Flight from 1st level is over-rated

[Greywander]

Inspired by this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?550972-My-DM-doesn-t-accept-my-aarakocra).

Now, don't get me wrong, at-will flight with no concentration is great, and definitely one of the better racial traits you can pick up. But I feel like DMs may be too quick to ban aarakocra and other winged races because they over-estimate flight. If you've ever created a custom race using the guide by James Musicus (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ViqLSEN67mmd2Lo_OJ-H5YX0fccsfI97kFaqx7V1Dmw/edit), you might be surprised by how cheap flight is (and the prices are a little wonky, admittedly), but something important that he calls out is that there aren't currently any races with magical or psionic flight. This means we're talking about winged flight, which applies to aarakocra, winged tieflings, winged kobolds, etc.

So first I'm going to lay out some reasons why winged flight isn't as great as you might think, then I'm going to compare racial flight to other abilities that can be used as an alternative and are readily available.

Reasons Flight is Over-Rated

You can't take your party with you
Flight is a real game-changer when your entire party has access to it. And by the time this happens, racial flight will no longer be an issue. But for the lower levels, flying essentially means leaving your party behind. Sure, maybe you can carry your party members one by one, and maybe the DM will decide to ambush you while your party is split. As such, most of the utility from flight will come in the form of avoiding pit traps, activating switches or grabbing items that are out of reach, and scouting ahead from the air. At the end of the day, you still have to return to wherever you left the party.

They can still see you
There is no cover in the air (except clouds, if you're high enough), and especially if you're trying to be sneaky you're likely to be rather conspicuous if you're flying. If you get spotted, your enemies will immediately begin to ready any countermeasures they have for dealing with flying enemies.

If they are in range, so are you
Okay, sure, you could take a longbow and the Sharpshooter feat, and I'm sure that will work out very well for you right up until you're locked in a 10x10x10 room with a gelatinous cube. Being a one-trick-pony is already likely to backfire on you, but the same sorts of conditions that would render flight unusable will do the same for long-ranged builds, and vice versa. Most enemies are able to make ranged attacks of some kind, even if it's just throwing rocks, and even if you do manage to stay out of range, that will be small comfort to your squishy party members below. But hey, at least you can fly away and join a new adventuring party after they all die, right?

Drop it
For your party members, the Restrained condition is an annoying inconvenience. For you, it is Death.

Spread your wings
Which usually requires quite a bit of space. Typically, your default wingspan is around twice your height (aarakocra are 5 feet tall). This is fine in the open wilderness, but becomes an issue in a cramped dungeon hallway (which is, incidentally, where you are more likely to find a pit trap). An open grassland is kind of boring to fly around, a large cavern is your sweet spot, and a dense forest, cramped dungeon, or narrow street would all be wonderful places to fly if only your wings didn't keep smacking into things every time you try to take off.

I hope you have high DEX
Because your AC is going to suck. If you want to be able to fly, you won't be able to wear medium or heavy armor. Oh, and if you want to wear light armor (or any armor, really), you'll probably need to take it to a tailor or leather worker to make alterations to accommodate your wings, which requires both coin and a trip back to town before you can put on that shiny new Studded Leather +1 you just found.

Changing tactics
I've already outlined a number of ways above to deal with flying combatants, but if the DM is still having trouble dealing with a flying PC, they can always turn those tactics against the players by throwing flying enemies at them that use the same tactics. Then the DM can observe how the party deals with the threat, and use those same tactics against the flying PC moving forward. Really, given how flying monsters aren't totally unheard of, I would be surprised if most organized forces, whether it is the city guard or a pack of goblins, didn't have a plan to deal with flying enemies. Mostly, I would recommend seeking cover, and, if possible, retreating inside a structure where it's too tight to fly. And ranged attacks, of course.

When you can't go around
Flying can be a great way to avoid encounters. And if that's what the players want to do, then that's fine. But sooner or later, going around isn't going to be an option. The party will need to go somewhere or get something that is guarded by an enemy, and that enemy will need to be defeated in order to complete their mission. You can't fly around the dragon when you need to retrieve an item from its hoard. If you're cunning, you might still be able to avoid combat, but it won't be thanks to your flight.

Alternative to Racial Flight

Climbing
Climber's kits, ropes, grappling hooks, and pitons and hammers are available to all characters 1st level and onward. Even without any tools, you can still attempt to climb up or down a surface with sufficient hand-holds. Sure, you can't ascend straight into the air, but most places you'll want to reach are going to have a wall attached to them (unless your DM is throwing floating islands at you).

Jumping
You're no Super Mario, but if a pit or chasm is narrow enough, or a ledge is low enough, you can always attempt to jump it. Unless you dumped Strength, which you probably did.

Feather Fall and Jump spells
Available to several full caster classes as early as 1st level, these spells can both act as alternatives to flight under certain circumstances.

Levitate, Misty Step, and Spider Climb spells
Once your full casters reach 3rd level some of them will have access to these beauties, all of which increase mobility and can remove the need for flight.

Fly spell
By the time you reach 5th level, your wizard will have the Fly spell, which does exactly what it says on the tin. Sure, it does use a spell slot, and concentration, and it only lasts 10 minutes, but this is magical flight, so you don't need to worry about heavy armor, armor alterations, or tight spaces. Also, let's be honest, how often have you used your racial flight between long rests for levels 1-4? My guess is that the average is less then once per long rest.

Magic Items
The Broom of Flying is an Uncommon magic item and doesn't require attunement. Several other magic items exist that can grant flying.

Wild Shape
Druids can't turn into flying beasts until 8th level, likely to prevent players from dipping two levels into druid for a flying wild shape. At 20th level druids can wild shape as many times as they want.

Other class features
Many sorcerer subclasses get their own winged flight at 14th level, while the Storm sorcerer has to wait until 18th level but in return gets a very cool at-will magical flight that can be shared with party members. Tempest clerics get at-will magical flight at 17th level, but only when outdoors. There is at least one paladin subclass that allows for temporary flight while their capstone is active. Most of these are higher level abilities, and by this time they are mere convenience as your party should already have a plethora of ways to make party members fly.

Conclusion

Racial flight adds something to a character that most other characters can't do, at least at early levels. This, in my opinion, is good, as it allows the players to be more creative when approaching problems and find solutions that wouldn't otherwise be possible. But doesn't do so in a way that makes the character overpowered. DMs do need to be careful, as flight can break a lot of poorly thought out puzzles, but there are enough limitations and ways to counter flight that I don't think DMs need to be afraid of allowing a winged PC.

Do you agree or disagree, and why? Do you have any stories about times that flight completely changed a situation? Be sure to share below, what with all this being just my opinion on the matter.

[Asmotherion]

Playing it in a High RP campain, this is my feedback;

A) Wile I love the fact that I can fly (as in, knowing that I can, if I need to), the RP concept, and the tone of the world tell me otherwise. My DM makes me feel that "you know that if you show your wings in here, a handfull of questions will start, and you don't want to deal with that".

B) About 70% of combat time of the camain (time I could take advantage of the wings) is used in-doors. This restricts me to 10-20 cellings usually, which is usually not enough to avoid ranged attacks, but enough to avoid melee. As a Caster, my DM usually does not put me in melee anyway, unless I choose to (since I'm a gish), so I don't feel I get a big advantage out of it either.

C) Outdoors, in Surprise Attacks, they come in handy, since I can fly out of range and use my ranged spell attack (Eldritch Blast). That said, it still takes me about 2-3 turns to fly completelly out of range, and by that time it may become irrelevant.

D) It can be useful in scouting ahead from a safe distance, but not more than a Find Familiar Spell. You'll still need to re-group with the rest of the party when you find something, unless you want to get slaughtered by an inbalanced encounter.

E) The most useful thing I've found is puzzle solving, especially outdoors; I fly on the top of a mountain, tie all our lenghths of rope together, and then tie it to a strong boulder or tree. Then the rest of the party can Climb (I'm at 13 Str, wich is no bad for a Caster, but not enough to be a transporter). I then fly by the rope, in order to check that nobody fails their climb check (and catch them if they do).

Overall, there is always the threat of being mistaken as a bird and shot for hunt, being perceived as a monster and treated as such, or failing a Dexterity Check and the treat of Falling Damage. This alone is enough balance to allow flight from level 1.

[DarkKnightJin]

I agree that at-will Flight from racial traits is overvalued quite a bit.

If you let your flying archers/casters stay well out of range on an open field without any enemies having the ability to counter their 'advantage'.. That's on the DM for not thinking it through.

Sure, it might happen once, early on in the campaign. Soon enough, people will have heard about the flying adventurer, and pack at least a bow or something to handle a possible flying adversary.
Or they hide inside to force the flying one to get close and/or land.

Any enemy with a brain will take cover the moment they are pelted from the air. Even 'dumb' beasts are smart enough to figure out that goung into a cave will keep those arrows or magic bolts from raining down on them.

[Lance Tankmen]

honestly Im disappointed as a DM none of my groups have tried it yet. I don't use it as any over powered craziness. Even with sharp shooter its not likely to always work, id be nice and 5 or 6 times you kill the bandits or orc but maybe the next time a griffon attacks you from above seeking prey smaller than it.

or completely troll and once his characters built and hope he doesn't know the lore check the characters age, aarockroa only get 30 years on average.

hmmm says here you're 34?
" in the Tavern you see in the corner a very elderly blind bird man, he appears to be at deaths door." roll a new character ;) jk jk

[War_lord]

I agree that at-will Flight from racial traits is overvalued quite a bit.

If you let your flying archers/casters stay well out of range on an open field without any enemies having the ability to counter their 'advantage'.. That's on the DM for not thinking it through.

Sure, it might happen once, early on in the campaign. Soon enough, people will have heard about the flying adventurer, and pack at least a bow or something to handle a possible flying adversary.
Or they hide inside to force the flying one to get close and/or land.

Any enemy with a brain will take cover the moment they are pelted from the air. Even 'dumb' beasts are smart enough to figure out that goung into a cave will keep those arrows or magic bolts from raining down on them.

That's exactly why most DMs and the Adventurer's League ban the use of always flying Races. Is it game breaking? No. Can it be planned around? Yes, of course it can. But the problem is that 5th edition is a really balanced game in that as a DM, I usually don't have to worry that one simple PC character build choice is going to force me to rethink every scenario from level one on.

...Except the flying races. If I let one player be an Aarakocra (for example), I have to rethink everything, maybe not things the party actively sees or thinks about, but enough things that it adds a whole new branch of "what ifs" to my quest design process. Suddenly, the MacGuffin being in the tallest tower of the highest castle means one member of the party can get in five minutes, suddenly the party can easily break the quarantine of a plague ridden city. Note that I haven't even mentioned combat, because it's a problem long before initiative is actually rolled.

Is it impossible to work around? No, but it's a radical shift in the party's low level capabilities and most DMs don't care for the added workload and limitations. Particularly since it also means that the flight feature that the player likely picked the race for in the first place ends up being much weaker then on paper because the DM has to neutralize it for the sake of the rest of the party. No one wins.

[Unoriginal]

Flight is good in an open plain or in an arena with no roof against opponents who have less range than you, against flying opponents who can't overwhelm you, and as an alternative to climbing.

Other than that...

[MrStabby]

I think there is a difference between "not that good" and "not that much of a problem".

Flight is an issue not just because of its average value but because it's value is heavily weighted towards "worthless" and "totally too good" ends of the spectrum and not so much in the "pretty decent" middle ground.

The issue isn't the average of how good it is but the impact it has on the game - it makes certain encounter types pretty pointless and can be handwaved through. This lowers the meaningful versatility that the game can offer making it less rewarding. I have the same issue with other similar ability like weapon of warning.

I like to be able to challenge my players with a wide range of encounters and circumstances - including things like interacting with terrain, tasks or solutions that require getting to tricky places and so on. Flying races will remain disallowed from my games.

[LudicSavant]

You can't take your party with you
Flight is a real game-changer when your entire party has access to it. And by the time this happens, racial flight will no longer be an issue.

You lost me when the very first point was rather obviously false. It is entirely within the realm of possibility for the entire party to have racial flight.

[ImproperJustice]

This thread got me to thinking about all those poor GMs that run supers and Rifts games.

I agree that it is over rated.
I think it’s not any worse thatn characters with 20+ ACs, maxxed stats, or various other low level magic shenanigans

[Lombra]

I agree that it's not a big deal, it just gives the DM a bit more work to do in figuring out trees and other obstacles to put in an encounter to keep it interesting.

[Grod_The_Giant]

This thread got me to thinking about all those poor GMs that run supers and Rifts games.
You have to use real different challenges. Terrain is usually not a factor.


If I let one player be an Aarakocra (for example), I have to rethink everything, maybe not things the party actively sees or thinks about, but enough things that it adds a whole new branch of "what ifs" to my quest design process.
This is the most important factor, I think. If your campaign mostly revolves around indoor dungeon crawls, then yeah, flight won't be that big a problem. But it trivializes a lot of noncombat things, allows you to bypass a number of classic challenges without really thinking. Can it be dealt with? Of course. But no other racial ability comes close to having that sort of impact on adventure design.

[Lombra]

I will say that darkvision is actually more powerful than flight yet 2/3 races have it.

[Elminster298]

You lost me when the very first point was rather obviously false. It is entirely within the realm of possibility for the entire party to have racial flight.

If the entire party chooses races that can fly from level one , it is no harder to balance an encounter than if none of them can fly. Flight is only a problem if not all the characters are on the same playing field. Even then, flight(LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE GAME) is only a problem if you have crappy/cheesy players or a crappy DM.

[LudicSavant]

If the entire party chooses races that can fly from level one , it is no harder to balance an encounter than if none of them can fly. Flight is only a problem if not all the characters are on the same playing field. Even then, flight(LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE GAME) is only a problem if you have crappy/cheesy players or a crappy DM.

None of this addresses the fact that the OP's quoted point is rather obviously false. It says that it's a game changer if the entire party has it but that they can't get it until some point beyond lower levels. In reality, they can get it at level 1.

After going over the rest of the OP it seems the other points suffer similarly apparent issues, such as claiming that you'll be a one-trick pony if you have a decent ranged attack, or claiming that your AC will suck due to a lack of heavy armor.

Whether you think racial flight is balanced or not, the OP's argument is a flawed defense of their position.

[Blacky the Blackball]

In 5e, a Broom of Flying is an "uncommon" item. That means it only costs 500gp - that's a third of the cost of a suit of Plate. It doesn't even need attunement.

So anyone who wants to be able to fly is going to be able to do so after the first couple of adventures anyway, unless you're the type of DM who doesn't allow even cheap magic items to be traded for in some way or another.

Of course, I'd expect that the venn diagram of DMs who don't let cheap magic items be acquired and DMs who don't let people play an aarakocra because they're "overpowered" probably has a large overlap.

Personally, I don't care. By level three, my players are usually flying from town to town in formation like a Quidditch team (ProTip: for only another 500gp you can get a Quiver of Ehlonna to put your broom in when not using it, instead of having to sling it across your back).

[Aett_Thorn]

Going to try to address some of these point-by-point.



You can't take your party with you

You might not be able to take your party with you, but you still become a great scout, and can avoid many obstacles just because of your racial feature. If you're going after the MacGuffin in a hard-to-reach place, it might not be hard to reach for you. Sure, you might not be able to lift the other characters over the gorge, but you can take the end of a rope with you and tie it around a rock to make it easier for the other party members. The DM may need to create or modify the objectives just because of your racial feature.


They can still see you
Potentially, but how many guards are going to be looking at the sky at night, or even during the day? Most races can't fly, so enemy guards are most likely going to be focused on the ground. The DM can say that the guards are looking all around them, sure, but again, this means that the DM needs to actively foil your feature just to keep balance.


If they are in range, so are you
Even if you're outdoors in the wild somewhere with space to fly, the ability for enemies to be able to hit you is somewhat limited. Many monsters in the MM don't have any sort of ranged attack capability, others might have limited options for this (thrown weapons and the like which might not have the range). The DM may need to modify enemies to account for your racial feature, or might not be able to use certain monsters at all if he wants it to be a challenge for the player.


Drop it
This one I will give you, and is finally somewhat of a balance for this kind of feature. However, the DM will either need to specifically create enemies that can cause these effects, or they might be pretty rare. Other restrained conditions are only capable in melee, which you're out of range for.


Spread your wings
While realistically, you're right, in game statistics, a medium creature never takes up more than a 5' square. So the player could argue that there's still plenty of room for him to fly, even if it doesn't make sense.


I hope you have high DEX
Yeah, because Dex is often seen as a dump stat by many. If this was Strength, I'd give it to you as a drawback, but Dex is usually AT LEAST the third-most important stat for characters unless they're going for heavy armor anyways, which you're not. So this isn't really a huge problem, since you're probably going to put a decent number in Dex anyways, whether you can fly or not.


Changing tactics
Yes, the DM can just change some tactics up, but that's the entire point. The fact that the DM has to adjust all of their potential tactics to deal with one player character. It's either potentially a huge amount of work, or that player gets some relatively unfair advantages over the other characters.

DM throws a ton of flying enemies at you? Now melee characters are having a tough time.
DM throws a ton of ranged characters at you? Now melee and spellcasters might have a tough time.
DM needs to adjust his campaign to have more indoor areas? That's more work for the DM.
DM needs to adjust monsters to give them more ranged abilities? That's more work for the DM.


When you can't go around
This is great and all, but the fact that one character CAN go around a decent amount of obstacles that might challenge other parties is part of the problem here in the first place.


Alternative to Racial Flight

Climbing

Jumping

Feather Fall and Jump spells

Levitate, Misty Step, and Spider Climb spells

Fly spell

Magic Items

Wild Shape

Other class features

Most of these involve using either resources (spell slots or wild shape), or will require skill checks that can fail. Both introduce risk to the party. The Wizard casting Fly is one less Fireball they can throw later when they might need it. The Rogue fumbles his climbing check and falls and injures himself? Now the party might need to spend spell slots on healing. Magic items can be stolen or lost if they become too problematic, or just never granted to the party in the first place if the DM doesn't want them in the campaign.

[Afrodactyl]

I don't ban the races at first level, but I limit the flight to a "leap" of sorts. So you can move up to your full movement as flight, but you have to land between turns. Keeps shenanigans (mostly) under wraps, but still lets the PC do some aerial stuff.

Then at fifth level they get full blown flight because that's when other players start accessing things like the Fly spell.

[Pex]

The problem some people have with flying I think is similar to the problem in a months old thread in the general forum regarding high level play. The blunt of it: some DMs get upset when a chasm is no longer an obstacle. A PC with flight means particular problems aren't an issue. The DM can't or refuses to adapt to this.

[Unoriginal]

In 5e, a Broom of Flying is an "uncommon" item. That means it only costs 500gp - that's a third of the cost of a suit of Plate. It doesn't even need attunement.

So anyone who wants to be able to fly is going to be able to do so after the first couple of adventures anyway, unless you're the type of DM who doesn't allow even cheap magic items to be traded for in some way or another.

