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All information is according to the 3.5 SRD, as much of this is monster specific:
The Aquatic Subtype states that "An aquatic creature can breathe underwater. It cannot also breathe air unless it has the amphibious special quality."
Dragon Turtles, which are clearly air breathing creatures, do not have amphibious. Merrow and Scrag, which probably terrorize coastal communities, do not, and begin drowning after about 2 minutes. That's not terrorizing, that's a temper tantrum. Merfolk, which never do more than clamber onto a rock and look pretty, do have Amphibious and could stay out of the water FOREVER. Sahuagin have a unique special quality that lets them stay out of water for a significant period of time, without being able to survive indefinitely out of the water.
The Water Subtype states that "This subtype usually is used for elementals and outsiders with a connection to the Elemental Plane of Water. Creatures with the water subtype always have swim speeds and can move in water without making Swim checks. A water creature can breathe underwater and usually can breathe air as well."
Black and Bronze dragons are famously neither elementals nor outsiders. The only reason to give them the (Water) subtype is to avoid the hassle of giving them Amphibious on top of their hundreds of dragon SQs. In fact, having Amphibious built in is the ONLY reason for a (Water) subtype to exist by the RAW.
Please either eliminate one of these types, or create a more significant mechanical reason for there to be two types. Please go over the Aquatic creatures with a fine-tooth comb and determine, sensibly, who gets Amphibious (if there's a need to keep it), who else beyond the Sahuagin might be a better candidate for their Water Dependent SQ than the Amphibious SQ, and what else might be appropriate to gain Aquatic.
For Animals:
The "Hold Breath" special quality is neat, but is way under-statted - Porpoises by D&D rules can hold their breath for 8 minutes. They normally dive for 20 minutes. This is a DC 22 Constitution Check at a +1 Constitution bonus, by the end of their dive. I'm pretty sure a wild animal isn't going to wait until it starts drowning to catch a breath.
Sperm Whales are even more hilarious. They can dive for 20 minutes, which is great, sure. Unfortunately, real Sperm Whales can dive for up to 90 minutes, and an average dive is 45 minutes. THEY'RE making a DC 35 check with a +7 Con bonus at the end of an AVERAGE dive.
Meanwhile, Alligators can go five HOURS without breathing. I'm not even doing the math for the Hold Breath special quality for these guys. Why don't THEY have the Aquatic subtype, with Amphibious? Or an "Air Dependent" mirror-version of the Sahuagin quality?
And for a last bit of fun, an Elasmosaurus can hold its breath for about as long as an 8th level dwarf.
I know underwater/aquatic adventures are a very small niche of the realm of D&D adventuring, and so might not be a very high priority. However, the number of water-based creatures is small, and it doesn't take too much effort to apply some common sense and basic math to these issues. Bump up 'Hold Breath' multipliers, reconsider the meanings of Aquatic vs. Water, and give ALL diving creatures some sort of 'Hold Breath' ability. For all that, you make running these small niche games easier, and who knows, that might make 'em less of a niche!
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Some more thoughts. Most aquatic creatures are terrible at actually being aquatic - making saves against taking damage at 100 feet of depth. Sperm Whales dive to 10,500 feet, although 4,000 is more typical. Krakens LIVE at those depths. Aboleth routinely slime about in the Hadal Depth of the bottom of the ocean, up to several miles below sea level. No matter how good their saves are, the time they spend at these depths mean that these creatures should be extinct if we take the mechanics to be the "physics" of their world.
The easiest way to handle these issues is to make [Aquatic] and/or [Water] creatures take no damage from depth. A simple addition to the Subtype; although it still (currently) doesn't solve the problem for Whales. Maybe a Deep Diver special quality (subsuming and replacing Hold Breath) for Animals is in order.
The hard way requires thinking about pressure adaptations, and why Aboleth and Kraken don't explode when they come up to the surface. It would be more simulationally satisfying, but can really slow down a game.
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Yeah, it's sad being the only one posting and reading this thread. Nevertheless, I press onward. This has some relevance to the PFRPG, for once!
Why is Swimming treated so simplistically when compared to Flying? Flying has maneuverability classes, specific rolls and DCs for doing specific things, and detailed information about what can and can't be done by a flier. Swimming has a pathetically easy DC if you're not armor clad, no rules for doing anything but swimming in a horizontal plane, and a strange inconsistency in which a humanoid Sahuagin can wear full-plate armor with no concerns because it has a Swim speed.
If we keep the Fly skill, can we make the Swim skill match up with it in terms of mechanical depth?
