Small wings, winged, but what about huge wings?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Balor Patch

It hasn't been experimentally demonstrated that wandering albatrosses sleep on the wing but it would be surprising if they don't.

Before saying that sleep flying was silly, I did quick internet search. Apparently at least one species of swift stays airborne for 200 days obviously requiring some form of sleep flying.
Of course that wouldn't be anywhere near as difficult for them as it would be for Argentavis and their far more involved difficult thermal based flying.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by starslayer

For the extremely large wings:

Apply an increased SM to the wings only (no change in cost).

Get reduced ST costs for wing ST based on the increased SM (allowing the bird to more easily buy enough ST to not be encumbered carrying itself).

Flight advantage has nothing to do with Strength. You could fly with ST 0 as easily as with ST 100. Also there's no such thing as Wing ST as there is for Arm ST.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Flight advantage has nothing to do with Strength. You could fly with ST 0 as easily as with ST 100. Also there's no such thing as Wing ST as there is for Arm ST.

Actually it has a slight connection to ST in particular Lifting ST. Because Encumbrance reduced Air Move just like it reduces your ground move.

Lifting ST (Only while Flying, -30%) isn't out of the question for many fliers.

[whswhs]

The thing is, the text of Flight (Winged) says your wingspan is "at least" twice your body height/length. So there is nothing in that that excludes having 4x instead of 2x.

So I think you need to ask what actual mechanical effect you are trying to get from having the even larger wings.

Most creatures with huge wings (a) are really good at gliding and (b) aren't very good at flight without gliding. That can be handled with one of the Flight modifiers for gliding flight, and with Enhanced Move to get a better glide path.

You also have the lesser ability to maneuver because the wings are big and awkward. That might be a Handling Penalty, say -5% of limitation per added SM. I suppose you could also apply a Nuisance Effect to represent not being able to move readily in confined spaces—like Baudelaire's poem about the albatross.

Do the huge wings do anything else game mechanical that needs to be taken into account?

I'm sure I've seen Kromm say, more than once, that you don't just make up a new limitation; you look at the actual effects you're trying to represent and assess whether existing limitations (or enhancements) can represent them. . . .

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Do the huge wings do anything else game mechanical that needs to be taken into account?

I'm sure I've seen Kromm say, more than once, that you don't just make up a new limitation; you look at the actual effects you're trying to represent and assess whether existing limitations (or enhancements) can represent them. . . .

They are easier to hit by enemies. That's a pretty big disadvantage right there.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I suppose you could also apply a Nuisance Effect to represent not being able to move readily in confined spaces—like Baudelaire's poem about the albatross.

Do the huge wings do anything else game mechanical that needs to be taken into account?

To a gamer, I'd actually count that as the biggest problem. Remember, winged flyers need more room to fly than your wingspan (including a significant percentage vertical room) - if your wingtips are brushing the walls or ceiling, you are not going to fly today. Needing a large clear area to take off, and only being able to navigate large areas... eurgh.
Regular Flight (Winged) is basically impossible indoors for a SM 0 character, absent ballrooms and gymnasiums. Having a 24' wingspan (and thus finding even 30' gaps rather cramped) means even those ballrooms and gymnasiums are going to be a very short trip before you have to stop or go splat - fortunately Winged doesn't require Cannot Hover by default.

You're also going to be 12'+ away from every wall while in controlled flight - landing on the side of a cliff, a tree, a ladder, etc, is an even more difficult stunt than for a regular Winged flyer. Attacking someone in melee on a wall is also going to be very hard, particularly if you wanted to do a fly-by move-and-attack rather than just commit to a Slam and grapple and hope for the best.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Icelander

They are easier to hit by enemies. That's a pretty big disadvantage right there.

I previously worked out that, for purposes of how difficult you are to hit and spot ("spot" here probably mapping decently well to "how much clearance you need"), -1 SM is worth around [10], which implies either [-10] or [-6] for +1 SM (due to the ability for the player to mitigate them, Disadvantages typically have an absolute value worth around 60% of the equivalent Advantage). "Only for wings" is worth either -20% or -30% on DR (depending on if you go with the default "Penaltyx10%" or an IMO more appropriate percentage of surface area), for either -80% or -70% on the High SM Disadvantage. Thus, each +1 to target your wings is worth between [-1.2] and [-3], depending on how you scale things. That means somewhere around -5% (-1.2 is -3%, -3 is -7.5% for a [40] Advantage, so splitting the difference seems appropriate) per +1 SM would work. Note this would arguably allow you to have small wings that are nonetheless actually necessary for flight, instead of the normal Small Wings trait (where lacking them just makes flight harder) - each +5% is -1 SM for your wings.