Underwater Details & Proto-Rules

In the interest of organizing some of what's needed for underwater adventures, I felt the best thing to do would be to address a variety of topics, as they occur to me.  Later I can add detail, create a single page like this in the wiki or perhaps a number of pages.  Sometimes it seems best to start writing there to get my thoughts organized and sometimes it seems better to start on the blog.

Visibility

Without a scuba mask to help the eye see (we're designed to see in the air, not underwater), focusing underwater produces an extremely blurred image, even up close.  This, like breathing, has to be addressed if an air-breathing humanoid is expected to function under water.  It seems to me that any spell that transforms the breathing capacity of a character to be able to function under water must also include a feature that transforms the eye so that it will pick up images underwater in a way that the human eye does not - in effect, giving us the vision we would have if we were wearing a diving mask.

Still, since the transformation is done by spell rather than by equipment, we're free to assign any amount of visual ability that suits us or the campaign.  I choose to argue that objects and moving creatures become blurry after a distance of 20 feet, or four combat hexes in my world, and indistinct (that is, one thing cannot be separated from its environment or effectively from other similar things, moving or not) after a distance of 8 combat hexes.

This means that even if a spell does have a range higher than 40 feet, and even if a weapon can be thrown farther than 40 feet, nothing can be targeted at all beyond that distance.  Under the water is a close-up world.  Get used to it.

Sound

Like the eyes, a water breathing spell must also include an underwater speaking component - otherwise, any adventure under the water is going to quickly get boring, what with everyone endlessly making hand gestures at each other.  Whatever we might try to do, without getting ludicrously dictatorial, characters are going to say out loud what they're doing and what they want others to do even if we try to stop them ~ so let's not bother.  Let's just assume that they, and the intelligent creatures they encounter, can speak underwater normally . . . the campaign will simply be more interesting that way.  Others can prefer to mime their hours away but by a small adjustment to the magic involved I can skip it, so I will.

The distance sound can travel is another thing.  Arguably, water amplifies sound better than air for a variety of creatures ~ why not suppose that the "speaking" component of the water breathing spell works in reverse to the effects of vision?  We can say that speaking distance is doubled, so that rather than limiting relatively intelligible speech to sixty feet (12 hexes), we can increase that to 120 feet.  We may not see the enemy approaching but we can hear them . . . and prepare ourselves accordingly.

Movement

This is tricky.  I don't want to start from scratch designing movement rules for what might be the only underwater adventure I ever run - it would be easier to make use of existing rules.  Some might remember that I use a series of action points, or AP, that serve as a measure of how much activity a given creature can manage in the time period of one round.

Because of water's liquidity, I prefer to argue that all movement is much slowed.  The easiest way to express this slowing is simply to half all movement (that is, halving all AP/round), arguing that a character has to move by kicking their feet, pulling themselves forward with their hands, pushing away and various other swimming movements that must often be performed with one hand if the character happens to be holding a weapon.  It would be painfully complicated and aggravating to try to assign a measure to each possible example of such movement . . . thus it is much, much easier to simply cut the AP in half and have done with it.

A normal human, unarmored and with a minimum of equipment, normally has an AP of 5.  Half of this would incorporate a fraction and that, too, is irritating.  Alternately, we might leave the players' AP unchanged and simply double the costs of everything: it would, for example, require 4 AP to swing a weapon underwater instead of the usual 2 upon the surface.

[I trust the gentle reader will follow the links given so that they can understand this argument.  I trust my readers are diligent about all their research, nyet?]

Either way, halving the character's AP will produce fractions, which are irritating; doubling the AP costs will make many things too costly to manage in the space of one round, requiring people to keep track of how much time they spent towards what ~ and this is also irritating.

Suppose instead that we simply count 2 rounds as 1 round for the sake of resolving combat.  Whereas the combatants normally take their move in a 12-second period, followed by the enemy's move, suppose we just say this happens over twice the time period?  This lets us keep the AP and their costs exactly as they are, likewise slowing down the enemy underwater (even if they're crabs, fish, humanoids, whatever).  If something seems especially deserving of being faster than that (say, a barracuda), we can simply double their potential attacks in one "round" (or UR, for underwater round) to balance out their particular threat.

