Ways to Avoid Pressure Damage in Water

[Zombulian]

Hey all, I’ve been trying to find ways for my group to not deal with pressure damage for a little underwater dungeon we’re gonna run. So far it seems kind of prohibitive.
There’s the Transformation of the Deeps spell, but it’s a bit higher than our group’s level. The only other fairly feasible thing I’ve seen is the aquatic subtype making the scaling of pressure a little more doable, but aside from the Druid shaping into a shark I don’t know if that’s helpful for the party - is there a spell that grants the subtype?

[Morcleon]

The Deepdweller armor enchantment (MIC 10) grants the ability to breathe water, immunity to cold and pressure damage from deep water, removes the ACP from Swim checks for that armor, lets you talk with any water-breathing creature with a language, and doubles your sight range underwater.

It does cost +12000 gp though, so it may be out of budget depending on where you are.

[Feldar]

The Helm of Underwater Action specifically says it protects against pressure as well as provides the ability to breath under water.

[Zombulian]

Yeah those are both absolutely out of price range. Thanks for the input though!

I was looking at the Cloak of the Manta Ray and it may be helpful, but it’s a little confusing. It says it works as the Polymorph spell, which would ostensibly grant the aquatic subtype, but then it goes on to list the actual changes it makes. Is the change summary just for ease of reference or are those the only things it adds?

[Clementx]

If you want the dungeon to be accessible to the PCs, you just did. No need to bring pressure into it if it gets in the way of the design. They are already going to be limited by water breathing duration and vulnerable to dispelling. Adding a second spell doesn't advance the stakes much.

Alternatively, if a deep ocean trench is a required location for other reasons, then make it a border zone to the Plane of Water. Attune form covers it then. Remember, D&D assumes your dangerous locations are planar or magical, not mundane extremes beyond the experience of medieval Europeans. That's why the aren't reasonable solutions to such an issue in official content.

[Zombulian]

Remember, D&D assumes your dangerous locations are planar or magical, not mundane extremes beyond the experience of medieval Europeans. That's why the aren't reasonable solutions to such an issue in official content.

I mean, the pressure damage rules were introduced as official content. 1d6 per 100ft isn’t something to sneeze at. But you’re right, of course. If I want to run this I’ll just have to make it work. I’ll probably just homebrew an alchemical item to be something like the oil ancient divers used.

[Feldar]

I mean, the pressure damage rules were introduced as official content. 1d6 per 100ft isn’t something to sneeze at. But you’re right, of course. If I want to run this I’ll just have to make it work. I’ll probably just homebrew an alchemical item to be something like the oil ancient divers used.

Well, you could have the pressure be mysteriously low and when the party spoils the evil plot the pressure slowly starts rising again...

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Have an NPC (who has a stake in the adventure, emotional or otherwise) rent out some necklaces/wristbands/whatever of adaptation (depending on what they can most easily wear). The PCs are now surrounded in bubbles of air that should negate the water pressure, since they're not subjected to it due to the bubbles.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Any reason a couple scrolls of Transformation of the Deeps couldn't show up? Perhaps in the form of one of the CAr alternate scrolls so they aren't necessarily recognized as such by the PCs; the party cleric or wizard makes his caster level check to activate, they get about half a day per scroll, they're mostly or all consumed by the end of the adventure, you get your adventure and the party gains no permanent leap in power.

[Zaq]

Is there a reason why the game is made better by forcing the players to, in this specific circumstance, deal with pressure damage in addition to all the other challenges of underwater adventuring?

I'm reminded of a campaign I was in long, long ago. Across several real-world months, the party was tasked with adventuring both in a volcano and a cryovolcano (btw, cryovolcanoes are real and super neat, look 'em up!), one after the other. We were at the volcano first. There was going to be crushing levels of heat everywhere (no video-gamey "you're fine as long as you don't touch the lava" here, since the GM's background is in geology) and we didn't have a way to deal with it, so we literally milled around in the surrounding area grinding XP until the party sorcerer could hit everyone with something that made us all immune to fire (I think it was just energy immunity). Which, y'know, kind of slowed down the adventure while we were grinding like a dang MMO, and then after we were immune to fire, we were kinda immune to a lot of the challenges the volcano had in store, not just the ambient temps.

The cryovolcano came later, and because of plot reasons we were lower level at that point (we basically did a world-reset and went from mid-high level to E6), so we no longer had anyone capable of casting energy immunity. But the GM had learned their lesson by that point; an NPC that we were helping out in the vicinity of the cryovolcano just happened to be an artificer who specialized in weird offbeat items, and that artificer had a whole basket of "rings of protection from cryovolcano" lying around for us to use. That made us not need to worry about the ambient temps without grinding a million random encounters and also didn't make us immune to the cold-based monsters in the actual dungeon. We still had to deal with the fact that the environment was inhospitable without being unable to even try before we could just negate the whole thing.

