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Grabbit Allworth

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we just started doing something sort of similar... we're still tweaking it but it's basically that we have an amount of points equal to our con+lvl (so it's relatively low, but does progress) and certain things cost those points like death saves, being crit, setting off a trap, etc and you get 1 point back per long rest. if you get to zero you die outright. the idea is that adventuring takes a toll on your body that isn't just remedied by a single night's sleep.

exhaustion is... i don't really know how i feel about it. it's a minor nuisance at best until all of a sudden it's completely and overly debilitating. one or two levels really isn't that bad and you're pretty much fine the next day. but anything beyond that almost makes your character unplayable and even if you can manage to still play your character it's definitely not any fun, so who cares. i guess it's sort of a good warning system in that sense? disadvantage on skill checks isn't HORRIBLE but it's a good reminder to take it easy...

so i sort of worry about giving players 2 levels of exhaustion for any one thing... and then for giving it to them for getting downed also seems like it makes the early game way more dangerous than later game when you have more hp and skills to help avoid getting to 0 in the first place. how long have you been doing that? do you find that's the case? in one of the games we just started, we've played 3 sessions and one of the players has been taken down to zero 3 times (twice in the same night in different encounters) already due specifically to the dm rolling crits on him. we're lvl 1 so it doesn't take much, you know?
I've been using the Exhaustion penalty on knockdown for over a year. It can spiral out of control if the players are careless, it's supposed to. That's one of the primary reasons it exists and it's worked very well for me. There is a bit of an adjustment period for players that are used to not having to be as proactive.

Level 1 players can die from a strong fart. You really can't gauge how well a rule works at that level. I'd even suggest that campaigns shouldn't use many harsh optional rules until the players hit level 2. Which is fine because players shouldn't stay at level one for more than 2 or 3 sessions.
 

Onoes

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I always start my games at lvl 3, Well, I guess I have made exceptions when we'vs done a prologue type thing. Start at lvl 1, hplay a session on how you became an adventurer, next game its months or years later and and you are lvl 3.

5th is weird in that for most classes lvl 1-2 you are just a dude with a little skill, while lvl 3 you suddenly have all these powers and abilities. There are definitely ways to make that feel good, but especially if you are playing with a more people.. it gets wonky. A group of lvl 2 chars are all pretty much swinging swords or doing small magic, they kill a few goblins - rest at an inn - and the next day one of them can teleport through shadows, one guy has the ghosts of his ancestors fight alongside him, another one can turn into a wolf, and the last guy has an imp doing his bidding. It just felt bad every time I tried to run it or participated in it.

Now its just "You are a group of adventurers with some battles under your belts and a good grasp on your magics and abilities." from the start.
 
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Dashel

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My DnD group is going to try a run of Divinity Original Sin 2 together. Possibly will play BG3 if/when it releases next year.
We're doing Sunless Citadel now, and we'll continue that as well.
 
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Grabbit Allworth

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Can I ask you for some advice? Heres my situation (first session is this Saturday):

I'm the DM. Been doing it 20 years but havent played 5e. I read the rules, but Most of the players will know the system better than me in the beginning. I have 1 veteran player, 2 intermediate, and 1 brand new player. Is class balance going to be an issue where the new player makes a vanilla PHB, and the more experienced players make something out of Tasha's? (Which I dont have either so that could be a surprise). I'm not going to restrict the characters even if I don't know the system. I've got enough DM experience to figure it out pretty quickly.

My two main questions would be:

1. What sort of quirks about 5e could trip up a DM new to the system?
Tasha's DEFINITELY has some player options that are incredibly powerful relative to content from earlier books like the PHB. The custom lineage optional rule is complete retardation and banned at my table. It's a min/max power gamers wet dream. If you allow that, all other races (except some of the broken shit like Yuan-Ti or Saytr) are mechanically inferior. For a number of reasons, I restrict the races my players can choose to what's in the PHB. Some hate that but most understand why I won't allow shit like Goblin, Centaur, or Aarakocra PCs. However, I do allow them to choose sub-classes from anything WoTC officially publishes for 5e (Unearthed Arcana is off-limits because it's playtest material that's wildly unbalanced and much of it never makes it to print).