Creative Director
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The reason aquatic stuff is so weird in 3.5, I suspect, is because rules for underwater adventuring were left out of the game when 3.0 first showed up. They were then tacked on here and there, and as a result they don't mesh as well with the game. As a result, fixing the way pressure damage works and the way aquatic creatures interface with the world is a goal for me.
In fact... doing some real-world research into how animals really work and then fixing their stats to apply for that is a goal for me. Which means, for example, sperm whales will be able to stay under for a lot longer.
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You're not the only one reading it. I just have not had time to respond to anything yet. Or rather add my two coppers worth.
Now honestly I have never paid that much attention to the subtypes and the functioning of breathing for aquatic creatures. But it would seem you are right that does need to be addressed. What happens when you run a really cool scenario of Merrow terrorizing a coastal community and then the PC says "Actually they can't do that. We'll just sit on the dock with crossbows and sniper them when they pop out for a minute."
Or if these critters are not going to be used as coastal terrors, then some critter needs to fill the niche.
Personally I feel aquatic creatures are seriously lacking in the game. Not just coastal but also fresh water lakes and rivers and streams. It seems that the presumption is that the land is dangerous but if you ar ein the water, you are safe. Especially a river.
Aquatic encounters should be a regular part of adventuring. There are streams and rivers to be crossed. Lakes to cross or to explore or at least to fish. Coastal areas should be as plagued by aquatic monsters as they are by orcs and goblins.
Just think of Sandpoint and the direction RotRL could have gone if the PCs had battled goblins and soon after Sahuagin or Merrow or something along those lines.
Dear Notepad,
How I love thy white-space for keeping lengthy posts safe. You and your servants Cut and Paste make life so much easier for me!
Arakhor.
I am actually all for enhancing the Aquatic gameplay significantly, I happen to have a deep desire to run a full fledged aquatic campaign with all the characters being Mer, Sea Elves, etc.
Please let it be so!!
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I would like to see that suggestions and changes you've proposed as well as an expansion (one the side, perhaps) about aquatic adventures and the rules that support them.
I looked forward to the 3.0 supplement 'Stormwrack' and though I still love it - I was still disappointed at how much information it lacked. In particular was the lack of variety of flavour and approach to building viable and versatile underwater / aquatic-based prestige classes, feats, skill and movement variants.
I would like to see Pathfinder looking for a more elegant and intuitive approach to this complex medium no matter how small a niche it may occupy from the fnas that stem from the deepest oceans to the smallest rivers and ponds.
My apologies, if my English is slightly inaccurate, it is not my first language.
Yinn
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Good Morning! Today, I'm going to talk about Swim Speeds!
Using the SRD as found at d20srd.org, I went through the aquatic creatures, the creatures that do or should have swim speeds, and got some data.
There are 7 categories of Swim Speed - 20 ft through 90 ft. This can easily be reduced to five: 20, 30, 40, 60, 90. There is only one creature with an 80 swim in the entire SRD - the Porpoise. That's all great and flavorful, but it creates an additional speed category for one animal. The 50s can be divided between 40 and 60 based on some of the criteria I'll be talking about in a minute.
20 foot swim speed - Chuul, Constrictor Snakes, Kraken.
Chuul are described as poor swimmers, and Constrictor Snakes don't so much swim as crawl in the water, so these make sense. The Kraken though? 20 foot swim speed?? I almost hope that was a typo in the online SRD.
Additionally, Lizardfolk do NOT have a swim speed, and a +2 Swim. 20 ft. would be a good addition to their statblock, or a massive swim bonus.
30 foot swim speed - Crocodiles, Lacedon, Nixie, Polar Bear, Mephits, Octopus, Dragon Turtle, Manta Ray, Storm Giant in Armor
The 30 foot swim speed seems to be the niche for your 'amphibious cruisers'.
Nixies, Mephits, and Octopus are, I think, recieving the 'stubby leg' penalty to their Swim Move for being Small, even if it makes no sense for any of these three critters to be penalized for being Small.
Storm Giants!? They have Water Breathing, they have a Swim speed, but they're not of the [Aquatic] or [Water] Subtypes? If Dragons can be [Water], I would think Storm Giants should, too.
40 foot swim speed - Baleen and Cachalot Whales, Merrow, Triton, Sea Cat, Skum, Sea Hag, Scrag, Aquatic Elf, Unarmored Storm Giant
This is a bit of a grab bag. It's got your large sea animals, it's got sea folk, it's got divers and surface cruisers. It seems like a logical default Swim speed. Your Aquatic Elves, Merrow, and Scrag could probably drop down to 30 feet, as they're not particularly well adapted to moving underwater.
