The spell "flying" lists its granted speed as 10 mph * level. What does that translate to in combat terms?

Related question: Does the ability to fly alter the options available to a character engaging in melee combat in any way? How would attacking from the air work? Would hovering above a target's head grant a flanking bonus?

Hi Sam,

Wow. Great questions! I have not thought of flying spell as a combat method. So these are off the cuff answers that will deserve more consideration going forward.

The spell "flying" lists its granted speed as 10 mph * level. What does that translate to in combat terms?

Flying in Elthos is more like bird flying than 'Super Hero' flying. The person who penned the spell was a Shaman and it was originally designed to allow someone to fly like a bird, wearing in fact feather cloak to do so. And in fact, originally, the flying occurred in 'The Other World' and was mostly spiritual. Eventually enterprising wizards managed to bring the spell down to earth, so to say, and so we have Flying as the Guild teaches it today. Consider yourselves fortunate. It is one of the more difficult mystic powers to control, and is problematic when it comes to trying to use it in combat.

Here's the breakdown by level:

1st level: Can only be used to loft into the air and fly/float like a bird, mostly at the whim of the winds, and without much control. Go up, fly along the wind currents, or against them if possible, but that's difficult, and then land. A fumble means you land badly (1d6 damage). Ow. Note that wearing armor while flying gives you a -1 per Dexterity Modifier to your chance of Fumbling. So don't wear armor, that's my advice. If you do it works like this:

DXM 0 = no problem
DXM -1 = on your Success Roll you fumble on a 1 or 2.
DXM -2 = on your Success Roll you fumble on a 1, 2 or 3.
DXM -3 = on your Success Roll you fumble on a 1, 2, 3 or 4.

2nd Level: Same as above, but you can go twice as fast. Nice. You can also begin to wear armor with less risk. Add 1 for each DXM above to lessen your chance of fumbling.

3rd Level: Same as above, but you can go three times as fast as 1st Level. You can now wear armor with less much less risk. Add 2 for each DXM above to lessen your chance of fumbling. In this case DXM -3 means you only fumble with a 1 or 2. Not bad. Still no combat though.

4th Level: Ok, now you can do some acrobatics, spins, change direction, loop-di-loops, and you're probably no longer in danger of killing yourself on landings. You can also bash people, which on success (AL vs AC) will knock someone 10 feet, and on a critical do nd6 damage where the n = the mph /10. However, you will also take 1/2 damage yourself when you do damage to someone from bashing in flight. Note, however, that if you are wearing armor it absorbs damage. Carrying a shield probably a good idea for bashing. So to be clear here's how Bashing works in terms of damage:

At 10 mph = 1d6 damage
At 20 mph = 2d6 damage
At 30 mph = 3d6 damage
At 40 mph = 4d6 damage
At 50 mph = 5d6 damage
At 60 mph = 6d6 damage

Remember you take half damage. But then again at higher levels you have more Life. Maybe it evens out. Also you can choose to fly UP TO the maximum speed at a given level, but you don't have to. A 5th Level Mystic could choose to fly at 10 mph for a Flying Bash in order to minimize damage he may take to himself.

At 5th Level: You can now do some fancy stuff, and even hover around a bit and sword fight in the air against other flying opponents, as well as people on the ground, but with a -1 AL because at this point you are still not used to it. On the other hand you can more easily swoop down and get back slashes, if you're kinda evil like that. 😉 On a positive note, people find it harder to hit someone who is flying by, and so you get a +1 AC when engaged in aerial combat. You can not use missile weapons from the air as you are still too unsteady.

At 6th Level: Ok, now you're really damn good at this. You can aerial combat: shoot missiles from the air without penalty, drop rocks like a dive bomber, and sword fight with no AL minus, and you get a +2 AC. Wow. Not bad!

All of which is probably too powerful. I'll think about it. I may just stick with, "and you can fly like a bird, and you can't combat". If I do allow Combat Flying, it may become a separate spell with a higher MLP to learn.

Related question: Does the ability to fly alter the options available to a character engaging in melee combat in any way? How would attacking from the air work? Would hovering above a target's head grant a flanking bonus?

Yup, I should say so. For one thing it probably affords you a +1 or +2 on Surprise attacks. You fly up in the sky and hope the enemy does not notice you. You swoop like a hawk and bash or stab or drop a rock on them. And hope to fly away so you can laugh another day. As for hovering for a flanking bonus... hmmm... I'm going to go with no on that for now. I don't think so.

Always remember however, that flying is risky. If something goes wrong, you can die. Fast. So aerial combat can kill your character when, say, he is doing a Flying Bash, but fumbles. Woopsie. Rolling double 1's on a Flying Bash at 40 mph means you do 4d6 * the third roll. On average that is 49 points of damage. In the worst case it is 288 Life Points! Ouch. So be careful out there!!

Ok... them's my thoughts.

What do you say about them apples?

Those are some solid rules for just now having thought about it.

Thanks.

Clarification: The duration of the spell is in hours. Does that allow you to fly, land, walk for a while, then fly again within those hours?

And, to check that I'm reading it right: Hypothetically if Arik was 2nd level and could have flown during the Kobold Chase Debacle he could have taken to the air, used his superior speed to out-distance the kobold, landed in front of the kobold, and engaged it in combat.

He could not have attacked the kobold "on the wing" as he is insufficently skilled to do that until 4th level.

If the above tactical movement flight is allowed, what actions does it take to take off and land? A round's worth each?

Lastly, how do ranged weapons factor into all this? Being "bird like," does flying require use of the arms and thus prohibit the use of a bow or sling? How about something simpler, like dropping rocks (or steaming cauldrons of "bear" soup)? Which suggests an additional question: carrying capacity? Is it based on the character's strength, or does the spell set some kind of hard limit? Are living beings treated differently from baggage in this calculation?