Underwater Rounds & Magic

Of course, being underwater shouldn't affect the speed with which magic is cast and discharged (see my Spellcasting rules, which are designed to limit the power of mages and clerics to deliver rapid-fire spells).  To my mind, a floating, concentrating mage, performing all the usual verbal and somatic cues (I don't use spell components), can do so as easily underwater as anywhere, once they can breathe, see and hear in that environment.  The delivery of magic, too, is subject to AP ~ but without the slowing down of movement necessitated by swimming and twisting, it can be cast and discharged in normal time.  That is, in the two-round period of the UR, twice as fast.

Normally, a mage casting a 1st or 2nd spell in my world would have to spend a round casting, then wait until the next round before discharging the spell.  A 3rd or 4th level spell requires two rounds of casting before yet a third round is needed to discharge the spell.  A 5th or 6th level spell requires three rounds of casting; and so on.  This profoundly limits mages in how fast they can hit the enemy with spells ~ much reducing the power of a mage with a big pile of spells and balancing the game much more in favor of those who do actual fighting.

Underwater, however, the mages can cast that 1st/2nd level spell and discharge it in the space of one UR.  Effectively, given that everyone else is slowed by water, mages will seem as though they are hasted (or, as far as every other campaign in the world goes, casting spells normally.  Hah.  But seriously, try adjusting the spellcasters in your campaign to my system if you feel they're walking all over the enemy far too much!).

More about magic below.  I want to stay in the realm of movement a bit longer.

Lateral & Vertical Movement

Once again, I want simple rules for moving around in an environment that permits up and down movement ~ meaning that I want to consider only minimal conditions for limiting the movement of combatants in an environment where it is possible to move vertically as well as horizontally.

For someone who represents combat as a tactical representation on a map, the 3-D problem is a big issue ~ that is, showing people at various heights above the ocean/sea/lake bottom clearly and easily enough that a combat map can be grasped by the participants.  For this I plan to define all vertical movement as "ascent" [in a desperate attempt to avoid the much-overused word "level"], which can be measured in numbers from the bottom up.  Thus, if we are floating at 2-ascent from the bottom, we are in an imaginary 2nd vertical hex above the bottom, or a movement of 1 AP (remembering we are talking underwater rounds) from the hex that meant we were standing on the bottom.

So, if a player chooses to move three hexes, they would declare both their lateral movement and their vertical movement thus: "I move 2 hexes forward and ascend 1 hex."  A number is then added to the side of the character to show what their ascent is, thusly:

Lateral movement would then be demonstrated on a typical hex map.

All distances (and therefore potential for melee) would be measured by the square of the hypoteneuse (which can be calculated roughly in our heads or exactly through a quick-and-easy prepared excel sheet).  If one combatant, then, was 1 hex away from an opponent laterally and 1 hex away vertically, the combatants would be judged to be 1.4 hexes apart and therefore not close enough for direct melee.  Combatants would need to be directly under or over their opponents or have the same ascent in order to actually fight hand-to-hand.

Weaponry

I have noticed that the original monster manual gives various weapons to marine humanoids, including most often the trident and the spear, but also include the dagger, javelin, net lance, sword and crossbow.  I have to wonder what reflexive animal sinew is used for the string of the last, as well as the means of forging metal to create the firing mechanism underwater; clearly, the crossbow is a placeholder for some kind of harpoon gun . . . perhaps there is some means of an intelligent race creating such a thing, so I'm prepared to let it stand.  A bigger problem, I think, is the balance a sword needs to be effective vs. its use underwater and obviously the difficulty of throwing or swinging a net in a liquid environment.  The latter sounds appropriate, as nets have always been used in association with tridents, but not actually in the water.

Spears, tridents, javelins and harpoon guns normally incorporate wood, so we have to wonder how these weapons are made in an environment without any.  At least wood is denser than water when left in water long enough, but that doesn't explain the absence of available wood for working (unless we want to argue an entire culture is armed with drift wood that has fallen into the sea).  Bone seems much more practical; it is denser than water when wet (so it won't float), less likely to rot and ~ given the size of the beasties roaming an underwater sea world ~ more likely of the right flexibility, length and shape to make spear/trident handles from as well as javelins.  I feel that an underwater "sword" would be more like a macuahuitl in design, incorporating various stones or possibly ivory teeth.