50 foot swim speed - Orca, Merfolk, Water Naga, Elasmosaurus
four critters, all of which could be comfortably bumped up or down.
Orca and Merfolk could go up to 60, as Orca are fast pursuit predators, and merfolk are the first sea-folk with major swimming adaptations; Water Naga have no real reason to be even as high as 40 feet except to make it harder to run away from them, and why on earth would an Elasmosaur be faster than a Whale? Bye bye, 50 foot swim speed!
60 foot swim speed - Aboleth, Black Dragon, Bronze Dragon, Shark, Dire Shark, Squid, Giant Squid, Sahuagin, Locathah, Kapoacinth
BAM! These are our fish. And... Dragons. Seriously, Dragons? Do you have to be good at everything? Go Swim at 40, dragons, like everyone else that isn't fishy.
80 foot swim speed - Porpoise
Honestly, Porpoises. You're as bad as dragons. Go do a lap at 60 and see how you like it. Maybe if you're nice, the editors will let you have a 90. Bye bye, 80 foot swim speed!
90 foot swim speed - Tojanida, Water Elemental
Well, obviously an elemental is going to move super fast. 90 feet is good here. Although I wonder why the elemental Water Mephits are way down at 30 feet.
Standardizing and grouping swim-speeds like this is the first step to making Swim work like Fly, which is why it's nice to be able to reduce the categories down to five. Later, the ways these suckers survive in the water!
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Now, let's look at breathing!
Aquatic Subtype, Not Amphibious: Lacedon, Dragon Turtle, Dire Shark, Aboleth, Kapoacinth, Scrag, Merrow, Giant Octopus, Octopus, Water Naga, Manta Ray, Squid, Kraken, Locathah, Shark
Let's break this down a bit further -
"Fish": Dire Shark, Giant Octopus, Octopus, Manta Ray, Squid, Giant Squid, Kraken, Locathah, Shark. Yes, I'm aware Octopodes and Squids are molluscs. Anyway, all of these make perfect sense not having amphibious. They're water breathers.
Aquatic Versions of Land Creatures: Dragon Turtle, Lacedon, Kapoacinth, Scrag, Merrow, Water Naga. Arguably, most of these guys should be amphibious. Do ghouls even breathe, being undead? Do they need to be [Aquatic]? And Dragon Turtles - turtles don't breathe underwater, dragons that do are [Water] type. Dragon Turtle needs a rethink on its subtype before we give it any special qualities to deal with its environment.
Other: Aboleth. Aboleth need their mucus to breathe, which is difficult to employ without a serious expenditure of psionic power to keep the mucus floating in air. No Amphibious makes sense.
Aquatic Subtype, Amphibious: Merfolk, Chuul, Skum, Sea Hag, Nixie
Chuul are weird crustaceans with weird crustacean gills. Fine. Skum, Sea Hags, and Nixies? Fine. Merfolk? Um. What makes YOU so special?
Aquatic Subtype, Special: Aquatic Elf, Sahuagin
Aquatic Elves have "Gills" which lets them survive out of water for 1 hour per point of constitution.
Sahuagin have "Water Dependent" which lets them survive out of water for 1 hour per TWO points of constitution.
Ignoring that these names tell us the opposite of what they do, can we pick ONE for the both of these races, and then give it to Merfolk, too?
Water Sub-Type: Mephit (Water, Ooze), Triton, Dragon (Black, Bronze), Toajanida, Water Elemental
Come ON, Dragons. We've got a nice bunch of Outsider/Elementals here, and you've gotta go mess it up. You can stay, but you're going to share a room with Storm Giants when they move into this sub-type.
Not Aquatic, Swim Speed: Cetaceans, Whales, Crocodiles, Snakes, Elasmosaur, Polar Bear, Storm Giant, Sea Cat
Storm Giant. What are you doing here? You've got a Water Breathing EXTRAORDINARY special quality?? Go bunk with Dragons, and expect a lecture on what Extraordinary means vs Supernatural! Meanwhile, the rest of you, what are some of you doing without the Hold Breath special quality? Report for some Hold Breath, and make sure they give you a plausible modifier!
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So, why was it important to standardize swim speeds? Because of this nearly unreadable monstrosity!
Swim Speed
90 ft. 60 ft. 40 ft. 30 ft. 20 ft.