Though there is a massive power level spectrum among sub-classes, none of them are so much of a problem that they'll break your game unless you've got a player actively trying to build a Death Star AND has the kind of personality where he/she wants to shine ALL the time. That can be a problem.

Tasha's also has a few spells that are simply too good, but I haven't banned any of them. I can usually tell if a player takes them simply because he/she enjoys the idea of the spell or just looking to exploit the imbalance.

Feats -- There are about half a dozen of them that are insanely powerful that many DMs outright ban. On the flip side of that, there's at least a dozen that need some love because they're nearly useless. Fixing feats is still something I have yet finish. They're on my to-do list, but I just haven't had time to do anything but re-work the 5 or 6 stupid ones like Sentinel.

Here's a bit of simple advice (though you might have already realized it).

5e moved away from the hyper-inflated number of roll modifiers we saw in previous editions. With the bounded accuracy system of 5e, every +/-1 there is to an attack, armor class, DC, or skill check is meaningful. To help illustrate -- Magic weapons, now, cap out at +3 to hit unlike past editions that capped at +5 (or super rarely +6), 5e is balanced without magic items factored in to the equation. They don't need them to succeed, but we all know that finding cool shit is a huge part of the game for a lot of players. Point being, you have to be a lot more intelligent and deliberate about awarding magic items.

In previous editions, it wouldn't have raised many brows to see something like a 12th level fighter wearing a Girdle of Storm Giant Strength while wielding a +3 Flaming Sword. However, in 5e, such a character would be a wildly overpowered, death-dealing monster.

5e is very susceptible to enabling broken characters if they acquire too many magic items too quickly or even just a few that are too powerful. Those situation WILL cause you a lot of headaches. I don't want to scare you away from giving players cool shit because it's fun for everyone, but just be mindful in doing it.

So, obviously, Advantage/Disadvantage are HUGE given the fact that they average out to +/- 4-6 on rolls, over time.

That said, I see a lot of DMs without a lot of 5e experience fall in to a bit of an odd trap with Difficulty Checks; almost treating them like attack rolls where they heavily favor the top-end of the range in order for a check to succeed. Generally, MOST of your DCs are going to fall between 10-20. This is especially true in tiers I/II and with the way 5e is designed, there isn't a massive increase in success rate for characters at tiers III/IV. Minimum proficiency rating starts at +2 and only maxes at +6. Of course that doesn't account for ability scores, spells, or magic items, but generally speaking, the range is pretty tight. Point of that tirade is this -- try to understand the math of 5e because every point counts and you can unknowingly make things far too difficult (or easy) for your players with just small changes.
We're doing Sunless Citadel now, and we'll continue that as well.
That's a really good, traditional D&D adventure for low-level characters.
 
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Grabbit Allworth

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The other two pieces of really important advice I can give you for DMs with minimal experience is:

1. Do NOT allow players to play use content from 3rd party sources. You're not going to have the experience to recognize the problems it can create. Classes, sub-classes, spells, feats, etc from 3rd parties notorious for being very poorly tuned/tested. Many times there's no testing, at all. Once you get a significant amount of experience you can open that door, but don't let whiny players pressure you in to it before you're ready. If being unable to use something you've designated off-limits is a deal-breaker for one of your players, fuck 'em, let them go. There's a massive shortage of DMs and an over-abundance of players so you won't have any problem replacing them. Though replacing players is a massive headache.

2. Resist the temptation to make major changes to existing rules or add a bunch of your own homebrew rules. Don't get me wrong, I FULLY support customizing your game as I do it myself to an insane degree, but you need to get some experience before you start 'fixing' stuff.

