Swimming -- even light armor is dangerous

[Quasqueton]

Check: Make a Swim check once per round while you are in the water. Success means you may swim at up to one-half your speed (as a full-round action) or at one-quarter your speed (as a move action). If you fail by 4 or less, you make no progress through the water. If you fail by 5 or more, you go underwater.
If you are underwater, either because you failed a Swim check or because you are swimming underwater intentionally, you must hold your breath. You can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to your Constitution score, but only if you do nothing other than take move actions or free actions. If you take a standard action or a full-round action (such as making an attack), the remainder of the duration for which you can hold your breath is reduced by 1 round. (Effectively, a character in combat can hold his or her breath only half as long as normal.) After that period of time, you must make a DC 10 Constitution check every round to continue holding your breath. Each round, the DC for that check increases by 1. If you fail the Constitution check, you begin to drown.

Special: Swim checks are subject to double the normal armor check penalty and encumbrance penalty.

Swim DCs = calm water DC 10, rough water DC 15, stormy water DC 20.

Assuming calm water, is it a DC 10 Swim check to just keep your head above water (not moving any distance)? Is removing armor a standard action?

For instance:

My paladin (Strength 14, Constitution 14, chain shirt armor) falls into calm water. He has a Swim check modifier of -2. Taking 10 will not help (result = 8). It takes 1 minute (10 rounds) to remove a chain shirt. I'll have to make a Swim check every round (rolling a natural 12 or better) to avoid going under. I can hold my breath for up to 14 rounds (or 7 if removing the armor as a standard action each round).

What exactly are the options in this situation? Is there any benefit (lower DC) to just staying in one place and removing the armor rather than moving 15' each round while removing the armor? Or how about just using a full round action just to stay in one place (not move or take off armor)?

Round 1, Swim check DC 10, remove "1/10th" of the armor. Round 2, Swim check DC 10, remove "2/10th" of the armor. Etc.

If I fail a Swim check one round, I go under (start counting rounds for holding breath), but can still take off another 1/10th of the armor (costing double for holding breath that round). Next round is another Swim check -- if successful, reset breath rounds, and take off another 1/10th of the armor; but if failed, count off another double cost for holding breath, but still get to take off another 1/10th of the armor.

It seems that so long as I am keeping track of the rounds, the actual game mechanics are not all *that* complicated. But I am surprised at how deadly even a chain shirt is to a swimming character. Being in a port city, I'm thinking I need to put some skill points in Swim. Unfortunately, Swim is not a class skill for paladins :-(

How exactly would you handle rescuing a swimming character? Aid another to give them +2? If you just say the rescuer takes the rescuee as weight, that will pretty much sink both characters.

Is my understanding of the Swim skill correct?

Quasqueton

 

[Quasqueton]

Actually, I just realized an answer to one of my questions:

You only go under if you fail by 5 or more. So staying in one place is effectively 4 points easier than moving. Staying in one place in calm water is effectively DC 6 (natural 8 for my paladin). So Taking 10 and removing armor is a viable option when not trying to swim any distance.

Quasqueton

 

[Quasqueton]

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

Quasqueton

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Waterbreathing, Freedom of Movement, Full plate of the deep!

The answers to all swiming related issues.


Still, it's far less lethal than in 3.0 -1 per 5 lbs carried IIRC?

Think you got your answer though...

 

[Joshua Randall]

I think your understanding of the rules is correct. Basically, if you don't want to drown, don't wear any armor!

In real life, if you fall in the ocean wearing sneakers, jeans, and a rugby shirt, you will quickly find yourself hard put to keep up with all the extra weight from your water-logged clothing. So it's not unreasonable that wearing metal armor would be that much worse.

 

[LeapingShark]

Hrm. In the DMG under "Environment", it says:
Drowning
Any character can hold her breath for a number of rounds equal to twice her Constitution score.
That would make the situation significantly easier, since it only takes 10 rounds to remove almost any armor (cept platemail), so there'd likely be plenty of extra time to swim back up afterwards.

So does the PHB supercede the DMG then?

