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A player in my campaign is a Twilight Domain cleric. The Steps of Night feature (TCoE, p. 35) allows them to gain a flying speed equal to their walking speed for one minute. As a cleric, they have heavy armor proficiency, and they just got some plate armor.
Would they still be able to fly while wearing their plate armour, as it is magical flight rather than with wings? I'm considering whether or not to let them fly.
There is no general rules for interactions between flying speed and armour, the features that grant flight do what they say.
The Steps of the Night feature states:
(…) As a bonus action when you are in dim light or darkness, you can magically give yourself a flying speed equal to your walking speed for 1 minute. (…)
It includes no restrictions regarding armour, therefore there aren't any. They are allowed to use this with any armour, if there were any restrictions on it, then they would have been explicitly stated, compare to Aarakocra's racial Flight:
You have a flying speed of 50 feet. To use this speed, you can’t be wearing medium or heavy armor.
As a DM you can obviously overrule any part of the rules but I would advise against doing it mid-game, this is not a corner case or something left up to DMs discretion, changing this would go strictly against RAW. If you do decide to restrict it then I would at the very least allow the player to respec their character.
Steps of Night reads:
You can draw on the mystical power of night to rise into the air. As a bonus action when you are in dim light or darkness, you can magically give yourself a flying speed equal to your walking speed for 1 minute. You can use this bonus action a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
There is nothing here that prevents the flight while wearing heavy armor, nor are there rules specific to heavy or plate armor preventing it either.
When a feature does not permit flight in heavy armor, it says that. For example, the Aarakocra’s flight feature:
Because of your wings, you have a flying speed equal to your walking speed. You can’t use this flying speed if you’re wearing medium or heavy armor.
One thing to note, you only have to be in dim light or darkness to activate the feature, but you do not have to remain in dim light or darkness to continue flying, see my answer here for details: What happens when a Twilight Cleric uses Steps of Night to fly into a brightly lit area?
The complete text of the feature says:
You can draw on the mystical power of night to rise into the air. As a bonus action when you are in dim light or darkness, you can magically give yourself a flying speed equal to your walking speed for 1 minute. You can use this bonus action a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
It is clear that there is no restriction about heavy armor. For reference, have a look at the Flight trait of Aarakocra:
Because of your wings, you have a flying speed equal to your walking speed. You can’t use this flying speed if you’re wearing medium or heavy armor.
In this case, the limitation are explicitly stated.
As a DM, you may obviously overrule some features, game characteristics, spells, et cetera that you may feel will disrupt the game or cause some problems.
At the table, when some new features that I think that might cause some issues come into the game (and I think this is not one of them), as a DM I usually says "Ok, let's apply the rules in this way and let's see how they will turn out. In case they are overpowered/underpowerd or if some problems arise, we'll modify them".