Beyond the above, there aren't many weapons to choose from.  A bo staff, used correctly, should be perfectly effective underwater (it is the drawing back and stabbing motion with the staff that is needed, not the swinging motion).  A quarterstaff would be too thick and long, and difficult to make of bone.

Virtually every other weapon is either too thick to use in water or has a balance that simply couldn't be mastered if the combatant were not standing on a fixed, gravitationally supported surface.  The heavy balance of a sword, axe, hammer or pole-arm is deliberately outward from the body, with the wrist being used as a fulcrum, in order to obtain the best possible newtons of force at the long end of the swing (which works very well), but underwater this just spins the combatant around, swinging them off their feet.  The necessary motion must be a stab, not a swing - which makes a foil a more effective sword than a sword; something like the macuahuitl would be effective only if the combatant were astride a heavy steed (a one-ton hippocampus, say), the mass of which would counteract the force of the swing, or were otherwise fixed to the ground.

Additional Modifiers

In my normal combat system, it does not require an AP to turn around in a hex; each combatant has a facing, but adjusting this facing without actually moving is not considered a penalty because I believe that any combatant must be doing this all the time, automatically, when fighting multiple opponents.

Underwater, however, turning 180 degrees requires a little bit of swimming, so I would say changing facing more than 1 hex would be a 1 AP penalty.

Regarding swimming, which is a sage ability in my game, I feel the best adjustment for possessing this skill would be to add 1 AP to any combatant possessing the ability.  I had considered adding 2, but knowing the system I use as well as I do, I know that even 1 AP will be a considerable advantage; I don't know that I want to give double that advantage.  I'd like to play test underwater combat for awhile ~ if it seems the advantage of 1 AP isn't enough, I'll improve it.

Normally, combatants above opponents gain a +1 to hit while those below suffer a -1 penalty.  I feel that this should be reversed underwater for two reasons.  First, the light is above the combat, so the combatant underneath will see the outline of the target more clearly than the combatant looking down into the gloom.  Secondly, it is easier to swim upwards and away from the pressure of water than it is to swim downwards; thus upward movement is always easier and therefore more deserving of the bonus.

Sinking & Floating

Both of these are troublesome, as they tie up a lot of attention in the middle of a combat, particularly if we are talking about more than 10 combatants.  I expect I will have at least one massive combat during this adventure with up to 100 combatants, so I want to keep the system as simple as possible.

Rather than argue that all surface humanoids will automatically float if they are without ballast and will automatically sink if they have ballast, I'm going to argue that characters must necessarily adjust their encumbrance until they have achieved a mid-point, where floating and sinking doesn't happen.  IF a character insists on going naked, without weapons, then they will float; and if a character insists on carrying more than 1/5th of their body weight in equipment, or wearing clothes that do not permit easy swimming, then they will sink.  Ad hoc (and not because I think it is accurate, but because it is practical), I will argue that a character able to float will rise 1-ascent every other round, while a character that sinks will drop 1-ascent every round.

Simplicity is the key here.

Spells

Here is my initial list of banned spells underwater.  I expect this list to be expanded and adjusted (players may argue for their partial inclusion), particularly in regards to spells that will "sort of work" but not fully.  The work is going to be so pervasive that it is just easier for the campaign to make rulings as we go (discussing the final decision with the players and coming to a consensus) and then updating the wiki during the game.

Cleric: lower water, flame strike, insect plague, control weather, wind walk.

Druid: predict weather, fire trap, create wildfire, call lightning, flame blade, pyrotechnics, summon insects, call woodland beings, control winds, wall of fire, insect plague, conjure fire elemental, fire seeds, control weather, creeping doom, fire storm.

Mage: affect normal fires, burning hands, find familiar, pyrotechnics, flame arrow, fly, gust of wind, fire charm, fire trap, wall of fire, control weather, ice storm, lower water, incendiary cloud, meteor swarm.