Of course, I'd expect that the venn diagram of DMs who don't let cheap magic items be acquired and DMs who don't let people play an aarakocra because they're "overpowered" probably has a large overlap.

Personally, I don't care. By level three, my players are usually flying from town to town in formation like a Quidditch team (ProTip: for only another 500gp you can get a Quiver of Ehlonna to put your broom in when not using it, instead of having to sling it across your back).

500 gp is not "cheap", Blacky the Blackball. And uncommon doesn't mean "several can easily be found and bought by begginer PCs" in all settings.

IMO it's not a question of flight being "overpowered", it's just how rare and special you want magic items to be. Having a Quidditch team fly around kind of cheapen the wonder of that wondrous item.

That being said, there is an option that's way too overlooked: the Hippogriff.

People just never use Hippogriffs, despite both their statblocks and their fluff indicating they can be semi-common mounts without much troubles.

[Naanomi]

I agree that it is over rated.
I think it’s not any worse thatn characters with 20+ ACs, maxxed stats, or various other low level magic shenanigans
Which one of these are racial traits again?

That is the big issue for me... not that it is too strong at all, but that it is significantly stronger than other racial options (which tend to not be that powerful)... people complain about the magic-resistant snake people, but flying is (in my opinion) significantly stronger than that (and that leaves aside that it is faster than any other player option movement speed at that level for aracokra)


In 5e, a Broom of Flying is an "uncommon" item. That means it only costs 500gp - that's a third of the cost of a suit of Plate. It doesn't even need attunement
Where are these price guidelines? I can find rules about the Great trouble even selling items, and virtually nothing in buying them... I would never assume the existence of a friendly neighborhood magic-broom maker in most 5e settings

[MrStabby]

The problem some people have with flying I think is similar to the problem in a months old thread in the general forum regarding high level play. The blunt of it: some DMs get upset when a chasm is no longer an obstacle. A PC with flight means particular problems aren't an issue. The DM can't or refuses to adapt to this.

I don't think it is "can't" or "unwilling", more just capable of recognising that the game is more fun for everyone without it. Or at least for everyone else. There is no need to try and be offensive and put a negative spin on such things.

[Spellbreaker26]

I'd definitely say it makes dungeon and encounter challenge unnecessarily harder from level 1. You have to get pretty far up in levels before flight becomes an option with very little cost. Even when you get it as a spell it's a while before throwing it out isn't a significant display of resources. So DM's have trouble planning stuff that's fun for the party and where flight doesn't trivialise anything.

Also, I'd expect very few DMs would just let magic items be sold in stores except in very particular settings, certainly not just finding the one you want. When I played in a game with stuff like that it got out of hand very, very quickly.

[Unoriginal]

Where are these price guidelines? I can find rules about the Great trouble even selling items, and virtually nothing in buying them... I would never assume the existence of a friendly neighborhood magic-broom maker in most 5e settings

If you go by the Xanathar's guidelines, it'd require an average of 450 gp (total including the average price (1d6*100gp) + the minimum cost of seaching, a full week of searching, and a Charisma (Persuasion) check DC 15 to get a single one of those Brooms.

[Tanarii]

I don't ban the races at first level, but I limit the flight to a "leap" of sorts. So you can move up to your full movement as flight, but you have to land between turns. Keeps shenanigans (mostly) under wraps, but still lets the PC do some aerial stuff.

Then at fifth level they get full blown flight because that's when other players start accessing things like the Fly spell.thats not a bad way to handle it.


The problem some people have with flying I think is similar to the problem in a months old thread in the general forum regarding high level play. The blunt of it: some DMs get upset when a chasm is no longer an obstacle. A PC with flight means particular problems aren't an issue. The DM can't or refuses to adapt to this.Its one thing to prefer not to have to deal with such things, and avoid high level play. It's another thing for them to be introduced at low level play.

Flight is a special case. It used to be a fairly high-ish level play feature, since it took a fairly long time to get to 5th level. Of find the appropriate magical items. But now 5th is about 7 sessions of fast play away, or maybe 14 of slower play, in the typical campaigns. It comes around very quickly, and the magic items show up appropriately.

Even so, introducing at will flight at level 1 closes off the available design space for those first half dozen to dozen adventures.

[MrStabby]

Then at level 5 flight is reduced to a feat that gives you an extra spell known/prepared and an extra level 3 spell slot as well as not failing concentration saves on that spell.

Unless you fly more than once per day in which case it is better.

I think the level at which it becomes reasonable is when a level 3 spell slot is disposable. This, to my mind, comes closer to having level 5 spells.

Certainly class abilities that grant concentration free flying kick in a lot later.

[Demonslayer666]

If it were no big deal, it would be a 1st level spell or a cantrip and not have a duration.

First, the trivial stuff: It easily overcomes many obstacles that are a challenge to low level characters, climbing being the primary one. You don't fall, and can avoid many traps. Most spells will be directed at the party, while you fly above them. All spells that leave an effect on the ground don't affect you.
Evading a pursuing enemy is trivial. Reaching a hard to reach enemy is trivial. You're immune to caltrops, ice, difficult terrain, walls...

And now the whammy: You can't be attacked if they can't reach you. Raging Barbarian, Sneak attack, mounted lance charge: all rendered useless.

Being able to fly is huge, no matter how you try to spin it.

[War_lord]

In 5e, a Broom of Flying is an "uncommon" item. That means it only costs 500gp - that's a third of the cost of a suit of Plate. It doesn't even need attunement.

So anyone who wants to be able to fly is going to be able to do so after the first couple of adventures anyway, unless you're the type of DM who doesn't allow even cheap magic items to be traded for in some way or another.

By "the type of DM" I can only assume you mean the type that doesn't homebrew or use optional rules? 5th edition assumes that there's no "magic mart" and that magical items are rare boons, found through questing and exploration. Allowing the party to outright buy those items at a simple market is going to have numerous effects. And yes, one of those effects is going to be turning them from rare and highly sought after boons, into boring utility items that players expect as part of their stat progression. Which is the whole reason 5th edition took an axe to the idea of the magic mart in the first place.


Of course, I'd expect that the venn diagram of DMs who don't let cheap magic items be acquired and DMs who don't let people play an aarakocra because they're "overpowered" probably has a large overlap. Personally, I don't care. By level three, my players are usually flying from town to town in formation like a Quidditch team (ProTip: for only another 500gp you can get a Quiver of Ehlonna to put your broom in when not using it, instead of having to sling it across your back).

Actually you have it exactly reversed. If you're the kind of DM who runs Monty Haul, at will inate flight isn't going to seem like a big deal to you, because your game fundamentally isn't balanced in the first place. And hey, I will take the time to say that if some people want to play that way, I find it more then a little absurd and I think they're missing out, but they have a right to play how they want.

What is a problem is your attitude and your tone. What you're describing is a result of your decision to allow 3.5's "magic mart" to exist in 5th edition, that's not relevant to default 5e. There's a reason magic items aren't listed in the PHB.

[Naanomi]

If it were no big deal, it would be a 1st level spell or a cantrip and not have a duration.
It is a fair comparison to look at... how many third level spells cast subtle at-will without concentration would people say are balanced racial abilities? Crusader’s Mantle? Aura of Vitality? Spirit Guardians? Even looking back at 2nd level spells, I suspect people would be protesting a race of ‘no concentration Subtle at-will’ invisibility, spiritual weapon, pass without trace, enlarge...

[Doug Lampert]

I will say that darkvision is actually more powerful than flight yet 2/3 races have it.

I agree that darkvision is stronger, but D&D adventures are routinely built around the realization that some characters will have darkvision, as you say, 2/3rds of the races do.

Flight is much less common, so people don't build their adventures and modules around it. And allowing it at level 1 means that now it has to be included in the possible options from level 1.

[Pex]

Its one thing to prefer not to have to deal with such things, and avoid high level play. It's another thing for them to be introduced at low level play.

Flight is a special case. It used to be a fairly high-ish level play feature, since it took a fairly long time to get to 5th level. Of find the appropriate magical items. But now 5th is about 7 sessions of fast play away, or maybe 14 of slower play, in the typical campaigns. It comes around very quickly, and the magic items show up appropriately.

Even so, introducing at will flight at level 1 closes off the available design space for those first half dozen to dozen adventures.

I'm not going to stubbornly insist flight be available at level 1. Accepting it is too powerful an ability for that level an aarakocra PC would be problematic. I'm willing to let it go to say it's a matter of taste and not object if a particular DM does refuse an aarakocra PC at 1st level. It's possible my original point isn't fitting the thread premise given the topic is not about flight in general but more specifically flight at 1st level. I have no issue a chasm eventually becomes not a problem for PCs, but that's not the same thing as saying a chasm should never be.

[willdaBEAST]

I agree that it's not a big deal, it just gives the DM a bit more work to do in figuring out trees and other obstacles to put in an encounter to keep it interesting.

This is my experience with flight in general, not necessarily at lvl 1. I'm running CoS and have a Wereraven PC, he was intended as a one off or periodic ally but became a full time member of the party. I had designed several encounters and was running stuff more or less directly out of the book (the gates of Krezk are one example), before realizing how I needed to modify those moments with the anticipation of flight. I didn't do myself any favors by combining flight with immunity to bludgeoning, slashing and piercing, but I was also a first time DM.

It hasn't been so hard to adapt, like Lombra wrote, it just takes a little more consideration. I like when abilities like flight give the DM opportunities to show the party's enemies adapting. I'm not proposing that you actively counter any and all abilities you deem too strong, but if you're waging a continuous campaign against the same enemies you can create a nice progression of encounters. For example: first encounter the flying PC totally abuses the enemies. Next encounter they have some kind of ranged weapons to deal with the flying PC. The one after that maybe they have means of grounding the flying PC, or set some kind of specific trap like a hidden net between two trees. Eventually the enemy, if they're smart enough, realizes that they probably need some kind of flying allies as well. I think the key is introducing new challenges and considerations for the flying PC, don't overly punish them.

[the secret fire]

I think there is a difference between "not that good" and "not that much of a problem".

Flight is an issue not just because of its average value but because it's value is heavily weighted towards "worthless" and "totally too good" ends of the spectrum and not so much in the "pretty decent" middle ground.

Yes, this. Abilities which are either useless or encounter-ending don't tend to be much fun.

Are we discussing racial flight or arcane spells in 3.5?

[LVOD]

First of all, I really like this post. I think you brought up some good points. I don’t know why people always attack posts like this and try to tear them down, but you pointed out a lot of interesting things.

Anyway, my biggest peeve is that the racial flight is unlimited. Its literally a free 3rd level spell without concentration. I think if it was a resource they had to balance the use of like everything else (maybe X rounds of flying per long rest?) most people wouldn’t have an issue with it.

[Willie the Duck]

<entire post>

I'm pretty sure very few people agree.


It is a fair comparison to look at... how many third level spells cast subtle at-will without concentration would people say are balanced racial abilities? Crusader’s Mantle? Aura of Vitality? Spirit Guardians? Even looking back at 2nd level spells, I suspect people would be protesting a race of ‘no concentration Subtle at-will’ invisibility, spiritual weapon, pass without trace, enlarge...

Even then, not all 3rd level spells will disrupt the same if they were to be able to be performed at will, without concentration, and by any class.


First of all, I really like this post. I think you brought up some good points. I don’t know why people always attack posts like this and try to tear them down, but you pointed out a lot of interesting things.

Exactly who are you talking about, because I see a lot of people disagreeing with the premise, not attacking the post (or poster), or tearing anything down.

[Citan]

Inspired by this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?550972-My-DM-doesn-t-accept-my-aarakocra).

Now, don't get me wrong, at-will flight with no concentration is great, and definitely one of the better racial traits you can pick up. But I feel like DMs may be too quick to ban aarakocra and other winged races because they over-estimate flight. If you've ever created a custom race using the guide by James Musicus (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ViqLSEN67mmd2Lo_OJ-H5YX0fccsfI97kFaqx7V1Dmw/edit), you might be surprised by how cheap flight is (and the prices are a little wonky, admittedly), but something important that he calls out is that there aren't currently any races with magical or psionic flight. This means we're talking about winged flight, which applies to aarakocra, winged tieflings, winged kobolds, etc.

So first I'm going to lay out some reasons why winged flight isn't as great as you might think, then I'm going to compare racial flight to other abilities that can be used as an alternative and are readily available.

Reasons Flight is Over-Rated

You can't take your party with you
Flight is a real game-changer when your entire party has access to it. And by the time this happens, racial flight will no longer be an issue. But for the lower levels, flying essentially means leaving your party behind. Sure, maybe you can carry your party members one by one, and maybe the DM will decide to ambush you while your party is split. As such, most of the utility from flight will come in the form of avoiding pit traps, activating switches or grabbing items that are out of reach, and scouting ahead from the air. At the end of the day, you still have to return to wherever you left the party.

They can still see you
There is no cover in the air (except clouds, if you're high enough), and especially if you're trying to be sneaky you're likely to be rather conspicuous if you're flying. If you get spotted, your enemies will immediately begin to ready any countermeasures they have for dealing with flying enemies.

If they are in range, so are you
Okay, sure, you could take a longbow and the Sharpshooter feat, and I'm sure that will work out very well for you right up until you're locked in a 10x10x10 room with a gelatinous cube. Being a one-trick-pony is already likely to backfire on you, but the same sorts of conditions that would render flight unusable will do the same for long-ranged builds, and vice versa. Most enemies are able to make ranged attacks of some kind, even if it's just throwing rocks, and even if you do manage to stay out of range, that will be small comfort to your squishy party members below. But hey, at least you can fly away and join a new adventuring party after they all die, right?

Drop it
For your party members, the Restrained condition is an annoying inconvenience. For you, it is Death.

Spread your wings
Which usually requires quite a bit of space. Typically, your default wingspan is around twice your height (aarakocra are 5 feet tall). This is fine in the open wilderness, but becomes an issue in a cramped dungeon hallway (which is, incidentally, where you are more likely to find a pit trap). An open grassland is kind of boring to fly around, a large cavern is your sweet spot, and a dense forest, cramped dungeon, or narrow street would all be wonderful places to fly if only your wings didn't keep smacking into things every time you try to take off.

I hope you have high DEX
Because your AC is going to suck. If you want to be able to fly, you won't be able to wear medium or heavy armor. Oh, and if you want to wear light armor (or any armor, really), you'll probably need to take it to a tailor or leather worker to make alterations to accommodate your wings, which requires both coin and a trip back to town before you can put on that shiny new Studded Leather +1 you just found.

Changing tactics
I've already outlined a number of ways above to deal with flying combatants, but if the DM is still having trouble dealing with a flying PC, they can always turn those tactics against the players by throwing flying enemies at them that use the same tactics. Then the DM can observe how the party deals with the threat, and use those same tactics against the flying PC moving forward. Really, given how flying monsters aren't totally unheard of, I would be surprised if most organized forces, whether it is the city guard or a pack of goblins, didn't have a plan to deal with flying enemies. Mostly, I would recommend seeking cover, and, if possible, retreating inside a structure where it's too tight to fly. And ranged attacks, of course.

When you can't go around
Flying can be a great way to avoid encounters. And if that's what the players want to do, then that's fine. But sooner or later, going around isn't going to be an option. The party will need to go somewhere or get something that is guarded by an enemy, and that enemy will need to be defeated in order to complete their mission. You can't fly around the dragon when you need to retrieve an item from its hoard. If you're cunning, you might still be able to avoid combat, but it won't be thanks to your flight.

Alternative to Racial Flight

Climbing
Climber's kits, ropes, grappling hooks, and pitons and hammers are available to all characters 1st level and onward. Even without any tools, you can still attempt to climb up or down a surface with sufficient hand-holds. Sure, you can't ascend straight into the air, but most places you'll want to reach are going to have a wall attached to them (unless your DM is throwing floating islands at you).

Jumping
You're no Super Mario, but if a pit or chasm is narrow enough, or a ledge is low enough, you can always attempt to jump it. Unless you dumped Strength, which you probably did.

Feather Fall and Jump spells
Available to several full caster classes as early as 1st level, these spells can both act as alternatives to flight under certain circumstances.

Levitate, Misty Step, and Spider Climb spells
Once your full casters reach 3rd level some of them will have access to these beauties, all of which increase mobility and can remove the need for flight.

Fly spell
By the time you reach 5th level, your wizard will have the Fly spell, which does exactly what it says on the tin. Sure, it does use a spell slot, and concentration, and it only lasts 10 minutes, but this is magical flight, so you don't need to worry about heavy armor, armor alterations, or tight spaces. Also, let's be honest, how often have you used your racial flight between long rests for levels 1-4? My guess is that the average is less then once per long rest.

Magic Items
The Broom of Flying is an Uncommon magic item and doesn't require attunement. Several other magic items exist that can grant flying.

Wild Shape
Druids can't turn into flying beasts until 8th level, likely to prevent players from dipping two levels into druid for a flying wild shape. At 20th level druids can wild shape as many times as they want.

Other class features
Many sorcerer subclasses get their own winged flight at 14th level, while the Storm sorcerer has to wait until 18th level but in return gets a very cool at-will magical flight that can be shared with party members. Tempest clerics get at-will magical flight at 17th level, but only when outdoors. There is at least one paladin subclass that allows for temporary flight while their capstone is active. Most of these are higher level abilities, and by this time they are mere convenience as your party should already have a plethora of ways to make party members fly.

Conclusion

Racial flight adds something to a character that most other characters can't do, at least at early levels. This, in my opinion, is good, as it allows the players to be more creative when approaching problems and find solutions that wouldn't otherwise be possible. But doesn't do so in a way that makes the character overpowered. DMs do need to be careful, as flight can break a lot of poorly thought out puzzles, but there are enough limitations and ways to counter flight that I don't think DMs need to be afraid of allowing a winged PC.

Do you agree or disagree, and why? Do you have any stories about times that flight completely changed a situation? Be sure to share below, what with all this being just my opinion on the matter.
Hi ;)

Thanks for opening this thread. You make several good points, but imo there are some you conflate and others you miss. ;)
So let's tackle them.

You can't take your party with you
True (well, at low levels. Then you have many potential ways of doing so with magic items), but that's beside the point imo. If that were possible, that would make it outright broken.
In current state, it's just extremely good (I'll explain below why I use such a strong word).

They can still see you
True, generally.
But there is a difference between seeing (as in "having something in the field of vision"), noticing (as in "actually having the brain process the information") and focusing on it (as in "being able to recognize this is not just a bird for whatever reason and react appropriately").
In ideal conditions (perfect light, no obstructance, perfect eyesight), there is no chance you will escape someone looking at the sky (or at least in the proper direction) and dedicated to surveying surroundings.
But at dusk/dawn/night? In cloudy atmosphere? When the people you want to go unnoticed by are attracted by something on ground?
There many, plenty of cases when you can actually expect to manage going by without being actually recognized as a threat (or at least something requiring a process of any sort).