Modifying rules is a pitfall that I think most DMs fall in to. I've got a strong understanding of D&D, but occasionally I still have to walk back a change I made because I'll encounter a scenario that makes me realize that the rule I added/changed doesn't work for everyone or only made sense for the players in a previous campaign.
 

bigmark268

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So I finally pulled out all the d&d minis. I have way more then I remembered lol
20210828_154620.jpg
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20210828_165611.jpg
 
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j00t

Silver Baronet of the Realm
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Tasha's DEFINITELY has some player options that are incredibly powerful relative to content from earlier books like the PHB. The custom lineage optional rule is complete retardation and banned at my table. It's a min/max power gamers wet dream. If you allow that, all other races (except some of the broken shit like Yuan-Ti or Saytr) are mechanically inferior. For a number of reasons, I restrict the races my players can choose to what's in the PHB. Some hate that but most understand why I won't allow shit like Goblin, Centaur, or Aarakocra PCs. However, I do allow them to choose sub-classes from anything WoTC officially publishes for 5e (Unearthed Arcana is off-limits because it's playtest material that's wildly unbalanced and much of it never makes it to print).

Though there is a massive power level spectrum among sub-classes, none of them are so much of a problem that they'll break your game unless you've got a player actively trying to build a Death Star AND has the kind of personality where he/she wants to shine ALL the time. That can be a problem.

Tasha's also has a few spells that are simply too good, but I haven't banned any of them. I can usually tell if a player takes them simply because he/she enjoys the idea of the spell or just looking to exploit the imbalance.

Feats -- There are about half a dozen of them that are insanely powerful that many DMs outright ban. On the flip side of that, there's at least a dozen that need some love because they're nearly useless. Fixing feats is still something I have yet finish. They're on my to-do list, but I just haven't had time to do anything but re-work the 5 or 6 stupid ones like Sentinel.

Here's a bit of simple advice (though you might have already realized it).

5e moved away from the hyper-inflated number of roll modifiers we saw in previous editions. With the bounded accuracy system of 5e, every +/-1 there is to an attack, armor class, DC, or skill check is meaningful. To help illustrate -- Magic weapons, now, cap out at +3 to hit unlike past editions that capped at +5 (or super rarely +6), 5e is balanced without magic items factored in to the equation. They don't need them to succeed, but we all know that finding cool shit is a huge part of the game for a lot of players. Point being, you have to be a lot more intelligent and deliberate about awarding magic items.

In previous editions, it wouldn't have raised many brows to see something like a 12th level fighter wearing a Girdle of Storm Giant Strength while wielding a +3 Flaming Sword. However, in 5e, such a character would be a wildly overpowered, death-dealing monster.

5e is very susceptible to enabling broken characters if they acquire too many magic items too quickly or even just a few that are too powerful. Those situation WILL cause you a lot of headaches. I don't want to scare you away from giving players cool shit because it's fun for everyone, but just be mindful in doing it.

So, obviously, Advantage/Disadvantage are HUGE given the fact that they average out to +/- 4-6 on rolls, over time.

That said, I see a lot of DMs without a lot of 5e experience fall in to a bit of an odd trap with Difficulty Checks; almost treating them like attack rolls where they heavily favor the top-end of the range in order for a check to succeed. Generally, MOST of your DCs are going to fall between 10-20. This is especially true in tiers I/II and with the way 5e is designed, there isn't a massive increase in success rate for characters at tiers III/IV. Minimum proficiency rating starts at +2 and only maxes at +6. Of course that doesn't account for ability scores, spells, or magic items, but generally speaking, the range is pretty tight. Point of that tirade is this -- try to understand the math of 5e because every point counts and you can unknowingly make things far too difficult (or easy) for your players with just small changes.

That's a really good, traditional D&D adventure for low-level characters.
There's some stuff that I don't 100% agree with here... I think the ancestry in Tasha's is generally a good change because it allows for atypical characters without crippling your group. One of my favorite characters is a Goliath sorcerer. The very idea of that monstrosity is abhorrent but I thought the concept was fun and my dm agreed so we worked pretty hard to make sure his stats were comparable to the "right" choice for a sorcerer. If Tasha's was out when I made that character it would have been simple and straightforward.