Illusionist: wall of fog.

Arguments

Some will argue that fly should work, but I'm going to be clear on this.  "Fly" makes the body light enough to ascend; I do not consider it anti-gravitational.  Therefore, I would accept that a caster could cast fly, but it would quickly cause the caster to zip vertically upwards and out of the water at maximum speed, until completely entering the atmosphere (of course, this could be a good thing!).

I do not equate magical lightning with real lightning, therefore a magical lightning bolt will work underwater exactly as a magical fork of power.  Likewise, fireball does not create real fire, so it will also work underwater; the effect is an massive increase in heat in the area of the spell that lasts an instant, causing damage by cell rupturing.  The "fireball" component is the visual shock of the air turning to a blinding brightness than instantly disappearing again ~ not the creation of actual fire.

Conclusion

I do not remotely hope that this accounts for everything.  Actual play will reveal hundreds of issues that I can't predict ~ the key will be to keep updating the wiki as we move forward and adjust rules as it becomes necessary.  I'm going to treat this adventure as an experiment, being open to arguments ~ because that is the only rational way to solve the issues involved.

Overcoming the Liquid Environment

My underwater campaign was suspended for a session as two of the players were getting married to one another, while four of the remaining players were taking part in the wedding party and the DM was giving the bride away.  As such, I was granted a reprieve on inventing rules for fighting and moving underwater ~ but as the campaign is picking up this Saturday, it wouldn't hurt to embark on the subject for a few days.

First of all, fighting.  I had scattered thoughts about this, wondering if I should come up with a different actual combat system strictly for underwater combat [yes, my mind is stupid enough to go there] . . . but sanity and time constraints imposed their grip upon me and I have moved on.  At the moment, I am entertaining a practical, yet punishing alternative that I am certain the players will hate while at the same time possessing a wisdom that my players will accept.  I'll try to explain it simply . . . but please remember that it is always much harder to explain a rule in print to people who do not play the game than it is to present it in a campaign, person-to-person.

The argument goes like this: because land-dwelling players are thoroughly unfamiliar with fighting underwater, it follows that first efforts will fail in the extreme.  While able to water breathe and perhaps even use features such as the ocean/sea/lake bottom or rock outcroppings for support, they will underestimate the resistance and nature of the water, their vision will be distorted by the changing light underwater, they will be unbalanced by their boyancy and so on.

To reflect this, the combat effectiveness of a Ninth level fighter should be reduced to that of a 1st level fighter in ordinary conditions . . . but temporarily.  Initially, I would impose a -8 penalty to hit against all characters, regardless of class.  This penalty would then be reduced by 1 per four [possibly eight] successful swings ~ but please note, I do not say "hit."

A successful swing is any attack that would have hit if the circumstances would be completely normal.  Many successful swings would not, however, result in a hit.  I will give an example.

A 7th level fighter, Garth, who has never swung a weapon underwater is using a trident against a giant crab, armor class 3.  Garth normally has a THAC0 of 14 ~ at the moment, however, Garth's thaco is 22 (incorporating the -8 to hit).  To hit the crab and cause damage, Garth will need to roll a 19 or better . . . but to score a successful swing, Garth will only need to roll an 11, this being the number a 7th level fighter would normally need to hit AC 3.

Okay, how am I defining a "successful swing"?

I'm calling it any roll that gives credence to the idea that Garth has failed to hit but has comprehended why the hit failed!  That is, Garth has tried, sees the path to improvement and thus gained insight on how to do it better in the future.  Every four times this happens (including any successful swings that happen to also be hits), Garth improves, reducing his negative modifier by 1.

Thus, steadily, the more time Garth spends fighting underwater, the better he gets and the closer his underwater combat skill matches his ordinary combat skill.  Once both have lined up, then it is presumed that all needed changes and adjustments for fighting underwater have been overcome by Garth and he has fully adjusted.  In all, assuming four swings per modifier, Garth needs to succeed 32 times.

This is much, much easier for a 7th level fighter than it would be for a 1st level of anything, particularly a mage or a thief.  Racking up 32 hits for a high level might take a few combats; accomplishing the same at low level would be a very difficult slog, made worse by having to put oneself in danger for quite a while without ever having even a chance to cause actual damage.