 

[MerakSpielman]

That's true, but that particular section is assuming you're standing there, not doing anything, avoiding, say, poison gas. The more relevent section is under the Swim skill in the PHB (quoting SRD becuase PH is at home):

If you are underwater, either because you failed a Swim check or because you are swimming underwater intentionally, you must hold your breath. You can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to your Constitution score, but only if you do nothing other than take move actions or free actions. If you take a standard action or a full-round action (such as making an attack), the remainder of the duration for which you can hold your breath is reduced by 1 round. (Effectively, a character in combat can hold his or her breath only half as long as normal.) After that period of time, you must make a DC 10 Constitution check every round to continue holding your breath. Each round, the DC for that check increases by 1. If you fail the Constitution check, you begin to drown.

Essentially, it appears that the rules for holding your breath underwater are more strict than the rules for holding your breath in general (the DMG version). It makes sense to me personally - it takes a physical effort to swim or tread water and this would cut down on the time.

 

[Bauglir]

Swim DCs = calm water DC 10, rough water DC 15, stormy water DC 20.

Assuming calm water, is it a DC 10 Swim check to just keep your head above water (not moving any distance)? Is removing armor a standard action?

For instance:

My paladin (Strength 14, Constitution 14, chain shirt armor) falls into calm water. He has a Swim check modifier of -2. Taking 10 will not help (result = 8). It takes 1 minute (10 rounds) to remove a chain shirt. I'll have to make a Swim check every round (rolling a natural 12 or better) to avoid going under. I can hold my breath for up to 14 rounds (or 7 if removing the armor as a standard action each round).

What exactly are the options in this situation? Is there any benefit (lower DC) to just staying in one place and removing the armor rather than moving 15' each round while removing the armor? Or how about just using a full round action just to stay in one place (not move or take off armor)?

Round 1, Swim check DC 10, remove "1/10th" of the armor. Round 2, Swim check DC 10, remove "2/10th" of the armor. Etc.

If I fail a Swim check one round, I go under (start counting rounds for holding breath), but can still take off another 1/10th of the armor (costing double for holding breath that round). Next round is another Swim check -- if successful, reset breath rounds, and take off another 1/10th of the armor; but if failed, count off another double cost for holding breath, but still get to take off another 1/10th of the armor.

It seems that so long as I am keeping track of the rounds, the actual game mechanics are not all *that* complicated. But I am surprised at how deadly even a chain shirt is to a swimming character. Being in a port city, I'm thinking I need to put some skill points in Swim. Unfortunately, Swim is not a class skill for paladins :-(

How exactly would you handle rescuing a swimming character? Aid another to give them +2? If you just say the rescuer takes the rescuee as weight, that will pretty much sink both characters.

Is my understanding of the Swim skill correct?

Quasqueton

To be fair, that paladin has no ranks whatsoever in the swim skill. It seems logical enough that someone who doesn't know how to swim would have trouble swimming around in a chain shirt.. With only 2 ranks he could take 10 however.

Seems ok to me?

 

[Quasqueton]

To be fair, that paladin has no ranks whatsoever in the swim skill. It seems logical enough that someone who doesn't know how to swim would have trouble swimming around in a chain shirt.. With only 2 ranks he could take 10 however.

Oh, I'm not really complaining or whining about it. It just kind of struck me how really dangerous a water hazard is for adventurers.

Quasqueton

 

[Joshua Randall]

Obligatory war story...

In a recent adventure, my banded mail-clad cleric fell into a water trap where he was then attacked by a swarm of blood-sucking leeches. He had Con 14, so he could reasonably hope to get out of his armor... but probably not before the leeches drained him dry.

Thinking quickly, he used a move action to retrieve a potion of alter self; on the next round, he quaffed it and became a merfolk (amphibious, +8 Swim). That solved the drowning problem and the swimming problem, but not the leeching problem. Fortunately the wizard was able to fireball the entire area, incinerating the leeches and only lightly scorching my cleric.

So yeah -- water is dangerous. For high level PCs, you can also drown in molten lava or acid or, say, liquified negative energy. Nasty.