Underwater Combat

[Nightgaun7]

I'm running a game of D&D 4E that will have underwater combat, and the base rules are not quite realistic enough for my tastes. Anyone know of a game out there with good underwater combat rules that can be used for inspiration or adaptation?

[FreakyCheeseMan]

I'm running a game of D&D 4E that will have underwater combat, and the base rules are not quite realistic enough for my tastes. Anyone know of a game out there with good underwater combat rules that can be used for inspiration or adaptation?

You may need to give us more to go one.

- What sort of setting are we looking at? High magic, technology, what?

- If it's fantasy, what would you consider "realistic", given that underwater combat is basically defined by the rules of magic that allow it to happen?

- What in particular from the 4E rules offend you?

- Why specifically are you aiming for underwater combat?

[Mr. Mask]

First thoughts that come to mind:

Planes - Underwater is a 3D battlefield, where you can attack from above and below.

Armour - If your players wear armour, and if they can't swim well, you'd expect them to sink to the bottom, unable to leave the ground floor. Magic could change this.

Slow - Unless the magic includes swimming like a fish, movement speed should be much slower underwater.

Thrust don't Swing - Due to water resistance, swinging attacks will be very ineffective. Weapons will either have to be thrust into foes, or you'll need to slice them, strangle them, squeeze them, etc.. Thrown weapons such as javelins might work? You might need to throw them with a less effective thrusting motion, and they'd lose energy faster.

Watery Wounds - Unless the magic stops them from being touched by the water, then this could have interesting results.

Jumping - You're lighter in water, so you can jump higher. Even if your players are grounded due to armour, they can still try jumping at enemies.

[Nightgaun7]

- What sort of setting are we looking at? High magic, technology, what?

- If it's fantasy, what would you consider "realistic", given that underwater combat is basically defined by the rules of magic that allow it to happen?

- What in particular from the 4E rules offend you?

- Why specifically are you aiming for underwater combat?

D&D 4E in a homebrew world. Not much past normal fantasy tech, although they might find a piece of Dwarven work or something (Dwarves are nigh-extinct). Magic is pervasive.

Realistic as in realistic? Magic will help the players deal with underwater stuff as they level, but right now they haven't found any items or been granted any boons to help them survive.

The rules don't offend me, but they are too simple.

Aiming for underwater because a bunch of the action will take place there? The theme of the game is aquatic/naval.



Armour - If your players wear armour, and if they can't swim well, you'd expect them to sink to the bottom, unable to leave the ground floor. Magic could change this.

Slow - Unless the magic includes swimming like a fish, movement speed should be much slower underwater.

Thrust don't Swing - Due to water resistance, swinging attacks will be very ineffective. Weapons will either have to be thrust into foes, or you'll need to slice them, strangle them, squeeze them, etc.. Thrown weapons such as javelins might work? You might need to throw them with a less effective thrusting motion, and they'd lose energy faster.

Watery Wounds - Unless the magic stops them from being touched by the water, then this could have interesting results.

Jumping - You're lighter in water, so you can jump higher. Even if your players are grounded due to armour, they can still try jumping at enemies.

Armor: I'm planning a basic rip-off of Cerulean Seas buoyancy system, with players in no armor or cloth being neutrally buoyant, players in light armor sinking 1 square a turn, and players in heavy armor sinking 2 squares a turn.

Thrusting/Swinging - 4E has an attack penalty that applies to weapons that aren't from the spear or crossbow group. I had some other thoughts on this, but 4E doesn't do piercing/slashing/bludgeoning etc. which makes it a trifle harder.

Watery wounds - what do you mean?

Jumping - This is sort of accurate...I'm a SCUBA diver, and from my experience, if you are negatively buoyant, then you will go up a bit and then sink back down in a hurry unless you begin swimming. However this will take longer than if you were to jump out of water - i.e. you push off and move upwards for a little, then sink back down, could take 5 seconds or more. If you are neutrally buoyant, then you push off and move upwards until you stop, then you float there. If you are positively buoyant, then you push off and get a boost to your rate of ascent.

However, this does give me some thoughts on some new movement maneuvers...

