D&D General How many air-blown waterskins are needed, if wearing metal armors, to prevent sinking in water?

[greg kaye]

Wait, are they African or European air-blown waterskins?

Waterdeepian! =D

 

[Flamestrike]

None.

The above are normal guys (Commoners) and not Leveled PCs.

 

[Flamestrike]

Full Plate is a different story:

 

[Vaalingrade]

The correct answer is the amount that makes you look ridiculous.

 

[greg kaye]

The correct answer is the amount that makes you look ridiculous.

That's just awesome!!
Are there any other penalties that may be entertainingly given to a swimmer in, say, chainmail, buoyed by 12 skin balloons??

 

[JAMUMU]

Method One: Do the math.

Method Two: Rule that it's one airblown waterskin for each baby already strapped to the armour.

 

[Ancalagon]

The air inside a bag of holding would be on a different plane of existence so I'd say no.

However, an "empty" bag of holding might be considered to contain 64 square feet of air and, underwater, if you could catch the air (and fill the bag with something like water) then that would provide loads of buoyancy. I had considered this in an underwater campaign in case there was ever a situation where we wanted to get something heavy from the sea bed just to get back up to the surface quickly.

A barrel can contain four cubic feet of material. If just 8 barrels of air were kept in a Bag of holding then that would give 32 square feet of air. If we don't consider air compression at depth, then each barrel could give 62.41 Lbs of buoyancy with 8 barrels providing a total of 499.28 lbs of lift. If a means was devised to catch all the air from a bag of holding, that could give close to 1000lbs of lift. That's a lot of armour.

The reason the bag of holding does not provide buoyancy is because doesn't displace a lot of water volume, not because the air is in another plane (it's almost like a "compressed air cylinder"). However, if the air could be caught (inflate a balloon?) when released out of the bag while under water, then that air would provide buoyancy.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Alternative: have an awkward encounter with the god of water, so said water avoids contact with you.

 

[greg kaye]

If you replaced a waterskin with an empty bag of holding - would that work?

The air inside a bag of holding would be on a different plane of existence so I'd say no. ...

The reason the bag of holding does not provide buoyancy is because doesn't displace a lot of water volume, ...

Good point. I'll rephrase, "The air inside a bag of holding is not in the same dimensional context as its outside and, because it does not displace water, I'd say no,"
Reference is made to Bag of Holding in descriptions of items like Portable Hole.
"Placing a portable hole inside an extradimensional space created by a bag of holding, handy haversack, or similar item ..."
A bag of holding has a created extradimensional component and, though I'm not sure where that space is, messing with it though can cause a breach into the astral plane.
But we're off-topic.

 

[Oofta]

Full Plate is a different story:

The question I would have for this is did he have a gambeson under the armor because it looks like he does not. That's what gave the guy in chain that I watched buoyancy. Of course, whether people wore a gambeson under plate also depends on who you ask and may have varied.

So I'm not convinced it's case closed.

P.S. AC is so messed up in D&D I don't penalize people for swimming in armor. Someone in high quality plate should be far, far harder to damage than someone running around in "leather" armor or the it-never-existed studded version. So since I have no idea how hard it would be to swim in brigandine, I'm not going to nerf the strength based fighter or paladin every time they come within throwing distance of water.