Flight and moving from building to building

[Lakshman]

I'd like to ask how does flight work when moving from a Ht3 terrain to another Ht3 terrain. We've assumed so far in our community that since nothing indicates it does not fall as soon as it moves of the terrain, it has to fall and then fly up to another terrain. However, the Enclosed terrain trait contains the following example:

"A Nephilim may fly over a building or take flight from its rooftop, but may not teleport through the wall".

Does that simply mean it can fly down from the rooftop, or does it refer to flying from one terrain to another without having to fall?

Edited October 20, 2015 by Lakshman
EDIT: Tags.

[Astrella]

 Flying models fall, there's nothing in the rules that makes them ignore that.

8) Q: A model with the Incorporeal Ability ignores terrain when it moves. If it is on the ground floor of a building which is 10” tall, can it end its move on top of the building, even if its Wk stat is less than 10, since it ignores the building while moving? Same question for a model with Flight in regards to vertical terrain.

A: No. Although measurements in Malifaux are generally made from a top down view, vertical distances are measured while moving a model (see pg. 42 of the rulebook, Movement & Terrain). If the model with Incorporeal ends its move on top of the 10” tall building, it would have moved 10” and, unless it has a Wk of 10 or greater, this is not a legal move. However, if the Incorporeal model has a sufficient Wk stat to complete the move, it would be able to end the move on top of the terrain, ignoring the usual rules for climbing, etc. Flight works similarly, except in the case of Enclosed terrain (see Enclosed terrain, rulebook pg. 60).

 Flying models don't ignore terrain if they want to end up on top of terrain. You only ignore terrain if you don't end up in it. (e.g. flying models still have take damage from hazardous terrain if they land in it.) So what the model has to do in this case is fall down (ignoring falling damage), move to the edge of the building, and then fly up.

[Astrella]

I don't think there's much to go on, here. As far as I can tell, there's not even a rule which tells us the circumstances in which models fall. Here's the entirety of the falling rules:

Models moving off elevations and falling suffer no damage if the fall was 2” or less. If the fall was more than 2” the fall deals 1 damage per 1”, or fraction thereof, fallen. (Core Rulebook, p.42)

What about models moving off elevations and not falling? The rules don't cover that.

Common sense tells us that models fall when they move off solid objects, and the rules seem to rely on that. Common sense also tells us that flying creatures don't fall when they take flight.

Personally, I would be happy to let an opponent fly from a Ht 3 building to a Ht 4 building at the cost of 1" of movement.

Also, do remember that FAQ answers cannot be extrapolated, and that a push is not the same as a move.

Common sense does not feature in it, cause common sense would also dictate that a model flying over a 50 ht building takes more effort than flying over flat terrain, and yet they're equally easy under the roles. There is nothing stating that flying models do not follow the falling rules, (and having a callout saying they don't take falling damage if they don't fall doesn't make any sense.)

[santaclaws01]

The FaQ says models that fall, fall immediately. There's really no way around this unless we want to say that flying models don't fall.

The FAQ for pushes says that the model falls immediately.  Pushing isn't movement using flight.

 

No, it says Models that fall, fall immediately. It then goes on to say that models that are pushed can't be pushed over gaps.

[amanwing]

And I let my Teddy fly through a windows in HT3 starting from the ground without even counting height since the house is terrain and I am supposed to ignore it while flying. Sadly it seems that it is not that simple

[Guy in Suit]

And thus why the tops of all my buildings shall remain impassible until next edition.

[Ludvig]

Sorry but I can't access the FaQ from my phone so I can't quote. 

The rules basically say that you can fly across something 50" tall as long as you land on the other side but you cannot land on it if you don't have a move stat of 50.

Since flying ignores terrain but not falling (falling is under movement and not terrain) you can't just measure at the start of the move and subtract even if that would seem like the logical conclusion.

I would give my eternal gratitude to anyone able to quote the FaQ entry on movement and height since it has relevance to this discussion.

[Ludvig]

 2. Yes, this is literal, you do have to measure vertical distances when moving. However, you can ignore terrain when flying. There is no contradiction here. When on top of a building, you are clearly not ignoring the terrain and so should take vertical distance into account.

I don't think we're saying the same thing when we're talking about this. I agree with you that you have to measure vertical distances when you're moving when you take into account your final position. If you end on top of a 9" ledge and you started on a 3" ledge, you would need to fly "up" 6", plus whatever X-Y movement you made.

You do not have to fly "up" 2" to get over a wall and then "down" 2" to get down the other side of the wall however. We're all agreed here.

If you don't have to fly "up" to get over a vertical distance and then "down" to land on the other side, why do you have to fall "down" and the fly "up" to ignore a negative vertical distance? It's the same concept, we're just flipping the "up/down" around here.

