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Okay, so I've found a few things that involve going into the void of space. One is the starsoul sorcerer ability to teleport people into the void. Another is the wayfinder iridescent spindle ability- endure elements and protection from exposure to pressure from vacuum and deepwater. Now, I know they don't mean the vacuum you plug into an outlet to clean the carpet with, so I'm wondering; What are the rules for being exposed to a vacuum? I mean besides the write up for immediate suffocation and 6d6 points of cold damage as per the starsoul sorcerer 15th lvl ability. I've been looking through all the books I have, but can't find it for the life of me. Help?
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Well, that's pretty much it...it is true that vacuum lowers the boiling temperature in blood, but not enough, and blood vessels make sure that the boiling temperature stays above 37 degrees Celsius. Body can and usually does bloat to almost 1.5 it's size which can impose a penalty ond dex based skills and spellcasting, but the primary threat is asphyxiation, just use drowning rules.
Manny: Is space hot?
Bernard: Of course it is, where do you think we get pineapples from?
Heh, yeah. It's ultimately the cold and lack of air that'll kill ya.
The ambient temperature (leftover radiation from the big bang), is ~2.7 K (Kelvin), depending on how close you are to a star I guess. That's about -270 Celsius, or -454 Fahrenheit.
The Endure Elements spell protects you for up to -50 degrees. Hence the cold damage, instead of just fortitude saves for taking nonlethal damage (for normal "cold" weather).
Sadly, the new spell Life Bubble (from the APG), still says it protects "as per endure elements". So while it takes care of the lack of air, and any pressure problems, it's still a death sentence out there. I think they were thinking of the plane of Water, not Outer Space, when they wrote about pressures. The spell is about planar travel, not outer space travel.
6d6 cold damage is pretty high. 7th level casting of Resist Energy will handle the average damage, while 11th level would cover nearly max damage (30 protection vs 36 max roll). Or, you could get a ring to have more permanent protection to the same effect.
Otherwise, you are looking for some kind of immunity to deal with it on a regular basis.
Considering the chances of rolling higher than 30 on 6d6 is 0.99%... I'd let 30 resistance "win" and not bother rolling. Just to save on rolling. I mean, the odds are basically averaging out to 1d6 damage per hour. That's hand-waving time, and well within the realm of "endure elements protects against the rest of the cold".
The ambient temperature (leftover radiation from the big bang), is ~2.7 K (Kelvin), depending on how close you are to a star I guess. That's about -270 Celsius, or -454 Fahrenheit.
Science mode on!
Unless you're in the shadow of something, at Earthish distances from the sun you are going to heat up. Space has a very low thermal transfer due to an almost total lack of convection and conduction. You have to radiate heat away.
The pressure isn't something to be happy about, but compared to deep sea it's a walk in the park. You can survive in a vacuum for much longer than you can in an oceanic trench unprotected.
What happens to a human body in the vacuum of space?
But hey, this is a fantasy game. Do whatever suits your view of space per your setting.
Never thought about the heat transfer situation. Perhaps cold damage isn't the best representation?
Lack of atmosphere and protection from magnetic fields has such a laundry list of problems that it's hard to really represent them appropriately in Pathfinder.
Going by the articles linked and that I've looked up already, here's what we can conclude:
- Temperatures can vary wildly, depending on shade from, and proximity to, the nearest star. This can be over -400 F in the complete void, to something like -200 to +200 when anywhere "near" a star (to ridiculously high if very close to a star).
Endure elements simply isn't ready to handle that kind of variation..
- Temperature change towards cold might take longer than normal. So either it's not applicable at all, because you'll die from lack of air or pressure problems first, or maybe it'll kick in after a while? Still haven't found how long we are talking about.. can you starve to death (or die of thirst) before losing heat? Should endure elements work for a while, but eventually that lack of heat in a -200 degree area will start causing cold damage?
- Going from high pressure to low pressure works oddly. More damage occurs if you try to hold onto your breath. So higher damage if you hold your breath, or lower damage but you start suffocating immediately?
- Rules of ultraviolet radiation (and any long term effects of this) are non-existent. You could suffice with low grade "Fire" damage, and the rules for diseases, to emulate what you want, I guess.
This is a cornucopia of catastrophes to deal with, all special-case rules for a situation that normally never occurs in normal D&D (short of special classes using magical abilities, so at that point, anything goes).
Probably why there isn't any "Space" entry in the Environmental Rules section of the book.
Might be easiest to just say "you take lots of damage per round, and otherwise you better have life bubble up if you want to do anything long term".
I would just use the rules for drowning. Depressurization would be uncomfortable, but (usually) not life-threatening, and it would take several hours to start feeling adverse temperature effects -- and as others have said, anywhere near a star, that would be getting too hot rather than too cold.
Edit: Actually, since trying to hold one's breath would likely rupture the lungs due to the pressure differential, I would just start with the character falling unconscious and then making progressively harder constitution checks until death.