2015-01-16 Underwater Adventures

Related: Mazirian's Garden: Simple Underwater Rules.

Mazirian's Garden: Simple Underwater Rules

For my campaign, I’ll be using the following rules under water:

*Movement*: everybody swims at half speed
*Swimming*: wearing armor makes you sink; getting back up will require ropes, air-filled wineskins or the like
*Drowning*: save vs. death every round or faint; reviving is possible within the next 10 rounds
*Speaking*: depends on the secondary abilities granted by your water breathing spell (see blow); if none indicated, no speaking; you can cry at-will
*Magic*: water breathing spells have language specific side effects

* *breath of whales* by Lady Gerdana changes your speech to whale songs and allows you to understand whale songs

* *growth of gills* as granted by Tsathoggua changes your speech to the silent speech of fishes and allows you to understand fish

*Elements*: magic involving elemental energies have the obvious effects:

* *water* elementals can effectively fly and move at full speed

* *air* elementals helplessly rise to the surface; no problem outside the water

* *earth* elementals helplessly sink to the bottom; no problem when on the floor

* *fire* elementals are quenched (and disappear); *fireball*, *flaming hands* and the like affect the area around the caster including the caster for full damage

* *electricity* spreads like fire in air; *lightning bolt*, *shocking grasp* and the like affect the area around the caster including the caster for full damage

*Weapons*: only weapons that can be used when stabbing are effective under water

* obvious weapons are spears, tridents

* this includes daggers, swords, halberds, and the staff

* this excludes axes, hammers, picks, maces, morningstars, whips

* this excludes all ranged weapons

* the only exception is a modern speargun (range 10 ft.)

*Items*: no potions, scrolls, books, maps
*Light*: no torches, lanterns – it will have to be *light* (rarely) and *continual light* (probably the standard?)

#RPG #Old School