Minimum forward speed None None None None Half
Float Yes Yes Yes Swim No
Move backward Yes Swim No No No
Reverse Free No No No No
Turn Any 90°/5 45°/5 45°/5 45°/10
Turn in place Any +90°/-5 +45°/-5 Swim Swim
Maximum turn Any Any 90° 45° 45°
Up angle Any Any 90° 60° 45°
Up speed Double Full Half Half Half
Down angle Any Any Any Any Any
Down speed Run Run Run Double Double
Between down and up 0 0 5 ft. 10 ft. 20 ft.
I haven't playtested this, some of these may be better based on Sub-Type, or even Type, rather than speed. But, this is a start, it treats Swimming exactly like flying, and it mostly accurately duplicates what the kind of creatures with those swim speeds can do. The turns are obviously "per 5 ft.", and Swim means "with a Swim check".
I'm thinking a 40 ft. speed might be able to go up at full speed with a Swim check, and maybe reversing down speed to indicate that the faster/better swimmer you are, the more you can control your dives.
Tear it apart, if you can! EDIT: If you can read it, bloody lack of tables. mutter mutter.
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Would water mephits be restricted in their swim speed by their size? Relative to their body length, they might go astonishingly well, but when you're the size of a mephit....
They're almost certainly getting the Small 'stubby legs' 10 ft. penalty; assuming these elemental beings 'only' get the 40 ft base Swim, rather than the 90 ft True Elemental speed.
You make a good point about being very good/fast swimmers, but their size not letting them cover as much ground. Do flying monsters get dinged based on size, too?
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The hard way requires thinking about pressure adaptations, and why Aboleth and Kraken don't explode when they come up to the surface. It would be more simulationally satisfying, but can really slow down a game.
Assuming that pressure effects are introduced to the game (and they have been, in almost every edition, as an afterthought, in books like 'Of Ships & the Sea' or 'Seascape' or whatever), it might be easier to do that Deep Diver thing and just hand-wave critters like Krakens and Aboleth, saying that their amorphous lack-of-internal-skeleton-ness allows them to ignore pressure change effects.
Some sort of correlation between the Swim, Climb, Fly and / or Burrow skills (or Profession Miner, in the last case) and the Swim, Climb, Fly and Burrow racial abilities would be nice to see. Right now they are coming at things from two different directions, and not really meeting in the middle. Does a Locathah with 12 ranks of Swim and a +8 racial bonus to Swim go faster than a Locathah with no ranks of Swim?
And if these skills apply to these other creatures and their other movement types, should there be a Run skill for everyone else, that allows them to go a little bit faster than people without said skill?
I'd like to see a little consistency in the monsters movement 'packages' as well.
Some critters just get a +X racial bonus to Swim or Climb checks. Others get to use their Dexterity modifier instead of their Strength modifier (usually small animals, getting a kind of 'Skill Finesse'). Still others get the ability to take the 'Run' action if they swim in a straight line. Still others can Take 10 on a Climb or Swim check, even in a dangerous situation. And others get to retain their Dex bonus to AC, even while Climbing.
There are a whole lot of things that come and go depending on what the writer seems to have been thinking at the time. Should all 'aquatic' creatures just get one set bit of box text involving racial Swim bonus, Taking 10 on Swim checks and 'Run' actions by Swimming in a straight line?
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Some sort of correlation between the Swim, Climb, Fly and / or Burrow skills (or Profession Miner, in the last case) and the Swim, Climb, Fly and Burrow racial abilities would be nice to see. Right now they are coming at things from two different directions, and not really meeting in the middle. Does a Locathah with 12 ranks of Swim and a +8 racial bonus to Swim go faster than a Locathah with no ranks of Swim?And if these skills apply to these other creatures and their other movement types, should there be a Run skill for everyone else, that allows them to go a little bit faster than people without said skill?
This is an astute point, and one I hadn't thought about. It raises a number of questions about skills - if the exotic movement skills can be applied to increasing movement, then we absolutely need a Run skill. If there is a Run skill, could a Merfolk take it to increase their land movement?
But if Swim, Fly, and Climb are, effectively, Acrobatics/Tumble for the exotic movements, why not just LEAVE them as Acrobatics/Tumble and introduce them as specialties, like in Knowledge, Craft, and Profession?
There are a whole lot of things that come and go depending on what the writer seems to have been thinking at the time. Should all 'aquatic' creatures just get one set bit of box text involving racial Swim bonus,
It would certain simplify things, even if it did increase the word count.
Dear Paizo Messageboard,
I hate you for eating my incredibly lengthy response to James. I hate you for not keeping my text in cache in case you ate my incredibly lengthy response. Please stop eating my posts.
Love,
Me.
I feel your pain. It had a three course meal off of me last night.
