D&D General Strategies to use to survive underwater in a D&D campaign

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What are some strategies that adventurers can use to survive underwater in a D&D campaign? How do magic items, spells, and potions come into play?
 

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I ran an underwater adventure a few months back and it worked well.

First, know (and understand!!!) the rules for underwater combat (PHB p.198) and sufforcating (PHB p.183).

Second, magic items can help obviously. One PC had a ring of swimming while another had gloves of climbing and swimming. This meant these two had better swimming speeds (40 feet and 30 feet, respectively). The second was a rogue, so with Cunning Action could do another Dash action and move 90 feet in a round.

A cap of water breathing is an uncommon, minor tier item (no attunement, which the other two need), which works to breath underwater, but doesn't help your speed. Depending on how common magic is in your game world, finding or even questing to create a bunch of caps might not be too bad and could be a precursor to the adventure. The drawback to the cap is an enemy can attempt to remove it, thus denying the PC of its benefits!!! I have used the rules for disarming in such cases.

The simpliest item is the potion of water breathing, but that only lasts for 1 hour.

Spells, of course, the biggest IMO is water breathing. As a ritual and with 24 hour duration, you only need to cast it once a day. And it affects up to eight creatures IIRC so a single casting took care of the entire party. Alter self (2nd level) can work for a single person, but if the PCs are high enough level, water breathing is a must.

Finally, depending on the water, vision will be very limited! My adventure was in a murky, cloudy swamp-like water, so I treated the entire area lightly-obscured and limited vision from 30-60 feet (d4+2 x10 feet); it was heavily-obscured beyond this. I used a VTT with fog of war and lighting effects to create the feeling of being surrounded by haze and gloom. Because this was impediments in the water, not just lack of light, darkvision past the current limited vision didn't help. You simply couldn't see because of physical interruption to your sight, not just lack of light.

Hope that helps.
 

Could you just create a water-breathing PC, like a sea elf?

Unless the campaign is just loosely underwater with something like a typical above water campaign and all the pieces of the mcguffin are underwater.
 

Water breathing is a 3rd level ritual spell that lasts 24 hours and covers 10 creatures (don't forget familiars, steeds, etc)

Caps of Water Breathing are Uncommon and require attunement. Probably worth having one in the party on a person who can recast the spell, should it be dispelled.

Alter Self is 2nd level spell, can provide gills for 1 hour but requires concentration.
 

Water breathing is a 3rd level ritual spell that lasts 24 hours and covers 10 creatures (don't forget familiars, steeds, etc)

Caps of Water Breathing are Uncommon and require attunement. Probably worth having one in the party on a person who can recast the spell, should it be dispelled.

Alter Self is 2nd level spell, can provide gills for 1 hour but requires concentration.
They are uncommon but I don't see a requirement for attunement unless I'm missing something.
 


Water breathing is a 3rd level ritual spell that lasts 24 hours and covers 10 creatures (don't forget familiars, steeds, etc)

Caps of Water Breathing are Uncommon and require attunement. Probably worth having one in the party on a person who can recast the spell, should it be dispelled.

Alter Self is 2nd level spell, can provide gills for 1 hour but requires concentration.
@ezo already covered all of this. And you're mistaken--caps don't require attunement as he mentioned.
 

I ran an adventure years ago in D&D 3.x where the players took a job diving on a shipwreck hoping to salvage its sunken treasure. They were all gung-ho, but once they got there they froze like deer in headlights. Even though I gave them many options to breathe, swim and move underwater that weren't traditional magical means by spell or items, they quickly got discouraged. They were expecting me to just hand out rings of swimming, scrolls of water breathing, and Jacques Cousteau's sub, etc. I eventually pivoted and reached a compromise without just giving them everything they wanted, and the adventure was a success. So, like @ezo was saying making sure the players have access to methods that make them able to breathe, move and fight underwater is paramount to a successful under water campaign.

Three books from the 3.x era that I found useful for ideas were Mongoose Publishing "Seas of Blood: Fantasy on the High Sea" and Living Imagination Inc. "Broadsides: Naval Adventuring". Salt & Sea Dog by Kenzer & Co. was also cool too.



 

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