What is the best way to maximize my flight as a DFA?

[sutasafaia]

Please forgive me if I repeat myself during this post, I ramble a bit and sort of type as I think, it helps me think, but it may cause repeats. Apologies.

The way I see it, there are a couple options, maybe you can help me find more or decide the best route? We're about to hit level 6 and I am unsure how to proceed. Feel free to throw anything at me that I didn't ask for, I love advice. One thing though: Nothing too broken. The DM is giving us more or less free reign on our characters with the caveat that we are required to police ourselves. If we break that trust, he will come down on us hard, so we're all trying to be powerful without being absurdly broken.

As a note: We are using the modified VoP rules that were made on this forum, so this is important: At level 6 it grants base land speed flight (30' in my case) with avg maneuverability, and a bonus feat at 7, which may help out with these decisions. I also get a bonus feat at 5, but since I lack flight I can't use it to help with most of the stuff here.

1: I can use the 30' granted by VoP and be happy with it

2: I can take Humanoid Shape (which I will likely do either way, because it's powerful) and use Avarial to get a 50' speed instead. I would be taking Flyby Attack at 6, Flyby Breath at 7, and Strafing at 9.

3: I can use Humanoid Shape to change into a Hengeyokai Sparrow, which can shapeshift into a Sparrow. 50' speed, perfect, is amazing. Problem is the Sparrow isn't part of humanoid shape so my con drops to 10, which at level 6 would mean -30 hp and -5 to both my fort and will saves since I have the two feats that allow you to use con in place of wisdom for saves. This seems...bad. But it would make my Flyby so much more fun to be a fire breathing bird of death. Well, bird of CC I guess, I do very little damage with my breath normally since I'm focused on CC. Still funny though, but not sure it's worth the stat loss at all.

4: I can take draconic flight and get the good flight speed right off the bat, but I am giving up humanoid shape for a while to do it. It would allow me to use a single feat to go to perfect maneuverability though.

5: I could sink two feats into perfect flight with airstep sandals and open chakra, but two feats feels like a terrible investment when I can eventually get perfect flight without that.

Basically, these are the goals I'm working on right now.
1: Perfect Flight: This is too useful to lose, but I'm unsure how to go about getting it right now. Sparrow works, but it's a huge handicap so I'm not sure this is even a consideration. Feats allow me to get to perfect flight (Draconic Flight + 1 feat handles it but I would have to wait longer for Humanoid Shape), natural flight can get to perfect flight (which I can do at 12 with the modified VoP but it's a longer wait). I could sacrifice two feats to get it sooner when mixed with humanoid shape but I'm not sure it's worth sinking two feats for perfect flight when I'll eventually get it anyway. I do not think there are any humanoids with naturally good flight speed, other than Air Mephling (which is perfect, even) but 10' is not going to make flyby attack useful at all. Any ideas? Am I focusing too much on perfect flight?

2: I really do want to get Strafing Breath, but I'm not entirely sure the three feat sink is worth it when my flight speed won't be amazing. At 12 it becomes 60', and I could then sink feats into making me faster, but assuming I don't want to use ALL my feats for this, I'm looking at 90' give or take? Is the 45' extension to my breath worth it? I'm not entirely sure if strafing breath is even all that good, it just looks interesting. There are a lot of feats that I could use for this character. Is this feat chain worth it? If so, how much investment do I actually want to give it?

Of course I have to ask, are those even good goals to work towards? I could do a lot with these feats if I wasn't focusing on strafe or perfect flight.

I can't think of anything else to add here, any ideas? I've likely forgotten something but that's how it works I guess. Thanks in advance for the advice/ideas.

[The Viscount]

First, if your invocation selection is between Humanoid Shape and draconic flight, go Humanoid Shape. It provides fly speed as well as swim speed, natural attacks, etc. Ask your DM the important question of whether you can keep your class-granted breath weapons since that seems like the RAI. Of all the options here I believe Humanoid Shape is the best.

For other questions: strafing breath seems a good enough goal to work towards, especially considering all the effects DFA can put on their breath weapon.

As for perfect maneuverability, what do you need it for? Good maneuverability does almost all of the same things except for some very involved maneuver things that I've never seen anyone use. If you are looking for hover, good does that, and if you want good fly speed on your avariel it's as simple as taking Improved Flight from RotW. I'm not sure from your post if you're already taking VoP or trying to decide whether to take VoP. If you are already taking it ignore the rest of the paragraph. If you are not taking it, you can buy a pectoral of maneuverability from Draconomicon.

To increase speed you can take the Air Heritage feat from Planar Handbook.

[sutasafaia]

I took VoP at level 1. My DM is allowing me to keep my breath since it's a class power and not a racial power, so no issues there.

Is it worth the 1 feat investment to move from average to good maneuverability? If the campaign lasts until level 12 I would have natural good flight, but 6-12 is a long time.

Also, I was under the impression perfect was far better than good, since you can ascend at full speed, turn faster than good, etc.

Currently, feat path would look like this:

5: Draconic Senses (This would be my 4th draconic feat, so yay blindsense). Since I lack flight at 5 I couldn't take anything to go from average to good here.
6: Flyby Attack
7: Flyby Breath
9: Strafing

I would have to find some place to squeeze in the improved flight feat, not to mention I want to stick leadership in there somewhere... (our DM is allowing leadership since the campaign may take a heavy turn towards military combat). Need more feats lol.

It may be easier to just take Draconic Flight at 6 and humanoid shape at 8? That would I could do the same feat path while getting good maneuverability. I can spec out of draconic flight later on after all.

[The Viscount]

Well perfect is better than good in that it allows some tricks like ascending at full, and good is better than average in that it allows hovering, but if you don't need to hover, I don't expect that either one is really necessary.

You could always use draconic flight at first, and then trade to humanoid form when you'll be able to fly better if maneuverability is your main concern.

[sutasafaia]

Hovering is very nice, but mostly I'm worried about turning speed and the like, since the better your maneuverability the easier it is to turn.

Also another consideration that popped up is Voracious Dispelling. Maybe humanoid shape, dispelling, and skip draconic flight entirely. I can't help worrying that I'm investing way too much in strafing, even though it seems amazing. Of course, in doors it's useless...

[Tiri]

3: I can use Humanoid Shape to change into a Hengeyokai Sparrow, which can shapeshift into a Sparrow.

I don't think you get the Hengeyokai shapeshifting from Humanoid Shape.

[Gruftzwerg]

Monk's Belt/Tatoo etc. just take anything that gives more monk lvls for movement speed.
Monk Fast movement stacks with all forms of movement. This way you get a double-dip for your fly speed.

without monk speed boost:
Draconic Flight = land speed

with monk speed boost:
land speed: base + monk
Draconic Flight = (base + monk) + monk

[ZamielVanWeber]

Humanoid Shape gives versatility while the flight provided by Draconic Flight is stronger and longer lasting. I personally like Draconic Flight because it looks cool, but overall Humanoid Shape will give you a better time because it can do other things if you should not need flight.