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See? This is what I love about this community!
We have a lot of different minds here (most sharper than mine) that care a lot about totally different aspects of D&D (some very esoteric, others more mainstrean). Not only are they willing to devote considerable time and effort into coming up with detailed analysis of problems that are of interest to them, but coming up with creative solutions to said problems.
I just hope that some of the very excellent ideas presented here are stolen unapologetically by the Paizo Golem (we love you!), and put into the final rules.
Sorry for not actually having anything valuable to contribue to the discussion, I'm just so pleased to see such a diverse range of discussions taking place.
What about statting up typical sizes of fish? Wildshapes don't always have to be toothy and hurty. :)
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But if Swim, Fly, and Climb are, effectively, Acrobatics/Tumble for the exotic movements, why not just LEAVE them as Acrobatics/Tumble and introduce them as specialties, like in Knowledge, Craft, and Profession?
While it would greatly simplify things, to make an 'Acrobatics' skill that represented all forms of movement, and was a class skill to any creature or class that had a movement type of any sort, then placing 'accelerated movement' as one use of that skill, with a 5 ft. speed increase with a DC 15 check or whatever, made round by round for combat applications, it wouldn't play nicely with the backwards-compatible thing, where Climb and Swim are already skills.
Huh, suddenly, after violently opposing the idea of merging Climb, Jump and / or Swim into an Athletics skill, I find myself drawn to the idea of having an Athletics skill, that, as you suggest, has sub-categories, like Perform or Craft.
Athletics (Climb) - every X you beat the DC by indicates how much farther you can Climb this round.
Athletics (Swim) - every X you beat the DC by indicates how much faster you can Swim this round.
Athletics (Burrow) - same, for burrowing critters.
Athletics (Jump) - every X you beat the DC by indicates how much further you can jump. (With a base 5 ft. square or 10 ft. for a running jump, rather than some complicated Str-based formula that nobody wants to look up anyway?)
Athletics (Fly) - every X you beat the DC by indicates how much faster you can fly this round, and with a DC 15 or 20 or whatever you can turn a bit tighter than your maneuverability class would normally allow.
Keep it apart from Acrobatics, which would represent fancy maneuvers that not every member of a race or class would necessarily have, and not just 'running faster' or 'jumping farther.'
It would also create some dynamism for chase scenes, which have always been a bit of an odd thing in D&D. "Round eight. He runs 30 ft. You run 30 ft. He's still 15 ft. ahead of you and always will be, until the end of time."
With skill checks allowing for the possibility of small bursts of speed round by round, a chase might be a little more interesting.
It's also possible that creatures with a Swim / Fly / Climb / Burrow speed might start with a slightly smaller base number, since they will be assumed to be able to Take 10 with the relevant skill (as part of having a Swim / Climb / etc. movement rate in the first place) and a hefty racial bonus (often +8 or so), meaning that they will be pretty much guaranteed to be moving 5 ft. faster than their listed rate, just by 'taking 10.'
Many of the movement speeds are a bit ridiculous anyway. Eagles *can* 'sprint' at ridiculous flying speeds, but their 'walking' speed isn't exactly incredible. Same with sharks or whatever. And the Burrowers that don't have some sort of Earth Glide are just ridiculous. Thoqqua can melt through *how much* stone in a six second round? No, I don't care for the burrowing numbers particularly, especially for creatures using mundane means of tunneling, such as Badgers.
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It would also create some dynamism for chase scenes, which have always been a bit of an odd thing in D&D. "Round eight. He runs 30 ft. You run 30 ft. He's still 15 ft. ahead of you and always will be until the end of time.
Actually, 3.5 has a little known and little remarked upon clause for chases between creatures with the same move value. It uses an opposed Dex check to determine a winner. If it's a lengthy overland chase, where the pursuer and pursuant may not see each other for days at a time, it's an opposed Con check.
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So, we've got creatures moving on the X-Y axis, let's look at the Z-Axis. By the 3.5 RAW, a diver (the RAW always assumes a humanoid diver) takes 1d6 damage per minute per 100 feet of depth. A successful DC 15 Fortitude save negates damage for that minute, but there's a +1 to the DC for each minute past the first.
Most ocean life is found between 0 and 650 feet of depth. But at 220 feet, compressed air becomes toxic and can cause seizures in divers. You're dealing with 7.5 Atmospheres at this depth. Two humans in history are known to have dived to 558 feet without breathing apparatus. This is 17 Atmospheres. A SCUBA diver dived to 1,010 feet - he was surviving 31 atmospheres of pressure, risking 10d6 damage for every minute of his dive. Being crushed is not necessarily your main concern in most underwater adventuring situations.
