So, you've probably heard at least a few conversations about the aarakocra race for 5th edition D&D over the last couple of years. Basically, it boils down to 2 groups.
Group A: Players who think aarakocra are awesome because they can fly and that's unique and fun. Some DMs who defend the player's personal, immediate, and unrestricted fun as the sole purpose of play.
Group B: DMs who list the mechanical consequences of a race with at-will flight.
Neither group really seems to fully appreciate all of what is wrong with the aarakocra race, however. Invariably, the discussion just boils down to "flying is good/bad, m'kay?" There's more at play in this race than what's written on paper, boys. Let's dig in a little deeper.
First off, the elephant everybody fixates on: is at-will flight at first level overpowered? Yes and no.
If you present the players with environmental challenges, travel expenses, logistics concerns, active pursuant threats, grid-based tactical combat, and assume that flying things other than common birds are extremely abnormal and rare,
yes. In a thoroughly medievalist, low-magic setting, with supernatural creatures a rarity in the extreme, and spellcasters an absurd near-myth, where archers exist only in the army for warfare, or as non-military hunters,
YES. If you build your adventures as gauntlets if price-walls in action/health/spell currencies to whittle your players down over time,
YES. If your party contains morally ambiguous characters, or if your campaign lacks any real-life moral restrictions,
YES.
If you play a fluffy social game in which people go for weeks of game time role playing in the same couple of buildings, not engaging in the economy or combat,
no. If your campaign setting is highly supernatural, where the skies are filled with as much life and diversity as the ground, where flying wizards and flying machines are commonplace, and where archers are included in any logical group of soldiers because wyverns are a routine problem,
no. If your players all agree to be PG-13 heroes,
no.
Basically, if your players don't do anything mechanical, then this problem won't come up. It also won't be as big of an issue if you run a low combat game and don't present the players with tactical situations. So, like, theater of the mind games often won't suffer by it as much. Games where overland travel is skipped or handwaived also won't see many issues. Games which don't make use of exploration/puzzle encounters probably won't have problems. Basically, if all you guys do is sit around chatting in the tavern, you'll be fine.
So, that's the basic answer, now let's run down the list of problems.
1. Nobody else can fly until 5th level. That's a 2nd tier mechanic. It'd be a little different if there was a weak flight cantrip or 1st level spell, but there isn't. Not even in later publications, as of 2018.
2. Flight at 5th level is accessible via a spell. That spell has a limited duration and limited resource. Aarakocra do it non-stop for free.
3. Not only do aaracokra fly at 1st level for free, their fly speed is 50ft, almost as fast as a horse. That is the highest racial speed in the game. This means that they have no reason to need a mount on or off the battlefield. It also means they have no reason not to fly. Purchasing and maintaining mounts is a standard expense for gameplay, and gives players something to work for and care about. Not aarakocra. Aarakocra don't give a damn for nothing and no one.
4. Aarakocra ability score increases target the monk class. A monk aarakocra not only has no need for a mount, they have no need for weapons or armor either. If they do carry a weapon, it will be a bow- a bow which will deal impressive damage at higher levels. Woe be to the DM who doesn't track ammunition in this situation.
5. Flight has no minimum altitude. Flight takes up no additional room beyond the occupied space. Squeezing through a space has no impact on flight. This all together means aarakocra can fly at all times, no matter where they are, even through a 2.5ft wide hallway.
6. Because flight is normally accessed via spellcasting, this means aarakocra spellcasters essentially get a free spell effect, freeing up spell slots and spells known for other effects. At level 5, an aarakocra wizard is strictly more powerful than any other wizard.
7. While many people would argue that you can work around the aarakocra's flight, this really just illustrates how broken they are. See, if you need to shoehorn in unusually specific challenges to keep just one player under control or to give them something to do, then something is wrong with that player character. It's such a problem it has a name:
balance by giant fire lizard. Won't it get rather suspicious when every other encounter has an archer, caster, or flyer just to give the aarakocra some kind of challenge? Isn't it weird that the DM would need to do that for one player but not for any other type of character? Why should the DM have to put in extra work just because one player wants to be their pet budgee?
8. Aarakocra can defy territorial claims with impunity. Toll road? Border crossing? Gate guards? Private property? Imperial stop check? These things mean nothing to an aarakocra player. If they get caught flouting the rules, they just fly away. Unless someone was preparing for a hunt or a siege, why would anyone be carrying bows? Who would stop them? Worse, this same problem makes aarakocra master thieves. They can enter buildings through upper story windows without climbing kits. They can flee a scene without risking detection on the streets. They can safely escape a city or country with ease even if they do get caught. All the threats walk on the ground.
9. Does anyone hex crawl any more? No? Well if you do, aarakocra ruin it. Unless the encounter includes a flying creature or an archer, they can ignore every single encounter. They are unaffected by terrain. Rivers, crevasses, fallen trees, forest fires, marauding orcs, highwaymen, none of this stuff matters to them. They can fly around almost as fast as a horse, and set down to rest in the most remote and hard to threaten locations imaginable. All they need is food for the trip and clear skies. All the challenge of the logistics puzzle that is travel is eliminated. Any chance of fun from encountering things and exploring the world is also eliminated. Aarakocra basically handwaive their own travel.