If they are in range, so are you
Wrong. Mostly. Very few creatures actually use longbows or similar, many are limited to thrown weapons (120 feet) or cantrips (120 feet too, majority more at 60 feet). It's even worse with spells, only around 10-15% actually go beyond the 120 feet cap, and many of those are mid-high level spells.
Of course, if you always go around in a flashy way, you can expect the world to notice your existence as a threat and evolve to answer it (aka = archers becoming a common enemy).
But usually? Only 1 in 10 enemies would be a real threat to you if yourself can make attacks from a longer range.
With that said, those options are quite limited, so that is the real limiting factor (open question: how is a flying creature supposed to carry a longbow, except holding it in hands at all times?).

Drop it
Minor inconvenience: a 1st level spell (Feather Fall) will be enough to make it a non-existent problem.

Spread your wings
100% true, if your DM goes realistic. Otherwise, someone already said that by RAW you always don't take more than 5 feet. Stupid, but hey, "it's magic" XD.

I hope you have high DEX
This is a bit borderline with dishonesty here. ^^
First because making a specially tailored armor is not that big of a deal (unless you are the one and last of your kind, or visiting a totally foreign country, and even then).
Second because since you can't use heavy armor, you don't have any compelling reason to go STR anyways (except very niche build), and DEX is one of the best stats to take as a primary anyways as a martial. Even "worse", if you are a caster, there is no reason not to take at least 14 in it, possibly more.
Third, because you have many features allowing you to benefit of a pretty decent unarmored AC (Monk, Barbarian, Draconic Armor, and all the ways to use Mage Armor). So it's really pretty easy to start the game with at the strict minimum 15 AC, often 16. Sure, it's not flashy like the starting 20 of an armor-clad and shield fighter or paladin, but it's pretty decent though.
Fourth, because confer previous point : "out of reach" is the best AC can one hope for in the first place.

Changing tactics
When you can't go around
True. But that is easier said than done if you follow printed campaigns. And that require you as a DM to make it logical.
If your party goes murderhobo and as a result nobody ever lives to tell that there is a flying murderer, why would the world evolve to answer it by training lots of archers, hiding in tight places, and readying attacks for "attacking whatever creature I see flying towards me"?
Plus it does make it official that flight is very powerful, since it was good enough to make you actually tailor encounters around it.

Magic Broom
I don't get where you get the idea that this item is affordable but I guess it's just a matter of YMMV here.

Fly spell
Yeah, any caster learning this is doing something good for the party. But affecting several people need upcast: and upcast is costly. For a 4-man party (from what I get around here the most common set-up), a Wizard can carry everyone at once once he's level 11, a Sorcerer with Twin actually same (sadly, since upcast means it's already no more a single-target spell)...
But what if one already has flight? Now it's a matter of three people.
You get "party-wide" flight at level 9.
Corner-case: you are a Sorcerer in a 3-man party: you get party-wide flight at level 5 (yourself casting Twin Flight on the two others). :)

---
More generally, you forget three very important bits.
1. The "encounter drawbacks" you are talking of are really easy to address. You just need level 1 spells. Just a dip in Draconic Sorcerer basically addresses everything at once (all the goodies: perma Mage Armor, Shield, Feather Fall). But also Forge Cleric (Sanctuary while getting away, Shield of Faith, Shield), Wizard (like Sorcerer), making dips available whatever class you play.
AT and EK also gets those spells. Anyone else could just grab a Magic Initiate to cover either the AC or free fall problem.
Depending on your DM's generosity, you could also come onto a Ring of Spell Storing early enough for a friend to cast his buffs into.
In the last of last, a friend could just cast himself Mage Armor on you in the morning. Or a friend casting Darkness on a stone you'll carry if you just want to quickly move from one cover to another through open space.

2. You can buff yourself too (besides what told just above)!
Yeah, anyone being a caster can buff himself with Fly at level 5.
But at the same level, if you went caster way, you could Haste yourself. Then at level 7, you can be an invisible flyer with Greater Invisibility.

3. You can avoid all melee.
That seems just "good enough" at first glance because first thought is usually "flight is useless in closed spaces". Because people usually see flight as a way of hovering high above everyone, maybe trying a Grapple and drop enemy for fun efficiency.
Is it though? Flight means that, as long as there is at least 15 feet height...
a). You can move straight to your target, whatever obstacles there is unless it's basically a full wall or similar.
b). You avoid all opportunity attacks.
c). You always get the best perspective for line of sight.

So you can directly hurt the one enemy you want, while anyone else in your party has to stay careful about how, and how far to move.
You can launch AOE on improbables origin points to manage hitting enemies only, whereas your friend caster has to risk friendly fire or fall back to single target because the front line is too crowded for him/her to see a point sufficiently "behind" enough.
You can more generally interact with people in ways there are not used to. For example, as a Battlemaster, you could use Disarming Strike on a caster, get his focus with free interaction and go back in the air, much easier than anyone on ground (confer the "OA" point).

Only cases where this isn't true is where enemy party also has flyers, or bigger creatures that could block most of the passageway.
Even if enemies Ready attacks to counter you, which is bound indeed to be very threatening to you, it's still a net win for the party overall: they wasted their turn readying, and they will make only one attack instead of potentially several (unless I'm mistaken on creatures with Multiattack, I generally use class NPC or assimilated in homebrew).

So while I agree that the power peak it brings tones down himself because party and enemies get more powerful, in the levels 1-8 it's very very potent.
Unless of course you are always figthing in very tight places. XD

With that said, I do follow you on the fact that "overpowered" is too strong of a word. It's near that line, but on the "good side"...
The one that just pushes the DM to vary encounter (in the broader acception, combat or not) composition and design earlier than the moment he would usually have to, because one PC has a feature that overall spares many resources party-wide.
I see it as the same kind of "extremely powerful at low level" ability as Rope Trick, Leomund's Tiny Hut or Phantom Steed. Great enough to make players feel good and crush some quests, but still something that can be naturally brought in check as players play, because world evolves with them and ultimately adapts.

[sightlessrealit]

Why is it a problem that I as a DM need to change things up to deal with flying characters? Just doesn't make sense to me.

[Pex]

Yes, this. Abilities which are either useless or encounter-ending don't tend to be much fun.

Are we discussing racial flight or arcane spells in 3.5?

Penalty. Bad form.

No need for gratuitous 3E bashing.

[Greywander]

This thread blew up fast. There's been a lot of good comments, both assenting and dissenting, so I'll try to address as many points as I can.


I agree that it's not a big deal, it just gives the DM a bit more work to do in figuring out trees and other obstacles to put in an encounter to keep it interesting.
This hits the nail on the head, I think. It's one more thing the DM has to keep in mind while planning a session. But if you can't handle flight at 1st level, how are you going to handle it at 5th level? Or 10th level? Or 15th level? I think it would be a good exercise for any reluctant DMs to play with a flying player starting at 1st level, and figure out how to deal with it. The lessons learned will serve them well in the future and help them to be a better DM.

I'm not saying you shouldn't ban flying races. I'm just saying that you should give it some thought first and consider it.


D) It can be useful in scouting ahead from a safe distance, but not more than a Find Familiar Spell.
You made a few good points, but I feel this might be the most relevant. I can't believe I forgot about Find Familiar. The Pact of the Chain makes this even more potent by granting you an invisible, flying minion, with hands, that is capable of speech that you can share vision with as long as it is on the same plane (i.e. no range limit). Granted, this doesn't come online until 3rd level, but that's still pre-Fly spell.


You lost me when the very first point was rather obviously false. It is entirely within the realm of possibility for the entire party to have racial flight.
I don't want to misread your posts, but it feels like you're being kind of pedantic by pointing out the obvious exceptions to the points I'm making. Yes, all the players can play as flying races, but this should be something that comes up in session 0.

Playing a flying race is like playing a pirate. If you're the only pirate in the party, then you'll probably going to only occasionally make use of your pirate ship and crew, and it will be awesome when you do. If the entire party is pirates, then you're probably looking at a High Seas campaign, which is a lot different from what you would otherwise be doing.


Going to try to address some of these point-by-point.
Some good points here. I'm not saying flight isn't a powerful ability, but I'll still assert that it is a situational ability and that there are many acceptable substitutes depending on the specific situation. Also, don't forget that racial flight comes at the expense of other racial abilities.


While realistically, you're right, in game statistics, a medium creature never takes up more than a 5' square. So the player could argue that there's still plenty of room for him to fly, even if it doesn't make sense.
If only there was someone to adjudicate the game and deal with situations that aren't specifically covered by the rules. :smalltongue:


Even so, introducing at will flight at level 1 closes off the available design space for those first half dozen to dozen adventures.
When one door closes, another opens. Sure, some challenges become trivialized when one or more party members has access to flight, but I'd argue that it actually opens up even more challenges that you can throw at the players that they wouldn't be able to overcome if they didn't have flight.

As an example, consider cantrips vs. Expertise. Expertise more or less does nothing except trivialize certain skill checks. If the rogue has expertise in thieves' tools, you might as well not bother throwing locked doors at him (I'm being hyperbolic here). Cantrips, on the other hand, allow you to do something you couldn't before, which can trivialize some puzzles, but opens up new puzzles you wouldn't be able to do.

So sure, instead of distracting the lord while your party members find an expert to create an exact replica of the expensive vase you broke, you can just cast Mending on the vase and trivialize what could have been a fun quest. But you could also have a puzzle where you need to cast Mending to repair the mechanism that disarms the trap, except maybe you're not sure how the pieces need to go together and you have to hurry before you get crushed by the trap.


It is a fair comparison to look at...
Not quite, magical flight is more powerful than winged flight. It's still a fair point, though.


Anyway, my biggest peeve is that the racial flight is unlimited. Its literally a free 3rd level spell without concentration. I think if it was a resource they had to balance the use of like everything else (maybe X rounds of flying per long rest?) most people wouldn’t have an issue with it.
Agreed. I feel like winged flight should use an exhaustion mechanic, as I imagine that anything aside from gliding and soaring will probably tire you out pretty quickly. Maybe something like if they remain in flight (not gliding or soaring) for more than a minute, then they have to start making CON saves or suffer a level of exhaustion.


Hi ;)

Thanks for opening this thread. You make several good points, but imo there are some you conflate and others you miss. ;)
So let's tackle them.

You make some good points as well, although, as with many of the replies in this thread, I feel like these are less rebuttals and more simply showing the other side of the coin. One thing I feel like a lot of people are forgetting is that just because you are out of range doesn't mean the enemies aren't still going to attack something. Namely, your party members.


I hope you have high DEX
This is a bit borderline with dishonesty here. ^^
While not critical, these are still disadvantages of winged flight. Needing to have armor altered becomes an issue when you find a cool piece of armor right before a boss fight. Or when your armor gets destroyed and you need to borrow some. Or when you get captured and need to find new armor while you escape. Dumping Strength also means you'll be even less able to ferry party members across pits. Also, what do you suppose will happen if you get over-encumbered?

I'll grant you that there are many ways to get great AC without heavy armor, but you do have to invest in those, usually by expending a spell slot or dipping into a particular class. Monks are great, but they also lean heavily toward melee to get the most of their Martial Arts feature. Barbarians also benefit from Unarmored Defense, but lean toward Strength builds to get the most out of their Rage. Sorcerer can be a good match, but since you already have wings that basically means you don't get anything at 14th level (unless houseruled).


Why is it a problem that I as a DM need to change things up to deal with flying characters? Just doesn't make sense to me.
Given the number of extraordinary abilities available via class features, cantrips, and low level spells, it makes sense to me that DMs would need to be flexible enough to adjust to whatever collection of abilities the party brings to the table. I mean, honestly, I'd think it would be much easier on DMs to ban wizards (and other full casters) than to ban flying races. At least flight is just one thing, and you can anticipate it and work around it, but wizards have an entire collection of reality-warping tricks up their sleeve, including flight, that can trivialize a wide variety of encounters and puzzles.

Somewhat related is that a world that contains a thing is going to be capable of dealing with that thing. Real-life castles weren't designed with flying enemies in mind, so D&D castles need to take that into account. Also magic, which can bypass a number of traditional defenses seen in real life. The world of D&D will naturally find a way to address these weaknesses, and a good DM should as well so they can accurately portray the world of D&D.

[Citan]

You make some good points as well, although, as with many of the replies in this thread, I feel like these are less rebuttals and more simply showing the other side of the coin. One thing I feel like a lot of people are forgetting is that just because you are out of range doesn't mean the enemies aren't still going to attack something. Namely, your party members.


While not critical, these are still disadvantages of winged flight. Needing to have armor altered becomes an issue when you find a cool piece of armor right before a boss fight. Or when your armor gets destroyed and you need to borrow some. Or when you get captured and need to find new armor while you escape. Dumping Strength also means you'll be even less able to ferry party members across pits. Also, what do you suppose will happen if you get over-encumbered?

I'll grant you that there are many ways to get great AC without heavy armor, but you do have to invest in those, usually by expending a spell slot or dipping into a particular class. Monks are great, but they also lean heavily toward melee to get the most of their Martial Arts feature. Barbarians also benefit from Unarmored Defense, but lean toward Strength builds to get the most out of their Rage. Sorcerer can be a good match, but since you already have wings that basically means you don't get anything at 14th level (unless houseruled).


Thanks for your feedback.

I feel there is one of my points that was misunderstood though, so I'll stress it here.
Even for a melee, or I'd daresay ESPECIALLY for a melee, flight is invaluable.
Melee = limited reach = danger on the way to the target... Which flight can really circumvent.

Obviously you still need to be careful, and if you just used it systematically past a few encounters enemies would just ready thrown weapons/bows to shoot you down as you whirl 10 feet above them...
But as long as you don't behave like a one-trick pony, this can be a great "out-of-trap" or "into the den" card. :)

Also, I don't partake your point about having other party members targeted being bad.
Because that is not a flaw of winged. That is a flaw of your own playstyle. It's exactly the same as a Wizard cowering behind a cover from 100 feet away while the Fighter and Barbarian stand their ground, or a Sharpshooter Rogue hiding each and every turn between Sneak Attacks from a confortable 200 feet range...
Whether it is a good or bad thing depends on your party composition, usual teamwork and current encounter...
That you have wings does not mean you have any obligation to use them permanently and only to fly away from danger. ^^

As for the investment in something to get armor, in what way is it bad? In what way is it even necessary?
Let's check those fast.
Barbarian: unarmored, check. Can start with 16, go up to 20. Can wield a shield too. No need for investment.
Bard: light armor, no shield unless Valor. Could help with Magic Secrets or dip/feat.
Cleric: light armor, check. Shield of Faith and Sanctuary to help. Forge gets Shield. Can wield a shield too. No need for investment.
Druid: flaw here, only light armor and shield. Still decent 16-17. Could like a Mage Armor from somewhere. Unless you go Moon Druid and keep low height flight.
Fighter: same as Druid, except if you go EK you also get built-in Mage Armor and Shield.
Monk: built-in unarmored, can go up to 20. Plus has reaction against Missiles. No need for investment.
Paladin: same as Cleric. No need for investment.
Ranger: same as Druid.
Rogue: light armor, one archetype gets shield, another gets Mage Armor and Shield, plus Uncanny Dodge, Evasion and Disengage as bonus action. No need for investment.
Sorcerer: go Draconic for free Mage Armor. + Shield. No need for investment.
Warlock: take invocation for free Mage Armor. More or less on (sub)par with Druid unless you go Hexblade for added shield and Shield.
Wizard: go Bladesinger for 19 AC stat with Mage Armor, + Shield. No need for investment.

>>> 2/3 of the classes have everything they need built into the class, with a few specific choices outshining greatly the others (Draconic Sorcerer, Monk, Arcane Trickster Rogue, Eldricht Knight Fighter, Hexblade Warlock).
As for the others, they get a very easy way out with all stats (CHA/WIS/INT) each providing a single-level dip way to get either Shield or Mage Armor, often both.

[Luccan]

I'd say flight (even the winged, less powerful variety) does come with it's own challenges. I don't think that's a problem, but there are considerations to be made when allowing it. At the same time, the Aaracokra specifically sucks without it. That might be the only natural flying race I'd allow, honestly, because most of the other ones are still decent without wings.

On the subject of it being too powerful, I don't think that's true, given the limitations. You have an ability that trivializes some challenges and can be very useful in the right environment, but it's also useless in others.

However, an unprepared DM is going to have trouble dealing with it. You really have to think through how to cope with a flying PC and for some DMs, they're going to want to justify why these bandits have so many expert marksmen.

[Spellbreaker26]

Well, all bandits have some sort of bow.

[Naanomi]

An important distinction to make is if it is ‘too powerful’ or just ‘more powerful’... if it is too strong or game warping at level 1 is largely a matter of playstyle and opinion; but if it is stronger than virtually every other racial feature (especially the ultra-fast aracokra version) is somewhat more apparent I think; only yuan-ti magic resistance coming close

[Errata]

Flight is absolutely not stronger than other racial abilities. Variant human's bonus feat may have that distinction. Aarakocra is not very high on the list of overpowered races. It's a valid consideration for certain players, but not the most powerful pick for most characters.

It's easy to criticize how flight could hypothetically be powerful in hypothetical situations, but it just doesn't work out that way. There are lots of natural limits on how and when it can actually come in useful. The talk about how amazingly useful it is sound like they come from people who haven't actually tried it in a real campaign, because it's rare that things arise where it makes such a huge difference with no confounding circumstances to keep the usefulness in check. When theorycrafting it's hard to think it all the way through, with the detailed logistics of how things will play out. But in an actual campaign of 5e, with a competent DM, it really doesn't end up being that big of a deal most of the time.

The flyer in our campaign only rarely gets to really shine due to that, since there's always one thing or another that make it not quite the right tool for the situation. They shine for other reasons, but the fact that they can fly is about their 5th or 6th most interesting ability. In the rare cases where a flying scout is called for, we often just end up using the caster's familiar for that anyway, because it's safer and an actual bird is far less conspicuous than a flying adventurer. If it's really important and the familiar isn't good enough, then the druid can expend a wild shape and be an awesome scout. We've never encountered a situation where flying beats stealth for scouting, and plenty of situations where stealth beats flying.

[Spellbreaker26]

Variant Human's ability isn't so much strong as it is good for getting a build up early. It's not weak, don't get me wrong, but when it's done and dusted Humans don't have anything else in their arsenal.

The ability to always fly will never not be useful. It massively improves escape ability, even indoors. It renders an entire category of challenges completely useless. It requires no prep time or concentration.

[Naanomi]

So... variant human feat is stronger... so a feat that offered 60’ flight speed would be balanced, or even slightly underpowered, in your perspective?

[Errata]

It renders an entire category of challenges completely useless.

Only if the whole party can do it. When is the last time you met an entire party of Aarakocra? What specific challenges have you encountered that are nullified by only a single party member being able to bypass it? There must be a lot of them that you're regularly encountering for it to be a whole category.

This is theorycrafting, not based on realistic gameplay. One person flying rarely solves much for the rest of the party.