The real danger for these deep dives is nitrogen narcosis. That toxicity I mentioned above. If you're the type to treat Breathe Water as a sort of magic SCUBA gear, even that spell won't protect you from this danger of the deep. Humans should be taking WIS damage, not HP damage while at these depths. As a rule of thumb, for every 30 feet beyond 60 feet of depth, apply a hit to be saved against equivalent to one martini's worth of alcohol. So, maybe start making Fort saves at 60 feet, DC 15, and add +1 for every 30 feet past that. Failed saves result in 1d3 WIS damage? At 300 feet, divers WILL begin to hallucinate.
So your adventurers have decided they don't like the nitrogen narcosis, and want to come back up? NOW they have to worry about Decompression Sickness. The Bends. Too fast of an ascent is going to cause severe pain and damage - that 1d6 per feet of depth back in the SRD. How slow do you have to ascend to avoid this? That depends on your depth, and how long you stayed at that depth. This can get really complicated. For instance, if you spent 30 minutes at 110 feet, your ascent from depth to surface should take 10 minutes, 40 seconds. Spend that same 30 minutes at 120 feet, and now you need to take 18 minutes to go to the surface. Spend it at 130 feet, and now it's a 25 minute, 20 seconds journey upwards. At these shallow depths, it's roughly 7 minutes for every 10 feet of depth past 100. Maybe for a cinematic game like D&D, they can just ascend at half their normal Swim rate (including those rates gained from a Swim skill check)?
If they ignore these precautions of a slow ascent, NOW is when they should start making those Fort saves, with the +1 to the DC per minute they were down there.
Man, Drowning, Nitrogen Narcosis, and The Bends, all before we get out of the kiddy pool part of the Ocean. What about animals adapted to deep diving? How deep do they go? What lurks deeper than the well-lit surface of the ocean, if you want a truly exotic adventure?
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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Actually, 3.5 has a little known and little remarked upon clause for chases between creatures with the same move value. It uses an opposed Dex check to determine a winner. If it's a lengthy overland chase, where the pursuer and pursuant may not see each other for days at a time, it's an opposed Con check.
It would also create some dynamism for chase scenes, which have always been a bit of an odd thing in D&D. "Round eight. He runs 30 ft. You run 30 ft. He's still 15 ft. ahead of you and always will be until the end of time.
Although, Racing the Snake in Dungeon #105 actually uses these chase rules to full effect.
Also, I'd like to agree with Set. This topic is far cooler than I thought it was going to be from reading the title and I'm glad I decided to give it a look.
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That 0-650 feet I talked about earlier? That's the Epipelagic Zone of the Ocean. Assuming relatively calm and clean waters, sunlight penetrates effectively here.
650 feet or so down, to about 3,300 feet? That's the Mesopelagic. SOME sunlight can, sort of, penetrate here. Only at the very top, the transition between Epi- and Meso-, can photosynthesis still be supported. Who comes down here?
Well, Pacific Dolphins max out their diving at 660 feet. Beyond that, they suffer all the dangers humans did back up there in the 200s. Blue Whales? They get down to 1,600 feet. Nuclear attack subs? Not likely to be seen in a Pathfinder game, but they go down to just short of 2,000 feet.
For your Epic and foolhardy PCs, at 1,969 feet of depth, they'll find the Deep Sound Channel. This is a layer of the ocean in which acoustic signals travel exceptionally far and exceptionally fast. This isn't the place to get into the physics of why. Sonic spells would probably get a boost to range and/or damage.
3,300 feet on down to 13,000 is the Bathypelagic Zone. We've hit 100 atmospheres of pressure. No light penetrates from above. The only light comes from bioluminescence. The creatures that live here live on the constant "snowfall" of dead animals and particulates falling down from above. Surely nothing important comes down this far, right?!
Well, Leatherback Sea Turtles can make a maximum dive to 3,900 feet. The Pacific Sleeper Shark (the largest toothed shark ever photographed. It can grow to 28 feet long.) cruises happily at 4,000 feet. He probably tussles with Sperm Whales who regularly dive down this deep. The Elephant Seal bottoms out on his dive at 5,187 feet (a mile is 5,280 feet). We've found octopuses at 8,500 feet of depth, and a 7 foot long cusk eel was observed at 10,500 feet. That darned Sperm Whale has followed us to this depth - it's his maximum dive.
12,434 feet is the average ocean depth. But it can get deeper.
