What's to stop a Pixie-Fairy from dropping fireballs and magic missiles on you from 700 feet?
In the system of Hackmaster mages suffer spell fatigue after casting each spell. Spell fatigue causes the caster to move at half speed, and they cannot run or sprint. Walking speed is reduced to a crawl, and the caster takes a 30% penalty to all skill checks, while also suffering a -6 to defense rolls. No other spells can be cast, the mage cannot speak above a whisper, and all actions take twice as long to complete.
...but none of that really matters if the pixie-fairy can maintain any kind of altitude above 100 feet, where there's no need to defend against any attacks anyway, outside of taking incoming offensive spells.
What would be appropriate balance to a pixie-fairy casting spells while flying? Should a pixie-fairy be incapable of casting spells while flying? Should a pixie-fairy that casts magic while flying tumble to the earth, losing the ability to fly at all under fatigue? Should a pixie-fairy be able to cast spells with what is relative impunity, compared to the penalties that a regular mage would suffer? As the pixie-fairy would simply enter a glide at a slower speed than its standard forward flight, or a decaying hover.
How would one balance a spell casting flying creature?
>What's to stop a Pixie-Fairy from dropping fireballs and magic missiles on you from 700 feet? presumably another mage on the ground with the exact same range. If the pixie can hit the ground, the ground can hit the pixie.
Robert Bell
Pfff... fun as that would be, we're trying to balance a PC that's playing a pixie-faerie, and it's kind of important to determine just how overpowered a pixie-faerie mage should be.
A flying spellcaster is pretty bullshit. They just shouldn't be able to cast spells while flying. Spell casting usually requires a lot of concentration. Whether you're flying or gliding, doing anything other than focusing on channeling your energy and making the necessary gestures or chants should be impossible to maintain control of.
Isaiah Robinson
Pixie fairies cant cast with a mouth full of dick. Change my mind
Grayson Ramirez
You got a tiny dick senpai.
Bentley Gonzalez
Mages are rare and unlikely to be encountered the majority of the time.
Their own lack of intelligence. There's a reason that fairies are rarely made a PC-able race, because high charisma+flight+magic even with level adjustment makes them all the fun parts of a caster right off the bat.
It would be fun to see a modern tech vs fantasyland story where both sides are at a complete stalemate instead of GATE tier Humanity Fuck Yeah
Ayden Bell
How can someone still fly when fatigued? So a fatigued person is too tired to run but they can still fly like normal? That doesn't make any sense. I'm not sure exactly how the mechanics in that system work, but a person flying while fatigued should be in trouble. Either they land soon or they're in for some serious fall damage.
Nicholas Harris
You and this guy should hook up.
Jaxson Jackson
Well that's what I'm asking. Should a PF that casts magic suddenly lose control of their wings, and enter a tumble, or would she still be able to glide forward while losing altitude, since that's technically half her walking speed, and doesn't require much concentration or energy.
Leo Baker
Gliding requires a rigid hold over your wings, it's not actually effortless, especially for a creature that isn't naturally aerodynamic like a Pixie Fairy.
Nolan Fisher
Seconding this! Pixies/Fairies/Fae are always pictured with insectoid/lepidopteroid wings, and those do not include any gliding species (as yet known!) amongst their ranks. There's a reason that gliding birds such as vultures, condors, albatrosses, etc, have such large wingspans, just as their ancestral pterasaurs did!
Isaiah Torres
So glide is out, and a flying person would have no effective means to stay airborne, at least till fatigue wore off.
Julian Gutierrez
So a couple things;
>Pixie-Fairy The fuck is this? Just say fairy >Another pixie thread Is this the new sultan's harem? >PC flight one, given a pixies size, they can probably fly/hover about as high as a humming bird, which is 500 feet. Two, flight is an energy intensive action, and not something I would allow a PC to even do if fatigued. When fatigued, short fluttering hops like a chicken would be acceptable (multiply horizontal and vertical leap range by 1.5), but you aren't keeping yourself in the air
Now, something like a hummingbird can fly over a thousand miles without stopping, but they aren't nearly as heavy or complex or unaerodynamic as a pixie. Granted, it's a pixie, so it's fucking magic so fuck physics. But still if a PC is trying to fly long distance at altitude I'm having predators like Hawks and shit ambush dive them
As for your issue, which is the high mobility of a pixie caster, spellcasting is concentrate intensive. Therefore, a casting PC should/must hover in place when casting, or else take a concentrate roll at -4 to avoid dropping the spell. Second, the light and sound show inherent with casting negates the to-hit penalty of the casters small size for missiles due to them becoming highly visible and obvious targets.
After that it's a matter of giving all your mooks slings and crossbows
Nolan Martin
Rereading your post and noting hackmasters rules, I would say that 1. The PC shouldn't just plummet to the earth, but the fatigue should make manuevering difficult, and they shouldn't be able to do much more than hover in place or move around on their horizontal plane at half normal distance, or initiate controlled descent at normal move rate.