Consider: a 1st level mage in my world has a normal THAC0 of 21.  Underwater, to start, this becomes a 29.  To get a successful swing on the crab would require an 18 on a d20; to do damage would require a 26.  This means the mage has to put himself in the way of the crab's claws (and anything else) for a really long time, getting snapped at and punched around without any hope of helping kill the beast.

Three points, however.  First, I wouldn't expect many first levels to do any underwater adventuring; it is difficult to manage, what with water breathing and having the means to truly be equipped for the tasks involved.  The party I have going in is largely 7th level or better, with 5th to 8th level henchmen for support.  There are a few players who have low level characters, as they haven't been playing in the campaign all that long, for whom this is going to be fretful; but they have considerable support to protect them while they get bashed around.  There is one 1st level fighter who did join just two sessions ago . . . but lucky for him, he was incredibly lucky in his rolls and wound up with an 18/00 strength, with a natural +3 to hit.  That will help a bit.

Second, I did not intend to drop them into the heart of the adventure right off.  I expect them to wander through some undersea "wilderness" for a bit as they approach the main adventure, so they will have a chance to cut their teeth on some smaller beasties, roaming about the sea.  This should give them a chance to prepare themselves . . . and if some decide not to prepare themselves, letting the big tough party members handle things, they'll certainly regret that later!

Finally, my experience system rewards players for getting bashed around.  So at least they won't be standing up to sea creatures for nothing.  And they'll be taking a hit for the team.

Underwater Plans

As I climb out of my cloud of recent illness, taking note that I haven't done any real work on my world in about eight days ~ a horribly long time, enough for me to feel parched for completion like a man struggling to get the top of a canteen in the desert ~ I'm looking at things I need to be doing.

Some readers may notice that I have not talked about my book in a long time.  Allow me to reassure the readers: I am still working on it.  Just now it has been difficult, as the job I'm working has been physically trying (I have lost nearly 25 lbs. of weight in just 55 days), leaving me with little strength at the end of the day for digging in and getting good work done.  At least I am earning an income.  Losing weight, however, has meant less stress on my feet, less pain at the end of the day and ~ thankfully ~ an overall better fitness that I am rather enjoying (when I'm not deathly ill).  These last two months have shown how physically fit I am, since I am feeling none of the ill effects of dropping a lot of weight, while actually looking younger for having done so.  This comes from a lifetime of never smoking, never doing drugs, drinking but not to the point of drunkedness and being blessed with having a lot of natural energy.

Steadily, the words per week on the book have been climbing, so good news there.  In time, this thing will be finished and off my back; I have no desire to rush it.  I thought I would have it done four months ago but, well, these things will be done when they are.  I apologize to anyone who feels they are waiting overlong for the results of the Spring 2016 fundraiser.

I expect to spend my less cerebral moments working on the thieves' sage abilities that got interrupted last week when I found myself laying in bed when not dragging my half-dead carcass three times to work before finally giving in and calling in sick.  I wouldn't hesitate to call in sick with a proper office job, but just now I am working among the morlocks and on this level, daring to admit the limitations of humanity is generally seen as weak and therefore disposable.  I started working on the sage abilities because of beginning my world again (cancelled this last Saturday), interrupting the creation of my British Isles map to do so.  I thought I might try a little mapmaking tonight or tomorrow.

And my thoughts are moving towards the adventure I described last week, which is expected to eventually become an underwater adventure.  Here and there for a few days I've been reading boards and blog posts about people running underwater adventures and I must say the prognosis for finding practical rules that I can steal for my campaign are not good.

See, I have never ~ in 37 years of running as a DM ~ run any underwater campaign.  This has been the result of two principle causes.  The first cause has been that there are no systematic or complete rules in existence for running underwater adventures that I have ever been able to find in all the years I've been searching.  Every single system I've encountered is woefully short on practical boundaries on movement or combat, made worse by the fact that water is a 3-D environment.  I have seen some very silly things on the net of late claiming that "water combat is just like aerial combat!" ~ a ridiculous claim, since water doesn't function like air in the least way imaginable.  Weapons in water do not work like weapons in the air, water currents are much stronger than air currents while gravity acts very differently as humanoid bags of meat tend to float, not fall.  Air movement is necessarily performed with animal mounts or magical aids to movement, leaving both hands free, whereas water movement is performed by swimming, which necessarily makes both hands useless for anything else.