I think one of the biggest killers for dm's is rigidity. I mean I'm not calling you out specifically, just you made me think of it. We might find a rule we don't like and so we don't allow it.

Flanking is a great example since it's already an optional rule. Advantage is already super strong so you don't want to give it out like candy. There's a very good reason NOT to allow flanking.

However, there's also some good reasons why you WOULD want to allow flanking. It immediately rewards the players for thinking more about tactical placement and punishes them for it oring it. It's also a bit more realistic in terms of combat. Being surrounded in real life becomes a cascading problem the more people are involved but if you don't allow flanking then just using the dodge action mostly nullifies any of that.

My point is that for rules I think it's important for everyone at the table to have a seat at that table, as it were. If the dm hates a rule but all the players want a rule, then its time for a conversation.

Something that we always go back to at my table is "are we having fun?" As the dm you have to take the reins and curate the experience. It's a big responsibility bit you have to make sure all the players are having fun. It might be worth compromising a rule or two to make sure everyone is having a good time.

The other side of that though, is that I like to think that each player is also in charge of making sure the dm is having fun. Knowing your abilities, planning your turn BEFORE your turn so you're not wasting people's time, and not arguing with the dm. The dm has final say and what they say, goes.

Which leads me to the second thing that kills dm's. It's okay to say no. You are the one running the game, you are the one spending all the time preparing for each session. Sometimes players get tunnel vision and they need to be reined in and told no. "okay I want to read this archmage's book and memorize his spells so I can copy them later. I ROLLED A NAT 20 I SHOULD GET ALL HIS SPELLS" "Yeah, no. That's not how that works. But hey, we respect the crit in this house so I'll let you remember what spells the book has and you can ask the archmage if he'll let you copy some spells"
 

Angerz

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Also, on the topic of being careful about what you hand out, this is true, but you should be able to get the hang of it pretty quickly.

I now give my players all kinds of cool and unbalanced shit, I just also am confident enough to give the things they are fighting cool and unbalanced shit and it all works out (or I have to, uhhh, maybe sometimes nerf a monster mid fight cause I made it too cool and unbalanced, but shit happens and everything you do is a lesson for the next dumb thing you want to do)
 
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Genjiro

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The designers of 5e are just retarded. Way too much stuff the DM has to constantly be creating to fuck the players over with (ie counter) and its so transparent it causes issues. If I had known this before Dming I would have just banned like half the character creation options.....

Flight Im looking at you. Back in like 2e it was rare as fuck for something to fly, in 5e everything and its mother in sublcasses etc gives the ability to the point it feels like you are in the fucking MCU. You have to either load the encounters up with stupid homebrew shit, or watch the party faceroll all the content they put out to the point its incredibly obvious what you are doing. Wtf were they thinking?

BUT HEY ITS INCLUSIVE AND MY ELF CAN CHANGE HIS SEX
 
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bigmark268

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Yeh I never took to the 5e stuff myself. I mean lore and the like sure np. I still read the close to non existent novels. But I always felt the mechanics wnt back to old 3.0. Oh you're a meele cool, roll to basic attack all night. But that's on my players. They don't improvise based on setting or situation. They are very "oh its not in this book? Then I can't do it" even though I'm very the opposite.

Side note. We were and all still are very vested in 4e. A lot of my friends saw the arpg/mmo esque mechanics and took to them very well. Though I still have to explain what add to hit or damage. And thats after we've been playing for 12yrs lol
 
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Angerz

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The designers of 5e are just retarded. Way too much stuff the DM has to constantly be creating to fuck the players over with (ie counter) and its so transparent it causes issues. If I had known this before Dming I would have just banned like half the character creation options.....

Flight Im looking at you. Back in like 2e it was rare as fuck for something to fly, in 5e everything and its mother in sublcasses etc gives the ability to the point it feels like you are in the fucking MCU. You have to either load the encounters up with stupid homebrew shit, or watch the party faceroll all the content they put out to the point its incredibly obvious what you are doing. Wtf were they thinking?

