn't (which is a huge problem), it is also that many monsters are way stronger in melee, and sometimes they even lack ranged attacks. Hard encounters become easy and not because of tactics or clever playing by the PC (which is perfectly reasonable), but just because of a huge free boon some player got at lvl 1 (and probably the only merit of the PC was to find it written on a guide on the internet).

Also, if you have to spend a lot of extra time when you prepare the sessions and if you have to put in additional ad-hoc encounter to counter his flying ability, it is simply not worth it.

I would plainly ban the race.

EDIT: all the other suggestions given so far are good and very well thought. However there is this problem that you cannot take ad-hoc strategies more than once or twice, otherwise your player will be pissed and you will ruin the game from him much more than you would if you made him choose another race.

This illustrates perfectly why I don't put much stock into optimization guides. The kinds of white-room scenarios they assume just never seem to come up in games I run.

Flight, while definitely useful, definitely has its downsides (see what I did there?). Especially in Ravenloft!

I mean, aside from all of the other solid reasons mentioned already, my recollection of I6 is that the bulk of it takes place during a very heavy thunderstorm. At night. If that holds true for Curse of Strahd (and why not?), seems like poor conditions for a lone flying archer to me.

[Once a Fool]

It looks like that's not a problem for the adventure as written...Curse of Strahd is crammed into Forgotten Realms, like the previous adventures. Stupid WotC, so many great settings, and they had to fit everything into FR.

Fortunately, the developers have confirmed that Barovia is on its own demiplane. And, of course, the DMG places Ravenloft in a pocket of the Shadowfell.

Although I do think the AL adventures (and maybe also the actual marketed adventure--man, it's difficult talking about two seperate things with the same name!) probably assume PCs are pulled in from the Realms.

[Addaran]

I can't stand FR, personally. Great thing about Eberron is that the setting was inspired by and created to fit D&D rules. Even though it was 3.5 specific, it doesn't need much changes to make it work with 5e, as the rulesets are similar. FR, on the other hands, exists independently on the rules, and need either twisting the mechanics or the setting to fit in with each edition (Spellplague, Sundering, Time of Troubles, I'm looking at you). Also, ton of overpowered Mary Sue NPCs...while Eberron have some epic foes (mostly dragons and Lords of Dust, with Daelkyr and Quori little lower on the power scale), they exists behind the scenes and pretty much only for the high level characters to have something to fight with in otherwise low-powered setting. Though I understand why WotC made FR their default setting...it's bland, generic fantasy world, not something unique like Eberron.

Darksun is also interesting, and I like the originality of Spelljammer and craziness of Planescape. I would love to play in Ravenloft, though sadly, I'm eternal GM and I don't believe I'm capable of presenting the atmosphere correctly.

That only happens because FR is older. While FR was created before D&D, the main author made it it's personal D&D campaign setting. Of course, that was the very first editions. The same will probably happen for Eberron with new editions. It probably had to twist the mechanics or the setting to go from 3ed to 4ed then back to the old style with 5ed.

[Draken]

Sorry for the tangent, but... under what special circumstances are 5e drow overpowered?

Maybe an underdark campaign where everyone is a human, nobody has considered acquiring a torch and nobody has the light cantrip.

Aka: when everyone else is stupid and shot themselves in the foot.

[lebefrei]

FR is, for better or for worse (I would definitely opine 'worse') the setting of classic D&D. Only Eberron seems to have any substantial interest separate from FR and that's slowly atrophying, sadly -- it was the most well-built setting put out.

Not sure what you mean by "classic" D&D, but Greyhawk was the default setting until 4e, which used "Points of Light".

FR gained massive appeal in the 90s thanks to popular video games and novels. However, it has never been the default setting until 5e.

As an opinion I do also agree that it is a poor choice: FR is way too magic rich a setting for an edition that has chosen to not have magic items as a default. It would have made sense in 3.x, but now it's odd. I'd rather they had kept Points of Light.

Ravenloft can easily exist in any world, though, and I'd encourage DMs to not use FR for this unless they want a high magic setting.

[busterswd]

This is Ravenloft, there's built in railroading for your convenience. As the player flies up to the second story, it gets a little foggy. As he gets to the 3rd, he becomes completely obscured in mists, to the point where he can't see. If she continues flying, it seems to take forever to get to the top. Once she turns around, he realizes he's still only a couple stories above the ground.