Heck, the concept of a flying model flying during it's move already is kind of crazy. I fly up to a 9" building during my first turn. Everyone on the ground is out of my reach. My next turn I can choose to "fall" 9 inches for free. You could use this to get into engagement without "walking", since you would walk forward 1", then fall 9". There's very weird rules interactions if you really tried to manipulate the whole "flying models fall" rule. Not saying it's common or easy, but it would be much cleaner for all the rules if a flying model didn't "fall" during their move action (and needed to land at the end of the move action). Then a model that's 9" up would actually need to fly 9" to reach the ground, instead of falling and not suffering damage.

I think you would still count as walking into engagement. The fall is calculated "immediately" so before the walk action is over. You would need to test for horror for example. You are not allowed to end moves or place markers in thin air.

Just the base rules without any FaQs support the notion that you disregard terrain entirely. If we just had the rulebook you would be able to walk 1" and place yourself on a 50" high terrain piece since you always measure distances top down. I would have less issue with that original idea. It would make flying and incorporeal very powerful on some boards but it would be really easy to just designate the entire piece of terrain as impassable. After all, such terrain pieces also present a problem with place effects and from the shadows and so should be avoided.

[Philosfr]

(Faq quotes)

The FAQ is not definitive, but it reinforces my belief that flying does not "fall" while it's moving. 

Thank you for quoting!

I don't agree that it reinforces your position however. I think it points out what I am trying to say:

"Models which fall, fall immediately" Flying models also fall, they just ignore the damage. 

Also "Although measurements in Malifaux are generally made from a top down view, vertical distances are measured while moving a model" 

I think you're not taking the context of either of those two statements.

1) "Models which fall" could also be interpreted to mean that some models don't fall, such as flying models. This is probably not what they meant, but just pointing out that it's not clear.

2) "Vertical distances are measured while moving a model" - This is where I think you're not on the right track. If this was literal, then a model could not fly over a 50" building. You'd have to measure the 50" up, then the 50" down in that case. But we already both agree that the rules allow a flying model to fly from one side of a 50" building to the other side if they have enough move to cover the horizontal distance.

[Philosfr]

I don't think we're saying the same thing when we're talking about this. I agree with you that you have to measure vertical distances when you're moving when you take into account your final position. If you end on top of a 9" ledge and you started on a 3" ledge, you would need to fly "up" 6", plus whatever X-Y movement you made.

You do not have to fly "up" 2" to get over a wall and then "down" 2" to get down the other side of the wall however. We're all agreed here.

If you don't have to fly "up" to get over a vertical distance and then "down" to land on the other side, why do you have to fall "down" and the fly "up" to ignore a negative vertical distance? It's the same concept, we're just flipping the "up/down" around here.

Heck, the concept of a flying model flying during it's move already is kind of crazy. I fly up to a 9" building during my first turn. Everyone on the ground is out of my reach. My next turn I can choose to "fall" 9 inches for free. You could use this to get into engagement without "walking", since you would walk forward 1", then fall 9". There's very weird rules interactions if you really tried to manipulate the whole "flying models fall" rule. Not saying it's common or easy, but it would be much cleaner for all the rules if a flying model didn't "fall" during their move action (and needed to land at the end of the move action). Then a model that's 9" up would actually need to fly 9" to reach the ground, instead of falling and not suffering damage.

I think it's important to remember we're talking about what the rules are and now what they should be or what models real life the best. Weird interactions don't necessarily invalidate a rule, they just mean it was potentially not intended.

I do see where you're coming from re: flipping up with down, and logic would definitely dictate that in real life, a flying creature would be able to ignore the gap. However, the table itself and empty space are not "terrain" for the purposes of the game, and so the two situations are not equivalent and a model with flying, as written, cannot ignore the empty space. There is also nothing in the rules that allows a model to stand in empty space, so I'd say the model would fall.

There is also nothing in the rules that says a flying model falls while it is moving. That's the whole reason this has become a debate. The rules don't clearly provide a direction for this. This gives us a few options for interpretation:

1) We decide that if it's not clearly defined in the rules, then flying works just like walking and flying models fall.

2) We decide that if it's not clearly defined in the rules, then flying works as we think it should and flying models don't fall during their move.

3) We look at other rules like the ability to ignore flying up/down over a 5" wall and apply that to other cases where it's 5" vertical the model is moving over, but in this case it's a crevice instead of a wall. We can also apply rules like ending 4" up requires spending 4" of move to get there and saying that ending 4" down requires 4" of move to get down, rather than falling for free.

I'm not trying to argue for #2, since we already know a flying model can move through a 50" tall object, which I've certainly never seen a real flying thing do (unless incorporeal, which I also haven't ever seen). I'm saying that in this case, we have relevant rules which apply. I'm arguing for #3 because it's basically an inverse to the rules we already have.