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Realistic as in realistic? Magic will help the players deal with underwater stuff as they level, but right now they haven't found any items or been granted any boons to help them survive.
Let me rephrase. What stops them from drowning in the first two minutes? (Are they all races that can swim/breathe underwater? Do they have gear or magic that allows them to do so? Are they in some sort of submersible/cave system most of the time, where they would have some access to air pockets?

[Nightgaun7]

Let me rephrase. What stops them from drowning in the first two minutes? (Are they all races that can swim/breathe underwater? Do they have gear or magic that allows them to do so? Are they in some sort of submersible/cave system most of the time, where they would have some access to air pockets?

One of them has no need to breathe, they have a ritual that will let them breathe water for some period, and some of them have pieces of gear that help with underwater stuff.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

I'd also consider ranged spells - 4E may already have rules for this, but what happens if you try to aim a ray underwater? A fireball? Magic missile? Lightning bolt?

If you want to be more realistic, you might also give some consideration to pressure and light.

[Mr. Mask]

Night Gaunt: I like the idea for the armour. Armour has an effect without denying heavy armour wearers options.

You could do the swinging/thrusting thing by logic I'd say. Bladed weapons can be used to saw and slice (the same way you saw meat), so axes still have use. Anything with a point can be thrust (shape should factor in, but that's probably too complicated and limiting for your purposes), so war hammers with points could still be used (that theoretically should have different properties).
If you wanted a deep combat simulation it would be rather different. Then you'd find spears and swords, and tactics like grappling people and cutting them with knives, would be the mainstay (also underwater crossbows).

Watery Wounds - Honestly, I'm not sure. I haven't much experience with getting wounded in the water. I just figure this might effect bleeding, medical attention, infection and etc..

Being a diver, you'll probably have a better idea than us.

[Vanitas]

I'm running a game of D&D 4E that will have underwater combat, and the base rules are not quite realistic enough for my tastes. Anyone know of a game out there with good underwater combat rules that can be used for inspiration or adaptation?

>4E
>realistic
:smallconfused:

[Mastikator]

Water prevents coagulation, which will keep the wound bleeding longer.
If its salt water then the salt will disinfect the wound (but that's not important since infections aren't a thing in D&D anyway)

[Berenger]

Armor: I'm planning a basic rip-off of Cerulean Seas buoyancy system, with players in no armor or cloth being neutrally buoyant, players in light armor sinking 1 square a turn, and players in heavy armor sinking 2 squares a turn.


What stops them from attaching glass floats to their armor?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/24/Large_Glass_Fishing_Float_with_Net_1.JPG/250px-Large_Glass_Fishing_Float_with_Net_1.JPG

Also: underwater knight ftw.

http://stokereport.com/files/userimages/adamSuit.jpg

[Mutazoia]

I don't suppose you've checked out Stormwrack (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20050805a)have you?

[Nightgaun7]

If you wanted a deep combat simulation it would be rather different. Then you'd find spears and swords, and tactics like grappling people and cutting them with knives, would be the mainstay (also underwater crossbows).

I am already trying to work out some more grappling rules, I was kinda hoping I would find another ruleset to crib from lol


>4E
>realistic
:smallconfused:
deal /w it :smallcool:


Water prevents coagulation, which will keep the wound bleeding longer.
If its salt water then the salt will disinfect the wound (but that's not important since infections aren't a thing in D&D anyway)
Could add a little ongoing bleeding damage to any attack with the weapon keyword?


What stops them from attaching glass floats to their armor?


Nothing, although glass floats would probably get broken easily in combat.


I don't suppose you've checked out Stormwrack (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20050805a)have you?
Stormwrack has lots of stuff for underwater environments and so forth, but nothing on actually fighting underwater.

I realize that the standard D&D way of treating the issue is "Magic lol, everything works just like on land" but this is unsatisfying because there's little point to being underwater if it's just like being on land but bluer.

[erikun]

The first thing I'd think of is to place difficult terrain everywhere unless the character has some way to freely move around in the water. I mean, literally everywhere. Not that the ground is difficult terrain in one particular spot, but that the water itself is producing difficult terrain.