[Naanomi]

Only if the whole party can do it.
Not entirely... a flyer with a long rope and enough strength to carry a party member can solve an awful lot of problems

[Errata]

Not entirely... a flyer with a long rope and enough strength to carry a party member can solve an awful lot of problems

Problems that couldn't be solved by owning a 25gp climber's kit?

So a strength based melee character that picks a dex and wis race known for their ability to stay out of melee range. That's a pretty big investment for a niche out of combat utility.

[Naanomi]

Problems that couldn't be solved by owning a 25gp climber's kit?

So a strength based melee character that picks a dex and wis race known for their ability to stay out of melee range. That's a pretty big investment for a niche out of combat utility.
10-12 strength is probably sufficient for any flying character to ferry your average party members across a pit of any size, to the ship out in the harbor, out of the guarded town, or to the top of the tower without any skill checks at all; just given enough time

And of course not all challenges would require a whole party to go. Breaking into the wizard’s tower takes a whole party to fight off the guards, but only one incredibly quick thief to swoop in the upper balcony and steal the staff from him... or something as simple as just quickly fly over the gate and pull the lever to open it for teammates without the athletics check required

[Luccan]

It should be noted, the advantages of flight are probably part of the reason you pick a flying race. I know people think its problematic for the game, but yeah, being able to ferry party members across a chasm is probably something you expect to be able to do. And you're giving up other opportunities to do it.

Which is why you have goblin archers above, and now the rest of the party has to somehow protect their flyer and passenger while they cross. Old challenge obsolete, new challenge created.

[Naanomi]

And you're giving up other opportunities to do it.
No one is saying this isn’t true, the question is ‘are they giving up anything equivalent to 60’ flight speed’; which I argue with perhaps a very few exceptions they are not even close to doing so (but I acknowledge opinions may vary on the relative strength of racial bonuses)

[Errata]

If I was going to be a ranged attacker, in an actual realistic party, and not a white room simulation, with the right synergies the Elven Accuracy racial feat can be more powerful than flight, and precludes choosing a flying race. I don't usually have a problem trusting that the tank or crowd controller would do an adequate enough job locking melee enemies down that being airborn wouldn't be a significant improvement.

If I was melee attacker concerned about being able to get around the battlefield, I'd probably rather have Mobile. Flight doesn't let you avoid OAs once you're in melee range. It might get you to where you want to be, but then you're stuck there. Mobile bumps your base movement rate to 40ish and gives you options for avoiding OAs to reposition yourself where needed. More practical for a melee attacker than flying.


Variant Human's ability isn't so much strong as it is good for getting a build up early. It's not weak, don't get me wrong, but when it's done and dusted Humans don't have anything else in their arsenal.

But we're talking about the balance of flight from level 1. Most people seem to agree that flight after level 5 or so isn't as big of a deal, as players get access to more spells, class features, and magic items that can have similar effects. So at these low levels most races would have 0 to 1 feat, while variant human would have 1 to 2 feats. Long term they'd have the best feats anyway, but long term they'd have other mobility options too. This is about the short term.

A spellcaster can get warcaster, resilient(con), spell sniper, lucky, ritual caster, or magic initiate, depending on their class and goals, and can still pick the ASI to their casting stat when they get to level 4.
A barbarian can be using great weapon master and reckless attack together at level 2, for massive damage, which wouldn't otherwise be possible at that level.
A level 4 paladin could have both polearm master AND sentinel, which have game changing synergy that would not otherwise be available until level 8.

[Greywander]

Thanks for your feedback.
You're welcome. There's been a lot of interesting discussion in this thread so far, although I feel like a lot of people in this thread probably haven't played in a campaign with a flying PC before. To be fair, neither have I.


I feel there is one of my points that was misunderstood though, so I'll stress it here.
Even for a melee, or I'd daresay ESPECIALLY for a melee, flight is invaluable.
Melee = limited reach = danger on the way to the target... Which flight can really circumvent.

Obviously you still need to be careful, and if you just used it systematically past a few encounters enemies would just ready thrown weapons/bows to shoot you down as you whirl 10 feet above them...
But as long as you don't behave like a one-trick pony, this can be a great "out-of-trap" or "into the den" card. :)

Also, I don't partake your point about having other party members targeted being bad.
Because that is not a flaw of winged. That is a flaw of your own playstyle. It's exactly the same as a Wizard cowering behind a cover from 100 feet away while the Fighter and Barbarian stand their ground, or a Sharpshooter Rogue hiding each and every turn between Sneak Attacks from a confortable 200 feet range...
Whether it is a good or bad thing depends on your party composition, usual teamwork and current encounter...
That you have wings does not mean you have any obligation to use them permanently and only to fly away from danger. ^^
While this is all true, it still boils flight down to "one more way to stay out of melee". Non-melee classes, especially casters, have ways of keeping themselves out of melee. It's not like wizards and rogues have been getting butchered until aarakocra where released in EE. Flight is just one more trick to do what they've already been doing, and it is a good trick that accomplishes the goal effectively.

As for targeting your party members, I'll give you that you're probably playing a flying race because you're squishy and don't want to take any hits. But if you're headed toward a TPK, then the only real difference is that you get to fly away and live to tell the tale instead of going down with your team. Flight definitely helps you from getting jumped and taken out before the tank goes down, but if the tank is going down anyway it's not going to help the rest of your party. And again, a squishy class already has several tricks to keep from getting taken out, so flight is just one more. In other words, flight is pretty good, but it's not revolutionary.


Flight is absolutely not stronger than other racial abilities. Variant human's bonus feat may have that distinction. Aarakocra is not very high on the list of overpowered races. It's a valid consideration for certain players, but not the most powerful pick for most characters.
Since it's been brought up a couple times, I thought I might throw out some other racial abilities that I feel could give flight a run for its money. The aarokocra specifically doesn't get anything aside from flight, natural weapons, and ability score bonuses, although it does get 50 foot fly speed (which I'd say might be more problematic than the flight itself).

Darkvision, for one. Yes, it's super-common, but it basically trivializes the light-and-darkness vision subsystem. No more worrying about carrying torches or lanterns or bothering with a light cantrip. No more getting spotted because of your light source. I imagine if 2/3 of the PHB races had flight instead of darkvision, this discussion would be reversed.

On that note, although I'm not aware of any PC races that get these abilities, I feel like tremorsense and a burrow speed would actually be better than flight. I played a couple solo sessions with a homebrew race with these abilities, and I would basically use tremorsense to pop out right next to an enemy, sneak attack them, then disengage and retreat back underground. Wash, rinse, and repeat until the enemy is dead. I eventually had to have the bad guys using readied actions to throw rocks at me whenever I popped out, assuming they rolled high enough on perception to spot me before I attacked.

Innate Magic, especially if you can choose your spells. Sure, flight is pretty cool, but getting a free cantrip and a 1st and 2nd level spell of your choice each once/long rest opens up a lot more possibilities.

Gnome Cunning (and, by extension, the yuan-ti's Magic Resistance). Seriously. This gives you advantage on saves against some of the nastiest spells in the game, including effects like Dominate, Banishment, and Feeblemind. And besides that these kinds of saves are extremely common for spells. A gnomish Ancients paladin makes for a serious anti-mage tank.

Finally, the Variant Human feat. The thing about this is that there's so much you can do with it. Heavy Armor Master or Polearm Master both make you extremely effect in combat at 1st level. Magic Initiate gives similar benefits to Innate Magic, and Ritual Caster, although it takes a while to come online, can also be excellent utility. Elven Accuracy, as someone pointed out, is probably one of the most powerful feats in the game (from a pure combat standpoint, not so much from a utility standpoint). Sharpshooter can turn you into someone that shoots down flying enemies.

Now, I'm not saying any of these racial features are always better than flight, but I am saying that depending on the character I was trying to build, I might rather have some of these instead of flight. In fact, a little while back I was building a tiefling rogue, and briefly considered the flying variant but ultimately decided I needed the innate spells for my character concept.

[Blacky the Blackball]

If you go by the Xanathar's guidelines, it'd require an average of 450 gp (total including the average price (1d6*100gp) + the minimum cost of seaching, a full week of searching, and a Charisma (Persuasion) check DC 15 to get a single one of those Brooms.

Exactly, and none of that is a large obstacle to someone with a couple of adventures under their belt, especially if they get the party "face" to do the talking. If they want to find a Broom, they'll be able to do so fairly quickly.


If you're the kind of DM who runs Monty Haul, at will inate flight isn't going to seem like a big deal to you, because your game fundamentally isn't balanced in the first place.


What you're describing is a result of your decision to allow 3.5's "magic mart" to exist in 5th edition, that's not relevant to default 5e.

You don't need to be running a "Monty Haul" campaign or using "magic marts" for PCs to be able to acquire such items at low level (and for the record, I don't do either of those things) - if that's what the players are prioritising and having their PCs put their efforts into (not all will prioritise that, of course, but my group like to be able to fly from place to place so they often do). You just have to refrain from actively banning such items and refusing to let the players follow the guidelines in the book (referred to by Unoriginal, above) in order to find them if they want them.

And the person who plays an Aarakocra to get flight at level one is just prioritising it to a slightly greater extent than the person who has their PC go searching for a Broom of Flying at level two or three once they've got their first few hundred gold.

[War_lord]

This hits the nail on the head, I think. It's one more thing the DM has to keep in mind while planning a session. But if you can't handle flight at 1st level, how are you going to handle it at 5th level? Or 10th level? Or 15th level? I think it would be a good exercise for any reluctant DMs to play with a flying player starting at 1st level, and figure out how to deal with it. The lessons learned will serve them well in the future and help them to be a better DM.

Patronizing tone aside, you're not listening. DMs (including the Adventurer's league) don't ban flying races because we're dumb dumbs who can't figure out how to mitigate it as an advantage (I'll get to why doing so would be problematic in a minute) we ban flying races because we're not interested in redesigning all of our low level play around one party member having an overwhelming advantage in problem solving (note that I didn't say combat, combat isn't why I ban flying races). No other race can just bypass low level challenges like the flying ones can, for zero resource cost and at level one.

Level 1 play isn't level 5 play. And at level 5 a Wizard actually has to use the abilities of his/her class (spell casting) and expend a resource (a spell slot) to fly. Which I'm fine with. Even a race that had a limited access to flight through burning a resource (protector Aasimar) I'd be fine with. Unlimited and effortless flight from the start of the game is the issue, because that's not problem solving.


I'm not saying you shouldn't ban flying races. I'm just saying that you should give it some thought first and consider it.

I have given it thought, and I concluded that as literally the only races released so far that I'd have to change my entire early game approach to accommodate I'm not interested in including them in my game. Stop assuming I'm an idiot thanks.


Playing a flying race is like playing a pirate. If you're the only pirate in the party, then you'll probably going to only occasionally make use of your pirate ship and crew, and it will be awesome when you do. If the entire party is pirates, then you're probably looking at a High Seas campaign, which is a lot different from what you would otherwise be doing.

Being a pirate is a background feature that only comes into use when going to sea. Aarakocra can ALWAYS fly, it is ALWAYS a factor. It's literally the ONLY reason to play that race, if an Aarakocra isn't using his/her 50 feet of flight to bypass challenges they're not getting their "money's worth" for the race choice.


Also, don't forget that racial flight comes at the expense of other racial abilities.

Believe it or not, that's part of the problem. I will circle back to this.


When one door closes, another opens. Sure, some challenges become trivialized when one or more party members has access to flight, but I'd argue that it actually opens up even more challenges that you can throw at the players that they wouldn't be able to overcome if they didn't have flight.

Which is part of the problem, sorry but in D&D it's very important to me as a DM that every member of the party is an equal contributor. If everything is suddenly balanced around mitigating a single ability of one party member, that's a problem.


As an example, consider cantrips vs. Expertise. Expertise more or less does nothing except trivialize certain skill checks. If the rogue has expertise in thieves' tools, you might as well not bother throwing locked doors at him (I'm being hyperbolic here). Cantrips, on the other hand, allow you to do something you couldn't before, which can trivialize some puzzles, but opens up new puzzles you wouldn't be able to do.

As someone who actually plays Rogues, deciding where to put your limited pool of Expertise is actually a meaningful decision. Sure, expertise in thieves' tools is a given, since the Bard can't do that. But when it comes to the second point there is actually a decision to be made because you have to ask yourself if you want to be harder to spot, or if you want to put it in Athletics to mitigate that strength penalty. Cantrips are much the same in that something like mending is super situational, much more situational then flight, and by taking that situational bypass you're closing off other options.


I feel like winged flight should use an exhaustion mechanic, as I imagine that anything aside from gliding and soaring will probably tire you out pretty quickly. Maybe something like if they remain in flight (not gliding or soaring) for more than a minute, then they have to start making CON saves or suffer a level of exhaustion.

If winged flight wasn't overpowered for its level, you wouldn't feel like it needed a nerf. Particularly when as pointed out, the only officially released winged race's entire toolbox is "I can fly, otherwise I'm a nerfed Wood Elf".


Given the number of extraordinary abilities available via class features, cantrips, and low level spells, it makes sense to me that DMs would need to be flexible enough to adjust to whatever collection of abilities the party brings to the table.

I would have no problem with a character class that's based around flight. The problem is that it's a race feature that costs nothing and grants this game changing unlimited mobility.


I mean, honestly, I'd think it would be much easier on DMs to ban wizards (and other full casters) than to ban flying races. At least flight is just one thing, and you can anticipate it and work around it, but wizards have an entire collection of reality-warping tricks up their sleeve, including flight, that can trivialize a wide variety of encounters and puzzles.

You think that because you've decided that the reason the vast majority of DMs ban flying races is because we're idiots. I have no problem with Wizards, because Wizard is a class, it's a class based around managing a very powerful but limited resource and "Wizard whose spell book is full of problem solving spells" is an entire build. Aarakocra just get flight for being Aarakocra.


Somewhat related is that a world that contains a thing is going to be capable of dealing with that thing. Real-life castles weren't designed with flying enemies in mind, so D&D castles need to take that into account. Also magic, which can bypass a number of traditional defenses seen in real life. The world of D&D will naturally find a way to address these weaknesses, and a good DM should as well so they can accurately portray the world of D&D.

In my campaign setting flying enemies are rare and disorganized, and powerful magic users are even rarer and more disorganized. Otherwise if you took things to their natural conclusions you wouldn't have knights and castles, you'd have something like Eberron.


Problems that couldn't be solved by owning a 25gp climber's kit?

So a strength based melee character that picks a dex and wis race known for their ability to stay out of melee range. That's a pretty big investment for a niche out of combat utility.

You have to actually pay 25 GP for the kit, at the levels free flight is a huge issue 25GP is not a small cost. The kit weights 12 units, so there's a weight factor. Then all the kit does is anchor you, you still have Athletics checks to climb, you can still be seen and engaged while in the vulnerable state of clinging to the side of a cliff/mountain/tower. 50ft flight is just "okay, I fly up there".


It should be noted, the advantages of flight are probably part of the reason you pick a flying race. I know people think its problematic for the game, but yeah, being able to ferry party members across a chasm is probably something you expect to be able to do. And you're giving up other opportunities to do it.

And now I get to circle back to a point I wanted to make earlier. Defending winged flight on the basis that "oh well a smart DM can neuter it easily" is no defense at all, because the whole reason to take a winged race is to completely and easily bypass challenges in the first place. Allowing the player to take an Aarakocra and then countering them every time they try to use the only thing the race offers a player is way more of a **** move then just telling them why you don't allow them in the first place.

[Asmotherion]

That's exactly why most DMs and the Adventurer's League ban the use of always flying Races. Is it game breaking? No. Can it be planned around? Yes, of course it can. But the problem is that 5th edition is a really balanced game in that as a DM, I usually don't have to worry that one simple PC character build choice is going to force me to rethink every scenario from level one on.

...Except the flying races. If I let one player be an Aarakocra (for example), I have to rethink everything, maybe not things the party actively sees or thinks about, but enough things that it adds a whole new branch of "what ifs" to my quest design process. Suddenly, the MacGuffin being in the tallest tower of the highest castle means one member of the party can get in five minutes, suddenly the party can easily break the quarantine of a plague ridden city. Note that I haven't even mentioned combat, because it's a problem long before initiative is actually rolled.

Is it impossible to work around? No, but it's a radical shift in the party's low level capabilities and most DMs don't care for the added workload and limitations. Particularly since it also means that the flight feature that the player likely picked the race for in the first place ends up being much weaker then on paper because the DM has to neutralize it for the sake of the rest of the party. No one wins.

Most of combat time is either happening indoors (thus Dungeon and Dragons) either way. Even if your Campain style is different and you have adventures in the wilderness, just because one character can get to a place, does not mean that they will survile alone.

I could see an arguement from a Party full of Aracockra and/or Winged Tieflings though. And in that party, the DM would work together with his players, and adapt his story. Because the DM plays together with the Players, not against them. As a DM I generally try to:

A) See the character concept my players are going for.
B) Adapt it to my world.
C) Reward their creativity by giving them a "fate" with supports their character concept, without derailing from my world concept.

Game Balance Archived.

[JellyPooga]

Flight is weak to unusable when you are;
-Underground
-Indoors
-In a forest
-Underwater
-In a social scene

Among others. This is a vast majority of gameplay.

Flight is strong when;
-Terrain is proving problematic and there isn't another solution that equipment, time or other abilities (e.g. spells) can't or won't solve.
-In combat that isn't situated in one of the above circumstances.

This is a fringe/circumstantial benefit in many campaigns. It's not a ribbon, but it's far from game breaking.

[Spellbreaker26]

Flight is not useless indoors. It has less obvious advantages, but it's far from useless.


You don't need to be running a "Monty Haul" campaign or using "magic marts" for PCs to be able to acquire such items at low level (and for the record, I don't do either of those things) - if that's what the players are prioritising and having their PCs put their efforts into (not all will prioritise that, of course, but my group like to be able to fly from place to place so they often do). You just have to refrain from actively banning such items and refusing to let the players follow the guidelines in the book (referred to by Unoriginal, above) in order to find them if they want them.

And the person who plays an Aarakocra to get flight at level one is just prioritising it to a slightly greater extent than the person who has their PC go searching for a Broom of Flying at level two or three once they've got their first few hundred gold.

First of all, most DMs are not going to have every magic item available in their world. It is setting dependent. Maybe Brooms of Flying just don't exist. Maybe there's only one. Maybe characters wouldn't know whether such an item existed or not, and characters shouldn't treat the magic item list in the DMG as a shopping list. 5e is not balanced for players just being able to buy whatever magic items they want.

[Citan]

It should be noted, the advantages of flight are probably part of the reason you pick a flying race. I know people think its problematic for the game, but yeah, being able to ferry party members across a chasm is probably something you expect to be able to do. And you're giving up other opportunities to do it.