Hopefully this isn't too many or inconvienient questions.

Those are some solid rules for just now having thought about it.

Thanks.

Clarification: The duration of the spell is in hours. Does that allow you to fly, land, walk for a while, then fly again within those hours?

:) Yeah I kinda just threw that together. Balancing may be required. Batteries not included.

I'm going to go with this: Once you land the spell is broken.

And, to check that I'm reading it right: Hypothetically if Arik was 2nd level and could have flown during the Kobold Chase Debacle he could have taken to the air, used his superior speed to out-distance the kobold, landed in front of the kobold, and engaged it in combat.

He could not have attacked the kobold "on the wing" as he is insufficently skilled to do that until 4th level.

Correct. He could not have attacked the Kobold without significant risk of bodily harm to himself. Remember you can always *try* anything... but I would have weighted it so that that the difficulty is 6 and the skill level is 1, so you know how that goes. ;)

If the above tactical movement flight is allowed, what actions does it take to take off and land? A round's worth each?

To take off requires focus, and the use of both hands to lift oneself into the air... picking up speed takes a few swipes of the arms

Lastly, how do ranged weapons factor into all this? Being "bird like," does flying require use of the arms and thus prohibit the use of a bow or sling? How about something simpler, like dropping rocks (or steaming cauldrons of "bear" soup)? Which suggests an additional question: carrying capacity? Is it based on the character's strength, or does the spell set some kind of hard limit? Are living beings treated differently from baggage in this calculation?

Hopefully this isn't too many or inconvienient questions.

Ranged weapons (missiles) can be used at 6th level, such as dropping rocks, bows, etc. As for carrying capacity I'm going to go with you can carry 1/2 of what your character can lift which is determined by the Strength Requisite. Living beings will be treated the same as inanimate objects for the most part, unless there are mitigating circumstances.

Anyway, thanks for the questions - they are very helpful toward clarifying how flying works! 🙂

I added "Combat Flying" as a 4th Level Spell to the system. It reads like this:

Flying in Elthos is more like bird flying than Super Hero flying. It is one of the more difficult mystic powers to control, and is problematic when trying to use flying for combat. Maximum speed is Character Level * 10 mph. Duration is 1d6 hours. You can add Bonus MP to Duration. Note that the spell ends if the Flyer touches the ground. The Flying Spell improves per level as follows:

1st Level: Bird-flying only, mostly at the whim of the winds and without much control. A fumble means you land badly, taking 1d6 damage. Wearing Armor while flying gives you a -2 per DXM penalty on the success roll (1 = fumble).

2nd Level: Same as 1st Level but twice as fast. Armor penalty is lessened to -1 per DXM.

3rd Level: Same as 1st Level but three times as fast. No Armor penalty.

4th Level: Can now do some acrobatics, spins, change direction, move against the wind, and a fumble does only 1 point of damage. Flying Bash is now available (AL vs AC) and on success will knock a human sized opponent 10’, and on critical do Nd6 Damage where N = (mph/10). However, Bashing causes the Flyer to also take ½ Damage unless a shield is used for the bash. Note that Armor absorbs damage.

5th Level: Fancy Flying including hover. Hand Weapons fighting is now possible, but with a -1 AL, and a +1 AC. You can not use missile weapons.

6th Level: Hand Weapons fighting is improved with no minus on AL, and a +2 AC. Missile Weapons is now possible, including the use of bows, and dropping rocks like a dive bomber.

I like everything there except the spell ending when you land. That would make it too expensive in MP to use as a short term boost type thing and would limit it more to long distance travel.

Maybe the spell could have alternate durations: that is, a long flight can last 1d6 hours and ends when you land, or it can grant a shorter duration (maybe 1d6 rounds) during which multiple short flights can be taken.

I like everything there except the spell ending when you land. That would make it too expensive in MP to use as a short term boost type thing and would limit it more to long distance travel.

Maybe the spell could have alternate durations: that is, a long flight can last 1d6 hours and ends when you land, or it can grant a shorter duration (maybe 1d6 rounds) during which multiple short flights can be taken.

Given the extraordinary power that your suggestion has added to Combat Flying (ie being able to attack from the air at higher levels) I'm somewhat hesitant to not have some fairly significant limitation. I don't see landing, however, as all that odious. After all, you need not land to do a Flying Bash, nor to hover and attack from the air with hand weapons, nor fire missile weapons. The limitation applies to cases where at lower levels you want to use flying to land next to someone (and remember, it offers the possibility of landing directly behind, which is another HUGE advantage as it by passes Zones of Control, making enemy lines useless against a Flyer) and then leap back in the air and continue flying around, undoubtedly to be used to land with back slash again, and again, and again and again. I'm going to adjudicate against that tactic in advance because it hands the Warlock or Wizard classes (Fighter / Spell Chanter) what I think is far too great a capability. Nor do I want to then jostle the rule around to try to mitigate that effect by adding another caveat. I'd rather keep it simple. If you land, the spell ends. Pretty simple... and still the spell is enormously useful, even if only used in the non-combat sense of being able to fly up to 120 mph (if you are 6th Level and add the maximum MP Bonus to MPH that you can, which is 6 MP). That alone makes Flying incredibly powerful. Adding icing on the cake of being able to use it in combat... well that's awesome... but lets not make it so awesome that it turns out taking this Spell seriously overpowers the Wizardly class. That's my take on it. Also remember, I have characters roaming around the world above your characters levels... and any of them might have Combat Flying... so consider that it can also be used against you as well. Anyway, some thoughts... I've not cemented the rule, but that's my pretty strong inclination at this point. Let's play it as is for a while and see how that goes. If it turns out to be a sucky rule, I'll change it. Fo shizzle.