A Sinking Question

[DeepMountainDM]

I have an issue that needs to be solved; this has come up numerous times in the past few years in different scenarios, and I would love your comments. I had a party fighting unaware upon an ice sheet; one member was hit with an indirect barrage shot from a flaming catapult. The Dwarf Knight was equipped with a necklace of adaptation and winter boots. Needless to say the catapult shot broke the ice where the dwarf was standing sending the character plummeting into the cold water. The Dwarf was also reduced to 0 hit points at the time and choose unconscious. Pre-established rules due from the nature of the magical area governed the amount of rounds before the hole in the ice froze over and sealed. This also made it extremely hard to chip away at the ice to get to the character. Basically to make this long story short the dwarf had a certain amount of rounds to be rescued before being trapped. What I would like to see is a sinking rule (not swimming) based upon the weight of the object sinking. How fast does an object sink? Of course there are so many factors such as buoyancy and the viscosity of the liquid substance, however I would prefer a quick-fire rule to keep the game running. It seems ridiculous that a 300lb object, the dwarf, would only sink 5 feet from failing a swim role.

[Joana]

Here's an excerpt from Crypt of the Everflame about a pit full of water PCs can fall in:

Quote:

Creatures that step into the pit must make a DC 10 Swim check

or immediately begin to sink into the dark water.
Characters carrying a medium or light load sink 10 feet
per failed check, while characters carrying a heavy load
sink 20 feet per failed check.

It's not very exact in a pound-by-pound sense, but it gives you a quick and dirty way to adjudicate it.

[DrowVampyre]

Also, Stormwrack had rules for ships sinking - once they went below the surface, they drop 200ft/round. But that's much faster than even an armored dwarf would sink, I think - the dwarf itself should have neutral or positive buoyancy, so depending on the total gear weight and its buoyancy, I'd think something more like 15-60ft/round (for something like leather armor, somewhat light weapons, and nothing else very dense, or at least not much compared to the dwarf's weight, up to adamantine fullplate, multiple 2h metal weapons, quite a bit of dense, non-floaty stuff, etc.).

[StabbittyDoom]

It *really* depends on the person. I know I have a hard time sinking to a depth of more than a few feet when at the pool, and don't at all if on my back. Others sink relatively well. Some have to make a deliberate effort to sink at all.
Now, weighed down (as most characters are) sinking at 5ft/round is perfectly reasonable, though they wouldn't stop sinking for quite a long time. Basically, either they don't sink, or they sink forever.

[DrowVampyre]

StabbittyDoom wrote:

It *really* depends on the person. I know I have a hard time sinking to a depth of more than a few feet when at the pool, and don't at all if on my back. Others sink relatively well. Some have to make a deliberate effort to sink at all.

Now, weighed down (as most characters are) sinking at 5ft/round is perfectly reasonable, though they wouldn't stop sinking for quite a long time. Basically, either they don't sink, or they sink forever.

Yeah, it depends on your personal buoyancy, which is affected by body fat percentage, muscle and bone density, lung capacity (provided you're not sucking in water, of course), and so on. I'm assuming dwarves have a higher muscle and bone density than people, so would be less buoyant naturally, though. And as far as gear, the weight of the gear itself doesn't really matter, it's the weight of it compared to the wearer/carrier's buoyancy/displacement, in addition to its own buoyancy, of course.

[ZomB]

DeepMountainDM wrote:

What I would like to see is a sinking rule (not swimming) based upon the weight of the object sinking. How fast does an object sink? Of course there are so many factors such as buoyancy and the viscosity of the liquid substance, however I would prefer a quick-fire rule to keep the game running. It seems ridiculous that a 300lb object, the dwarf, would only sink 5 feet from failing a swim role.

It's not the weight of the object it's the density. Flesh and most biological things or processed biological things such as books and leather have similar density to water. In practical terms they don't sink or do so slowly.

The only thing that will make the body sink at any speed is the proportional weight of any dense objects they are wearing (assuming they drop heavy metal weapons).

So basing it only on something dense that scales roughly in line with body weight, like medium or heavy metal armor, seems a very practical thing to do.