Starting at 13,000 feet, we've reached the Abyssopelagic. 400 atmospheres of pressure, no light ever, and water temperatures constantly near freezing. Inhabitants here tend to be blind, have long tentacles, and are pretty flat. Let's keep going down! Hope you have some strong magic to protect you.
14,000 feet - we've seen an 8 inch long shrimp at the north pole, cruising around.
15,420 feet - Photographs of sea anemones on the wreck of the Bismarck have been taken at this depth.
19,500 feet - We've left the Abyssopelagic, and entered the Hadopelagic Zone(named after Hades itself!). Life still hangs on here, 600 atmospheres of pressure and potentially sub-freezing temperatures (the pressure keeps the water from freezing normally!) notwithstanding. Granted, they tend to stick to hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor where the water is toasty, and ironically, sometimes near or past boiling.
Going down, down, down we reach 27,460 feet, and the deepest-living fish ever officially recorded. An 8-inch cusk eel was photographed near Puerto Rico. Whether he came down here to avoid Sperm Whales is unknown.
Mount Everest is the highest point on the planet at 29,035 feet. We're still going down. Humans have, in a kickass submersible, reached 35,800 feet of depth. The crew claims to have seen some sort of animal resembling a flatfish, roughly about a foot long. Maybe it was a baby Aboleth?
At 36,201 feet we reach the deepest recorded ocean depth. Nearly 1,100 atmospheres of pressure (that's 8.07 tons of pressure per square inch). No life has been found here - yet.
Quite frankly, anything past the Bathypelagic might as well be another plane of existence for the weirdness of how the rules would apply. In fact, it wouldn't be out of reason for all sorts of weird and horrible Outsiders to rise up from the Abyssal and Hadal depths. Diving into the Mesopelagic or Bathpelagic? That's where the Diver and Deep Diver SQ (or Feats?) would come into play. They would lower the depth at which we begin to see adverse effects for the possessors.
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Creative Director
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There's a lot of great stuff in this thread... but at the same time remember that it's REALLY EASY to get too caught up in the whole "The rules must accurately model reality" scene. This is bad for two reasons:
1st) In order to make a rule accurately model an aspect of reality (be it swimming or mountanieering or long-distance running or deep caverns or blacksmithing), the author of the rule has to be an expert in the topic. So does the editor. We don't have that luxury, alas, so keeping things more simple and more logical is good; when things are simple, there's less detail that has a chance to be wrong.
2nd) (and this is the more important reason): The game needs to play smooth and relatively quickly. There's a reason that wounds are tracked by hit points, and not by a more complex system that tracks damage to specific body parts, infection, amputation, broken bones, etc; it might be more realistic, but it bogs down the flow of the game. We've got to avoid doing the same type of thing pretty much across the board.
SO! This type of information is helpful, and it's absolutely important to keep it in mind, but at the same time sometimes it's necessary to simplify.
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I think I've done a pretty good job at simplifying, actually. Yeah, there's a lot of real world scientific knowledge in there, but my mechanical suggestions have come down to "treat Swim like Fly", "fix movement and some of the monsters", "add one or two special qualities for handwaving purposes", and "here's another type of aquatic hazard."
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I was going to edit my post above to clarify specifically my suggestions, but I forgot there's a time limit. So...
Suggestion #1: Treat Swim like Fly.
Swimming in the real world is essentially flight through very, very thick air. Humans are pretty terrible at both, and have different ways to getting around that, so we don't equate the two, but the similarities are there. It just makes a lot of sense to unite the two mechanics for simplicity's sake. I haven't looked at climbing or burrowing, so maybe Set's thoughts on a unified movement skill are good ones; and maybe if we do too much streamlining, there's some backwards compatibility issues that arise. I dunno, but I do know we should still probably:
Suggestion #1a: Standardize Swim Speeds.
Even if we don't entirely treat Swimming like flying, I think it makes it easier to adjudicate the game the fewer special cases you've got. So have speed broken into maneuverability-like class:
20 ft. - These are poor swimmers, but still instinctively can move through water.
30 ft. - These are your Small size or smaller good swimmers; your aquatic humanoids; and your amphibious land animals. Good swimmers, but not especially adapted for it.
40 ft. - Default Swim speed. If you have the [Aquatic] subtype, and you don't have a specific reason to go up or down the ladder, this is where you sit.
60 ft. - These are your fast swimmers, and your highly adapted aquatic races.
90 ft. - This should be reserved exclusively for [Water] subtype Elemental and Outsider creatures, and magic-boosted movement.
