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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steverooo" data-source="post: 2414330" data-attributes="member: 9410"><Ahem!>  Ah... NO, actually!...  You might want to get a copy of the U. S. Navy Diving Manual, either at the library, or it's now available on CD-ROM...  In any case, read the chapters on blood gases.  Y'see, OUR ATMOSPHERE IS MOSTLY NITROGEN!  Ergo, you have Nitrogen dissolved in your blood ALL THE TIME, unless you have been breathing straight Oxygen for an extended period (as shuttle astronauts do before getting into their EVA suits).Nitrogen Narcosis ("The Rapture of the Deep") IS caused by descending too rapidly.  It is, indeed, physiological, but has nothing to do with absorbing N from the water around you...  It has to do with the compression of gases already present within the blood.Again, the Nitrogen was already there...  At depths, it gets compressed, and as you rise, it expands, again.  You DO get Nitrogen Narcosis from too fast descents, and you DO get the bends from coming up too fast!  You obviously know something about diving, as you mention "a safe amount of time below the water."  That time is spent, WHY?  Because you're allowing the gasses dissolved within your blood to expand from two atmosphere's compression (at about 30'), to one (at the surface, assuming it's sea level).  Coming up too quickly (let's say from 150' to the surface, as fast as you can swim) takes you from five atmosphere's compression to one.  The Nitrogen trapped within your blood (which is more compressable than the Oxygen) expands too quickly, causing hemorrhages in blood vessels all over the body, including the eyes, nose, brain, capillaries, and a host of other places.  The extent of the problems caused depends upon where the bubles settle, how much body fat you have (the US Navy diving tables were set up for young, healthy men), and a host of other factors (including luck)!Wrongo, Keebler!  Again, the Nitrogen is ALWAYS in your blood!  (Well, okay, not ALWAYS...  Undead do not face this problem, nor do technological peoples using rebreathers, which recycle their own exhaled CO2 into C + O2.)  Ask a friend who dives if I'm full of it...  Any navy divers, here?Sigh!  So now you're agreeing with me? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> Re-read what I said about Waterbreathing, alone, in a previous post...If you mean "you can swim up or down 30' as quickly as you want", yes.  That's a pressure differential of one atmosphere.  Going deeper, faster, gives you Nitrogen Narcosis.  Ascending higher, faster, gives you some degree of the bends.  The Deep covers this, I believe (although not as well as I'd like).So, using Waterbreathing, alone, will be likely to get you killed, due to your own PC's ignorance.  Using Waterbreathing and a spell timer (I forget the name, but I have seen one) might allow you to time your swim down and back up, safely, if you could measure either the distance or pressure...Better yet, Waterbreathing should be made about first level (after all, Alter Self, which can give you gills, IIRC, is), and another, higher-level spell, such as, say Depth-Diving, could be introduced in Stormwrack, to allow perception of all the needed info.</blockquote>

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