Flight: What does mobility do? 3.5

[Boo600]

This has bugged me for years. I've poured over every sourcebook for 3.5 I could get my hands on, and I still don't know why I should WANT perfect maneuverability as opposed to, for instance, good or even poor.

I mean, I know it seems self evident, given the names, but there's no mechanical benefits, or mechanics, at least in my decade of searching... for a mechanic. I've dealt with this mostly by not dealing with it, so AAAAAAAAGH. Help.

[tyckspoon]

"Good" maneuverability is usually sufficient; it allows you to hover in place and has minimal restrictions on other kinds of movement. Anything lower than that has fairly severe movement restrictions, including being required to keep moving forward in order to stay flying at all and an inability to make sharp turns; if an Average or worse flyer wants to strafe across the same target point, for example, they have to make, well, strafing runs - they fly across it and then have to spend movement at the far point to turn around and come back.

The main difference between Good and Perfect flyers is a Perfect flyer doesn't have to use any extra effort to gain altitude or change facing. It's usually the distinction between things that use wings to fly and things that use magic to fly; wings have to work harder to climb (represented by doing so at half speed) or to turn themselves in the air (spends movement to change facing within a square), whereas magical flight does not.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/movement.htm#tacticalAerialMovement

[Psyren]

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/movement.htm#tacticalAerialMovement

In 3.5, without Good or Perfect flight, you can't hover. This is dangerous in a fight since it means you either have to keep moving (potentially putting you in a tactically disadvantageous position) or else land at the end of your turn. If you're too high to land, then you fall.

Good flight has additional restrictions when compared to Perfect, but they don't come up if you're staying in one spot.

EDIT: Psyrogue'd

[Crake]

If you want to know where this information is stored in the actual rulebooks, it's in the DMG, page 20.

[Thunder999]

At average or lower maneuverability you simply can't use full attacks, full round cast times etc. while remaining airborne, it's why most dragons have to land to fight in melee, for example.

[the_tick_rules]

there is an air mobility chart somewhere that shows what the rules are is that what you were asking? when I first read this I thought it was about the mobility feet that gives you +4 dodge bonus when you provoke an attack of opportunity. I'll also throw in a casual reference to the improved flight feat from I think complete adventurer that improves your class by a step.

I checked, page 20 of the 3.5 DMG shows the rules for maneuvers you can perform at each step, if you can access it's if you think it's valuable from there.

[Psyren]

there is an air mobility chart somewhere that shows what the rules are is that what you were asking?

The table was linked twice in this thread :smalltongue:

[nijineko]

Rules Compendium has expanded rules for flight which would also be useful in answering this question.

[Segev]

Has this been answers to the original poster’s satisfaction? If not, how can we further help? The chart in the link provides the info I know of. Does any of it need explanation?

[Boo600]

Has this been answers to the original poster’s satisfaction? If not, how can we further help? The chart in the link provides the info I know of. Does any of it need explanation?

Hey, Segev. Yeah, the D20srd link to the table, and the summarization of the benefits and downsides, answered all my questions. I actually feel a bit exasperated with myself; I could have sworn I checked the SRD, but I somehow missed it anyways! (Silent scream of frustration).

Crake, thanks for the DMG page number. I do prefer to use it when possible, and knowing WHERE I missed things helps me a great deal.

Sorry for not coming back for a while; I'm used to forums which give notifications when threads update, and it only just hit me today that "Hey, wait a second, I haven't been getting notifications from the OotS threads despite having posted in one! What if GitP doesn't use them, or at least not by default?" If I have any questions to bring in the future, I'll try to keep that in mind. Thanks for the help! (Seriously, this has bothered me for years. YEARS)

[Psyren]

Hey, Segev. Yeah, the D20srd link to the table, and the summarization of the benefits and downsides, answered all my questions. I actually feel a bit exasperated with myself; I could have sworn I checked the SRD, but I somehow missed it anyways! (Silent scream of frustration).

Crake, thanks for the DMG page number. I do prefer to use it when possible, and knowing WHERE I missed things helps me a great deal.

Sorry for not coming back for a while; I'm used to forums which give notifications when threads update, and it only just hit me today that "Hey, wait a second, I haven't been getting notifications from the OotS threads despite having posted in one! What if GitP doesn't use them, or at least not by default?" If I have any questions to bring in the future, I'll try to keep that in mind. Thanks for the help! (Seriously, this has bothered me for years. YEARS)

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[Vrock Bait]

Under Settings on this site, you can change "Default subscription mode" to enable this feature.

But you can’t get it to send notifications between the range of “in a secret area in your hotbar that’s hard to find” and “spams emails.” Which is why I only use the subscription folder like a bookmarks folder.

Edit: Just checked, and the “secret area” was just Settings. I’m an idiot.

[Powerdork]

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