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The description of the winged boots in D&D 5e says:

While you wear these boots, you have a flying speed equal to your walking speed.

That's simple enough. If Richard the Rogue equips these, he has a flying speed of 30 feet. But, since Richard is a Rogue, he would like to use his Bonus Action to Dash, thereby increasing his movement, as the description of the Dash action says:

When you take the Dash action, you gain extra movement for the current turn.

Now, my questions are:

  • Does Richard now have a flying speed of 60 feet on his turn, because his movement allowance is 60 feet? Or can he only fly for 30 feet before having to walk the rest like a lowly peasant?

  • What happens when he is in midair after 30 ft of movement – can he not move further, or will he simply have to descend?

Let me describe a potential situation:

Richard the Rogue stands at the bottom of a wooden tower with several platforms 10 feet apart. His foe is on top of this tower, 50 feet above him. Richard wishes to use his Bonus Action to Dash, fly 50 feet up (so definitely fly more than his 30-foot walking speed), use his remaining movement to get in melee range to his foe, then use his Action to Attack them.

Can Richard do that? Or is his flying "allowance" limited to 30 feet, as that is his base walking speed?

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4 Answers 4

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No, but yes.

The Dash action does not increase your speed...

The Dash action grants you extra movement on the current turn equal to your speed, but does not increase your speed. So with a speed of 30 feet, you can move 60 feet total if you Dash, but your speed is still 30 feet. Because the Dash action does nothing to your speed, it also does nothing to your flying speed granted by the Winged Boots.

...But you can still use your additional movement to fly

Since the Dash action does nothing to your speed, nothing in the description of the Winged Boots would prevent you using extra movement granted in whatever way you want to, including flying.

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Movement allowance is not the same as walking speed

The rules for the winged boots do exactly what they say:

While you wear these boots, you have a flying speed equal to your walking speed.

Therefore, Richard has a Flying speed of 30 ft, and also has a walking speed of 30 ft. Two different kinds of movement he can make. For the description I understand that you can activate/deactivate the flying speed, since it has limited durations, but that's a different topic. Maybe the correct wording should be that the character wearing the boots gains a flying speed, since your walking speed doesn't disapear.

Now, the Dash action's description states:

When you take the Dash action, you gain extra movement for the current turn. The increase equals your speed, after applying any modiliers.

Which means you get an increase equal to any speed you are using. In Richard's case, if he would take the Dash action as a Bonus action while using the winged boots to fly, he could in fact, fly 60 ft for that turn.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ So dashing with a burrow speed of 15 would burrow 30 ? \$\endgroup\$
    – Patrick Artner
    Feb 10, 2022 at 16:56
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That's not how Dash works

You can increase your overall movement by dashing. If you have a flying speed of 30 feet, you would be able to fly 60 feet per round using your Bonus Action to dash, or 90 feet if you also used your Action to dash. Dash itself doesn't change your speed, just uses it again.

Effects that increase your speed do increase your fly speed

However, if you wanted to increase your flying speed, once you have one from Boots of Flying, you could increase your flying speed by by various means of increasing your speed, for example with Longstrider or with Haste. In the case of Haste, your speed will be doubled and you will gain an extra dash action. As a result, you would have a flying speed of 60 feet, and could fly 120 feet in a round (or 180, if you also used your normal action to dash).

Things like the Mobile feat also apply. It says "Your speed increases by 10 feet." This applies equally to all speeds you have, including a temporary fly speed that wasn't set to match your walk speed. Similarly, Barbarian and Monk movement increases are phrased to apply to all your speeds.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I feel like No isn't a helpful headline for pointing out that temporary movement boosts do work on fly speeds like boots or Aasimar wings (which gives you a 30ft Fly speed with no mention of walk speed). (And I assume permanent boosts work too, like barbarian Fast Movement and/or the Mobile feat. Those add +10 to all your speeds, right, not just walking?) Anyway, perhaps a headline like Fly speeds can be increased as a headline after the opening paragraph explains that's not what Dash does. \$\endgroup\$
    – Peter Cordes
    Feb 10, 2022 at 14:16
  • \$\begingroup\$ @PeterCordes I would check the wording of each ability separately to determine if the boost goes to all speeds (which is likely). No is the answer to the headline question. Does dashing increase your fly speed? No. It does not. The rest is helper text, to explain the misconception. Actually, the accepted answer also answers "No, but yes". There is a practice here to not answer the actual question but the implied question ... I have to get used to that and think in these cases, reformulating the actual question is the better approach. \$\endgroup\$
    – Nobody the Hobgoblin
    Feb 10, 2022 at 15:24
  • \$\begingroup\$ My point is that "no" isn't the interesting part you want to draw reader's attention to; the "no" only makes sense after you understand that dash uses your speed again, rather than changing your speed, so readers with the same misconception as the question would see "no" as saying "you can't move farther than 30ft on your turn". Also, I found this answer because I scrolled down hoping to see one that explains that speed boosts phrased like "your speed increases by 10" do work on things like Winged boots; that part is worth highlighting. \$\endgroup\$
    – Peter Cordes
    Feb 10, 2022 at 15:29
  • \$\begingroup\$ I made a suggested edit; see what you think. If you don't want your answer to say that, I could post my own. \$\endgroup\$
    – Peter Cordes
    Feb 10, 2022 at 15:38
  • \$\begingroup\$ @PeterCordes, thank you looks good. I did accept it. \$\endgroup\$
    – Nobody the Hobgoblin
    Feb 10, 2022 at 16:34
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You can fly up to 60 feet while dashing.

The effect of Dash is not limited to your walking speed. All your movement is increased, if you have more than one speed -- you can move up to double your walking speed, and you can move up to double your flying speed. In the case of the winged boots, your flying speed starts out equal to your walking speed, so you can move up to 60 feet while flying.

If the two weren't the same, then you'd potentially need to use the rules for combining different forms of movement, but since they're all 30 in this case, you'll run out of flying movement and walking movement at the same time.

As a point of contrast, you might look at the Storm Sorcerer, whose Tempestuous Magic class ability allows them to use a bonus action to "fly up to 10 feet". This is a discrete movement, not a fly speed, and thus could not be increased by means of the Dash action.

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