Which is why you have goblin archers above, and now the rest of the party has to somehow protect their flyer and passenger while they cross. Old challenge obsolete, new challenge created.
Thanks for this post. This is imo a great illustration of how flight is not necessarily really a problem, just a factor inciting DM to create new challenges, without always requiring much work. ;)


If I was going to be a ranged attacker, in an actual realistic party, and not a white room simulation, with the right synergies the Elven Accuracy racial feat can be more powerful than flight, and precludes choosing a flying race. I don't usually have a problem trusting that the tank or crowd controller would do an adequate enough job locking melee enemies down that being airborn wouldn't be a significant improvement.

If I was melee attacker concerned about being able to get around the battlefield, I'd probably rather have Mobile. Flight doesn't let you avoid OAs once you're in melee range. It might get you to where you want to be, but then you're stuck there. Mobile bumps your base movement rate to 40ish and gives you options for avoiding OAs to reposition yourself where needed. More practical for a melee attacker than flying.

I feel you are half wrong here. ;=)
First, because about ranged attackers...
- Elven Accuracy works when you have advantage. While in melee you have many easy ways to get advantage, options are quite more scarce for a ranged attacker: prone would actually work against you, so you have to rely on spells and class features. There are quite a number overall, but any given class has only a few of them: Bards and Clerics have Faerie Fire, Warlocks have Darkness, many have Blindness, Monk has Stunning Strike... Then higher level spells.
Point is: you are usually much more dependent on teamwork AND having someone with the right feature available.
- On the other side, flight means you can easily nullify 1/2 and even 3/4 covers without any problem by hovering a bit above (it's simple math really ;=)), meaning you can delay grabbing Sharpshooter for quite a while if/when you have other priorities. Flight also means you can grab a friend out of OA reach more easily.

Second, because about melee attackers...
You can perfectly take Mobile while being an Aarakocra. And 10 more feet are as amazing for a winged man as they are for the plain-footed one.
Besides that, there is absolulety no reason why you should "be stuck into melee". That's just you not trying to imagine how it works. :) Flight, at least when used with a minimum of brains, means you are at most under the threat of exactly ONE OA: the one from your target. Because you will move out of reach of all others while in and out. How much is that a problem?
- Many class have features that will outright nullify the attack or make it a probable miss: Rogue (disengage as bonus action), Monk (same or applying Stunning Strike), Battlemaster Parry or Evasive Manoeuvers, Hunter's "OA at disadvantage", and I forget at least half of them. There are also spells to enhance your defense if needed.
- Many also have features that reduce or nullify the damage: Barbarian is on top of the list, but there is also the Warlock's free False Life (so you can at least start any fight with 8 THP: at level 2 this is great), some Cleric domains IIRC, the famous Rogue's Uncanny Dodge, and spells.

So, again, unless you pick Aarakocra "randomly" just to do funny (but stupid) things with flight, it is extremely potent with a melee character.
That's one reason why 4E Monk is so great by the way, although Fly comes by awfully late. ;)
And that's why I'd be extremely defiant towards an Aarakocra Monk with a Sorcerer/Wizard/Land Druid friend (Haste + Longstrider + Monk bonus speed + Aarakocra speed = insane possibilities at mid-high level).


While this is all true, it still boils flight down to "one more way to stay out of melee". Non-melee classes, especially casters, have ways of keeping themselves out of melee. It's not like wizards and rogues have been getting butchered until aarakocra where released in EE. Flight is just one more trick to do what they've already been doing, and it is a good trick that accomplishes the goal effectively.
I'm sorry but you are not getting my point. Not AT ALL.
You just see your own playstyle, and apparently don't try to understand mine. So here it is again, differently worded: flight for a melee character can be even more gravvy than for a ranged one. Melee as in I hit things with melee attacks, you know?
Not because you are a melee character means you have to stupidly stay right in the middle of the fight. As you said yourselfs, it's not like Rogues have been butchered before this race came out: because those surviving were playing intelligently, not in a black and white, binary (0=5 feet, 1=300 feet) way.
Exactly as not because you have wings means you have any obligation to use them all the time to get away.
Exactly like even a 16 CON Bear Barbarian will die quickly if he just charges through enemies while leaving his brain behind, unless party has enough high level resources to "accelerate" a win that they could have gained with little resource consumption otherwise.

You like to play winged guys as people who avoid battlefield? No problem by me. Just don't forget that is only your choice, not "the only viable way".



As for targeting your party members, I'll give you that you're probably playing a flying race because you're squishy and don't want to take any hits. But if you're headed toward a TPK, then the only real difference is that you get to fly away and live to tell the tale instead of going down with your team. Flight definitely helps you from getting jumped and taken out before the tank goes down, but if the tank is going down anyway it's not going to help the rest of your party. And again, a squishy class already has several tricks to keep from getting taken out, so flight is just one more. In other words, flight is pretty good, but it's not revolutionary.

Why are you considering TPK? What does that have anything to do with the thread really?
But ok, let's consider it: your party is close to a TPK, you alone can run away.

Well, the fact that your instinctive idea is "run to live the tale", to be blunt, tells much about your priorites.
In the same situation, mine would be to either get help as fast as I can if I know there is someone close enough to help win, revive or at least preserve corpses, or to find a place to hide, luring enemy in believing that I cowardly runned away while I'm instead trying to observe what they are doing and planning the next move between ("follow them now" or "find a way to revive allies first"), depending on my class and situation.
All the more if I have healing or reviving spells or at least some communication spells and rituals.

In short, this is, sorry, yet another problem of your own personal way to manage this kind of situations. Not something that comes from the essence of a "flight character".

And besides that particular example, where is the problem in being a character that enemies have trouble attacking?
In ALL parties there are people supposed to be taking hits for others that actively avoid them. Wizards play like that, many casters in general play like that, ranged Rogues too will usually try to limit the threat onto them.
If you think having a flyer avoiding attacks is a problem, then you should also consider a Rogue hiding is a problem, or a Wizard covering behind a Minor Illusion or using Greater Invisibility on himself is a problem.


Flight is weak to unusable when you are;
-Underground
-Indoors
-In a forest
-Underwater
-In a social scene

Among others. This is a vast majority of gameplay.

Flight is strong when;
-Terrain is proving problematic and there isn't another solution that equipment, time or other abilities (e.g. spells) can't or won't solve.
-In combat that isn't situated in one of the above circumstances.

This is a fringe/circumstantial benefit in many campaigns. It's not a ribbon, but it's far from game breaking.
Wut?
- Underground: I'll more or less agree with this one, usually it's more about cramped places than big caverns. You can't "count on it" there.
- Indoors: wrong. Many places have high enough ceiling to give some flying room. Confer the above to see why this is important.
- Forest: extremely wrong: you now have many platforms which you can reach and use as observation platform/sniping point/hiding cover in an instant, without any effort, while everyone else would require either spells or cheks and always time.
- Underwater: totally right. ;)
- In a social scene: wrong. It is just something you can not evaluate because too dependant on the campaign settings and DM. In homebrew world with low-magic and most humanoids, an Aarakocra with some tricks could very well pass himself off as an envoy from some celestial/demoniac being for example.

[War_lord]

Most of combat time is either happening indoors (thus Dungeon and Dragons) either way.

1. I have specifically said that I AM NOT talking about combat. I'm arguing based on the race being based around bypassing common low level challenges.

2. You can run a game from levels 1 to 20 without ever having a single "Dungeon" or fighting a Dragon.

3. You can have a Dungeon that isn't an enclosed space. The Underdark is a Dungeon, a forest in the Feywild is a Dungeon, the Shadowfell is a Dungeon.

[Asmotherion]

1. I have specifically said that I AM NOT talking about combat. I'm arguing based on the race being based around bypassing common low level challenges.

2. You can run a game from levels 1 to 20 without ever having a single "Dungeon" or fighting a Dragon.

3. You can have a Dungeon that isn't an enclosed space. The Underdark is a Dungeon, a forest in the Feywild is a Dungeon, the Shadowfell is a Dungeon.
As I specifically said, "even if your campain style is different".

Please read before adreasing to my post in a bullet-style post.

I'll turn the question onto you; How well can a single Aaracocra or Tiefling flying alone in the Feywild or Underdark survive? If they are too careless, it will eventually become a perilous situation. Unless you don't know how to handle the Underdark or Feywild.

You don't need to kill said PC, just put them in a "Damsel in Distress situation" were he is unable to do anything, and needs to be resqued by the other PCs. This can be a means to tell him "cool, you got wings, but it's dangerous here, so you need to be careful were to use them".

A DM who knows his Game is in control of his Game and can make his Game better for his Players at the Same time.

[Spellbreaker26]

You don't need to kill said PC, just put them in a "Damsel in Distress situation" were he is unable to do anything, and needs to be resqued by the other PCs. This can be a means to tell him "cool, you got wings, but it's dangerous here, so you need to be careful were to use them".

Out of pure curiosity, do you have an example of a situation like that?

[JellyPooga]

Wut?
- Underground: I'll more or less agree with this one, usually it's more about cramped places than big caverns. You can't "count on it" there.
- Indoors: wrong. Many places have high enough ceiling to give some flying room. Confer the above to see why this is important.
- Forest: extremely wrong: you now have many platforms which you can reach and use as observation platform/sniping point/hiding cover in an instant, without any effort, while everyone else would require either spells or cheks and always time.
- Underwater: totally right. ;)
- In a social scene: wrong. It is just something you can not evaluate because too dependant on the campaign settings and DM. In homebrew world with low-magic and most humanoids, an Aarakocra with some tricks could very well pass himself off as an envoy from some celestial/demoniac being for example.

Indoors, the flying room (if any) will be extremely limited. Sure, certain large buildings like temples or grand halls will give usable flying space, but even in a large mansion or palace, you're only looking at certain rooms giving adequate room and even those will keep you close enough that the advantage you get from flight is limited at best.

In a forest (which is a vague enough term that generalising is a shaky premise), yes, you can access vantage points more easily, but there are other means of access to those same vantages, through skill, spell, equipment or climb speed (rare though that may be). Flight doesn't have the monopoly on that. That aside, hiding can be done in many places in a forest and the actual advantage of a treetop vantage point is questionable; the same results can often be duplicated by other means.

In social circumstances, flight might open a few additional avenues, but it will still come down to your charisma and social skills as to whether anyone actually buys it, just like having a sword makes you a credible threat, but won't intimidate anyone on its own without making a successful skill check.

[DigoDragon]

This thread got me to thinking about all those poor GMs that run supers and Rifts games.

I'm a veteran GM of running GURPS Supers games. In a modern setting, things like guns, beam powers, flying vehicles, and super strength tend to equalize non-flyers with flyers. Flight is still a good advantage and a solid choice for a super power, but I believe the difficulties in reaching a flying target aren't too bad when modern technology comes into play.



Potentially, but how many guards are going to be looking at the sky at night, or even during the day? Most races can't fly, so enemy guards are most likely going to be focused on the ground. The DM can say that the guards are looking all around them, sure, but again, this means that the DM needs to actively foil your feature just to keep balance.

In a fantasy setting where there are a lot of flying threats like dragons, wraiths, banshees, beholders, imps, devils, manticores, fey, rocs, giant vultures, gargoyles, etc. I would be surprised if standard guard training doesn't include dedicated spotters watching the skies above. It should be a common procedure that a defended position (such as a castle wall) has guards looking up as well as looking down.



Even if you're outdoors in the wild somewhere with space to fly, the ability for enemies to be able to hit you is somewhat limited. Many monsters in the MM don't have any sort of ranged attack capability, others might have limited options for this (thrown weapons and the like which might not have the range). The DM may need to modify enemies to account for your racial feature, or might not be able to use certain monsters at all if he wants it to be a challenge for the player.

If they are in range, so are you
Wrong. Mostly. Very few creatures actually use longbows or similar, many are limited to thrown weapons (120 feet) or cantrips (120 feet too, majority more at 60 feet). It's even worse with spells, only around 10-15% actually go beyond the 120 feet cap, and many of those are mid-high level spells.

This issue does depend a good bit on the flexibility of a GM. I often change the equipment that intelligent races carry just so there's a little more variety in the loot PCs get, so that means once in a while the party encounters something like kobolds with crossbows. But if the GM plays the monsters in the MM straight, then I agree, flight does come out stronger.

I believe how much extra work gets added to deal with flying PCs depends on the GM. There is a non-zero amount of extra work involved, but for me I never found it much more difficult to challenge flying PCs (could just be that I'm a veteran GM with a ton of experience). Yes, there are encounters where the flying PC can't get touched because the enemy is a non-flying creature with no ranged attacks, but there can potentially be that lethal encounter when the party is ambushed by something like a wraith or drider, and the flying PC get's disabled/killed first because the rest of the party is too far away on the ground to save them (this happened a few times).

I think the big picture is that flight is good, but there are a lot of variables that can affect how good it is; terrain, enemy abilities/equipment, experience of the GM to re-balance encounters, what kind of ranged abilities the flying PC has...

[Naanomi]

Even with literally no room to ‘fly’, you still get to avoid caltrops, any ground based traps or hazards, and (in the case of aracokra) still use your much higher movement speed. The system doesn’t require ‘wingspan’ space to use your flight speed

Heck, in many above-ground buildings flight is especially strong in that any window (or softish material you can punch a hole in) becomes an avenue for you to traverse while your grounded party is pathetically stuck in the floor-plan layout

[War_lord]

I'll turn the question onto you; How well can a single Aaracocra or Tiefling flying alone in the Feywild or Underdark survive? If they are too careless, it will eventually become a perilous situation. Unless you don't know how to handle the Underdark or Feywild.

We're not talking about a single Aarakocra flying around on their own, that's totally irrelevant to the issue of problem solving in a cooperative game.


You don't need to kill said PC, just put them in a "Damsel in Distress situation" were he is unable to do anything, and needs to be resqued by the other PCs. This can be a means to tell him "cool, you got wings, but it's dangerous here, so you need to be careful were to use them".

So your response to me saying that a flying race dominates the group at low level and makes the game rotate around their ability to fly... is to confirm my assertion. Good job. Again, a race or class the DM has to design sessions around to "teach the player a lesson" or otherwise counter them to that they don't outshine everything else, is a badly designed character option.

[Willie the Duck]

This hits the nail on the head, I think. It's one more thing the DM has to keep in mind while planning a session. But if you can't handle flight at 1st level, how are you going to handle it at 5th level? Or 10th level? Or 15th level? I think it would be a good exercise for any reluctant DMs to play with a flying player starting at 1st level, and figure out how to deal with it. The lessons learned will serve them well in the future and help them to be a better DM.


Patronizing tone aside, you're not listening. DMs (including the Adventurer's league) don't ban flying races because we're dumb dumbs who can't figure out how to mitigate it as an advantage (I'll get to why doing so would be problematic in a minute) we ban flying races because we're not interested in redesigning all of our low level play around one party member having an overwhelming advantage in problem solving (note that I didn't say combat, combat isn't why I ban flying races). No other race can just bypass low level challenges like the flying ones can, for zero resource cost and at level one.

War_lord took more offense than I do, but he's right. Your tone and attitude have not helped you here. And let's be clear, I don't pretend to know you as a person or as a poster in general, I am just talking about the posts here on this thread. They make it sound like you think you are bringing truth to the poor ignorant DMs of the GitP boards. Even if you are a genius DM*, we haven't seen the proof of that. It would help the reception of your case if you couched this discussion in a more humble framework.
*I have never met one of these, and doubt their existence

Regarding the difference between 1st and 5th level, I want to ask, have you played TSR-era D&D? Regardless, I want to talk not about Fly or flight, but about Spider Climb. In 1e AD&D and basic/classic-D&D, advancement from having attained 3rd level and having attained 5th, 6th or 7th level is feels like a very... long... time. Each level requires roughly twice as much xp as the previous level, and the xp awards don't just scale up at the same rate (they actually reverse-scale in oD&D, in that the pack of orcs you wipe out at 3rd level give you 1/3 as much xp as they did at 1st). Moreover, a Magic User does not get to choose which spell they get, meaning you don't necessarily get Fly at 5th level (and in fact probably don't want to, since Fireball and Dispel Magic are exceedingly helpful in keeping you alive to get Fly later). That leaves a huge chunk of the game where you might not have Fly, but might well have Spider Climb. That time period, where you have upgraded from the 1st level paradigm of not having access to a lot of places (and, depending on the edition, your group's Thieves are only going to attempt climbs where a fall won't kill them), but not to the point where you can just fly, is an amazing place. The room for memorable adventures are bountiful. The situations we had ("OMG, goblins with slingshots, and our squishy mage is halfway across to the platform with the lever that will raise the portcullis!"), the fun, the peril! It could be exhilarating. More to the point, it showed to me how much a serious step up that was from baseline, level 1 play, and how much a step up from that things are when flight becomes available (and after that, where flight becomes cheap).

To imply that wanting to explore that part of the game-space is simply a DM being ill prepared for being able "to handle it at 5th level" is, well... I think the reason I'm not as mad as War_lord is because I find your perspective more ridiculous than ridiculing.



Problems that couldn't be solved by owning a 25gp climber's kit?


Look, if all the problems that flight solves in you or your DM's game world could also be solved with a 25 gp climber's kit, then you are right, flight isn't overpowered. And since we each play in different games, we probably won't agree on whether that's the case. However, I'd hazard a guess that a lot of games, that is not the case.

.............
And generally to the original question-- I rarely want to assume everyone has played any game other than the one the forum is about. But, I'm going to assume that everyone has played some 8-bit Nintendo. Think about platformers like the Mario games, and the original Legend of Zelda. Think about how much of the games revolve around being able to be there instead of here. Think about all the Zelda dungeons where the solution is to get the magic item (raft, ladder, key) that allows you to be in place A instead of place B, even if it doesn't stop the opponents from zapping you. That's what flight gets you/that's the challenge it over-rides. Those puzzles and/or challenges that the designer (DM) can no longer use to increase the fun one gets at 'solving the problem of the dungeon'. D&D is a little different (as has been pointed out, one party member flying only sometimes overcomes a problem for the whole party), but a lot of it is cross-relevant.

[plisnithus7]

I had designed a dungeon with quite a few water-filled tunnels. Occasionally there are pockets of air and once they can find bottles of magic air allowing them to breathe underwater for an hour.

However, one of the players died before reaching the dungeon and created a turtle. The tunnels weren't much of an obstacle for him since turtles can hold their breath for an hour.challenge would work

That fact changed how I thought the challenge would work - he soloed the tunnels and almost died because he was having to fight monsters without his comrades.

One of the other players is a home-brewed pterafolk based off the design in Raiders of the Lost Tomb - Chult Adventurer's Guide. So he can fly and scouts ahead, often flees/flies from battle. But honestly, the turtle's holding breath ability has been harder to deal with.

[Asmotherion]

Out of pure curiosity, do you have an example of a situation like that?