Second, limit their flight height to 500 feet. That's still pretty high considering the height of each storey of a modern building is about 10 feet. For reference, the General Motors building in New York is 705 feet, and the Telesis Tower in San Francisco is 500 ft.
So your pixie CAN aerial bomb enemies, but she's going to have to rapidly descend - prompt checks to stay airborne or descend at normal rate each turn due to fatigue, and make it difficult
Luis Harris
> What's to stop a Pixie-Fairy from dropping fireballs and magic missiles on you from 700 feet?
I'm in a Dungeon trying to fight a Dragon. Dungeon ceilings are kinda limited in height. They also provide excellent cover against orbital pixie strikes.
Josiah Johnson
>mages are rare Never make a setting with rare mages and allow the players to play a mage. You both undermine the rarity of the mages as the party is constantly in contact with them and you often remove the best tools for actually threatening them as well.
Levi Wright
What's to stop a Pixie-Fairy from dropping fireballs and magic missiles on you from 700 feet?
We're playing Shadowrun.
Any winged asshole tries to start shit, it immediately gets torn into ribbons.
Tyler Richardson
1. Lots of projection to aim proper 2. Just become a ghost 3. Just parry it lmao t. Anima
Jason Rogers
Would you prefer a reasonable, grounded stalemate or a completely over-the-top Caster Supremacy vs Humanity Fuck Yeah festival of war? (Or maybe heroic martials, I'm not picky.)
Bentley Walker
>muh low magic setting >muh wizards are rare Enough with this shit
Kevin Anderson
Other people can play whatever the hell they want.
That said, low magic is shit.
Brayden Rivera
>What's to stop a Pixie-Fairy from dropping fireballs and magic missiles on you from 700 feet? fact that she is my familiar
Carter Turner
>maybe heroic martials I like the thought of a high level martial standing from cover to make a charge while shouting, gets shot dozens of times then decides to jump back into cover as the cleric calls them foolish, especially since now they have to move after giving their position away, probably having to use up some magic to help move undetected.
Jack Hughes
Don't be silly. A fairy would never go around casting fireballs! Fairies are helpful and innocent, and just want to help you awaken the crystals! Why don't you go awaken the crystals, instead of hurting your brain thinking about such silly questions like fireball-throwing fairies?
Gavin Flores
>They also provide excellent cover against orbital pixie strikes. Depends on how determined the pixie is
>tfw when I started uruposting a month or two ago it was rare and shocking but now every second thread has one fucking bandwagoners
Jayden King
Yeah no that's bullshit that leads to all sorts of shit that cripples spellcasters
OP the ability to fly and cast spells at 300 ft range SHOULD make them OP. What is with retards wanting to balance shit that is inherently unbalanced?
Caleb Garcia
>What's to stop a Pixie-Fairy from dropping fireballs and magic missiles on you from 700 feet? OP clearly has never played Wizardry.
Angel Stewart
Something tells me you should've considered these questions before letting your player play this sort of character. Just saying.
Michael Hall
Not in Hackmaster. Mages are very vulnerable thanks to spell fatigue and spell mishaps. Having your spell casting interrupted fucks you up. Mages don't really have any more answers to another Mage than anyone else does ultimately except for knowledge of what they could be doing.
4e Pixies can only fly one square above the ground max, which any normal-sized character can reach with their weapon.
In fact, in 4e the ability to fly is less useful in combat than just being tiny, which allows them to be in the same square as another creature without problems. This enables all kinds of shenanigans.
Henry Morales
I don't understand your plight, OP >Spell fatigue causes the caster to move at half speed, and they cannot run or sprint. Walking speed is reduced to a crawl So spellcasters cannot move their legs fast enough to run, but faeries can keep moving their wings fast enough to fly? Seems to me like spell fatigue will cause them to slow down their wings and make them fall.
Zachary Stewart
That seems to be the overwhelming consensus, yeah. Still seemed like a fun question to pose.
Isaiah Rodriguez
What, did they steal your firstborn because your great-grandfather made a stupid promise or something?
Nathan Thompson
>t. elder thing masquerading as cute fairy
Logan Cox
Fuck you, Airy is perfect.
Christian Wright
That sounds like something a (f)lying (f)airy would say.
Isaac Lee
I mean they could, but it'd be pretty much a suicide tactic.
Jace Watson
Any sort of area damage spell has an advantage fired air-to-surface since it's easier to tag the ground close to someone than it is to land a direct hit on a flying enemy. Not to mention physical flight tends to be faster than land travel just from the speed required to generate lift.
Jayden Myers
> just as their ancestral pterasaurs did You failed paleontology forever.
Leo Rodriguez
He mistook "great-granduncle" for "great-grandfather," which to be fair is not the worst mistake you can make.
Kayden Thomas
There's no such thing as a pterasaur.
Asher Harris
Because then the retards that say it's ok for that to unbalanced demand the more mundane classes be balanced.
Adam Ross
The term is pter/o/saur (assuming that term is not yet outdated), yes. user probably just made a typographical error.