BUT HEY ITS INCLUSIVE AND MY ELF CAN CHANGE HIS SEX
I havent played it in a few years, but as far as I know, Flight is actually banned in Adventurer's League, the official organized play of 5e,

I dont ban anything, but even I nerf player flight (other than Fly Spell itself), and generally gentleman's agreement it to not have a bunch of flying shit to make melee characters lives boring and or hell in combat.
 
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Hatorade

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The designers of 5e are just retarded. Way too much stuff the DM has to constantly be creating to fuck the players over with (ie counter) and its so transparent it causes issues. If I had known this before Dming I would have just banned like half the character creation options.....

Flight Im looking at you. Back in like 2e it was rare as fuck for something to fly, in 5e everything and its mother in sublcasses etc gives the ability to the point it feels like you are in the fucking MCU. You have to either load the encounters up with stupid homebrew shit, or watch the party faceroll all the content they put out to the point its incredibly obvious what you are doing. Wtf were they thinking?

BUT HEY ITS INCLUSIVE AND MY ELF CAN CHANGE HIS SEX
Pathfinder has the same thing, basically anyone can fly just have to be a stickler for the rules of concentration and flight/hover checks it isn't nearly as bad as you making it out to be.
 

Urlithani

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First session on Saturday went well. Of course in the group text the day of the game I get requests for someone to bring a friend who wants to try it out, etc. Went from 4 players to 5, with 2 more potentially joining next session.

I am totally not prepared for new players after playing with a bunch of min-maxers. I offered the fighter, who is a farmboy, a chain shirt that's in his family because he didn't roll much gold and he says it doesnt fit his backstory of being poor. The barbarian is wearing leather armor, so 2 front liners have an AC of 13.

I leveled them up early and threw in a chain shirt and a scale mail on some skeletons they killed, and I'm really hoping they put it on.

Lastly, I gave them a dwarven drink mixer (a magical heavy mace that has the head of an ice cube. No bonus to hit but does +1 cold damage. Also keeps things chilled, like booze). So they random it and the warlock beats the rogue, barb, fighter and paladin for it.

A lot of fun to play again after 8 years, but I usually have to tune things up instead of down.
 

j00t

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I havent played it in a few years, but as far as I know, Flight is actually banned in Adventurer's League, the official organized play of 5e,

I dont ban anything, but even I nerf player flight (other than Fly Spell itself), and generally gentleman's agreement it to not have a bunch of flying shit to make melee characters lives boring and or hell in combat.
Flight is... I think it's one of those things that really demonstrates what kind of dm you have and how good they are.

On one hand, you want to give your players cool stuff, but it can really derail encounters if you give your players TOO cool of stuff. The easy way to resolve that is to create encounters that counter that cool stuff. For examples your characters can fly, but the adventures take place in enclosed spaces like sewers or small caves.

But then you risk alienating your players because they can't use the cool stuff they have. Another option is to make it so that all the encounters take place in wide open spaces so that the players can use flight whenever they want but then it isn't particularly special anymore.

I think if your going to allow something like flight (or really any kind of ability or skill or whatever that isn't "normal") you have to lean into it and create encounters that are handcrafted for those things (which obviously can end up being a lot of work).

So for flight, if some of your players can fly create encounters where some of the enemies can fly as well. So the fliers keep each other busy. Or have grounded enemies start using abilities specifically designed to ground flying creatures to use against your party and it's the ground melee's job to stop those guys so the flying party members aren't trapped.

I dont play with min-maxers so obviously a lot of stuff goes out the window in that kind of group, I just don't like the idea of players not being able to play the kind of character they want because someone else abused it.

You can always have a conversation with someone before the game and tell them your concerns as a dm and if the would be willing to work with those concerns or not.

It's like guidance... I like to take that cantrio but it slows the game down to a crawl if your casting guidance every 6 seconds. I usually work a deal out with the dm that I'll be using guidance on skill checks that are deliberate, like investigating a room or disarming a trap.

