This is technically a 3.5 question, but the relevant rules don't seem to have changed in Pathfinder so the answer should be the same either way.
In the 3.5 game I am in, my character was recently paralyzed by a water ghoul after being trapped underwater (nasty, nasty trap; our DM is sadistic). The DM ruled that by being paralyzed underwater, I was unable to hold my breath and so instantly started to drown (as in next turn I was unconscious, turn after that I was at -1, turn after that I would have died). Basically had I rolled anything but a 1 on the "1d4+1 turns of paralysis" roll, I would have died as there was no feasible way the party could kill the ghoul AND get me out of the trap in two turns.
If this is RAW it seems a bit extreme compared to regular drowning (where you get Con checks to avoid drowning even after you run out of breath, etc.). Is this actually how being paralyzed underwater is supposed to work?
Paralyzed creatures can not swim and may drown. I can't find anything to suggest that you immediatly start drowning. It doesn't say "Paralyzed creatures can not swim, exhale and drown"
The same situation game up in my game (Age of Worms) the paralyzed PC had to start making CON rolls and then on a failed roll would have started to drown.
I think your GM was being a bit harsh.
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I agree that your DM was being way too harsh. It was always my thought that reflexive things your body often does on its own (such as beat your heart, or not breath if there is no air) continue to happen when paralyzed, otherwise it would always be a very quick death sentence. Or cause int drain.
The harshest I would see as fair in this situation is to do the "intense activity" rules for holding your breath which give you half as much time.
Either way, too harsh as you described.
We've always looked at it as, "if someone who is quadriplegic can do it so can you." (well, except for speaking) So, holding your breath is possible. The condition says "a swimmer can't swim and may drown", which simply means that they can't make it to the surface alone..not that they start breathing water in
I think your DM was being a bit harsh. It's not like people paralyzed on land immediately begin suffocating since they can't breathe.
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Holding your breath is not something you do unconsciously. You can drown very quickly in water if you are unconscious.
Whether the GM was harsh or not is another question. Seems like the trap was intended to be deadly so if he hadn't done that he'd have put some other deadly trap in. If you think deadly traps are harsh then he was harsh.
Holding your breath is not something you do unconsciously. You can drown very quickly in water if you are unconscious.
Whether the GM was harsh or not is another question. Seems like the trap was intended to be deadly so if he hadn't done that he'd have put some other deadly trap in. If you think deadly traps are harsh then he was harsh.
Perhaps, but he wasn't unconscious, he was paralyzed. The DM used the rules for being unconscious while underwater:
Unconscious characters must begin making Constitution checks immediately upon being submerged (or upon becoming unconscious if the character was conscious when submerged). Once she fails one of these checks, she immediately drops to –1 (or loses 1 additional hit point, if her total is below –1). On the following round, she drowns.
Note that it says "unconscious" and not "unconscious or paralyzed."
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Not sure there are really any rules on being paralyzed when underwater, using the unconscious rules is reasonable because you have no voluntary motor control to hold your breath which is ultimately why you drown quickly when unconscious. There is no difference except when you are paralyzed you get to be awake to experience the terror and pain.
Creative Director
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Depends on how hard-core and gritty you want to run your game.
Paralyzed people can still breathe, though. Their hearts and lungs can still work. And they remain conscious. I think it's likely that a person who's paralyzed in this state by most forms of magic and the like WOULD be able to hold their breath as a result. I would allow it in my game.
Unconscious people, though... they're hosed. They'll drown fast if they fall into the water, but depending on WHY they're unconscious I would probably allow some sort of Fortitude save to wake up.
In any event, it's up to the individual GM how deadly and harsh he/she wants to be with these situations. My advice would be to go easy, though. Being paralyzed already sucks because it means you can't play the game until you get cured... being killed because you were paralyzed is even worse, and I can't see allowing someone who's paralyzed being able to hold their breath being bad for the game. If anything, it adds to the tension, I would think, by drawing the situation out!
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They shouldn't instantly start to drown. It does specifically say "Unconscious characters must begin making Constitution checks immediately..." A paralyzed character is still conscious. The paralyzed condition makes you unable to move or act, you can still take mental actions, therefore conscious.
If you look up the description for Hold Person it says "The subject becomes paralyzed and freezes in place. It is aware and breathes normally but cannot take any actions, even speech."
I would say, "aware and breathes normally", would also include the ability to hold ones breath since that is a normal breathing function.
The key word though is unconscious. Unconscious is a condition, if immediate drowning could be triggered by any other condition it would be specified. A paralyzed creature is not unconscious, even though both are helpless, but the helpless condition is not included in instant drowning either. So therefore you can be pretty sure that sleeping, bound and held creatures can hold their breaths too... though in the case of sleeping I think they would probably wake up anyways.
