Aerial Combat

[Tyrael]

Heya, folks. Having recently acquired wings, I'm curious as to how flight works in combat. I've searched the Core books to no avail, or perhaps I have just missed the relevant bits. Can you guys explain how winged combat works? Can you dive-bomb things? Can you charge in flight? What's the deal on maneuverability, how does that work? Is it possible to glide to someone, attack, and then fly up?

What about being attacked? If you swoop down with a 10-foot reach weapon and attack, that's it for your turn. Do you then drop to the ground? Or do you hover, requiring the enemy to reach 10 feet up to hit you? What if you're hit midflight, do you fall?

[Tellah]

There ya' go.

[Bryn]

Other good links include WotC's Rules of the Game articles.

[Tyrael]

Interesting, thanks. Are there any feats or items that improve a character's flight maneuverability? I'm not too fond of just being Average.

[JellyPooga]

Improved Flight is in several books. Improves your maneuverability by one step and only requires a fly speed.

You might want to check Races of the Wild for some other Flight Feats too. (one gives a dodge bonus to AC, another improves Reflexes when airborne, etc)

[storybookknight]

Also; an item of fly will let you use the spell's 60' (perfect) fly speed instead of your own, which can be pertinent - it'll let you hover, fly straight up at speed, etc.

[Necromas]

The hover feat will let you hover in place and move straight up/down at half speed regardless of maneuverability and it only requires a fly speed. But if you took the aforementioned feat to up your maneuverability to good you wouldn't need it.

There's a couple druid spells in the spell compendium that I believe are level two, one improves maneuverability by a step and one gives +30ft fly speed. Depending on how flexible your DM is you could try to get magic items that cast those spells, pay to have them permanently cast on you, or try to get magic items with them as permanent effects. A single feat and a magic item with a second level spell on it would bump your maneuverability up to perfect, so you could basically fly however you damn well please at any speed.

[Tyrael]

According to the DMG table, a item of permanent Wings of Air (+1maneuverability) and Cloud Wings (flyspeed+30) is 24,000, if I've done my math correctly.

Do Rings cost more to enchant than something else? Would it be cheaper to get it as a ring, or as a permanent casting?

[Aximili]

There's a feat in the planar handbook (air heritage) that basicly increases your fly speed by 30feet. Unless I remember it wrong.

[jjpickar]

It does but you can only increase it by your current maximum fly speed. i.e. if you have a 10ft fly speed you can only increase it by 10.

[Arbitrarity]

A... Pectoral of Manuverability (I think) in Draconomicum boosts manuverability a step.

[Necromas]

If you have the dragon type, there's a feat in draconomicon that gives you +30ft fly speed AND +10ft land speed.