Suggestion #2: Add some additional Special Qualities
Obviously, my language is not polished here:
Diver - This being may dive to 600 ft before suffering the adverse effects of pressure. They may also hold their breath for Con x 10 rounds before needing to save against drowning.
Deep Diver - This being may dive to 10,000 ft before suffering the adverse effects of pressure. They may also hold their breath for Con x 15 rounds before needing to save against drowning.
Suggestion #2a: Polish the Not-Quite-Amphibious Special Qualities
With the Diver and Deep Diver qualities, Hold Breath can now be a single x6 or x8 multiplier.
Instead of having gills, and water dependent, and god knows what else - have Environment Dependent: This creature may survive in air or underwater (depending on native environment) for a number of hours equal to half its Con score. This would allow for air breathers like crocodiles and turtles to have their insanely long breath holding times, as well as making Aquatic Elves and Sahuagin more alike, since the two seem to have an Elf/Drow relationship going on with the Malenti and all.
Suggestion #3: Add Amphibious to the following [Aquatic] creatures
Dragon Turtle, Lacedon, Kapoacinth, Scrag, Merrow, Water Naga.
Or maybe give them my proposed Environment Dependent quality, since none of them are really equally at home on land or water.
Suggestion #3a: Add the [Water] Subtype to Storm Giants
Suggestion #4: Nitrogen Narcosis
A new Water Hazard, to go with Drowning and Pressure (which should more accurately be called Decompression Sickness, but whatever. Backwards compatibility! :D ). Fort Save every minute at 60 ft. (or 100 if you want) depth or greater, DC 15 +1 per 30 feet of depth, damage 1d3 Wisdom per failed save.
Okay, so, wow. I can't believe I devoted so much time to two Subtypes and one environment. I'm going to leave this one alone for a while. I hope other people respond and discuss, and I hope that this proves useful for the developers of the PFRPG and PFRPG MM. This is all OGL and Creative Commons on my part.
Cappadocius I agree with everything you have said and would like to add that burrowers need a little more standardization as well. There are 15 creatures with a burrow speed in the SRD from the MM and three more that probably should.
Burrow Speed 10ft
Bulette, Delver, Dire Badger, Frost Wurm, Badger
Burrow Speed 20ft
Ankheg, Blue Dragon, “Smaller” Earth Elementals,* Purple Worm, Rehmorhaz, Thoqqua, Xorn
Burrow Speed 30ft
White Dragon, Brass Dragon, “Larger” Earth Elementals*
Burrow Speed 60ft
Nightcrawler
No Burrow Speed but probably should!
Earth Mephit, Salt Mephit, Giant Ant Worker
Let’s start by looking at the speed itself. We have four different Speeds 10, 20, 30, and 60. Here is where we encounter our first problem. I agree with the set up of four categories but burrow speeds should start at 5ft then increase up to 30ft. The 60ft burrow speed should be dropped.
If a creature only occupies a 5ft square then its burrow speed should be reduced to 5ft unless it has a good reason as to why it can move through the ground faster than the space it occupies. Also add Giant Ant, Worker to reflect that the worker ants “burrow” out the tunnels in which they live.
Burrow Speed 5ft
Badger, Dire Badger, Giant Ant Worker, Medium and smaller Blue, Brass and White Dragons
Starting at 10ft we start to find creatures that either need an increased burrow speed to bury themselves because they occupy more than a 5ft square or are exceptional diggers.
Burrow Speed 10ft
Large and bigger Blue Dragons, Large/Huge Brass and White Dragons, Delver, Bulette, Frost Wurm, Ankheg
With a the 20ft burrow speed we should start seeing those creatures that actually live in the earth, have a connection to the elemental plane of earth, or are exceptional diggers. Give the Earth and Salt Mephits burrow speed 20ft to reflect their connection with the Elemental Plane of Earth then reduce their fly speeds to 20ft or even 10ft.
Burrow Speed 20ft
Gargantuan/Colossal Brass and White Dragons, Remorhaz, Thoqqua, Xorn, Earth Mephit, Salt Mephit
Finally we come to burrow speed 30ft. Creatures with this burrow speed should either be elementals or an extremely exceptional digger.
Burrow Speed 30ft
Nightcrawler, Purple Worm, Earth Elementals*
*Creatures with the Earth Glide special quality should feel a freedom of movement that most other creatures cannot when moving through the ground. So regardless of size Earth Elementals when moving through the ground have a 30ft speed even if there overland speed is slower than 30ft. I would even go so far as to remove the size dependant variable for Earth Elementals overland speed and give them all a flat 20ft overland speed to encourage the use of the Earth Glide special quality.