Waist Deep in water...Any Penalties?


Rules Questions


Hi There,

Characters are going to investigate a natural cavern flooded by four feet of water. Inside the cavern are a collection of creatures including some that can swim.

The adventure I am using mentions nothing about penalising the characters for having to wade through the water...does anyone have any ideas?

I was thinking a failed Athletics or Swim roll (DC10 for slow flowing water) would mean the characters suffer a portion of the off balance condition - loss of half their Dex bonus to AC and an additional +1 to monsters attacking them...thoughts? Is this too harsh? It seems to be a lot of water...

Thanks in advance for your advice.


Sounds good. I would rule it the same way.

Scarab Sages

I would count it as difficult terrain. If there is a current in the flood waters, periodic swim/acrobatics checks may be required (also concentration checks to cast). If the water is still, I don't really see the need to require swim checks unless they're small sized or trying to do something requiring more effort than move & attack.


gain the benefit of cover as your obscured, i'd make the entire area difficult ground.

double move to enter squares, no charging, acrobatics check dc 15 (10 basic, +5 for slippy floor) on a double move or fall prone, since i'm a bugger i would also make the water stagnant and full of disease, if you fail and acrobatics check and fall prone you have a 50% chance of contracting filth fever as the water rushes into your mouth, it has no effect on people who get injured as they will take the obvious precation(anyone with a heal skill or a wisdom above 12 would know) of washing their wounds when you tell them the water is stagnant and horrible. i wouldn't make them lose their dex to AC unless there was a good reason, like an extremely uneven floor underneath very murky water they cannot see through, and if that was the case i'd make the acrobatics dc for double moving 20 or even higher


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This is from Chapter 13 of the Core Rulebook, under "Marsh Terrain":

PRD wrote:

A square that is part of a deep bog has roughly 4 feet of standing water. It costs Medium or larger creatures 4 squares of movement to move into a square with a deep bog, or characters can swim if they wish. Small or smaller creatures must swim to move through a deep bog. Tumbling is impossible in a deep bog.

The water in a deep bog provides cover for Medium or larger creatures. Smaller creatures gain improved cover (+8 bonus to AC, +4 bonus on Reflex saves). Medium or larger creatures can crouch as a move action to gain this improved cover. Creatures with this improved cover take a –10 penalty on attacks against creatures that aren't underwater.

Deep bog squares are usually clustered together and surrounded by an irregular ring of shallow bog squares.

Both shallow and deep bogs increase the DC of Stealth checks by 2.

Hope this helps! :)


Something you may not have considered...cave water is about 55 degrees, which feels pretty cold after a while. Consider tacking on exposure-to-cold effects as well.

I wouldn't include Swim checks...the ability to not fall over in water is a matter of Dex and Str, not previous training in how to swim.

Unless you've got a filthy river pouring into it, or there are monsters in the cave fouling it, I wouldn't go down the path of making it murky or diseased, though. Water filtered through the ground and not exposed to light to support photosynthesis will not have a lot of organic matter in it.


Rhys Grey wrote:

This is from Chapter 13 of the Core Rulebook, under "Marsh Terrain":

PRD wrote:

A square that is part of a deep bog has roughly 4 feet of standing water. It costs Medium or larger creatures 4 squares of movement to move into a square with a deep bog, or characters can swim if they wish. Small or smaller creatures must swim to move through a deep bog. Tumbling is impossible in a deep bog.

The water in a deep bog provides cover for Medium or larger creatures. Smaller creatures gain improved cover (+8 bonus to AC, +4 bonus on Reflex saves). Medium or larger creatures can crouch as a move action to gain this improved cover. Creatures with this improved cover take a –10 penalty on attacks against creatures that aren't underwater.

Deep bog squares are usually clustered together and surrounded by an irregular ring of shallow bog squares.

Both shallow and deep bogs increase the DC of Stealth checks by 2.

Hope this helps! :)

Just to clarify the statement "Creatures with this improved cover take a –10 penalty on attacks against creatures that aren't underwater."

So those with this type of improved cover are penalised when attacking creatures above water...right? What about creatures underwater?

Thanks again for all the input and advice!

Liberty's Edge

Aquatic Terrain wrote:

Aquatic terrain is the least hospitable to most PCs, because they can't breathe there. Aquatic terrain doesn't offer the variety that land terrain does. The ocean floor holds many marvels, including undersea analogues of any of the terrain elements described earlier in this section, but if characters find themselves in the water because they were bull rushed off the deck of a pirate ship, the tall kelp beds hundreds of feet below them don't matter. Accordingly, these rules simply divide aquatic terrain into two categories: flowing water (such as streams and rivers) and non-flowing water (such as lakes and oceans).

Flowing Water: Large, placid rivers move at only a few miles per hour, so they function as still water for most purposes. But some rivers and streams are swifter; anything floating in them moves downstream at a speed of 10 to 40 feet per round. The fastest rapids send swimmers bobbing downstream at 60 to 90 feet per round. Fast rivers are always at least rough water (Swim DC 15), and whitewater rapids are stormy water (Swim DC 20). If a character is in moving water, move her downstream the indicated distance at the end of her turn. A character trying to maintain her position relative to the riverbank can spend some or all of her turn swimming upstream.

Swept Away: Characters swept away by a river moving 60 feet per round or faster must make DC 20 Swim checks every round to avoid going under. If a character gets a check result of 5 or more over the minimum necessary, she arrests her motion by catching a rock, tree limb, or bottom snag—she is no longer being carried along by the flow of the water. Escaping the rapids by reaching the bank requires three DC 20 Swim checks in a row. Characters arrested by a rock, limb, or snag can't escape under their own power unless they strike out into the water and attempt to swim their way clear. Other characters can rescue them as if they were trapped in quicksand (described in Marsh Terrain).