10. While airborne, they can't really be surprised. They don't leave footprints so nothing can track them. They can see in all directions for miles. Even if something like a dragon was coming for them, they'd see it and have time to land and hide. This makes them the de facto scout of any party. Set up camp, scout the surroundings, go where the aarakocra directs. Why risk wandering ahead when you can prep yourself for anything that might come up?
11. The biggest drawback to flight is fall damage. If anything goes wrong, the aarakocra becomes an artillery shell. The problem is that until they reach higher level, fall damage can easily kill them, or at least make them an easy kill, especially if they're really high up. Fall rate is 500ft per round, so it'd take an aarakocra at least 10 turns flying straight up before they can risk falling for one round.
12. Escaping, fleeing, or retreating from combat is generally a convoluted experience. The enemy gives chase, and you have to run and hide to get away. It's a different type of challenge. Not aarakocra. 10 turns of vertical flight puts them out of most attack ranges.
13. And worst of all, the role-playing information. The text directs them to fear indoor spaces (Like dungeons and houses) and to have no understanding of personal property. They're basically flying kender who refuse to talk to the quest giver unless he comes outside, then go off on their own anyways because they can ignore 90% of the game and don't need some lame ground creature to help them. I quote:
"The idea of ownership baffles most aarakocra. After all, who owns the sky? Even when explained to them, they initially find the notion of ownership mystifying. As a result, aarakocra who have little interaction with other people might be a nuisance as they drop from the sky to snatch livestock or plunder harvests for fruits and grains. Shiny, glittering objects catch their eyes.
They find it hard not to pluck the treasure and bring it back to their settlement to beautify it. An aarakocra who spends years among other races can learn to inhibit these impulses.
Confinement terrifies the aarakocra. To be grounded, trapped underground, or imprisoned by the cold, unyielding earth is a torment few aarakocra can withstand. Even when perched on a high branch or at rest in their mountaintop homes, they appear alert, with eyes moving and bodies ready to take flight."
Gee, that guy sure sounds like a riot to adventure with.
14. The apparent counterbalance to their flight feature is a reduced walk speed and no other features. This actually just makes them more lopsided, because it encourages them to play in annoying ways that focus on maximizing the benefits of flight. Any time flight is not beneficial to them, (which is rare) they become a useless burden and usually get killed.
15. They have little to no reason to adventure at all. They have no connection to the material plane, it isn't their native realm of existence. As flying creatures, they are free to live in the world as they wish. They don't need your strict, walled-in civilization, so why should they care about it? They don't need a group of adventurers to help them. They don't need money if they're good thieves or even halfway decent survivalists. There is just nothing worthwhile for them to engage in the game for. Aarakocra are so inhuman, they're basically playing a different game.
So, let's talk about how to fix them. All of the following are possible solutions to the various problems presented by this race. Use the solutions to the problems that actually manifest in play.
1. First and foremost we need to discourage obnoxious play. Make them native to the material plane and give them an organized society that values ownership. There are no real-life animals that value possessions without territorial tendencies. Make them comfortable on the ground. Claustrophobia should not be a racial quality. Give them a culture that has been affected by and affects surrounding cultures. Give them a people to defend and represent. Give their culture ties to other civilizations so they have a reason to interact with the world at large.
2. Establish that they can only be used in highly supernatural campaigns in which the skies are far more interesting than a highly mundane campaign. This gives reason for there to be more aerial encounters and a reason for ranged combatants to be commonplace.
3. Reduce their flying speed to 30ft. If they want to travel faster, they'd still need a horse, or they could cast the flight spell. It reduces their need for alternative movement resources without eliminating their value completely. It gives more options rather than making them obsolete.
4. Make taking off take an action. Special movement should be gated by the action economy. Be universal with this ruling: even dragons need to do it. Action surge now has real meaning for aarakocra.
5. Give their flight a duration. 1 minute per character level seems reasonable. That way the flight spell gives a longer duration until level 10, and the racial feature gives a longer duration thereafter. It's good enough to fly for a whole fight 90% of the time, and limiting enough that they can't just fly all day; they have to regularly set down. You know, like real birds do.
6. Add a weak 1st level flight spell. Something like "hover" or "air walk" or something. A spell just good enough to avoid pitfall traps and fall damage, but not good enough for air travel. You might also supplement that with an even weaker flight cantrip, something that gives you like 10ft flying speed for 1 minute maybe?
7. Make flight with wings take space. Specifically, a creature that uses wings to fly should require one size class larger in space in order to fly, but does not count as one size class larger itself for any other purposes. Thus, a medium creature needs 10ft of space to fly and can squeeze through a 5ft opening while flying, but still counts as a medium creature.