Underdark setting
Roll d100
20-30% chance that you have your player roll a perception check every time they fly in the caverns. On a failed save, they are traped in spider web. Creatures there have web-sense, so there migh or might not be a creature comming for them (use some sound effects like wistling noices, etc, and have the d100 again to determin if that was air or an actual giant spider, or even a drider, to be fair). This can put a stress on the whole party, and the individual player, and also enhance the gameplay of "we are in a creepy place, and things might get unpredictable if we're not carefull". You may even opt not to use an encounter at all, and just have them stuck in web, and make them believe there might be something coming for them. Have a logical DC to break out (DC 18 is managable, and high enough to make it not a piece of cake), and make it the point of getting the flying guy Down from there.

And that's just the first example that pops in my mind when I think Underdark and Flying. I can think of quite a Few.

Faywild may include pixies trying to charm you away of your destination, or an illusion that makes you fly right into a bird trap set by rangers. The limit is your imagination.


We're not talking about a single Aarakocra flying around on their own, that's totally irrelevant to the issue of problem solving in a cooperative game.




So your response to me saying that a flying race dominates the group at low level and makes the game rotate around their ability to fly... is to confirm my assertion. Good job. Again, a race or class the DM has to design sessions around to "teach the player a lesson" or otherwise counter them to that they don't outshine everything else, is a badly designed character option.

Again, you either fail to grasp the concept of my text, or twist the meaning of my worlds to suit your needs in order to prove a point. I can play this game too. I am basically saying that, if you can't handle a PC having wings, it is due to your incapability as a DM, and not because the ability in itself is broken. DMing is about provinding fun to your players and yourself. If you can't balance your world around it because "you can't be bothered to do so" don't DM. Or at least don't cringe. Simple as that. :) I like having my players enjoying their characters. You prefear not to let them play a concept they might have enjoyed because you "can't be bothered" with the one time were the guy with the wings won't need rope to climb the mountain. Wow. Ok.

[Errata]

Flight, at least when used with a minimum of brains, means you are at most under the threat of exactly ONE OA: the one from your target. Because you will move out of reach of all others while in and out. How much is that a problem?

Because groups of enemies all stand alone. OAs can be diagonal, which means you are susceptible to up to 9 of them if you are airborn. 1 more than at ground level. You can always pick off whoever is furthest away from the others at any given moment, but then you're giving up your ability to focus on the same target as your allies, and leaving it up to the enemies who they want to protect and who they want to let you attack.

And your whole premise assumes that you've got plenty of vertical space, which is situational at best in a game that has dungeons right in the name. Even if flight was marginally better than certain alternatives sometimes, in other cases it does nothing and you're a weaker character than if you took the consistently good alternative.

I'm sure you could carefully design and build around flight to come up with an interesting flying melee based build. However, this is not a situation where you just drop flight into any melee build and it instantly makes it better (better than what you sacrified to get flight instead). It's not more powerful than a range of other feats or abilities that can make melee characters more powerful. You're making a choice about what direction to go in, and making lots of other tradeoffs for that.

In practice only a small minority of players are choosing the flying races even in games where there are no restrictions on them. There's a reason for this. They're not any more overpowered than a lot of other options. Less powerful than some. Not useless, but a reasonably balanced niche for specific character concepts.


And that's why I'd be extremely defiant towards an Aarakocra Monk with a Sorcerer/Wizard/Land Druid friend (Haste + Longstrider + Monk bonus speed + Aarakocra speed = insane possibilities at mid-high level).

So your Monk goes off flying where they can't be hit, thus ceding all battlefield control to the enemies, and leaving them free reign to swarm your spellcaster friend maintaining concentration effects. Giving up one of the main benefits of being a melee character in the first place. Staying out of OA range cuts two ways. A melee character normally has an inherent ability to block and pin down opponents, which you give up by staying away from them. Any damage your monk doesn't take someone else has to, unless you're in the rare and exceptional case of an all flying party. As you point out, your monk has class features to evade damage but you're wasting it intentionally provoking OAs and not tanking any other sort of damage. That wasted defensive potential will come at your allies expense.

Plus now you've got a captive level 5 spellcaster helping you, so we're no longer in the level 1 power range, and that spellcaster could just as easily be casting fly instead of haste, giving fly to someone if it's so good. Most people don't actually pick fly as a priority as soon as the spell becomes available, which should tell you how flight stacks up against other alternatives. That haste would do better on a class that hits hard but only gets 2 attacks, rather than a monk who gets more attacks but individually they do less damage.

There are diminishing returns to certain things. Some things are the more the better, but movement isn't one of those. At a certain point, fine you can get where you need to go, but what can you actually do when you get there, compared to a character who invested in other things instead? The more movement you already have, the less benefit you get from more. Stacking up that much movement on one character is gimmicky, and maybe fun, but hardly practical or overpowered. You've traded away tangible power for a fun gimmick. That's fine, but it's not a balance problem that your weak character is too nimble. It's not a game breaking thing that every powergamer is going to want to emulate.


You can perfectly take Mobile while being an Aarakocra.

Not at level 1 you can't. This is about the power of flight at level 1. A variant human can choose mobile at level 1 as a racial ability, and a flying character cannot. At level 4, the variant human can choose something else good, or just go with an ASI that the Aarakocra wouldn't get. And the Aarakocra may desperately need that ASI unless they chose a finesse option, while the variant human can pick a strength bonus and extra ASI and has more options for strength based melee classes.

[War_lord]

Underdark setting
Roll d100
20-30% chance that you have your player roll a perception check every time they fly in the caverns. On a failed save, they are traped in spider web. Creatures there have web-sense, so there migh or might not be a creature comming for them (use some sound effects like wistling noices, etc, and have the d100 again to determin if that was air or an actual giant spider, or even a drider, to be fair). This can put a stress on the whole party, and the individual player, and also enhance the gameplay of "we are in a creepy place, and things might get unpredictable if we're not carefull". You may even opt not to use an encounter at all, and just have them stuck in web, and make them believe there might be something coming for them. Have a logical DC to break out (DC 18 is managable, and high enough to make it not a piece of cake), and make it the point of getting the flying guy Down from there.

And that's just the first example that pops in my mind when I think Underdark and Flying. I can think of quite a Few.

Faywild may include pixies trying to charm you away of your destination, or an illusion that makes you fly right into a bird trap set by rangers. The limit is your imagination.

The problem is that a well made player race doesn't require the DM actively making up stuff to entrap them. Nothing else call for that mentality. One player should not be the center of attention.


I am basically saying that, if you can't handle a PC having wings, it is due to your incapability as a DM, and not because the ability in itself is broken.

I've explained this to you over and over again. I could "handle" a PC having wings. But "handling" that requires rewriting the whole scenario around that player. Nothing else in 5e is so powerful that you have to do that from level one. It's therefore broken.


DMing is about provinding fun to your players and yourself. If you can't balance your world around it because "you can't be bothered to do so" don't DM. Or at least don't cringe. Simple as that.

Playing as a flying race is fun for the person playing as the flying race and no one else. I'd rather spend that time crafting a game everyone can enjoy, not satisfying one person who wants to lord it over everyone else in the party. Strangely, no one I've DMed for has ever cried at me when I tell them no, maybe because I always explain my no, maybe because I have mature players.


I like having my players enjoying their characters. You prefear not to let them play a concept they might have enjoyed because you "can't be bothered" with the one time were the guy with the wings won't need rope to climb the mountain. Wow. Ok.

I don't let people play Halflings because they don't exist in my world. I don't let people play Drow because Drow are evil in my world. There are all sorts of reasons I disallow certain things in my campaign and I expect players to understand that I'm going for a certain tone & feel to the world. Those races are far less mechanically disruptive then playing as a flying bird-person. If they want a DM who's just going to let them kitchen sink they have plenty of other options. I'm not redesigning my game around the whims of one player who wants to be a campaign defining snowflake.

[Greywander]

Patronizing tone aside, you're not listening.

War_lord took more offense than I do, but he's right. Your tone and attitude have not helped you here. And let's be clear, I don't pretend to know you as a person or as a poster in general, I am just talking about the posts here on this thread. They make it sound like you think you are bringing truth to the poor ignorant DMs of the GitP boards. Even if you are a genius DM*, we haven't seen the proof of that. It would help the reception of your case if you couched this discussion in a more humble framework.
*I have never met one of these, and doubt their existence
I apologize, that wasn't the tone I intended to get across at all. I feel like this thread is starting to turn more antagonistic between the two "sides", and I don't want to contribute to that.

I'm not an experienced DM, or even an experienced player. Having skimmed the many replies to this thread, I haven't seen a single story from someone about how flight ruined an encounter. So while I'd hoped to see people saying, "We tried it, it didn't work, here's why," I feel like many of the replies are, "I'll never try it, it would never work, here's why," and I've been guilty of the same, having never played with a flying PC before.

So maybe let's tone things back a bit. I'd still love to hear some stories from people that have actually played with flying PCs and how that worked for them. Theorycrafting, while fun, can only get us so far, and I know there's many sides of this that I haven't considered.


To imply that wanting to explore that part of the game-space is simply a DM being ill prepared for being able "to handle it at 5th level" is, well... I think the reason I'm not as mad as War_lord is because I find your perspective more ridiculous than ridiculing.
Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt. I don't have a long history with D&D. I've played a couple games of Pathfinder, but didn't actually care much for D&D proper until 5th edition. In fact, it was Order of the Stick that got me interested in playing tabletop RPGs, although I'd also played essentially no-rules pen-and-paper versions of videogame RPGs with my siblings when I was a kid, if that counts.

I'll definitely agree that there can be situations where not being able to fly can make for a tense and exciting situation. But if a player wants to play a flying race, I, personally, would rather let them do it and work around it than tell them, "no." I realize not everyone feels the same way.


DMs (including the Adventurer's league) don't ban flying races because we're dumb dumbs who can't figure out how to mitigate it as an advantage (I'll get to why doing so would be problematic in a minute) we ban flying races because we're not interested in redesigning all of our low level play around one party member having an overwhelming advantage in problem solving
That's fair. It's a game, it's supposed to be fun for everyone, including the DM, so if you're not having fun because you're having work harder to account for special abilities that players have, then I can understand banning that ability. I know some DMs feel the same way about things like resurrection, so this isn't just an issue for flight.


I would have no problem with a character class that's based around flight. The problem is that it's a race feature that costs nothing and grants this game changing unlimited mobility.

You think that because you've decided that the reason the vast majority of DMs ban flying races is because we're idiots. I have no problem with Wizards, because Wizard is a class, it's a class based around managing a very powerful but limited resource and "Wizard whose spell book is full of problem solving spells" is an entire build. Aarakocra just get flight for being Aarakocra.
So you're fine with a class getting flight, but not with a race getting flight. That sounds a bit... racist. (ba dum tss) (Blue is silly text, right?)

Serious question, though: are there some abilities that you believe should only be class features and never racial abilities, even if that race is balanced?


And now I get to circle back to a point I wanted to make earlier. Defending winged flight on the basis that "oh well a smart DM can neuter it easily" is no defense at all, because the whole reason to take a winged race is to completely and easily bypass challenges in the first place. Allowing the player to take an Aarakocra and then countering them every time they try to use the only thing the race offers a player is way more of a **** move then just telling them why you don't allow them in the first place.
On this we agree. The point isn't to negate their choice, the point is to give them a challenge to overcome. If a player has a certain ability, then that means you can throw an even harder challenge at them that would otherwise be impossible (or extremely difficult) for them, and that way they both get to feel good about the choices they made and get an appropriate challenge.


I'm sorry but you are not getting my point. Not AT ALL.
You just see your own playstyle, and apparently don't try to understand mine. So here it is again, differently worded: flight for a melee character can be even more gravvy than for a ranged one. Melee as in I hit things with melee attacks, you know?
Okay, I guess I'm not getting your point. Are you suggesting that a flying melee fighter can fly into melee, make their attacks, then fly straight up out of melee range? Wouldn't you still eat an opportunity attack if you did that (possibly more than one if there's a group of baddies)? Rogues and monks could get away with it with Cunning Action and Step of the Wind, or you could cast Shocking Grasp, or you could pick up the Mobile feat... Hmm, okay, I think I am starting to see your point there. You would still have to worry about ranged attacks, though, unless you had an absurdly high speed (and a sufficiently high ceiling).


Well, the fact that your instinctive idea is "run to live the tale", to be blunt, tells much about your priorites.
Just to be clear, I was assuming that you'd already used all your tricks and had no options left but to flee or die, and that the rest of your team was already dead. If there was anything else you could do to pull your party back from the brink then it wouldn't really be a TPK.


And besides that particular example, where is the problem in being a character that enemies have trouble attacking?
I think we actually agree here. My whole point was that being able to avoid attacks by flying wasn't a problem, and non-flying characters have plenty of tools to do the same, albeit of varying effectiveness. The whole point of bringing up TPKs was that if you have no other choice but to fly away then it's not really much better than having fallen with the rest of your party. The campaign is still probably over, and you'll all have to roll up new characters anyway.


Do you have any stories about times that flight completely changed a situation?
I'd still love to hear any stories for those that have them. I think we may have gotten too far into white room theorycrafting, so I'd like to hear how flight has worked out in actually play for you.

[Citan]

Because groups of enemies all stand alone. OAs can be diagonal, which means you are susceptible to up to 9 of them if you are airborn. 1 more than at ground level. You can always pick off whoever is furthest away from the others at any given moment, but then you're giving up your ability to focus on the same target as your allies, and leaving it up to the enemies who they want to protect and who they want to let you attack.

And your whole premise assumes that you've got plenty of vertical space, which is situational at best in a game that has dungeons right in the name. Even if flight was marginally better than certain alternatives sometimes, in other cases it does nothing and you're a weaker character than if you took the consistently good alternative.

I'm sure you could carefully design and build around flight to come up with an interesting flying melee based build. However, this is not a situation where you just drop flight into any melee build and it instantly makes it better (better than what you sacrified to get flight instead). It's not more powerful than a range of other feats or abilities that can make melee characters more powerful. You're making a choice about what direction to go in, and making lots of other tradeoffs for that.

In practice only a small minority of players are choosing the flying races even in games where there are no restrictions on them. There's a reason for this. They're not any more overpowered than a lot of other options. Less powerful than some. Not useless, but a reasonably balanced niche for specific character concepts.

Again, most enemies have an effective reach of 5 feet. So you just need a 15 feet tall space to move freely. Or Disengage.
Plus, *obviously* all enemies stand very close to each other, because they are much more afraid of letting one winged man go above them than getting fried by a properly aimed Fireball.

All I get from this is that you don't want to use your brain. Of course if you just decide to always jump into melee right above a group of enemies, you're just too stupid to survive. I cannot do anything to help with that.




So your Monk goes off flying where they can't be hit, thus ceding all battlefield control to the enemies, and leaving them free reign to swarm your spellcaster friend maintaining concentration effects. Giving up one of the main benefits of being a melee character in the first place. Staying out of OA range cuts two ways. A melee character normally has an inherent ability to block and pin down opponents, which you give up by staying away from them. Any damage your monk doesn't take someone else has to, unless you're in the rare and exceptional case of an all flying party. As you point out, your monk has class features to evade damage but you're wasting it intentionally provoking OAs and not tanking any other sort of damage. That wasted defensive potential will come at your allies expense.

Again, you don't even try to be smart about this, because it would actually reveal that you opinion about flight is extremely reductive.
So that's why you don't think how, for example, a single 4E Monk having cast Fly could get straight to the dangerous caster in the back guy, pummel and stun him (breaking concentration, preventing a whole round of spell) and coming back to the group all at once. Or just go high enough to find an origin point from which he can cast an optimum Fireball.
With Haste on top, he could very well Grapple the enemy to directly bring him back in the middle of the party for a violent gang-bang or maybe use him as hostage to stop the fight.
Or take a martial enemy and go high in the sky before dropping him off.
That's also why an Aarakocra Monk is great: at level 6, you can already move twice as fast as most of everyone else before using Dash. You can make pretty nasty combos with a Druid's Spike Growth for example, or just Grapple enemies and drop them into a Cleric's Spirit Guardians, a Wizard's Stinking Cloud or onto a Web for example.

With a friend's Haste on top, you can now piggyback to safety even your Barbarian friend whose rage went off early in the middle of an enemy group, or go pick up a caster's focus after your ranged Battlemaster friend Disarmed him, or help your martial friend get to enemies faster, while still having enough speed to use your own abilities in the way you want to use them.



Plus now you've got a captive level 5 spellcaster helping you, so we're no longer in the level 1 power range, and that spellcaster could just as easily be casting fly instead of haste, giving fly to someone if it's so good. Most people don't actually pick fly as a priority as soon as the spell becomes available, which should tell you how flight stacks up against other alternatives. That haste would do better on a class that hits hard but only gets 2 attacks, rather than a monk who gets more attacks but individually they do less damage.

The thread is not about "is flight at first level too good", it's "is flight as a racial ability too good", so I'm right into the heart of the thread here.
And yes, it's very good, it's simply that the Fly spell as a combat spell usually has some drawbacks, and casters have more directly offensive spells of that level they prefer, or other buffs that are easier to use efficiently.
But when you can have flight without the Fly shortcomings (duration, concentration) it's great.
And if you don't understand why Haste on a flying Monk would be better than Fly on anyone else, although it's so obvious (provided obviously resources are not depleted), I cannot do anything more for you to understand, because it just means you actively try not to understand. Just reading the class features should be enough really.

Besides, I love the concept of "captive spellcaster helping you".
Not only can the spellcaster still do many things (you know, like, using cantrips, or even, actually cast other spells *omg*), having strategies based around a few "champions" and a supporting team are very common.
You have a very strange acception of the "teamwork" word apparently.



There are diminishing returns to certain things. Some things are the more the better, but movement isn't one of those. At a certain point, fine you can get where you need to go, but what can you actually do when you get there, compared to a character who invested in other things instead? The more movement you already have, the less benefit you get from more. Stacking up that much movement on one character is gimmicky, and maybe fun, but hardly practical or overpowered. You've traded away tangible power for a fun gimmick. That's fine, but it's not a balance problem that your weak character is too nimble. It's not a game breaking thing that every powergamer is going to want to emulate.

Confer above. That you cannot (or rather, don't even try to) imagine how an incredible speed can be put to good use is your own problem.
You seem to consider that power = damage. While being oblivious to all other components of what power actually is: being actually able to attack through reach/move (no use dealing 100 damage per turn if you can't target anyone), staying alive (it's hard to deal damage as a corpse usually, so you don't want to get hit too often either, and higher creatures get nasty features with nice ranges), applying conditions (like applying a "stunned" condition to help friends deal damage, or reduce enemy movement to keep squishies safe, you know, that strange "teamwork" thingy)...



Not at level 1 you can't. This is about the power of flight at level 1. A variant human can choose mobile at level 1 as a racial ability, and a flying character cannot. At level 4, the variant human can choose something else good, or just go with an ASI that the Aarakocra wouldn't get. And the Aarakocra may desperately need that ASI unless they chose a finesse option, while the variant human can pick a strength bonus and extra ASI and has more options for strength based melee classes.
Confer above: thread is not about "flight at level 1", but about "flight as racial".
Hence my illustrations to answer other points saying that this feature's interest quickly fades off. "No, it doesn't for this reason" is my counterargument: move ALWAYS stay relevant throughout the game. Even, or rather especially, at higher level when so many enemies get more reach, more long-distance abilities and are in general more dangerous to get close to without preparation.