Non-Flowing Water: Lakes and oceans simply require a swim speed or successful Swim checks to move through (DC 10 in calm water, DC 15 in rough water, DC 20 in stormy water). Characters need a way to breathe if they're underwater; failing that, they risk drowning. When underwater, characters can move in any direction.

Stealth and Detection Underwater: How far you can see underwater depends on the water's clarity. As a guideline, creatures can see 4d8 × 10 feet if the water is clear, and 1d8 × 10 feet if it's murky. Moving water is always murky, unless it's in a particularly large, slow-moving river.

It's hard to find cover or concealment to hide underwater (except along the sea floor).

Invisibility: An invisible creature displaces water and leaves a visible, body-shaped “bubble” where the water was displaced. The creature still has concealment (20% miss chance), but not total concealment (50% miss chance).
Underwater Combat

Land-based creatures can have considerable difficulty when fighting in water. Water affects a creature's attack rolls, damage, and movement. In some cases a creature's opponents might get a bonus on attacks. The effects are summarized on Table: Combat Adjustments Underwater. They apply whenever a character is swimming, walking in chest-deep water, or walking along the bottom of a body of water.
Table: Combat Adjustments Underwater Condition Attack/Damage Movement Off Balance?1
Slashing or Bludgeoning Piercing
Freedom of movement normal/normal normal/normal normal No
Has a swim speed –2/half normal normal No
Successful Swim check –2/half2 normal quarter or half3 No
Firm footing4 –2/half2 normal half No
None of the above –2/half2 –2/half normal Yes
1 Creatures flailing about in the water (usually because they failed their Swim checks) have a hard time fighting effectively. An off-balance creature loses its Dexterity bonus to Armor Class, and opponents gain a +2 bonus on attacks against it.
2 A creature without freedom of movement effects or a swim speed makes grapple checks underwater at a –2 penalty, but deals damage normally when grappling.
3 A successful Swim check lets a creature move one-quarter its speed as a move action or one-half its speed as a full-round action.
4 Creatures have firm footing when walking along the bottom, braced against a ship's hull, or the like. A creature can only walk along the bottom if it wears or carries enough gear to weigh itself down: at least 16 pounds for Medium creatures, twice that for each size category larger than Medium, and half that for each size category smaller than Medium.

Ranged Attacks Underwater: Thrown weapons are ineffective underwater, even when launched from land. Attacks with other ranged weapons take a –2 penalty on attack rolls for every 5 feet of water they pass through, in addition to the normal penalties for range.

Attacks from Land: Characters swimming, floating, or treading water on the surface, or wading in water at least chest deep, have improved cover (+8 bonus to AC, +4 bonus on Reflex saves) from opponents on land. Land-bound opponents who have freedom of movement effects ignore this cover when making melee attacks against targets in the water. A completely submerged creature has total cover against opponents on land unless those opponents have freedom of movement effects. Magical effects are unaffected except for those that require attack rolls (which are treated like any other effects) and fire effects.

Fire: Nonmagical fire (including alchemist's fire) does not burn underwater. Spells or spell-like effects with the fire descriptor are ineffective underwater unless the caster makes a caster level check (DC 20 + spell level). If the check succeeds, the spell creates a bubble of steam instead of its usual fiery effect, but otherwise the spell works as described. A supernatural fire effect is ineffective underwater unless its description states otherwise. The surface of a body of water blocks line of effect for any fire spell. If the caster has made the caster level check to make the fire spell usable underwater, the surface still blocks the spell's line of effect.

Spellcasting Underwater: Casting spells while submerged can be difficult for those who cannot breathe underwater. A creature that cannot breathe water must make a concentration check (DC 15 + spell level) to cast a spell underwater (this is in addition to the caster level check to successfully cast a fire spell underwater). Creatures that can breathe water are unaffected and can cast spells normally. Some spells might function differently underwater, subject to GM discretion.
Floods

In many wilderness areas, river floods are a common occurrence.

In spring, an enormous snowmelt can engorge the streams and rivers it feeds. Other catastrophic events such as massive rainstorms or the destruction of a dam can create floods as well.

During a flood, rivers become wider, deeper, and swifter. Assume that a river rises by 1d10+10 feet during the spring flood, and its width increases by a factor of 1d4 × 50%. Fords might disappear for days, bridges might be swept away, and even ferries might not be able to manage the crossing of a flooded river. A river in flood makes Swim checks one category harder (calm water becomes rough, and rough water becomes stormy). Rivers also become 50% swifter.

About 3/5 down in this section of the PRD

Scarab Sages

Rhys Grey wrote:

This is from Chapter 13 of the Core Rulebook, under "Marsh Terrain":

PRD wrote:

A square that is part of a deep bog has roughly 4 feet of standing water. It costs Medium or larger creatures 4 squares of movement to move into a square with a deep bog, or characters can swim if they wish. Small or smaller creatures must swim to move through a deep bog. Tumbling is impossible in a deep bog.

The water in a deep bog provides cover for Medium or larger creatures. Smaller creatures gain improved cover (+8 bonus to AC, +4 bonus on Reflex saves). Medium or larger creatures can crouch as a move action to gain this improved cover. Creatures with this improved cover take a –10 penalty on attacks against creatures that aren't underwater.

Deep bog squares are usually clustered together and surrounded by an irregular ring of shallow bog squares.

Both shallow and deep bogs increase the DC of Stealth checks by 2.

Hope this helps! :)

Beautiful. You are awesome.

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