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Why are Aarakocra so bad? Flight and power levels.
🕑 Added 2021-01-08 05:21:26 +0000 UTCI've seen so many people argue that the aarakocra's flight, and flight in general, is too powerful for dnd 5e. At least, as a racial trait. Today, I am going to explain why I disagree.
Let's talk about the aarakocra race. They are the only race that gets flight naturally (unless you include the winged tiefling variant) and it is one of their TWO racial traits. Unlike other races which get 3, 4, 5 or more racial traits, the aarakoca get a 50 foot fly speed and...claws. 1d4 + strength mod natural weapon. And that's it. That's all they got from Wizards of the Coast.
Tieflings are sending hellfire at their foes, can see in the dark, can walk a normal speed, and resist fire damage.
Firbolgs can turn invisible, get a unique spell variant, detect magic, speek with animals, and lift things as if they were large size.
Halflings are have luck, resist being frightened, and their many subrace traits.
Tabaxi can speed burst, see in the dark, climb, scratch you, and get two skill proficiencies
And aarakocra can fly AND scratch you.
I can't be the only person that sees a problem here, right? They ONLY get two things and neither of them help to build a character or inspire you in the direction you want to take them. Their traits are solely biological. Sure, flight is cool and all, but is it really worth trading away all of those over traits? I don't think so.
Flight is, in my honest opinion, vastly overrated. Every complaint I have ever seen about flight in 5e falls short of justifying the lack of personality the aarakocra have or, as I'll talk on soon, what people do to the race to "balance it". At the end of the day, flight is easy to work with if you put in 5 more minutes of effort into your session prep. Let me explain using some common complaints I have heard about flight why this is the case.
Scenario 1| An aarakocra or other flying character has a bow and the sharpshooter feat. The player is raining hell down on a bandit encampment from a distance the bandits cannot handle. What do you do as a DM? Well, you have a couple of options. Firstly, give some of the bandits sharpshooter. Show the player that just flying in and assuming you can't be hit won't work. And if they get hit, have them make a strength or con save to stay in the air. This'll teach the player that flight, while great, can be dangerous. You can also have the bandits go inside their tents/huts/buildings. At that point, the flight + sharpshooter combo is literally useless. By having the bandits walk inside, you have completely invalidated the main trait of the player's race. This has it's own problems from a design standpoint IMO, but it gets the job done.
Scenario 2| The city has locked its gates and the aarakocra fly's over them, carrying their small sized ally with them. Okay, they bypassed an obstacle. Is that such a problem? You can have them be seen flying over, have them make stealth checks to avoid getting caught, and, if they don't get caught, it's just them and a gnome or goblin. I don't see a problem here with any outcome.
There are many other scenarios I could bring up, but I believe these illustrate my main points. If you don't want flying to be a problem, it won't be. If you don't want to address it, it will be a problem. That isn't the races fault, it's yours as a DM. Plenty of things in dnd 5e require you to adapt how you plan sessions. For example, you wouldn't send a hoard of undead against a party with a cleric and a paladin and expect it to be a hard encounter for them, would you? The same thing applies to flight. Plan for it, and it's actually fun to play with for the player.
But some people don't plan for it and still let people paly aarakocra and other flying races. And they do it with a disgusting caveat; if you want to fly, wait till 5th level. Now, there are a lot of problems with this. Firstly, it's the races main characteristic. By making them wait till level 5, you are completely invalidating the players choice to play that race. All they have at that point is a terrible natural weapon. Secondly, it's nonsensical. Why can't the bird man fly until, he hits an arbitrary power level? He's a bird man. It breaks immersion. Thirdly, fly is a third level spell that spellcasters get at 5th level. Fly is 60 feet, so they;re faster than the aarakocra, and they can give it to others. You have taken the main trait of the player's race and given it back to them when they become outclassed by the other players. That's just absurd.
I implore all who read this to give flight another shot. I'm going to be releasing a few flying races and a document to help people run games with flying races to help destroy this misconception. Until then, here are some ideas:
The aarakocra deserve more traits, not less. 50 feet of fly speed is, despite my argument here, quite powerful. I suggest giving them a skill proficiency or two, adding a special attack in the air with their claws like the lizrdfolk's special bit attack, or just advantage on perception checks relying on sight. Sure, many of these are biological, but they do add a more interesting element to this boring race.