People just focus on level 1 because it's really at low levels that it can cause problems when using -some- official campaign materials.

---
But hey, I get it: not once did you try to put yourself in the shoes of "flight is great" to actually understand what others in the thread were saying. Because you just "want to be right".
So I guess it's useless to pursue, this is not a discussion. Be glad you are right and enjoy your weekend shooting down aarakocras. o/




Okay, I guess I'm not getting your point. Are you suggesting that a flying melee fighter can fly into melee, make their attacks, then fly straight up out of melee range? Wouldn't you still eat an opportunity attack if you did that (possibly more than one if there's a group of baddies)? Rogues and monks could get away with it with Cunning Action and Step of the Wind, or you could cast Shocking Grasp, or you could pick up the Mobile feat... Hmm, okay, I think I am starting to see your point there. You would still have to worry about ranged attacks, though, unless you had an absurdly high speed (and a sufficiently high ceiling).

Hi again ;)

Yeah, that's it exactly. And indeed you have to worry about ranged attacks (although, who doesn't really? ;)).
Like every feature, having flight is more or less useful depending on the class you choose and how you want to exploit it, meaning in turn how far you'd need to "stray away" from a regular build to make it a decisive advantage, and not just an "exceptional in a few situations, just good enough otherwise" feature. Which would be for example the case for an Aarakocra Wizard: you don't want to go high usually because you'll be singled-out, so the main use of fly will be having a much better speed to close enough for some short-range spell, or making a "stable high jump" to avoid cover when using ranged spells or the like...



Just to be clear, I was assuming that you'd already used all your tricks and had no options left but to flee or die, and that the rest of your team was already dead. If there was anything else you could do to pull your party back from the brink then it wouldn't really be a TPK.

Please accept my apologies for that, I also was kinda dishonest here in implying that you just "cared about yourself". This was totally unconstructive. I could indeed have guessed by myself you were placing yourself in a "truly desperate" situation.
(Also, I'm the guy who ALWAYS has either Ritual Caster or some healing/long-range communications, it's kinda my schtick, it didn't help either ^^).

[Asmotherion]

The problem is that a well made player race doesn't require the DM actively making up stuff to entrap them. Nothing else call for that mentality. One player should not be the center of attention.



I've explained this to you over and over again. I could "handle" a PC having wings. But "handling" that requires rewriting the whole scenario around that player. Nothing else in 5e is so powerful that you have to do that from level one. It's therefore broken.



Playing as a flying race is fun for the person playing as the flying race and no one else. I'd rather spend that time crafting a game everyone can enjoy, not satisfying one person who wants to lord it over everyone else in the party. Strangely, no one I've DMed for has ever cried at me when I tell them no, maybe because I always explain my no, maybe because I have mature players.



I don't let people play Halflings because they don't exist in my world. I don't let people play Drow because Drow are evil in my world. There are all sorts of reasons I disallow certain things in my campaign and I expect players to understand that I'm going for a certain tone & feel to the world. Those races are far less mechanically disruptive then playing as a flying bird-person. If they want a DM who's just going to let them kitchen sink they have plenty of other options. I'm not redesigning my game around the whims of one player who wants to be a campaign defining snowflake.

You know what man, as a DM you're free to plan your world however you want, you don't need to justyfy yourself to me, whatever.

Racial, non magical flight has permanent wings, the risk of falling damage, social impacts and other issues that balance it out. It is not that big of a deal. If you don't want to deal with it, your individual call. But it's balanced alright, for a DM who has a full understanding of his world, and can improvise on the spot, just as are Drow PC (evil or not), or even monster races.

A slower campain pace, does not mean worse game play; sometimes it can mean more meaningfull and in-deapth RP between the PCs and with NPCs, wich creates bonds, for better or for worse. In my main campain, I literally never give a level in less than a 6-month period after level 5 for example, no matter how many encounters they get (real life time periods mentioned, we play a session a week).

[Tanarii]

Racial, non magical flight has permanent wings, the risk of falling damage, social impacts and other issues that balance it out. It is not that big of a deal. If you don't want to deal with it, your individual call. But it's balanced alright, for a DM who has a full understanding of his world, and can improvise on the spot, just as are Drow PC (evil or not), or even monster races.
Setting aside your snide comment about DMs having a full understanding of their world, the analogy or comparison to monster / normally evil race charcaters is a good one. For that matter, Evil normal race characters as well.

Some DMs will find that one or two of these characters in a party are disruptive, require more special attention or consideration during play than the other characters, and/or close down their design space options more than they open them up. And view those things as a bad thing.

Others will find the special attention and consideration to be a negative thing the player has to deal with balancing them out (social reactions for example), open up new and interesting talky-time roleplaying opportunities, and/or open up more design space options than close them off.

I don't allow monstrous characters or evil characters unless that's the campaign theme. Personally, it's because I find they distract too much from the campaign theme and require too much individual attention to the particular character. I don't even like Dragonborn or Tieflings for that matter, for the same reason.

[Xetheral]

It's worth noting that the value of flight depends heavily on campaign style. In a combat-as-sport game, where there is an expectation of balanced-yet-challenging encounters that occur at a time and place chosen by the DM, flight may not be that big a deal, for many of the reasons the OP mentioned.

By contrast, in a combat-as-war game, when and where encounters occur are determied largely by whichever side has greater reconnaissance and mobility. Flight, even on a single PC, vastly increases the PCs' ability to determine when and where they fight. Further, because there is no expectation in a CaW game that encounters will be balanced or challenging, actively introducing counters to flight requires greater in-world justification to be appropriate. Taken together, these factors mean that 1) there will be opponents vulnerable to flying attackers, and 2) a party with flying character will have a greater ability to selectively engage these opponents, drastically increasing the value of flight.

Here are a couple examples:

The opposition has shortbows. In a CaS game, the PCs encounter the opposition at a time and place detetmined by the DM. The longbow-wielding flying PC can attack with impunity, but it doesn't make much difference because the rest of the party is still engaged. In a CaW game, by contrast, the advance warning provided by the flyer lets the PCs choose the time and place of engagement. The flyer attacks solo when the enemy's path takes them through whatever terrain provides the least cover. The other PCs don't engage at all, and the enemy is butchered by the flying character without recourse. Here, the presence of a flying PC completely changed the encounter.

Next, imagine the PCs trying to assault a walled enemy town. In a CaS game, the flying PC gives the rest of the PCs intelligence on the layout of the town. Useful! But it doesn't help much for (e.g.) the assault on the gatehouse. In a CaW game, by contrast, the rest of the party spends their time obtaining flammable materials (collecting, buying, crafting, etc.) while the flying PC ferries firebombs to 1500 ft above the enemy town, slowly burning it out (if the locals have good firefighting capability, 30lb rocks work well instead, it's just slower). If the locals try to sortie to find the rest of the party, the flying PC can provide advance warning (to either evade the sortie, ambush it, or assault the town while some of the troops are away). Again, the presence of a flying PC completely changed the encounter.

In a Combat-as-War campaign, unlimited flight is a huge advantage, frequently dominating the course of play. Sure, sometimes it won't help (e.g. confined spaces) but it can be utterly dominating when it does. (And in a Combat-as-War game, the PCs are expected to try to play to their strengths whenever possible, so they are likely to actively choose adventures and quests that let them exploit flight to the fullest.)

[Errata]

Again, you don't even try to be smart about this, because it would actually reveal that you opinion about flight is extremely reductive.
So that's why you don't think how, for example, a single 4E Monk having cast Fly could get straight to the dangerous caster in the back guy, pummel and stun him (breaking concentration, preventing a whole round of spell) and coming back to the group all at once. Or just go high enough to find an origin point from which he can cast an optimum Fireball.
With Haste on top, he could very well Grapple the enemy to directly bring him back in the middle of the party for a violent gang-bang or maybe use him as hostage to stop the fight.
Or take a martial enemy and go high in the sky before dropping him off.
That's also why an Aarakocra Monk is great: at level 6, you can already move twice as fast as most of everyone else before using Dash. You can make pretty nasty combos with a Druid's Spike Growth for example, or just Grapple enemies and drop them into a Cleric's Spirit Guardians, a Wizard's Stinking Cloud or onto a Web for example.

With a friend's Haste on top, you can now piggyback to safety even your Barbarian friend whose rage went off early in the middle of an enemy group, or go pick up a caster's focus after your ranged Battlemaster friend Disarmed him, or help your martial friend get to enemies faster, while still having enough speed to use your own abilities in the way you want to use them.

The more you talk, the more I wonder if you've ever played this game before to try any of this and see how often it's actually useful. And your character is becoming increasingly specialized toward very specific goals, which do not seem unbalanced given them you've tailored yourself to these specialized situations to the exclusions of all others. Being the party taxi is a unique role, not a balance problem. Most people have the option of doing that and virtually nobody chooses to take it.

And you keep talking about having someone cast a level 3 spell on you to get the full benefit of flight, forgetting that fly is a level 3 spell, so by the time having a level 3 spell on you is an option, then having it as a race is pretty irrelevant. The fly spell grants a slightly faster movement speed than the Aarakocra racial ability, and it allows you to wear armor, unlike that race. A tabaxi with fly instead of haste could move even further than your Aarakocra to pull off some of your examples of moving across the battlefield and back, though only every other turn, and they don't necessarily have to only be a monk because their race doesn't let them wear armor. As I mentioned, the fly spell isn't the first level 3 spell that casters want to go toward and use their new level 3 slots on. They tend to gravitate to it at higher levels when they have more higher level slots to burn, so that should tell you that fly is not quite so game changing as you think in most cases.

Flight exists. It's an actual option, not some hypothetical new UA that they might add. You need to look at how it's actually being used. Does everyone want to play flying races now? Are they ridiculously powerful and breaking the game? No. Most people don't want one of those races, because they recognize the limitations and prefer something else, and when they do pick them it's not actually a big deal at all.

[War_lord]

Racial, non magical flight has permanent wings, the risk of falling damage, social impacts and other issues that balance it out. It is not that big of a deal. If you don't want to deal with it, your individual call. But it's balanced alright, for a DM who has a full understanding of his world, and can improvise on the spot, just as are Drow PC (evil or not), or even monster races.

Basically see Tanarii's post. So yes, leaving aside your snide comment about DMs having "a full understanding of their world" (whatever that's meant to mean), I don't want one player playing a race that's going to end up dominating the campaign. It's the Drizzt effect. If the party is a Human fighter, a Dwarf fighter, a Human barbarian and a Halfling rogue, all very typical, unremarkable adventurers. Then you add a chaotic good Drow rebel with a tragic backstory and piles of angst about his place in the world. The campaign is naturally going to start giving a disproportionate spotlight to the misfit character, even if that's not what the player was trying to do.

Misfit characters are fine if the party as a whole is a group of misfits. If the party is a Goliath warrior, a Half-Orc warrior, a Lizardfolk Barbarian and a Yuan-ti Rogue, adding a Drow to that party is not a big deal at all. But if everyone else is playing a pretty standard sword-for-hire, a Flying Birdman from the elemental plane of air is going to be a disruptive force.


A slower campain pace, does not mean worse game play; sometimes it can mean more meaningfull and in-deapth RP between the PCs and with NPCs, wich creates bonds, for better or for worse. In my main campain, I literally never give a level in less than a 6-month period after level 5 for example, no matter how many encounters they get (real life time periods mentioned, we play a session a week).

I don't know why you're talking about pacing. The pace doesn't matter, if entire sessions are focusing on the conflicts of one or two characters, even the most easy going and patient group of players is going to start getting frustrated.


Setting aside your snide comment about DMs having a full understanding of their world, the analogy or comparison to monster / normally evil race charcaters is a good one. For that matter, Evil normal race characters as well.

Some DMs will find that one or two of these characters in a party are disruptive, require more special attention or consideration during play than the other characters, and/or close down their design space options more than they open them up. And view those things as a bad thing.

My stance is that right there.


Flight exists. It's an actual option, not some hypothetical new UA that they might add. You need to look at how it's actually being used. Does everyone want to play flying races now? Are they ridiculously powerful and breaking the game? No. Most people don't want one of those races, because they recognize the limitations and prefer something else, and when they do pick them it's not actually a big deal at all.

The reason every party doesn't have an Aarakocra is because 1. they're relatively obscure, not every player knows about the EE player's companion and 2. a lot of tables (including the entire AL) ban the things. If they were balanced, they wouldn't be banned.

[Errata]

The reason every party doesn't have an Aarakocra is because 1. they're relatively obscure, not every player knows about the EE player's companion and 2. a lot of tables (including the entire AL) ban the things. If they were balanced, they wouldn't be banned.

AL has a very different set of concerns than almost anyone else. They can't adapt even a little, and have to worry about the extreme corner cases that do not actually happen and could easily be vetoed, because they intentionally don't leave room for discretion.

Of the tables where it is perfectly allowed and people know about it, only a small minority are choosing it. It's not a rush to the flying races. Variant human is still more common on those tables.

[Tanarii]

Of the tables where it is perfectly allowed and people know about it, only a small minority are choosing it. It's not a rush to the flying races. Variant human is still more common on those tables.Done a large scale poll of such tables, have you?

[Errata]

Done a large scale poll of such tables, have you?

Anecdotally, how many parties do you know of with more than 1 Aarakocra? How many non-AL parties with zero? Are you just trying to score rhetorical points, or do you honestly and genuinely believe that people are clamoring to play Aarakocra en masse in real games? I think you know full well that I'm right that people aren't rushing to play them, given a choice, yet you're debating dishonestly.

Here's your large scale poll: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-your-dd-character-rare/
Shocker, Aarakocra, isn't especially popular. You can't claim it's a lack of awareness, because on that site not only is it right there in the list of official races, but it's alphabetically the very first entry you see. Flight is listed right there in the racial traits when you create a character, as if it weren't obvious from the picture of wings. People still pick human or elf or half-elf.

[Naanomi]

The five-thirty-eight data has deep methodological flaws, it is a fun curiosity to look at but doesn’t represent (doesn’t try to represent) actual table experience.

I haven’t seen a lot of birdmen even at tables that allow them (mine don’t), but I have seen a ton of winged Tieflings at such tables

[MxKit]

Ehhhh. I think there are reasons to ban flying races at the table. I wouldn't do so myself, but I allowed a Winged Tiefling in my game and it definitely did surprise me and take a while to get used to being able to challenge him. I just don't think it took me that long to figure out how or that it negatively impacted the table, but those things might not be true for every DM, and DMs might not want to change things around that much. That's fine! Some DMs also might not want characters that are as unusual as "winged person!" in the party, and that's also fine.

However, I do think it's silly to argue that flight is immediately the best optimized choice for a character and would be taken all over the place if it wasn't banned and players knew about it. I mean, GITP is full of optimizers; that's what the class guides are there for, but looking through the class guides, flight definitely doesn't seem to be rated as "unbalanced, unfair, pick this if you want to optimize" 99% of the time, and in some cases quite the opposite:


Barbarian: Doesn't include any flying races, so no rating.
Bard: All Tieflings (except Feral) get a just plain blue rating, which means Winged Tieflings are rated as subpar choices compared to Drow, Lightfoot Halflings, Variant Humans, Half-Elves, Aasimar, Tritons, Yuan-ti, and Merfolk. Aarakocra get off even worse, getting only a purple rating.
Cleric: Here we go! All Tieflings get a RED rating here, but Aarakocra get a teal rating, in part for flight! This puts them... exactly on par with Hill Dwarves, Wood Elves, Variant Humans, and Ghostwise Halflings. High up there, but still not far and away the best from the looks of it.
Druid: Winged Feral Tieflings are given the best rating in the guide, flat-out, specifically for the combination of stats and flight. I actually disagree that they're that superior for this class, but this is the first guide that absolutely gives one of the flying races a huge edge. Aarakocra are rated highly as well, but on par with Hill Dwarves, Wood Elves, Forest Gnomes, and non-winged Feral Tieflings.
Fighter: Again, Winged Feral Tieflings are rated very high, at teal blue. However, other teal blue races are Mountain Dwarves, High Elves, Stout Halflings, Variant Humans, Forest Gnomes, Half-Orcs, Eladrin, Duergar, Deep Gnomes, non-winged Feral Tieflings, Goliaths, Lizardfolk, Bugbears, Golbins, Air Genasi, Earth Genasi, Beasthide Shifters, Razorclaw Shifters, Warforged, and Minotaurs. Aarakocra are rated a step below all of them, as just regular blue.
Monk: Aarakocra are rated sky blue in part for flight, and also for stats. Other sky blue races are Wood Elves, Stout Halflings, Variant Humans, and potentially Hill Dwarves. Another guide also lists Aarakocra as sky blue, but is far stricter with only Wood Elves and Ghostwise Halflings as other sky blue choices. Neither guide mentions Winged Tieflings at all, Feral or otherwise; the latter guide absolutely ignores them as not being optimized.
Paladin: All Tieflings are rated only plain blue, and Aarakocra are rated purple again. Flying races, in this guide, just can't compare to Mountain Dwarves, Lightfoot Halflings, Variant Humans, Dragonborn, Half-Elves, Duergar, Aasimar, Goliaths, Tritons, or Warforged.
Ranger: Aarakocra are once again rated sky blue. This is along with Wood Elves, Stout Halflings, Variant Humans, Duergar, Ghostwise Halflings, Firbolg, Lizardfolk, Bugbears, Goblins, Air Genasi, Kor, Juraga Elves, Mul Daya Elves, Razorclaw Shifters, Wildhunt Shifters, and potentially Warforged and Minotaurs. All Tieflings, however, are rated red in this guide.
Rogue: Aarakocra and Feral Winged Tieflings are rated GOLD! Also rated gold, though, are Elves in general, Halflings in general (especially Lightfoot Halflings), Variant Humans, and non-winged Feral Tieflings.
Sorcerer: This guide actually rates Tieflings in general as sky blue, but specifically warns away from both Feral and Winged. Aarakocra are also only rated purple. This means that a lot of races are just flat-out superior to the winged races: Drow, Lightfoot Halflings, Stout Halflings, Default Humans, Variant Humans, Dragonborn, Half-Elves, regular Tieflings, Aasimar, Tabaxi, Tritons, Goblins, Kobolds, Yuan-ti, Air Genasi, Merfolk, Vampires, and Changelings.
Warlock: Non-feral Tieflings are rated sky blue, so obviously non-feral Winged Tieflings are rated sky blue! This puts them on par, in this guide, with Drow, Lightfoot Halflings, Variant Humans, Half-Elves, just default Tieflings, Aasimar, Tritons, Yuan-ti, Merfolk, and Changelings. Aarakocra are rated purple. Flight really isn't rated that highly for a Warlock in this guide.
Wizard: Aarakocra are given the highest rating possible in Treantmonk's guide specifically for flight, as are High Elves and every single Gnome. Tieflings in general (and therefore Winged Tieflings) are given the second best score (in this case, green), putting them on par with Half-Elves. As a note, however, Variant Humans aren't even rated because "they are too good... [they trump] anything any other race can bring to the table... far and away the best option for ANY class, ANY build," which pretty clearly shows that the guide rates Variant Humans as an even higher rating than Aarakocra or +2 Int races.
Mystic (just for fun): All Tieflings and Aasimar are rated red, absolutely awful choices. The winged Avariel Elves are given an only slightly higher rating, though their flight is nodded to as amazing it's definitely not enough to recommend them here. 35 options are rated as being better than the winged races for the Mystic.