When you are sleeping, you are not conscious. So a bound and held creature could hold his breath, but a sleeping one wouldn't.
But yes... a sleeping character typically wakes up from being put into water (isn't throwing water on the face detailed in the sleep spell? it's at least typical in the meme).
Regardless... the rule is specific in citing Unconscious, and paralyzed is specific in saying you are NOT unconscious, so it's rather clear cut to me.
Since this came up a bit ago in a game I play in and this is the perfect time to ask...
You're in waist-deep water and fail a save versus Hideous Laughter.
Do you fall into the water, laugh, inhale gulps of moat water in your jubilation and die?
Not sure there are really any rules on being paralyzed when underwater, using the unconscious rules is reasonable because you have no voluntary motor control to hold your breath which is ultimately why you drown quickly when unconscious. There is no difference except when you are paralyzed you get to be awake to experience the terror and pain.
There are two methods being paralyzed could work but NEITHER could result in drowning.
1) Your internals keep working - heart beats, digestion system digests, lungs function and can therefore not function. He is still conscious so he still has conscious control over his lungs as normal. Therefore, he doesn't breathe in the water.2) Everything is paralyzed - you are a stone. Heart doesn't beat, lungs don't function and therefore you can't drown. But you can suffocate.
I don't think the argument is whether the PC can breathe or not -they can certainly breathe:
The problem is that if the PC is paralyzed, the person can't close their mouth, and if they can't close their mouth and the go underwater...uh oh...
Maybe a round of rapid lung expulsion followed by a round of water rushing into their open orifice...the harsher of the two scenarios James mentioned...
If they were already underwater, mouth closed and holding breath, I'd say the less harsh of the two scenarios.
Unconscious people, though... they're hosed. They'll drown fast if they fall into the water, but depending on WHY they're unconscious I would probably allow some sort of Fortitude save to wake up.
What's quite ironic about this post is that Pathfinder specifically has rules for this. I looked them up after our RotRL conundrum. An unconscious character drown almost identically to a conscious character explicitly in Pathfinder. They keep making Constitution checks even if they are unconscious. The only difference is that once they fail one, they don't get to keep making them - they go straight to drown to death in 2 rounds.
PFSRD wrote:]Unconscious characters must begin making Constitution checks immediately upon being submerged (or upon becoming unconscious if the character was conscious when submerged). Once she fails one of these checks, she immediately drops to –1 (or loses 1 additional hit point, if her total is below –1). On the following round, she drowns.Note that it says "unconscious" and not "unconscious or paralyzed."
The DM was being unreasonably harsh in my opinion.
As far as I can tell from your description, he's basically arbitrarily 'tacking on' the unconsciousness condition to the paralysis condition, your character had only the paralyzed condition and he was going well beyond it's effects. A Water Ghoul is obviously going to be found in water most of the time, and is CR'd for such. If it was meant to cause unconsciousness, it would say so, but it doesn't, so tacking on 'unconsciousness' is drastically increasing the CR.As mentioned by other posters, you maintain control of your heart and lungs, and presumably your eyes as well since the game suddenly doesn't introduce facing and fixed field of view when you are paralyzed. Even if your mouth is open underwater it IS quite possible to 'hold your breath' (you just have less air), you only drown if you breathe water in, which if you're fully conscious you would not do - and exactly why is your mouth necessarily open when you were paralyzed, anyways?
I think the suggestion to apply the penalty to rounds-of-holding breath as if you were 'engaging in strenuous activity' is reasonable to add some 'grit' to the situation, to represent that you didn't choose when to dive in and (perhaps) didn't have a full breathe of air - though obviously, WHO CAN SAY if your character had just taken a full breath of air? ...EVEN IF he rules you can't hold your breath (which is bogus in my opinion), you actually aren't unconscious, so you should simply have to deal with the NORMAL rules for drowning (first going to 0 hp then -1 then dead), which at least would give you 1 more round than the unconscious drowning rules (which go straight to -1). Also, it seems like he didn't follow the rules in that even completely Unconscious characters get to make CON checks, the difference is that they don't get the 2xCON/CON # of rounds of held breath BEFORE they have to start making them.
The idea to give you CON score rounds of held breath (per 'strenuous activity') instead of 2xCON seems the most reasonable idea to me, and one which diverges the least from the actual conditions that were applied to your character from the CR-appropriate encounter.
