That sinking feeling..

[Space Coyote]

#3

The Sage ruled about 5 years ago that Freedom of Movement is a choice. Hence, #2 does not occur unless you want it to.

So, if you wanted to get to the bottom of the water (for whatever reason), then you could get the Freedom of Movement to let you "fall" through the water. Okay.

#1 does not occur since Freedom of Movement does not defy gravity.

Basically, you would take the damage for falling the 50' and then you would sink, just like without Freedom of Movement.

Heh. I guess that makes sense. You can move "freely" (as in are not hampered by the water), but are still technically falling, which Freedom of Movement does not help with. In that case, how would Feather Fall work?

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

So....
How 'bout..

Dive into water and go to a depth of 10 feet for every 30' of diving..
HR -> Fall into water and go to a depth of 5' for every 30' of falling.

Impact before you reach the stated depth deals damage of 1d6 per 10' of distance remaining.
{e.g., you dive from 90' up into a 10' basin of water. You needed 20' more to be safe and end up with 2d6 damage from smacking your face on the bottom of the pool}

Once in the water, you may sink based on your encumbrance. Armor Check Penalty is added to the number of feet sunk. Sinking happens at the start of your turn.

Light Load: 0'
Moderate Load: 10'
Heavy Load: 20'

As you are drifting, there is not damage from sinking into sharp pointy things.

As a succesfull Swim check lets you move up to half your movement once per round, this means an average human in Full Plate with a Heavy shield would have an Armor Check of 8 and, assuming successful checks, can swim 15' each round...
Lightly Encumbered he would only make 7' headway towards the surface
Moderately Encumbered he would gradually sink at a rate of 3' per round
Heavly encumbered he would rapidly sink at a rate of 13' per round

Does this hit the character twice for encumbrance and Armor Check penalty {as they impact the Swim check}? Yup. I don't have much of a problem with that

Does this get realy into simulationism? Nope. I ignore lots of stuff like boyancy and math.. but I think the end result is a relatively clean and usable HR.
I have HR'd swim to be like Jump in that your Swim check result is used to figure the distance travelled.. making the 1' incremental rate of sinking mean a bit more.

{edit } My bad.. I forgot which forum I was in
Hopefully the RAW answer was sufficiently covered before little Poster C wandered in...{/edit}

 

[JonnyFive]

So....
How 'bout..

Dive into water and go to a depth of 10 feet for every 30' of diving..
HR -> Fall into water and go to a depth of 5' for every 30' of falling.

Impact before you reach the stated depth deals damage of 1d6 per 10' of distance remaining.
{e.g., you dive from 90' up into a 10' basin of water. You needed 20' more to be safe and end up with 2d6 damage from smacking your face on the bottom of the pool}

Once in the water, you may sink based on your encumbrance. Armor Check Penalty is added to the number of feet sunk. Sinking happens at the start of your turn.

Light Load: 0'
Moderate Load: 10'
Heavy Load: 20'

As you are drifting, there is not damage from sinking into sharp pointy things.

As a succesfull Swim check lets you move up to half your movement once per round, this means an average human in Full Plate with a Heavy shield would have an Armor Check of 8 and, assuming successful checks, can swim 15' each round...
Lightly Encumbered he would only make 7' headway towards the surface
Moderately Encumbered he would gradually sink at a rate of 3' per round
Heavly encumbered he would rapidly sink at a rate of 13' per round

Does this hit the character twice for encumbrance and Armor Check penalty {as they impact the Swim check}? Yup. I don't have much of a problem with that

Does this get realy into simulationism? Nope. I ignore lots of stuff like boyancy and math.. but I think the end result is a relatively clean and usable HR.
I have HR'd swim to be like Jump in that your Swim check result is used to figure the distance travelled.. making the 1' incremental rate of sinking mean a bit more.

{edit } My bad.. I forgot which forum I was in
Hopefully the RAW answer was sufficiently covered before little Poster C wandered in...{/edit}

ok here is a question, can you use swim check to lessen a fall into water as say a cliff diver would?

 

[irdeggman]

Water compesses. If water did not compress, the oceans would be ~36 meters deeper.

The compression, however, is not great. The water in the deepest part of the ocean compresses about 5% as compared to surface water. In order for iron to float, it would have to compress 800% (i.e. take 1/8th the volume of surface water). Gravity (on Earth and presumably in a game environment) is not great enough to do that and so I agree with you that it does not make sense to take water density into account on the OP's question.

But, ocean water compression is not just based on salinity and temperature. It is also based on pressure. Not just because pressure directly affects temperature, but because pressure also directly affects density. In fact, ocean water density is not measured. It is calculated (and quite accurately) based on measurements of temperature, pressure, and conductivity.

Water has a neglible compression ratio - which is the fundamental principle of hydraulic systems. Hence your 5% compression ratio for the deepest part of the oceans.

Also the effect of pressure on density of water is likewise neglible. It is however, highly dependent on temperature. This is the operating principle of pressurized water reactors used for nuclear power.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

ok here is a question, can you use swim check to lessen a fall into water as say a cliff diver would?

Head over to the House Rules Rules - Diving and Falling to continue this HR discussion....

Thanks.

 

[ceratitis]

well seeing as the op is allready covered i'd just like to say that in the exaple of the fighter falling into a spiked pit the spikes would have to be long enough or the fall into the pit high enough for him to reach them ... which i can only assume the trap maker took into account. however once he does hit them spikes just a swim check wont cut it, he's now impaled underwater and drowning
Z