A player should be able to work within those kind of confines and if they can't, then either they need to learn how or find another table
 
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Genjiro

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Pathfinder has the same thing, basically anyone can fly just have to be a stickler for the rules of concentration and flight/hover checks it isn't nearly as bad as you making it out to be.
Bullshit. If there are melee combatants without a way to do things like prone them they are just fodder. and the sheer amount of it in regular gameplay is just plain stupid. Again, this isnt the MCU nor should it be.....I dont remember in my reading of any of the DnD novels or older modules of the tabletop game in the past having this kind of retarded ass combat. That was typically reserved for things like you know, dragons or rare insanely powerful spellcasters and definitely not the PCs (and usually showed up only in epic encounters).

You would have been laughed off the table asking to play a race that could fly. Its hilarious actually thinking of what my DM would have said if I proposed my own race/class of what you can play as now.

So.......that Aasimar in the Manual of the planes.

DM: yea?

I want to have some of their powers.

DM: Wtf are you retarded?

Yea, and here's my homebrew class I wanna play (hands him copy/paste of the Twilight Cleric)

DM: Gtfo
 
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Hatorade

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Bullshit. If there are melee combatants without a way to do things like prone them they are just fodder. and the sheer amount of it in regular gameplay is just plain stupid. Again, this isnt the MCU nor should it be.....I dont remember in my reading of any of the DnD novels or older modules of the tabletop game in the past having this kind of retarded ass combat. That was typically reserved for things like you know, dragons or rare insanely powerful spellcasters and definitely not the PCs (and usually showed up only in epic encounters).

You would have been laughed off the table asking to play a race that could fly. Its hilarious actually thinking of what my DM would have said if I proposed my own race/class of what you can play as now.

So.......that Aasimar in the Manual of the planes.

DM: yea?

I want to have some of their powers.

DM: Wtf are you retarded?

Yea, and here's my homebrew class I wanna play (hands him copy/paste of the Twilight Cleric)

DM: Gtfo
Who shit in your cheerios? Never once in the 20+ years of pen and paper has flying been an issue. As a DM I use it to soften them up or give them a puzzle to solve, as a player sure 1-2 players in the party might not have a way to take on flyers but the other 2-3 will. It is a team game, everyone gets a chance to shine when you encounter different things.
Next you going to tell me drow innate levitation is OP and ruins the entire genre...
Straight banning flight is just lazy, no DM worth a shit would ban fly as written.
Come at me with some homebrew bullshit that lets you fly all the time with perfect hover and no restrictions I will not allow it but as written it is all good.

Wrath of the righteous is coming up and some of the best shit involved flying, scouting entire armys on the march, getting stunned 120 feet off the ground pass your save only to be left with quarter HP and toe to toe with a badass etc. all stand out moments because of flight.
 
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Arden

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Flying has been around in DnD forever and poses some unique challenges for a GM, but it's not new and it's not that hard to deal with if you are a creative GM.
 
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Onoes

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Yeah, I've also never really had a problem with flying in 30 years of playing D&D. Shit, I had a flying carpet in second edition, mainly used it for travel (I imagine if I tried to use it in combat I would have fallen off and died to fall damage, lol). I did take advantage of it one time, which was fun and probably the only reason I remember it, but mostly I was so nervous of dying constantly so you could have given me a bazooka and I would have not abused it.

I once Dmed a game where a PC found a ring that would grant one wish (but it was kind of a monkey paw thing, as noted by the fact he found the ring on a skeleton buried under a pile of gold bricks in some abandoned cabin in the middle of the woods). The player decided to try to craft a foolproof wish, and said something like "I wish I was able to fly, but reasonably so, no faster than I could normally move, and with average control over the ability" the ring flashes and he started floated about a foot up and stops. He could only fly up about three feet, around how high he could jump normally, and he couldn't land. He was always floating at least an inch over whatever, could move at walk/run speed, but that was the extent of it. Even with that gotcha, the character ran with it and probably 15 years later told me it was one of his favorite characters. He would wear a long robe and just sort of float around dragging it all creepily on occasion, or he would float up a couple feet if he wanted to intimidate people. He would have to make deception checks or whatever was in 2nd to mime walk convincingly if he was trying to blend in. He did come up with some creative uses, just floating over poison, acid, water, lava, you name it. He basically went from being annoyed to turning it into his characters defining characteristic, and it was pretty great.