I would like to add that, as a slightly sadistic DM myself, I enjoy laughing maniacally when I catch the PCs in an almost certain death situation. However, I think paralysis is too common an effect to be certain death while swimming. This is why I think your DM was being too harsh - he bended the rules in order to kill you easier.
If said underwater assailant managed to stab you with a syringe filled with drow sleeping poison, then I would applaud your DM for his creativity (and his good dice rolls/your bad dice rolls). But, he obviously either doesn't understand the difference between paralysis and unconsciousness OR was bending the rules in order to inflict doom upon the PCs. In either case, I label him harsh since he was too hasty in his lust to kill PCs and didn't take the time to find a perfectly legal (and fair) way to do it.
Honestly, being paralyzed underwater is pretty frightening for PCs already. Every round, the PC becomes closer and closer to running out of air, and they can't do anything about it! It's a good way to create tension - without just plain killing the PCs. Even though it's fun to inflict pain upon the PCs, I think *almost* certain death situations are more fun than certain death situations. The DM can kill the PCs whenever he wants, but giving them the sense of triumph after making it out (well, maybe not ALL of them) of a tense and frightening situation is probably more rewarding than dropping a tarrasque wizard 20 on them.
The last (and only) time this came up in a game of mine (sometime back around the 3.0/3.5 transition), a monk was held with a hold person spell and shoved down a well. I ruled that he could hold his breath for half the normal amount of time before he started making con checks. unfortunately the other characters failed to rescue him in time and he drowned (and the player learned a valuable lesson about going off on his own to explore an area the rest of the party was planning on leaving for later).
To the OP: Looking at it again, it sounds like the character was ALREADY underwater (holding their breath) before they were paralyzed... In this case, I see absolutely no reason why they would not be able to continue 'holding their breath' and I wouldn't further penalize them for 'strenuous action', leaving them the remainder of their 2xCON rounds before making CON checks. In this case, I think you were seriously screwed over by the DM, but dealing with this could be difficult... You might just want to bring it up to your group and have them all check out this thread.
...I can't see allowing someone who's paralyzed being able to hold their breath being bad for the game. If anything, it adds to the tension, I would think, by drawing the situation out!
I can also see springing a house rule on your players causing their characters to suddenly die unfairly as adding serious tension to your friendship. At the very least I would seriously consider not playing under such a GM anymore.
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Creative Director
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...I can't see allowing someone who's paralyzed being able to hold their breath being bad for the game. If anything, it adds to the tension, I would think, by drawing the situation out!I can also see springing a house rule on your players causing their characters to suddenly die unfairly as adding serious tension to your friendship. At the very least I would seriously consider not playing under such a GM anymore.
Same here.
Remembering that the game is supposed to be fun for EVERYONE, not just the GM, is one of the most important rules GMs should keep in mind. Seems like a lot of GMs forget this.
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...I can't see allowing someone who's paralyzed being able to hold their breath being bad for the game. If anything, it adds to the tension, I would think, by drawing the situation out!I can also see springing a house rule on your players causing their characters to suddenly die unfairly as adding serious tension to your friendship. At the very least I would seriously consider not playing under such a GM anymore.Same here.
Remembering that the game is supposed to be fun for EVERYONE, not just the GM, is one of the most important rules GMs should keep in mind. Seems like a lot of GMs forget this.
My rule #1 when playing is "do what is most fun."
I like the paralyzing under water, and prefer the drawing out the situation over just a quick kill. The tension builds, excitement builds, the story becomes memorable for the event itself, and not the "screwing I got from that butt head GM."
I'd generally echo the thoughts above.
But there are a couple ways of imagining how paralysis works. In "limp" paralysis, you would lose voluntary motor control and spill limply to the ground, unable to take any actions besides autonomic ones, such as breathing normally. One can't breathe normally underwater, and holding one's breath is a conscious, voluntary action.
Limp paralysis is probably more realistic, but we've typically used "rigid" paralysis, in which characters freeze rigidly in place. Especially with ghouls, with whom the condition resembles rigor mortis. It's probably less realistic, but much more practicable for the party, especially since one doesn't fall prone. And this way, a paralyzed character should be able to rigidly hold their breath in their lungs.
And then there's "poseable" paralysis, which is both fun and convenient!
Of course, rule zero. This is a very powerful form of paralysis, but water should make encounters really deadly really fast.
I think your DM was being a tad harsh. TRUE paralasys would do that. But since the Paralasys that comes from Hold spells or Ghoul touch does not stop you from being able to breathe/control your respiration, you should be able to hold your breath.
Now if your DM rules that you can breath but cannot close your mouth, then you should still have gotten the con rolls, IMO.