Flight and Balance, Climb, Jump, Swim

[ffone]

(N)PC wealth is exponential - doubles every 2-3 levels. I'm DMing, and feel bad for PCs when their skills, feats, and racial and class features get obviated by easily affordable items. Likewise, when I make high level PCs I often think around which effects I can just (most cheaply) 'buy' rather than 'build'.

The Wings of Flying let you fly all the time (60' with good maneuverability - you can hover - cloak slot, 54,000 gp). Are there some skills which are usually moot once you have a certain item or persistent spell effect, like flight?

Balance (flying, often spiderclimbing)?
Climb (flying, boots of spider climbing)?
Escape Artist (ring of freedom of movement)?
Jump (flying, often spider climbing)?
Swim (flying or waterwalking if you just need to go over the water; swim-speed-granting item such as a Pearl of the Sirines)?

As a DM, are there ways I can keep these skills popping up as useful (aside from antimagic fields, banning the items, or anything heavyhanded)? Or perhaps some creative or houseruled new uses for them in aerial situations? Even many of the epic skill usages seem to be obviated by flight, like balancing on the surface of water.

As an exacerbating example, in another campaign I've a Swashbuckler (/Rogue with Daring Outlaw). They get 4 + Int skill points and tend to point-buy a good Int (a class feature adds Int mod to damage), but have a smallish class skill list with lots of these athletic/acrobatic skills, and some class features based on them. So the class is strongly encouraged in this direction, but it'd be moot if the party's just going to go in for flight...

Misc ideas:

- Use Climb like Tumble while climbing, if you have ranks and a climb speed (avoid AoOs while moving, etc.)
- likewise Jump like Tumble while using a flight speed
- likewise Swim like Tumble while using a swim speed
- while flying, somehow use skills to improve certain attributes from your flight maneuverability rating (up speed, up angle, turn radius, etc.)

The 'has ranks' condition is because Tumble is trained, and to simplify things (not altering game balance or introducing a lot of new rolls by having every PC and NPC constantly doing these new rolls, for example).

The Tumble ideas don't really help the Swashbuckler PC since her Tumble skill is the best of all, but in general...)

[Greyfeld]

Well, for one, you could make it so that items like that ruin stealth checks. I don't know about you, but it seems to me like a pair of big-ass wings like that would make noise while flying. Which means if you put sections that require sneaking, using them would be bad for the characters, and might force them to fall back on their skill list.

Also, any place indoors where one can't use the wingspan (or ceilings are too low to make any use of flight).

If you give them flying enemies to fight against, Tumble still remains useful even in aerial combat.

Keep in mind, also, if you force them to fight on the ground (maybe they're fighting during a thunder storm and the wind is too strong to effectively fight in the air), balance checks are required in certain terrain to keep their footing.

[ffone]

Well, for one, you could make it so that items like that ruin stealth checks. I don't know about you, but it seems to me like a pair of big-ass wings like that would make noise while flying. Which means if you put sections that require sneaking, using them would be bad for the characters, and might force them to fall back on their skill list.

Also, any place indoors where one can't use the wingspan (or ceilings are too low to make any use of flight).

If you give them flying enemies to fight against, Tumble still remains useful even in aerial combat.

Keep in mind, also, if you force them to fight on the ground (maybe they're fighting during a thunder storm and the wind is too strong to effectively fight in the air), balance checks are required in certain terrain to keep their footing.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Yes, Tumble is still useful, as nothing in its description prohibits use with other movement types. I'm looking for ways to make those *other* skills useful, and one idea was to apply them to be used like tumble.

I'm not too inclined for stealth penalties b/c:

1. If anything I thought it'd be quieter than having boots on the ground.
2. Its price follows the typical formula of 1,800 x (spell level 3) x (caster level 5) x (duration factor 2) so I don't want to make it act differently than the wingless Fly spell. Doing this is a sure way to make players very paranoid and boring and vague with any items they design the fluff text of themselves.
3. Suddenly I'd need to apply these rules to all the winged monsters out there.
4. It doesn't do much for the original problem - in my experience stealth is rarely a part of jump and climb checks.

Inclement weather is a great idea. Also maybe an improved version of Wind Wall that can impede creatures larger than Small - if such a spell existed in the campaign world, it'd be very logical (i.e. non-metagamey) for a flying spellcaster (like a dragon) to have and use it, for dealing with flying enemies.

[Devils_Advocate]

Your concern strikes me as akin to wishing to keep melee combat worthwhile in a modern setting in which firearms are available. And if you want to go out of your way to make a wide variety of character concepts viable, that sort of thing is fine. But realistically, some skills are going to me made obsolete by the availability of tools or other approaches. (The Heal skill is another example in D&D 3.5.)

Other times, a skill will only be particularly useful to a few characters: e.g., Survival for those with the Track feat. That's fine; an option being a good choice in only a few builds is a perfectly normal part of the d20 System.

(Now, freedom of movement I dislike just because it's the one spell I know of that allows a character to completely auto-win an opposed check. Even Spot retains some usefulness against invisible creatures...)

[unimaginable]

It's possible to make using magic either impossible or a bad idea in certain areas. Antimagic field is the most obvious... more awesome could be an alarm system activated by magic-detection equipment.

[ffone]

Your concern strikes me as akin to wishing to keep melee combat worthwhile in a modern setting in which firearms are available. And if you want to go out of your way to make a wide variety of character concepts viable, that sort of thing is fine. But realistically, some skills are going to me made obsolete by the availability of tools or other approaches. (The Heal skill is another example in D&D 3.5.)

Other times, a skill will only be particularly useful to a few characters: e.g., Survival for those with the Track feat. That's fine; an option being a good choice in only a few builds is a perfectly normal part of the d20 System.

(Now, freedom of movement I dislike just because it's the one spell I know of that allows a character to completely auto-win an opposed check. Even Spot retains some usefulness against invisible creatures...)

Thanks, although, a skill being only useful to a few characters (survival/Track and search/Trapfinding, etc.) is fine with me - it's when it becomes obsolete to the characters who do have it that I'm concerned. This is sort of the reverse case - skills like Jump that are generally useful to most characters at low levels, and then no one at high levels. Tracking stays useful if the trackees use magic to foil scrying.

Also agreed that FoM should probably be +20 or something to the checks rather than auto-win.