I am trying to run a dnd campaign for the first time and it is set in a ww1 tech level so I am trying to come up with fighter combat rules. my current idea is pilot skill is determined by your bonus to piloting, (it is entirely possible that it will be higher than 9. I am going to be using something similar to the 3.x system of skills where you put points into various skills. how exactly that will work is still being figured out as we are using 5e) pilot abilities have a cost and you can't exceed your pilot skill in ability points spent (so instead of just having one ability you have several). There will be limited ammo as an attempt to increase survivability without decreasing I am also thinking of having it such that the dice you roll is based on the length of your burst so you can fire a shorter burst or a longer burst (longer may stress or require you to have done a green maneuver or something) and then you modify the dice bases on your planes firepower score. the defender rolls the length of the burst modified by their agility score. (I can't decide if this should be just an added bonus or a multiplier)

I am wondering if anyone has suggestions for:

altitude (should it even exist? if so how?)

any suggestions regarding the rules as I have them

pilot abilities and costs (feel free to steal them from x-wing I just need an idea of how much they should cost and such. maybe they even have a minimum pilot skill to be able to use them but a lower cost?)

if you really want to go an extra step feel free to suggest dials and actions for different ww1 planes also their hull firepower and agility.

critical hits

any other ideas you may have

thanks

Maybe a easy way to handle altitutde is to treat them as additional range increments relative from shooter to target.

so for example... a spad at range 2 from a fokker is at elevation 4. the fokker is at elevtion 2.

... figure out a table for a `range 4 shot...2 for length 2 for height.

I know its not hyper accurate because we are actually creating a triangle and the one side is longer...but...for a game i think it could suit the purpose.Or at least be a starting point.

but how would gaining and losing work?

oh I'm also considering the possibility of adding a bonus die or w/e if you are tailing or going head to head but idk if that ought to be a thing or not

if you use hexes as a base one action could be ```````"Rudder"... pivot the facing one hexside either direction after completing a movement.

Well, I feel compelled to point out that wizkids HAS a d&d game based on the flight path system, and that x-wing drew a lot of inspiration from wings of war (now wings of glory) which has a WW1 dogfighting game.

whts the D&D one? and I think I recall trying wings of glory or wings of war and maybe I just didn't know what I was doing but it seemed to amount to a lot of immilmens and not a whole lot of other turns although that may just be because it was 1 plane vs 1 plane

also x-wing seems better with the pilot skill and pilot abilities

as far as changing elevations it is easy to model it realistically. Real planes trade speed for altitude. You can descend a set amount and thus gain a set aoumnt of additional airspeed. the same in reverse you can rotate upwards and trade speed for altitude by the same set amount. you would want to use some increments to describe it, lets assume 1-5 for both.

plane 1 is moving at speed 4, at elevation 5....pilot chooses to dive ...3 levels...the next turn they are at elevation 2 moving at speed 7.

adding speed to maneuver selection could look like this....a speed 7 plane HAS to make 7 moves....so any combination of straight turn or bank increments.

This also opens up a good way to have some planes be more maneuvrable than others.......a sopwith for example would have to do a minimum of 1 straight between each hard turn...just to pick something...but a triplane with crazy maneuverability could choose a hard turn folowed by another hard turn without the required "softening" of the turn by dutting a 1 forward inbetween.

some planes can go from speed 1 to speed 4 in one turn...others could only go up one speed per turn etc etc..

additional craziness would be a plane diving 3 or more increments in one turn would probably have to make a roll or rip its own wings off....or...like some kind of structural crit takes place.

would the maneuvers all be 1s? I was thinking of dives giving boosts and maybe climbs costing speed by requiring you to use a faster speed maneuver but going slower so for example if you want to climb 2 and you are capable of a 5 straight you go to the 5 straight and maybe there is a second dial for altitude changes and then you use the 3 straight and gain two altitude

ok so this is less important now because I've come to the realization that it is probably impossible to run a campaign entirely based on air combat (because the scenarios can't be all that different without varied terrain) and it doesn't make sense for infantry to occasionally hop into a plane and do some dogfighting (unless I'm wrong in which case feel free to correct me) but I still may allow them to have secondary pc's who will occasionally be played and do air combat before the session and occasionally having ramifications during the regular session so any further ideas you can throw my way would be great

Oh I don't know...lots of campaign potential..

If the players are a fighter squadron you still need to deal with logistics...like supplies...fuel...food...where's all that coming from?

Missions...bombing...dogfight..rescuing downed pilots...dropping leaflets over a town....straffing boats...knocking down derigibles...helping a defector...stealing the plans to some new plane.....stealing some new plane....recon.....patrols....French prostitutes....Irish whiskey....American tobacco....middle eastern heroin...moving an injured scientist....finding a drunk scientist somewhere in French hooker land,escaping with him in a stolen experimental plane ,fleeing through a flock of blimps and getting him back to base in time for waffles without injuring him.....

WW1 airplane rpg.....sounds REAL good.

lol. wouldn't it not be the pc's who are dealing with the logistics and stuff? there is also not unanimous agreement on doing air combat so I figure doing it before for only those who want to is a good compromise

4 hours ago, Ihavebadluck said:

whts the D&D one? and I think I recall trying wings of glory or wings of war and maybe I just didn't know what I was doing but it seemed to amount to a lot of immilmens and not a whole lot of other turns although that may just be because it was 1 plane vs 1 plane

also x-wing seems better with the pilot skill and pilot abilities

D&D attack wing. As I understand it, it's mostly dragons and other flying creatures dog fighting with some ground support elements thrown in. Wiz kids games tend to be a decent base rules set that spirals out of control with every expansion so just adapting it for an RPG it might be worth looking at.

with wings of glory, yes a one on one fight is probably going to be mostly Immelmanns, but then a one on one fight in XWing tends to be an endless series of k- turns and jousting. Both games get a lot more diverse with more planes per squad.

as for flying in an RPG campaign, if you can find a copy of "Sid Myers ace patrol" (I've got it on my iPad) it's a dog fighting game that can give you some ideas for scenarios and how to interact with ground elements. Yes, it's true that realistically the pilots of the squadron wouldn't be dealing with a lot of that kind of stuff, but it's an extremely common trope in a lot of stories to have the main characters being sent on all kinds of missions that would normally be done by specialists in the real world. So I wouldn't worry too much about that.

Space Above and Beyond 1916. Cool. I recomend you BLUE MAX. Hex and counter wargame. One counter one plane. Or Wings of Glory. They are good games and not expensive.

Just toss this out there but I think I remember there is a WWI/WWII tabletop game called Wings of Glory it might give you some ideas and be a great source for WWI era minis

Edit sorry should have read more, its already been mention sorry