How would you go about balancing a campaign around players that start with flying combat mounts?

How would you go about balancing a campaign around players that start with flying combat mounts?

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Flying enemies

Develop good aerial combat rules.
Design encounters with mostly flying opponents or opponents that are otherwise able to engage efficiently a flying party (abundant ranged weapons, magic, etc.).
Be aware that terrains and most 'arena' designs will be a non-factor most of the time.
And when you want earthbound battles, just put them in a dungeon.

Aerial dungeons that have minimal floors?

Mostly this.
Keep momentum and wind on thrown items.
Warn them that going unconscious in mid-air means certain death from fall damage.
Have them use flying checks whenever they use an action that isn't simply glide or drop item.
Use copious amount of sudden net traps.
Dungeons and underground areas hamper flight

Flak cannons.

Also, limit the ability to fly on weight and armor. On medium or heavier encumbrance, you cannot fly at all.
Have a large downside to the race, such as the inability to use most weapons or a minor weakness to bludgeoning.

Archers hard counter Flying enemies anyways.

It's almost as if you never played pic related. ;)

This, and being in mid-air often means you have no cover at all.

Do balance every encounter in four to include flying enemies or another challenge for the flying teammate. Such as a goblin in a flying balloon shooting a repeat crossbow.

A group of PC Griffon Knights vs. Hobgoblin Sky Pirates who've taken control of an airship and a squadron of Gyrocopters/Ornithopters would be a fun fight.

OP here. Thanks for the suggestions. I was thinking about stating their mounts and giving different mounts different abilities.
i.e Pegasi being fast as fuck and having some protective magic but being weak as fuck, or wyverns being slow and super tanky. Should I do something with leveling mounts, or should I make them static and expendable?

there opponents also have flying mounts

alternitivly they start with low flying skill low animal handling or both so there flight is really clumsy to start with and they can grow there skills as they level up

What game are you running it in?

I know that if you're using 3.P you can use the Animal Companion scaling for the mounts.
d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/druid/animal-companions

Terrains will mostly be negligible, but not all the time.
"Fly low, keep to the trees; we don't want to be seen from a distance or the dragons will awaken and intercept before we can finish our quest here."

"The mountains are tall here; if we're dismounted, we might not have time to hit our wind-harness to break our fall."


Additionally you'll have weather to consider rather than terrain. Stormy weather messing things up, cloud-banks, sun-placement, temperatures, altitude differences, maybe places with a Veil that darkens the land along the lines of The Seventh Tower.

As for the campaign at large, make sure you're ready with a map of the world at large or at least of the continental area the PCs will be. You've got high mobility so the range of places they can go to and interact with are pretty big. They're not likely to be denied access to trade, merchants and safe havens unless they're put in a societal position of rejection like criminal charges or public disgrace might.

You could also use cheapnest, waiting time and availability of healing, replacement or while-you-wait-loaner-mounts.

>quad fiddy mount
>Flak
Mate that's SPAAG

make them clumsy flyers to start with

>Balancing
I would look for new GM

FLugzeugAbwehrKannon, a.k.a. anti-aircraft artilllery. Of which Self-Propelled Anti-Aircraft Guns are a subtype. So both of you are right (though it's A spaag).

Underwater adventures.

Weather and environment. Flying is relatively easy to do in normal weather but bad weather gives them reductions in movement, vision, and ranged combat.

Example:
-Sorcerers band together to create a Thunderstorm, making it too dangerous for them to fly.
-Elementals attack with wind gusts, threatening to throw the riders from their mounts.
-Archers. Archers everywhere. Especially if the keep being assaulted is on a cliffside.
-Flying too high or too quickly can cause stress on the rider. Flying too slow makes them vulnerable to attack.
-Airships or Balloons which can alert the keep of flying enemies, but are too high up to make out any ground troops.
-Force the riders to learn about their mounts before they can use them to full effectiveness.

and my personal favorite.
-Florina dates Hector and they go at it hard. she's too sore to ride her Pegasus in the next battle.

.50 cal isn't considered artillery by any standard though.

Archers, spell casters

This shit isn't rocket science
If they're out of melee range then switch to what will hit them.

Make sure at least one enemy gets away from them to alert others of their tactics.If they bitch that suddenly everyone is attacking them via range you can tell them that the one that got away probably warned others.

Most organized enemies are going to have some form of mixed tactics melee/range/spells/stealth

So even without the excuse of being alerted to the pc's use of flying mounts most enemies will at least be ready to attack at range.

Remind them constantly that falling off said mounts is most likely fatal.

Do the most annoying sound for the mounts all the time. Players will stop using them, I promise.