In the current game I'm running, I gave the barbarian a Valkyr Vest at like lvl 3. Its just a strappy leather belt vest thing, but has 3 charges per day of flight. Ghostly wings pop out a bonus action, lasts 1 turn, she can go double her move speed, but the wings vanish and she falls at the end of her turn. So, she can use it three total times, either landing at the end of her move or falling, OR she can fly 2 or 3 turns consecutively. The game I have been running is basically broken up into downtime and adventures, with adventures basically lasting a day or two max, more like missions foe the organization they work for, so effectively she can use it 3 times per adventure. It's been great. She's used it for basic stuff like crossing a gap, she's used it to negate several traps and things too, and she's used it in combat - tackling a big bad off a cliff and flying back up and another time flying over a heavily fortified enemy encampment and dropped molotovs in the place. Basically, it's been a pretty awesome tool that has led to so "Holy Shit.. ok.. wow" moments. When it fucks my plans up, the table is usually cheering, so while it might be a DM bummer, overall its a gaming win.

I guess none of those are real ironman flight powers, though. I did DM a game where I let someone play an Aarakocra, but it was a brand new player who also wanted to be a melee fighter effectively, so I wasn't really worried about super cheese. While it did definitely negate some stuff for that char, I never really had an issue DMing my way around it. I do imagine a big part of it is knowing your players also. I have min/max players I've been DMing for around 20 years, and I have to really think about every single thing I give them with the understanding that they WILL break the game if they can. I also have players that I could hand artifacts to at lvl 1 and they would use them to try and pry doors open, or hold scrolls down so they don't blow away.

Anyway, I'm just rambling and enjoying talking about D&D :) But yeah, my motto as a DM is usually "Lets try it, and if it breaks everything.. I'll fix it in post." Give the players flying, and if its insane broken? Night Hag curses them and steals their magic - tie them getting their flight back to the story. Their characters quest is now bound to getting this amazing magic power back. Problem Solved. Give them that +3 Vorpal sword, ohh shit thats too strong and breaking everything? Rust monsters break it, the original owner comes for it, etc etc
 
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Genjiro

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Flying has been around in DnD forever and poses some unique challenges for a GM, but it's not new and it's not that hard to deal with if you are a creative GM.
Fuck it, waste of breath. But go ahead and tell me what was ever like this in the game?

Channel Divinity: Twilight Sanctuary​



At 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to refresh your allies with soothing twilight.

As an action, you present your holy symbol, and a sphere of twilight emanates from you. The sphere is centered on you, has a 30-foot radius, and is filled with dim light. The sphere moves with you, and it lasts for 1 minute or until you are incapacitated or die. Whenever a creature (including you) ends its turn in the sphere, you can grant that creature one of these benefits:

  • You grant it temporary hit points equal to 1d6 plus your cleric level.
  • You end one effect on it causing it to be charmed or frightened.

Steps of Night​

Starting at 6th level, you can draw on the mystical power of night to rise into the air. As a bonus action when you are in dim light or darkness, you can magically give yourself a flying speed equal to your walking speed for 1 minute. You can use this bonus action a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Steps of Night doesnt even need a race to do it. 5e is dumb. You either make 90% of the fights a cakewalk or you put flight in EVERYTHING and its fucking MCU. I guess going forward I will just ban everything with flight.

Aarokocra with spell sniper seems balanced.
 
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Genjiro

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Onoes: "I never had a problem with flight"

Lmfao dude

Onoes right after: I also give out super overpowered low level items that grant flight

Well, I guess not lol.

Thanks for proving my point about me saying the DM has to do ridiculous shit to balance things like flying.