The thread on magical flight underwater made me wonder how the Gaseous Form spell would, or wouldn't, work underwater. The spell description says:
"The creature is subject to the effects of wind, and it can't enter water or other liquid."
Clearly a creature in Gaseous Form can't ENTER water or other liquid, but what if somebody becomes gaseous while already submerged? I've thought of a few possibilities:
A) The spell fizzles
B) The caster becomes a bubble and rises to the surface of the liquid
C) The caster becomes a bubble and can't move (since you can't fly underwater and gaseous form doesn't grant a swim speed)
D) The caster becomes gaseous and my swim as normal, but if he leaves the water he can't go back in
I'm sort of leaning towards option B, but I'm not sure how fast the bubble should go up. Maybe it would be like a reverse Feather Fall, or maybe the bubble would shoot to the top I guess there's no official answer for that since it would be in the realm of house rules.
Options A and D also seem pretty reasonable to me. One problem with option A would be determining what happens if a vampire reaches 0 hit points while underwater (or in some other liquid) and is forced to assume gaseous form. I guess since running water destroys vampires this wouldn't come up very often, but what if one fell in a pool? Does the ocean count as "running water? etc
If you have multiple possibilities of ruling a situation, take the one that sounds most physically reasonable. Which would of course be B.
Additionally, it is specifically ruled for the Water Walk spell:
If the spell is cast underwater (or while the subjects are partially or wholly submerged in whatever liquid they are in), the subjects are borne toward the surface at 60 feet per round until they can stand on it.
While that is no real RAW argument, I'd just assume that it works the same way.
On a side note, the same applies to an Oracle of Heavens' revelation Lure of the Heavens. It says you can hover above liquid surfaces, but that's it - but I think most would assume it follows the rules of the Water Walk spell.
Further derail: I think most sources treat oceans as running water for Vampires.
Greetings, fellow travellers.
As already said by the OP it says in the spell description:
and it can't enter water or other liquid.
I would assume water and a gaseous casters do not mix - therefore, (s)he is expelled from the liquid/water and finds her/himself at the surface. I imagine something like being expelled from the liquid (instantaneous after the spell is completed) like found in the spell description of meld into stone without taking damage/being slain.
Ruyan.
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And inside an air proof vault filled with water?
Rain shouldn't be a problem since it's not surrounding the caster.
it should fizzle if you are submereged in water.
"If you ever try to cast a spell in conditions where the characteristics of the spell cannot be made to conform, the casting fails and the spell is wasted." pf srd
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And inside an air proof vault filled with water?
Rain shouldn't be a problem since it's not surrounding the caster.
it should fizzle if you are submereged in water.
"If you ever try to cast a spell in conditions where the characteristics of the spell cannot be made to conform, the casting fails and the spell is wasted." pf srd
pg. 208, core player's. Fizzle!
Re-Derailing here. There is a loophole to the vampires in running water.
Speed: Same as the base creature. If the base creature has a swim speed, the vampire is not unduly harmed by running water.
so what happens when a Mer-Vampire is reduced to 0 HP under water?
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Re-Derailing here. There is a loophole to the vampires in running water.
Speed: Same as the base creature. If the base creature has a swim speed, the vampire is not unduly harmed by running water.so what happens when a Mer-Vampire is reduced to 0 HP under water?
This is where you as a GM can get creative... I always loved the imagry of Gary Oldman as Dracula turning into a swarm of rats. For a Merfolk Vampire changin into a swarm of jelly fish or better yet a cloud of squid ink would be a cool escape instead of gaseous form. Just treat this swarm as if the Vampire were gaseous (DR, speed, etc).
--Vrock Lobster
RuyanVe - I figured that if the caster is expelled from the water maybe there should be a speed limit on that since otherwise becoming gaseous at the bottom of a very deep body of water could allow extremely fast movement. I guess it is a corner case of a corner case though.
Fizzlers - Making the spell fizzle when cast underwater sounds pretty reasonable. I'm still not sure about the vampires though, especially the underwater vampires which Onishi pointed out. Destroying them instantly for failing to become Gaseous seems a little harsh, and if they're forced to the top of the water they'll never get back to their (presumably underwater) lair.
I guess they'd retain their swim speed in Gaseous Form assuming that a typical human caster would retain his or her land movement speed. I suppose that leaving the water would be a dangerous gambit for such vampires though since if they were forced into Gaseous Form while out of the water they wouldn't be able to get back in. Do swimming vampires sleep in underwater coffins?
How deep in the ocean would a swimming vampire need to be to avoid sunlight? I wonder if Pathfinder still has the malenti (sahuagin which look like aquatic elves).
RuyanVe - I figured that if the caster is expelled from the water maybe there should be a speed limit on that since otherwise becoming gaseous at the bottom of a very deep body of water could allow extremely fast movement. I guess it is a corner case of a corner case though.
Fizzlers - Making the spell fizzle when cast underwater sounds pretty reasonable. I'm still not sure about the vampires though, especially the underwater vampires which Onishi pointed out. Destroying them instantly for failing to become Gaseous seems a little harsh, and if they're forced to the top of the water they'll never get back to their (presumably underwater) lair.
I guess they'd retain their swim speed in Gaseous Form assuming that a typical human caster would retain his or her land movement speed. I suppose that leaving the water would be a dangerous gambit for such vampires though since if they were forced into Gaseous Form while out of the water they wouldn't be able to get back in. Do swimming vampires sleep in underwater coffins?
How deep in the ocean would a swimming vampire need to be to avoid sunlight? I wonder if Pathfinder still has the malenti (sahuagin which look like aquatic elves).
True no matter how you look at it mervampires are pretty screwed, Quite a few of their abilities aren't particularly useful in water. Rats bats and wolves aren't the most useful things under water no matter how you look at it. So I would have to assume a mer-vampire would be forced to use his beast shapes to be more amphibious. Short of some house rules to give a mer-vamp waterbound minions and forms. Course I'd imagine with their restrictions and the environments they are in, merfolk just don't get bitten often enough to exist with any frequency. IMO Mervamp should be a flat out new template, just the lack of demand and the shortage of underwater adventures caused it to be an unexplained footnote to the vampire template, rather then a page of substitutions that are necessary to make any sense of them.
LOL gaseous form under water. Congratulations you're carbonation. I'd probably rule you bubble to the surface.