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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pinotage" data-source="post: 2414530" data-attributes="member: 15194">Good grief! No need to rant. Sheesh!Nitrogen narcosis is caused by more than the normal amount of nitrogen being in your blood. Of course it's always there - we've got an 80% nitrogen environment, but when you go too deep, typically below 100 ft, more nitrogen gets absorbed into your blood than your body can handle. Hence narcosis. Who said anything about absorbing nitrogen from the water around you? What are we - fish? When you go too deep, more nitrogen gets absorbed into your bloodstream changing the gas ratios in your blood and leading to narcosis. It's physiological, and has to do with deep diving where more nitrogen is likely to accumalate. As far as I'm concerned, I can't see how diving down too quickly would cause this.Uhm, no. You'll only get the bends if you have accumulated enough nitrogen in your blood from being under the water too long. If you go on a 60 ft dive for 10 minutes and then do an emergency ascent, you will not get the bends. If you dive within safe diving limites, i.e. well within the prescribed navy diving tables, and you do not require a decompression stop to remove nitrogen from your blood, you will not get the bends on an emergency ascent. If you don't breathe out, then yes, you can cause an embolism (rapture of the lungs or other air pockets in the body), but that's another matter. I agree that physiological differences make different people more prone to this, but I've done emergency ascents from 20 m down and I have not gotten the bends from dropping your weight belt and rising up as fast as you can. You're talking a very specific scenario, not a general case.Are we arguing? I'm not and I wasn't. I was merely pointing out that I thought your comments on the bends and nitrogen narcosis needed clarification. I don't agree with your assessment of what causes the bends or nitrogen narcosis, and I was never stating anything regarding the use of such mechanisms in a D&D game. All my comments were non-D&D clarifications on real-world affects. Like others, I hope Stormwrack transfers some of this knowledge into game mechanics.PinotageEdit: Just to point out, yes, if you spend more than a safe amount of time under the water, and fail to do a decompression stop, rising to quickly can result in the bends. For dives within safe limits, no, you can't get the bends from rising to quickly, unless you're an unfortunate physiological case. I've never heard of anything related to narcosis from descending too quickly, since a quick dive down does not give the body enough time to absorb the extra nitrogen into the blood that can cause partial pressure variations in the bloodstream and hence narcosis. Nitrogen in your body in abnormally high levels is narcotic. I believe they use similar effects for pain relief during child birth with nitrogen loaded air.</blockquote>

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