Underwater and Sound

[orcmonk220]

Hiya all
I was wondering how sound works underwater. Mainly, this is for a PrC I'm working on. I wanted to know if sound has any range underwater, mainly in relation to bardic music.
Cheers
Chris

 

[Tetsubo]

Hiya all
I was wondering how sound works underwater. Mainly, this is for a PrC I'm working on. I wanted to know if sound has any range underwater, mainly in relation to bardic music.
Cheers
Chris

Sound travels through water much more efficiently than air. Whales can communicate over hundreds of miles. I don't know of any instruments that function underwater well though... as for the range of Bardic music... since it is a magical effect powered by the character I'd say the range would be unchanged, no free class ability bonus just because you change the environment...

 

[Tonguez]

Sound is a pressure wave and the Loudness of a sound = intensity which depends not only on the pressure of the wave, but also on the density of the medium through which the sound is traveling.
Both the density of water and the speed of sound in water are much greater than they are in air which means that for the same pressure, higher density and higher sound speed give a lower intensity. ie the sound is not as loud (by a huge margin btw)

So technically a surface dweller using his normal means of creating sound underwater would be much quieter in water than in air even though the waves themselves travel further

That being said Bardic music doesn't rely on soundwaves, as Tetsubo said it is a magical effect

 

[green slime]

Another thing to consider is that because sound travels much faster underwater, it is very difficult for us humans to discern where a sound is coming from when underwater.

So you hear the motorboat, but you can't tell which direction it is coming from, until you actually see it.

 

[eamon]

And it's also hard to tell the distance of the sound source...