Casting Spells Underwater with Water Breath Spell

[Beastman]

hi @all,

yesterday evening's session, the character's visited an ancient temple. some of the rooms were flooded up to the ceiling. The PC's all had Water Breathing spells cast on them, including our sorcerer. Then came the time, when the sorcerer wanted to cast the Detect Magic spell and our little discussion began:

now: to cast a spell, you must be able to speak clearly if it has a verbal component. Does the Water Breath spell enable you to speak clearly under water? I reasoned not, because it is not stated in the spell's description. "But", another player reasoned, "what about aquatic spellcasters?". I answered, the have their own language and are accustomed to speaking under water. The player's wouldn't take this...They said, you can speak under water, but it sound differently only (the words remain the same)...To make a long story short: we settled on a 20% spell failure chance...

Now my question: are there any definite rules out there for landlubbers using water breathing spells on them (or not) and casting spells under water?

thanx for help!

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Yes, there are.

The rules are that you can cast any spell underwated without problem except for those with the [Fire] descriptor, regardless of any other consideration.

There are a number of popular house rules, however, that make various spells more or less difficult depending on whether you have water breathing, freedom of movement, etc., active.

 

[Bad Paper]

To make a long story short: we settled on a 20% spell failure chance

That's a pretty steep failure chance for something you just made up. It is pretty clear that the designers never intended for Water Breathing to mess with spellcasting.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Yeah, 20% spell failure is way too high - it's the same chance as being entirely deaf!

Deafened: A deafened character cannot hear. She takes a –4 penalty on initiative checks, automatically fails Listen checks, and has a 20% chance of spell failure when casting spells with verbal components. Characters who remain deafened for a long time grow accustomed to these drawbacks and can overcome some of them.

If you want to see some more reasonable house rules, check out this thread (still on the first page, BTW! ): http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=125646

 

[andargor]

Hehe. Totally OT, but in our campaign we fight vs Chaos, and there is a spell failure chance for all spells that varies from 5% to 50% (effect created by a chaotic deity)... Makes life interesting for spellcasters...

Andargor

 

[dcollins]

Hey... is it just me, or are there a heck of a lot of people falling through air and getting dunked underwater around here these days? Look out below!

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Hey... is it just me, or are there a heck of a lot of people falling through air and getting dunked underwater around here these days? Look out below!

I blame it on a distinct lack of Looney Tunes in the role-playing public's TV diet.

With such avenues of to-doom-plunging, underwater shenanigans, and other such things denied, such energies are naturally channeled into other activities.

I predict a rash of posts asking about "Whirlwind Striking / Whirling Frenzy Varianting Through Trees" and "If I drop this heavy metal object, how much damage would it do?" in the upcoming months, as this epidemic grows worse.