Ok, perhaps I am missing something in the core book, but here is the situation. Over the weekend I was running our newly established campaign and long story short, one of my players is a heron. I was running into all kinds of problems with flight, and perhaps I am looking too far into this but here goes….
Weight limits? The player was flying around with a small ton of gear on. I used the strength rules that were applied but they seemed a bit off when it comes to defying gravity. Are there any established rules on this at all, and I am just missing them?
Actions while flying. I am all about the taking of actions while in flight, however, those actions must hold a bit of logic. Perhaps it’s just the way the drawings are, but I am left with the impression that the hands of the flyer are a part of the wing structure. Perhaps done intentionally, to keep flying “balanced”, but the player in question was trying to attack with a spear while flying. I was like, “if you are using your arms for something besides wind currents and lift then you’re falling like a rock.” Was that the basis for the decision to have the wings a part of the appendage rather then on the back, like an angel? I am looking into if I should change it to make the wings come out of the back, however, that may very well unbalance the character to others.
The player argues that he sees no rules about using the arms for other actions while flying, and I can find none as well. I am all about bending reality for a game, but if there is actually no need for “wings” while in flight, then what stops, say an elephant form doing such?
I told him "if he had prehensile feet I would allow him to pick up weight appropriate objects and drop them on persons on the ground, but that the use of arms was out of the question".
The third issue(s), and I addressed this prior to the game. If a person has, and takes, the flight ability and expects to do more then glide then I limit their vig. to a max of 4. The reason birds are able to fly is (two fold) because of their light weight compared to the wing span (and the lift produced by the wind currents). Regardless, one thing that keeps the birds weight down is that their bones are hollow. This is why they die when they fly into your window: it causes their bones to break. Hollow bones are a very bad thing if one expects to get into physical combat.
Another idea I am toying with is instead of limiting the vig., making a mandatory drawback (fragile) for any avian base that takes the flight ability. Fragile would make recuperation times longer from wounds. Gotta do some numbers crunching on it to figure out exactly how much longer, but something of this nature would make some interesting game play decisions for the bird players.
The second part of this is more of an issue and it involves the surface area of the wings themselves, an eagle’s wing-span can extend past 10 foot. That would force the player to have 5 foot arms “if” they were the size and weight of the eagle. As they are not the players arm length would have to extend to over 10 foot each to produce the surface area needed to create the lift for flight. (Never addressed this in my game, this is just me being anal).
Developement of a martial arts style for the avian communtiy, that focuses on avoidance and using the momentum of the attacker agianst them could be something to look into. Then changing around their stam. to represent near misses rather that actual life points.
Again, perhaps I am reading too far into all this, but I am attempting to ascertain as to the structure of the wings and if that was a game mechanics decision or just an artist interpretation, and some rules clarifications.
Weight limits? The player was flying around with a small ton of gear on. I used the strength rules that were applied but they seemed a bit off when it comes to defying gravity. Are there any established rules on this at all, and I am just missing them?
Actions while flying. I am all about the taking of actions while in flight, however, those actions must hold a bit of logic. Perhaps it’s just the way the drawings are, but I am left with the impression that the hands of the flyer are a part of the wing structure. Perhaps done intentionally, to keep flying “balanced”, but the player in question was trying to attack with a spear while flying. I was like, “if you are using your arms for something besides wind currents and lift then you’re falling like a rock.” Was that the basis for the decision to have the wings a part of the appendage rather then on the back, like an angel? I am looking into if I should change it to make the wings come out of the back, however, that may very well unbalance the character to others.
The player argues that he sees no rules about using the arms for other actions while flying, and I can find none as well. I am all about bending reality for a game, but if there is actually no need for “wings” while in flight, then what stops, say an elephant form doing such?
I told him "if he had prehensile feet I would allow him to pick up weight appropriate objects and drop them on persons on the ground, but that the use of arms was out of the question".
The third issue(s), and I addressed this prior to the game. If a person has, and takes, the flight ability and expects to do more then glide then I limit their vig. to a max of 4. The reason birds are able to fly is (two fold) because of their light weight compared to the wing span (and the lift produced by the wind currents). Regardless, one thing that keeps the birds weight down is that their bones are hollow. This is why they die when they fly into your window: it causes their bones to break. Hollow bones are a very bad thing if one expects to get into physical combat.
Another idea I am toying with is instead of limiting the vig., making a mandatory drawback (fragile) for any avian base that takes the flight ability. Fragile would make recuperation times longer from wounds. Gotta do some numbers crunching on it to figure out exactly how much longer, but something of this nature would make some interesting game play decisions for the bird players.
The second part of this is more of an issue and it involves the surface area of the wings themselves, an eagle’s wing-span can extend past 10 foot. That would force the player to have 5 foot arms “if” they were the size and weight of the eagle. As they are not the players arm length would have to extend to over 10 foot each to produce the surface area needed to create the lift for flight. (Never addressed this in my game, this is just me being anal).
Developement of a martial arts style for the avian communtiy, that focuses on avoidance and using the momentum of the attacker agianst them could be something to look into. Then changing around their stam. to represent near misses rather that actual life points.
Again, perhaps I am reading too far into all this, but I am attempting to ascertain as to the structure of the wings and if that was a game mechanics decision or just an artist interpretation, and some rules clarifications.
ToG
"Violence may not be the best option..... but it's still an option!"
"Violence may not be the best option..... but it's still an option!"
The post was edited 2 times, last by Tides of Gore ().