It is clear that the game universe wants to pretend that water simply does not function like water does, which mystifies me.  In an underwater adventure, water is THE obstacle.  All other obstacles are made more deadly and difficult because the players are forced to function in a watery environment for which their limbs are not designed.  They can alter themselves in a number of ways, but all of these ways change the nature of their hands, meaning they must think differently where it comes to combat and the basic function of their bodies.  And this is the big point where it comes to DMing this sort of adventure.

I know that most DMs will simply hand out buckets of waterbreathing and polymorph potions, whatever it takes to make the players feel like an underwater adventure is doable and basically like any other adventure.  I abhor this sort of thinking: "Gee, everyone gets to be a shark for this adventure, won't it be fun!"  I'm all for magical solutions, even party-comprehensive solutions, but free access to magical super-powers just because we are all going underwater are strictly off the menu.  Magic isn't there to be handed out free; if there is magic, it must have a price and I'm not talking about coin.  If the party wants the ability to go under the surface without counting rounds before dying, the deal they make is going to have to be with the Devil ~ or some D&D equivalent.  Otherwise, they're going to have to fight the all-consuming water obstacle as best they can without free samples from magic-dump-R-us.

This brings us to the OTHER reason why I've never run an underwater adventure in all this time.  I run games where the players pick their agenda.  As it happens, my players have never said, "Hey, you know what?  We'd like to go underwater and fight sea-going creatures with our land-humanoid limitations!"  I've had parties talk about the possibility of doing that ~ someday.  I've encouraged parties by reminding them that ships with gold sink to the bottom and collect there, in bigger piles than are found at the bottoms of dungeons, receiving answers like "I guess that's true" and "meh."  Apathy has, so far, kept parties from testing such theories.

So why has this party now decided to give it a try?  In truth, one of the members has been wanting to try an underwater campaign since she was a little girl.  She has only just begun to feel that the party is a high enough level to give it a try.  The rest of the party feels that they, too, are ready for this degree of novelty and so, in truth, I'm on the hook for giving it to them.

I have a strong adventure in mind, one that I might be able to produce and sell as a module, like I did with Ternketh.  I'm glad I'm giving this a try now, after this much experience as a DM, rather than 25 years ago.  I see this being a steep, steep learning curve.

Movement in combat, combat weapons, hitting and damage, adjustments to magic, adjustments to house rules such as wounding and binding of wounds, vertical movement, momentum, water currents, breathing, swimming rules ~ all of these are going to have to be considered, along with other things.  On the whole, I think the adventure as I envision it will be awful for the players.  Awful.  They will grow weary of not being able to employ half their spells because those are designed for land-based combat, they will grow weary of the movement structure, they will grow weary of fighting their way through water, they will grow weary of fighting creatures that move faster than they do, they will feel that the whole long adventure is just dragging out forever, no matter how much experience they're getting ~ and trust me, I intend to dump a lot of experience and treasure on the party to make it all worth it to them.

I will work to keep the momentum as high as possible, to keep the party feeling like they're enabled and rewarded, but the sheer change in the environment is going to test them.  It isn't that the game will be worse or slower, but it will be different in ways they don't expect and to which they won't be adapted.  Novelty is wonderful but it is also trying when experienced in abundance.  Anyone who has taken a month-long energetic vacation knows how tired it is possible to become of novelty.

Yet, hopefully, they'll survive, they'll manage the challenges, they'll climb a level or two (the lower level characters/henchmen are going to climb a lot of levels) and they'll kiss the dry ground afterwards with a sense of triumph that they will remember all their lives.  So that's worth the trouble.

I don't think, however, that they'll ever want to go back underwater again.  At least, not for more than a single combat in an otherwise dry dungeon.  So all the work I'll do for underwater action will probably not be used for my world again.  Oh well.  Writing rules is fun!

Heh, heh.