This example isn't a perfect one-to-one match for your situation, but I think you get the point I'm driving at. There are rules that sometimes don't serve the play, and when they don't make the game more fun, I'm in favor of changing them or ignoring them until the game is fun again. The GM can get the adventure they want, the players can have a fun set of challenges, and so on.

Now, there are absolutely times when it's 100% appropriate to make the PCs conform to the environment rather than the other way around. In your case, seems to me like the challenges inherent to underwater adventuring in the first place (getting adequate oxygen, getting adequate visibility, getting adequate mobility, getting adequate intraparty communication) are all already interesting and relevant and shouldn't necessarily just be trivialized, but if pressure damage is preventing the adventure and isn't something that's interesting and fun to have to solve (see also the fact that the spells that deal with it are all too high level for you, while you seem to be okay with water breathing and the like), does it really improve the game to stay picky about it? Either just choose not to enforce that rule, or retcon that the underwater dungeon isn't quite as deep as first advertised, or whatever.

There are, of course, mechanical solutions. Many have been laid out already. Another (which isn't practical for your preexisting team but which technically, if unhelpfully, answers the question) is to be immune to fort saves, such as by being a necropolitan (or, by strict RAW that probably isn't RAI, a warforged, since immunity to fort saves is a construct trait and Living Construct doesn't specifically change it). But that's possibly beside the point.

[ShurikVch]

Pressure Capsules (Dungeon #106):

A swallowed pressure capsule grants complete immunity to damage from water pressure. A single capsule lasts for 8 hours, and does not grant the ability to breathe water.
Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item, freedom of movement
800 gp

[smetzger]

If 3rd party is allowed...
From Green Ronin - Freeport
Dive
Transmutation
Level: Clr 4, Drd 4, Sor/Wiz 4
Components: V, S, F/DF
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Target: Living creatures touched
Duration: 1 hour/level (see text) (D)
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)
The transmuted creatures can breathe water freely, gain
darkvision to 60 feet, are immune to the effects of pressure,
and gain a +10 competence bonus to Swim checks. Divide
the duration evenly among all the creatures you touch. The
spell does not make creatures unable to breathe air.
Arcane Focus: A tiny bronze bell.

Ring of Diving
This sea-green ring continually grants its wearer the
ability to breathe underwater, darkvision to 60 feet,
immunity from the effects of pressure, and a +10
competence bonus to Swim checks like the dive spell
(See Pocket Grimoire: Arcane on pg. 73).
Moderate transmutation; CL 7th; Forge Ring, dive; Price
56,000 gp

[Zombulian]

Well, you could have the pressure be mysteriously low and when the party spoils the evil plot the pressure slowly starts rising again...

I like this idea. May not use it, but sounds cool.


Have an NPC (who has a stake in the adventure, emotional or otherwise) rent out some necklaces/wristbands/whatever of adaptation (depending on what they can most easily wear). The PCs are now surrounded in bubbles of air that should negate the water pressure, since they're not subjected to it due to the bubbles.

Oh neat. I hadn't actually read the exact wording of NoA but that reasoning is fairly sound.


-good stuff-

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree with you. I definitely wasn't considering forcing the party to grind until they were capable of casting the requisite spells themselves, and all of the magic items available that would help are either very expensive or are prone to flubbing with a poor Spellcraft roll - but I didn't want to disregard the mechanic entirely. Like your DM, I thought it just wouldn't make sense for there not to be pressure, given the reasoning for the locale and whatever. Additionally, because of how expensive the helpful magic items were, it seemed like a stretch for the NPC in charge of the expedition to just have piles of them around. Renting might be reasonable now that I think of it.

But overall, yeah, if all it does is make things a chore, I don't wanna go that direction. I was thinking that maybe the NPC has an oil that the PC's can coat themselves. There's an existing alchemical item that works this way to prevent hypothermia but is very stinky, so obviously it makes you more prone to being sought out by creatures with the scent ability. This sort of tradeoff for a free solution seems fair enough to me.
Alternatively, I was considering having the item be fairly time restricted, but also having the dungeon have various air pockets where the party could return and reapply it (this would probably replace the stinky aspect, that seems needlessly punitive). That may be more of a chore that anything, so I'll have to think about it. But I don't necessarily hate putting time restrictions on my players. They are prone to not paying much attention to the pace in-world.


Pressure Capsules (Dungeon #106):

800 gp

Hey that's pretty much exactly the type of thing I was looking for! Good to know it exists.