Most Heavy-Thrown weapons are going to be less effective, although by how much depends on how you want to nerf things. Distance probably isn't going to mean much in combat ranges, although the maximum distance is probably half (or less). Swinging through water has significant drag and so any sort of swinging motion (which includes throwing weapons) are going to be impaired, perhaps for half damage.

Thrusting weapons would still behave normally, which means most piercing weapons except something like a warpick. Bows and crossbows would presumably work, as long as the string can still hold up under water - I'm not sure how likely or unlikely that is, but would likely need some prep to work properly.

If you can swim, then you can probably end your turn "in the air" and remain there without sinking to the bottom. If you can't swim, though, you'd sink to the ground. There would be no falling damage underwater.

Electricity tends to behave funny in salt water. :smallbiggrin:


As you can see, a lot of these are a really big nerf on the PCs (especially any swinging weapons). I'd actually recommend some sort of "Freedom of Movement" ritual so that they can avoid the worst of the penalties. Note that any STR-focused characters could easily be rendered useless with these rules, and someone could just swim 30 feet away and pepper them with crossbow bolts, while they'd have difficulty even attacking back with javelins.

[Nightgaun7]

The first thing I'd think of is to place difficult terrain everywhere unless the character has some way to freely move around in the water. I mean, literally everywhere. Not that the ground is difficult terrain in one particular spot, but that the water itself is producing difficult terrain.


I was planning to just have them make swim checks...



If you can swim, then you can probably end your turn "in the air" and remain there without sinking to the bottom. If you can't swim, though, you'd sink to the ground. There would be no falling damage underwater.

Not quite sure I follow here. You mean swimming on the surface?

[SethoMarkus]

I could have sworn that Stormwrack had information on underwater combat, but it may have been DMG or Planar Handbook... Regardless, I did a quick Google search to try to find some resources to share with you and found a great thread right here on our GITP forums!

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=157079

Although the initial post is more setting-centric, the comments and replies below do go into combat a bit. Specifically, I'd look at this post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8751579&postcount=10) by Debihuman.

[erikun]

Not quite sure I follow here. You mean swimming on the surface?
While underwater, a character swimming (either with a natural swim speed or just light enough equipment to be buoyant) should be able to end their turn anywhere in the water, even if they don't end the turn while standing on a solid surface.

A character who is not buoyant - such as pretty much anyone with a significant amount of metal - would drop straight down to the ground.

This is counter to how the normal rules work, and in D&D4e, a character can't end their turn in the air. If they somehow finish a turn and are mid-air, they return to the ground at the end of their turn.

[Mutazoia]

There is always this as well... (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Aquatic_Terrain)

[Mr. Mask]

I would like to advise against having constant swimming checks. Instead, you might want to have speed based off their Swim Skill Ranks. or something. Just, rolling a lot is going to get tedious and probably a bit more random than you'd like.

[Nightgaun7]

I could have sworn that Stormwrack had information on underwater combat, but it may have been DMG or Planar Handbook... Regardless, I did a quick Google search to try to find some resources to share with you and found a great thread right here on our GITP forums!

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=157079

Although the initial post is more setting-centric, the comments and replies below do go into combat a bit. Specifically, I'd look at this post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8751579&postcount=10) by Debihuman.

If it does, I haven't seen them in several read-throughs.
I've seen that thread before, and it doesn't have much in the way of actual nuts and bolts for fighting underwater, although perhaps someone said something later. I'm not looking for terrain effects - see this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=319236) for more on what I'm trying to work out.



While underwater, a character swimming (either with a natural swim speed or just light enough equipment to be buoyant) should be able to end their turn anywhere in the water, even if they don't end the turn while standing on a solid surface.

A character who is not buoyant - such as pretty much anyone with a significant amount of metal - would drop straight down to the ground.

This is counter to how the normal rules work, and in D&D4e, a character can't end their turn in the air. If they somehow finish a turn and are mid-air, they return to the ground at the end of their turn.

Oh, I sort of thought that went without saying. How else would you float?


I would like to advise against having constant swimming checks. Instead, you might want to have speed based off their Swim Skill Ranks. or something. Just, rolling a lot is going to get tedious and probably a bit more random than you'd like.

Yeah, but on the other hand the guy who actually took a theme to get a swim speed will feel a bit miffed. The static mod to Athletics should get them some reliability...