That makes for:


1/13 guides that doesn't mention a flying race at all because it was made before they were out, oops (Barbarian)
1/13 guides rates one of the flying races as the single best possible racial option, specifically for flight, with the second flying race as a secondary pick among several other racial options (Druid)
7/13 guides give one of the flying races the highest possible rating, but this is also alongside many others also given the highest possible rating, putting the flying race on par with anywhere between 2 to 20 racial options; the other flying race is rated lower and sometimes much much lower (Cleric, Fighter, Monk, Ranger, Rogue, Warlock, Wizard; in Wizard's case this comes with the caveat of Variant Human being called out as the best possible choice always)
2/13 guides gives one of the winged races a good rating, but not that high of one, making it a subpar option compared to 8 to 10 other races, and on par with many others; the other winged race is rated even lower (Bard, Paladin)
2/13 guides flat-out warn against taking either/any of the winged races (Sorcerer, Mystic)

This definitely seems to put racial flight as often a strong option but absolutely not far and away the best option, with one exception where it's noted as the best and four exceptions where it's absolutely not the best choice at all.

Again, that changes little about the basic discussion; I think this would have gone a lot more smoothly, too, if it had been an entreaty to think about flying races differently and try allowing them in more games, stating their case rather than going "if a DM was skilled and actually gave thought to the issue, they'd realize they don't have any good reason to ban flying races," which is just incendiary. But I do think it's a little disingenuous to start leaning to "tons of players only don't take this option because it's banned or they don't know it's available to them." If it were broken good it'd be noted as the standout best choice in more guides here.

[War_lord]

Here's your large scale poll: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-your-dd-character-rare/
Shocker, Aarakocra, isn't especially popular. You can't claim it's a lack of awareness, because on that site not only is it right there in the list of official races, but it's alphabetically the very first entry you see. Flight is listed right there in the racial traits when you create a character, as if it weren't obvious from the picture of wings. People still pick human or elf or half-elf.

Did you actually read the text under the graph. It only covers D&D Beyond which has nowhere near 100% market penetration. It only covers the month of August, which was the first month of release, meaning that a lot of the characters created were probably people testing the site, which explains the number of Human Fighters. And then your conclusions are flawed because there's a number of other reasons people might not have created an Aarakocra, such as the fact that many DMs ban them entirely.


This definitely seems to put racial flight as often a strong option but absolutely not far and away the best option, with one exception where it's noted as the best and four exceptions where it's absolutely not the best choice at all.

I'd argue that's misleading, first of all, there's no distinction between degrees of Skyblueness. Secondly, the guides are opinion statements from a single person, and while they're usually of high quality, sometimes they do say things that make me scratch my head. Third, optimization guides tend to focus on combat, which is understandable, because you can't really "optimize" the exploration pillar in a mechanical sense.


Again, that changes little about the basic discussion; I think this would have gone a lot more smoothly, too, if it had been an entreaty to think about flying races differently and try allowing them in more games, stating their case rather than going "if a DM was skilled and actually gave thought to the issue, they'd realize they don't have any good reason to ban flying races," which is just incendiary.

Now that's an excellent point. The people arguing for flying races behaving like I'm a parent who took their Xbox away from them really isn't helping their case. If they genuinely wanted DMs to reconsider banning flying races, and thus considering adding to their workload for little gain, it would have been more prudent not to imply those DMs are incompetent. Particularly since very early in the discussion I did say that I could design my sessions to accommodate flight, but I didn't consider it worth the impacts on other areas of the game.

It was compared to darkvision. Yes, if the majority of races had flight instead of darkvision, I'd have to design around flight. But that's not the case.

[MxKit]

I'd argue that's misleading, first of all, there's no distinction between degrees of Skyblueness. Secondly, the guides are opinion statements from a single person, and while they're usually of high quality, sometimes they do say things that make me scratch my head. Third, optimization guides tend to focus on combat, which is understandable, because you can't really "optimize" the exploration pillar in a mechanical sense.

To be fair, I think the fact that there's no distinction between degrees of skyblueness is really meant to be because there's no significant distinction between the different skyblue choices. I definitely don't agree with all the guides myself, and yeah the fact that they're just a single person is definitely a thing, and I don't really mean to say it's hard proof of much of anything. I think it's interesting, mostly, and that it's imo at least a little significant that people tend to point to those guides as being really good, want to have them pinned as recommended reading for people building those classes, and don't tend to come in arguing that flying races should be gold or anything.

Again, definitely not saying that flying doesn't give major benefits to a lot of characters, or that a DM wouldn't have to adjust things in ways they might not want to because it makes a lot of specific challenges a lot easier. The Winged Tiefling Monk in my campaign was very effective, and I fumbled a bit before figuring out how to challenge him, but if I hadn't really wanted to do that it would have made things less fun for everyone, I think. I'm solely trying to argue that flight is a very different benefit but not necessarily a superior one when it comes to what a lot of players want to accomplish with their characters.

That said, you're also right that if a player is looking to optimize the exploration pillar or even the problem-solving pillar, a flying spellcaster or a flying Ranger or Scout Rogue would be a very good choice, and most guides don't try to advise for that sort of situation. It's definitely another one of those ways flying is a unique improvement to a character that some DMs might not want to mess with. I've especially noticed that some DMs don't like to tailor challenges to the party or their abilities, so that in and of itself might make flying characters something they don't even want to consider.

[Tanarii]

Anecdotally, how many parties do you know of with more than 1 Aarakocra? How many non-AL parties with zero? Are you just trying to score rhetorical points, or do you honestly and genuinely believe that people are clamoring to play Aarakocra en masse in real games? I think you know full well that I'm right that people aren't rushing to play them, given a choice, yet you're debating dishonestly.
I'm not the one that made a universal claim about tables that allow winged races, without anything to back it up. Asking you to back it up such a statement is hardly rhetorical or dishonest debating. Making it in the first place, then accusing someone asking you to back it up rhetoric or dishonest debating, is both.

[Errata]

I'm not the one that made a universal claim about tables that allow winged races, without anything to back it up. Asking you to back it up such a statement is hardly rhetorical or dishonest debating. Making it in the first place, then accusing someone asking you to back it up rhetoric or dishonest debating, is both.

There you go again. I made a claim, and backed it up. It should be pretty obvious to you if you talk to players that flying races are not the most popular, certainly not to the extent that they would be with if they were as overpowered as some of the claims here. Variant humans are popular, and strong. I asked you a question if you really, genuinely believe what you're saying about the popularity of flying races, when given the choice, but it's apparent now that you don't care about any of that, since you cut out the part where I provided you objective evidence. You don't care about what's true, but the argument itself.

Do you really, honestly think that a majority of players think flying races are the most powerful and the only thing stopping them from playing are AL-like DM restrictions, or lack of awareness? Or do you just think that if you say the right words it doesn't matter that we both know that's not true, your "side" can win the argument through rhetoric, despite pesky evidence to the contrary?

[War_lord]

What evidence? Tears of outrage at mommy DM taking your wings off you might be causing you to lose focus, but you haven't provided any evidence. I've already explained to you why the 538 article has seriously flawed methodology. Even if we were to accept it as a representative sample (and I don't think it is), it's a ranking of what users created in a month, it doesn't actually tell you anything about the power of the race, otherwise Dragonborn would be on the bottom, not Aasimar.

[Citan]

The more you talk, the more I wonder if you've ever played this game before to try any of this and see how often it's actually useful. And your character is becoming increasingly specialized toward very specific goals, which do not seem unbalanced given them you've tailored yourself to these specialized situations to the exclusions of all others. Being the party taxi is a unique role, not a balance problem. Most people have the option of doing that and virtually nobody chooses to take it.

And you keep talking about having someone cast a level 3 spell on you to get the full benefit of flight, forgetting that fly is a level 3 spell, so by the time having a level 3 spell on you is an option, then having it as a race is pretty irrelevant. The fly spell grants a slightly faster movement speed than the Aarakocra racial ability, and it allows you to wear armor, unlike that race. A tabaxi with fly instead of haste could move even further than your Aarakocra to pull off some of your examples of moving across the battlefield and back, though only every other turn, and they don't necessarily have to only be a monk because their race doesn't let them wear armor. As I mentioned, the fly spell isn't the first level 3 spell that casters want to go toward and use their new level 3 slots on. They tend to gravitate to it at higher levels when they have more higher level slots to burn, so that should tell you that fly is not quite so game changing as you think in most cases.

Flight exists. It's an actual option, not some hypothetical new UA that they might add. You need to look at how it's actually being used. Does everyone want to play flying races now? Are they ridiculously powerful and breaking the game? No. Most people don't want one of those races, because they recognize the limitations and prefer something else, and when they do pick them it's not actually a big deal at all.
That is the best proof you didn't even try to properly read what I say.

I precisely said that usually people don't take Fly BECAUSE using these tactics properly depends on meeting some requirements, which makes it not greater than another buff for most characters, like martials (Haste, Elemental Weapon, Bless). And the duration also makes it awkard to use out of combat for things other than quick recon or crossing an obstacle in a quicker and easier way than with other spells/tools.
Which permanent flight hasn't.
That's the big deal here. That's the thing that keeps flight as a racial benefit relevant throughout the whole game.

By the way, your math is very off with the Tabaxi example.
Tabaxi's speed does not add to Fly: so Tabaxi can move 60 feet, with Feline's Agility can move 120 feet one in every two turns.
Aarakocra with Haste can move 200 feet every turn (50 natural speed*2 per Haste effect, plus free Dash per Haste effect).

And all those examples I gave are not "things of a character tailored for specific goals". There are all things the same character built for speed can do all at once, while being also a perfectly functional "normal" character.
That remark is as meaningless as, to someone explaining how his Thief sometimes saves the day by using caltrops or smoke bombs as bonus action, saying "nice but your character is tailored just for that".
While the Thief is actually still playing a Rogue, just playing all his strengths whenever he sees the chance to.


The more you talk, the more I wonder if you've ever played this game before to try any of this and see how often it's actually useful.
I'll return the interrogation, hundred-fold.


Anecdotally, how many parties do you know of with more than 1 Aarakocra? How many non-AL parties with zero? Are you just trying to score rhetorical points, or do you honestly and genuinely believe that people are clamoring to play Aarakocra en masse in real games? I think you know full well that I'm right that people aren't rushing to play them, given a choice, yet you're debating dishonestly.

Here's your large scale poll: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-your-dd-character-rare/
Shocker, Aarakocra, isn't especially popular. You can't claim it's a lack of awareness, because on that site not only is it right there in the list of official races, but it's alphabetically the very first entry you see. Flight is listed right there in the racial traits when you create a character, as if it weren't obvious from the picture of wings. People still pick human or elf or half-elf.
I know I'll sound arrogant and pedantic right here, but I'll assume that.
This kind of survey is extremely irrelevant in trying to assess the power of a feature in terms of game-balance. Because many people don't look further than the immediate reading. Meaning that people who want "damage" first look up on things like GWM, without considering all the things that are required to make it really great.
Speed is overlooked because "it's just move". It's only when people actually face problems that could have been avoided or solved by speed they realize how important that actually is.
Many people dislike Sorcerer, and yet it's still a very powerful class.
Many people shunt 4E Monk, and yet it's still a very powerful archetype.
Many people are frustrated by Warlock, and yet it's still a very powerful class.

There is a difference between "do you like this?" and "do you feel this balanced?" Most players don't even care about the second question (and why should they, in fact, unless they also DM, it's logical they don't care about how their character could end as unbalanced compared to others) and the first caters a vast variety of criterions in the provided answer.

Besides, I'd really suspect that if you publicized the Aarakocra AND removed the life-span limit (30 years is a real dealbreaker imo for people who invest in long-term campaigns), more people could be interested, although it would still not break a big threshold: you are still limited by the fluff and stats.

Variant Human would always stay on top, and it's normal: it's the most versatile race because you geet to choose a feat AND still start with 16 in any two stats you choose, so it's the race that answers the largest numbers of character concepts. So obviously it's the one that is picked the most often. Duh...

Same reason why Half-Elf is the second option: 4 classes have CHA as primary stat, you get +1 to other stats, and a skill, and darkvision, so it's a solid race for an awful lot of character concepts, especially those involving a multiclass "outside" CHA based ones.

Also why Humans, Elfs and Gnomes/Dwarves/Halflings so common? Stats align with half of the available classes, they are very common fantasy tropes, very close to humanoids in faces, and they are also very common in D&d 5e universe.

Compared to that...
Aarakocra, per its fluff, makes it more difficult for newcomers to identify to, and long-run players will dislike the fact they may die before even reaching highest levels unless they take specifically Long Death Monk or Druid or Wizard which have features against that.
Per its stat alignement, it makes it a great choice for a third of the classes, but a lesser choice for all the others.
And it's main feature is not a benefit as easily understandable as "1 more skill" or "medium armor proficiency", it's a benefit which value essentially relies on unpredictable variables (your own smartness, the kind of battlefield, your party) so people usually put it aside because of that hazyness.

Most people that want to optimize pick the choice that brings the most identifiable and predictable benefit. Which is very understandable, "keep it simple" is usually an efficient approach.
So it's perfectly logical that people don't think of Aarakocra as a first, or even second choice, when building anything else than a Monk / Rogue / Fighter / Ranger (and maybe Druid/Cleric, although Wood Elves with longbow proficiency and resistance against effects have some argument too), if only because the stats boost are not aligned.

You are seriously out of real arguments here. XD

Want to try how popular would really be a racial flight? Make a poll asking "if as a Variant Human, you could take a feat giving you 50 feet flight, in which case would you take it?"
(Basically you remove the "fixed stats bonus" and the "you'll be great but die when your friends start having children" drawbacks)
Now THAT would be a fair survey... ^^

Or in another way... "If whatever race you pick, you could decide two attributes on which top one +2 and one +1, which race would you pick barring Variant Human (barring this one because you give it a serious bump especially considering +1 feats)"?

[Naanomi]

I don’t think that ‘how many you see at the table’ is necessarily a good measure of potentially being too strong... I’ve seen too many beastmasters... too few polearm masters... to make me think they most tables are making choices primarily on optimization concerns.

Something could easily be ‘too strong’ in some broad sense and yet not be dominating tables numerically for a variety of reasons.

Really, if we want to make a case that 50’ flight is acceptable as a racial trait, then compare it to variant human (considered a ‘strong’ choice in every optimization guide)... would you allow a feat that gave 50’ flight speed, would you consider it balanced with other feat choices?

[Tanarii]

There you go again. I made a claim, and backed it up.How have you backed it up?
538 site isn't proof of "tables that allow flying races".

Furthermore, you posted that after I challenged your statement, and after you accused me of rhetorical tricks and dishonest debating because I challenged your statement.

Continuing to speak of rhetorical tricks and dishonest debating, since you brought that up and leveled the accusation at me, let's take a look at the rest of your post for those tactics, shall we:

It should be pretty obvious to you if you talk to players

but it's apparent now that you don't care about any of that

You don't care about what's true, but the argument itself.

Or do you just think that if you say the right words it doesn't matter that we both know that's not true, your "side" can win the argument through rhetoric, despite pesky evidence to the contrary?
Now let me respond with a rhetorical trick:
We're done here.

[Citan]

I don’t think that ‘how many you see at the table’ is necessarily a good measure of potentially being too strong... I’ve seen too many beastmasters... too few polearm masters... to make me think they most tables are making choices primarily on optimization concerns.

Something could easily be ‘too strong’ in some broad sense and yet not be dominating tables numerically for a variety of reasons.

Really, if we want to make a case that 50’ flight is acceptable as a racial trait, then compare it to variant human (considered a ‘strong’ choice in every optimization guide)... would you allow a feat that gave 50’ flight speed, would you consider it balanced with other feat choices?
Funny how what you say is very pretty close to what I suggested Errata to pop as a survey... XD

Actually, is there any way to make a proper survey here? Or can we link surveys made with online tools? There have been quite a few polls I'd be interested in publishing...

[Xetheral]

Do you really, honestly think that a majority of players think flying races are the most powerful and the only thing stopping them from playing are AL-like DM restrictions, or lack of awareness?

At my table multiple players have mentioned deliberately avoiding races with flight on the grounds that it would be disruptive. So yes, I think the majority of players at my table consider flying races the most powerful, and they actively avoid such races for exactly that reason.

[Willie the Duck]

I don’t think that ‘how many you see at the table’ is necessarily a good measure of potentially being too strong... I’ve seen too many beastmasters... too few polearm masters... to make me think they most tables are making choices primarily on optimization concerns.


At my table multiple players have mentioned deliberately avoiding races with flight on the grounds that it would be disruptive. So yes, I think the majority of players at my table consider flying races the most powerful, and they actively avoid such races for exactly that reason.

That is something to think about. Some things, like PAM or Simulacrum+Wish, are so obviously powerful that people might not bother with them because ev-er-y-one at their table will have also noticed how powerful* they are within days of first looking at 5e. Any success they have with said character comes with a virtual asterisk by their high-score, if you like.
*Yes, I am aware that PAM is a great power-up for melee martials (and not even remotely on the same scale as Simulacrum+Wish), which do not dominate the game with or without it, simply that it is one of those 'simply best' options within that field.

I'm not sure if that is true with flying. I stand by my assumption that flying at 1st simply makes the DM not use those adventure tools which would be obviated by it. So I imagine there's a lot of tables where a DM would simply say, "really?" The first time someone chose one of the flying races, tossed let's say 15% of their adventure notes in a 'don't use' pile, and everyone felt too self-conscious to ever do so again. Whether that's the same situation or not, I'm not sure.

[Xetheral]

I stand by my assumption that flying at 1st simply makes the DM not use those adventure tools which would be obviated by it.

This goes back to what I was saying about campaign styles. In a combat-as-war game, the characters are expected to actively try to fight where it plays to their strengths. In they have a party member with unlimited flight, that means they will actively seek out those situations where flight will obviate the challenge. Constantly thwarting such efforts goes against the spirit of this style.

By contrast, in a combat-as-sport game, where the characters' actions have much less impact on the difficulty level of combat encounters, it is much simpler (and expected!) for the DM to just present fewer encounters that would be trivialized by flight, as you suggest.