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I agree with John above, that the situation isn't automatically fatal. People survive sinking ships pretty often, of course people die in those situations pretty often too. The player should have a chance. What are his odds, and what might affect his chances? How encumbered is he, heavy armor, Olympic swimmer skill? The details aren't as important in my opinion as the point that player death shouldn't come down to just 'there's no chance, you're dead.' This is where "saves" actually come from. The player has a chance to roll his die to avoid the spell, paralysis, etc.
So he can breathe water, but apparently the danger is from being trapped in the ship for longer than the breathe water. In that case you might say, for each round the character stays inside the ship his swim check is going to take a -4 penalty, and iuf he fails it the character dies. This way the player is aware of the stakes, as Blueluck wrote above, but he also had a way to judge how many rounds he's we willing to search. In that case, I bet he doesn't search long... Also in that case the player has some role in the death, he failed swim checks or whatever saves you guys settled on, but he failed the saves not 'the GM just said the character dies'. That's what makes a death feel arbitrary.
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personally... I am not that mad at the GM.
though I would have probably said something like "if you search it you have about a 95% chance of dieing" if he goes for It I am not going to spend 30 mins RPing a futile search I will just say OK I am rolling a % and you die on 95 or lower. still want to do it?
note... I would not do this to be a mean person or to exert my authority as the GM or anything like that.
I would be doing it because the player is basically hogging the spotlite for the entire duration. the other players are pretty much sitting there waiting for this guy to go through the motions searching a ship that the GM knows has nothing on it. so sure. if he wants to waste his characters life let him... but dont let him derail the game to do it.
thats just my off the cuff take.
Actually, There are rules for crush depth in PF. You take 1d6 damage per 100ft per minute with a Con check to avoid.
So, depending on how fast a ship sinks, most mid level characters could survive on the order of half an hour before it even gets close to truly fatal.
I think this would involve some fun skill checks playing it all out.
Generally, in situations where I have nothing prepared, I will tell the players: "I don't know how the rules treat this, but I will assume XYZ." My thinking is that skilled heroes would have an idea of how much pressure is dangerous. Then I would make up some minor treasure for them to find. Usually, I'll make up something with a lot of character so that they at least get the cool factor.
If you have a hard time stating items on the fly, just describe some objects, and end the session before they can ID them :)
a vast majority of the environmental damages in PF are crap.
10d6 damage for a 100 foot fall.
hold your breath for minutes at a time while swiming in 50 pounds of equipment.
etc etc.
I think most of them are pretty stupid.
I employ the mass damage rule for all environmental effects and my players know that I reserve the right to say 'your dead' on the flip side of that they also know that I am fair with it and will try to warn them in advance of any such situation so if they are on a cliff 50 feet above jagged rocks I will tell them "there is a narrow path allong the side of a steep drop to cirtain death on jagged rocks." and for me a humanoid is probably going to take heavy damage to anything under 50 feet and crush depth for a non-specialist swimmer would be around 100f.. period.
they will probably take heavy damage for any. again I am not generally going to put players in this situation and I would allow various work arounds if there are story book reasons for these situations. but amung me and the people I play with magic is magic, dragons are dragons and more or less real world equivalents have more or less real world results.
again... thats just us. I know some people wont like this but it works for us.
I think Int/Wis checks might be good for something kind of vague "Would it be a good idea to enter this strange woman's home when she invites us?" kind of stuff, but "The water is up to your shoulders below decks, the ship is sinking fast, and the suction will drag you down when it goes" is pretty clear cut.
Though ships don't really generate that much suction when they go down, and it's not a sustained suction (i.e. suction ends at water's surface). I don't see why he couldn't have got back up to the surface with 6.5 minutes of waterbreathing and however long his Con mod lets him hold his breath afterwards.
This.
Though as you say, 'suction' is a obscure concept that may or may not have played in this factor. Sooooo I can't really blame a player for not assuming that even WITH a mask of water breathing, it was a Rocks fall all die situation....
Have you been diving? Its perfectly possible to go down 100 feet without crushing damage. Humans can dive up to 300 feet without equipment in the real world. Pathfinder allows for superhuman levels of constitution that could surpass that.a vast majority of the environmental damages in PF are crap.
10d6 damage for a 100 foot fall.
hold your breath for minutes at a time while swiming in 50 pounds of equipment.
etc etc.
I think most of them are pretty stupid.I employ the mass damage rule for all environmental effects and my players know that I reserve the right to say 'your dead' on the flip side of that they also know that I am fair with it and will try to warn them in advance of any such situation so if they are on a cliff 50 feet above jagged rocks I will tell them "there is a narrow path allong the side of a steep drop to cirtain death on jagged rocks." and for me a humanoid is probably going to take heavy damage to anything under 50 feet and crush depth for a non-specialist swimmer would be around 100f.. period.
they will probably take heavy damage for any. again I am not generally going to put players in this situation and I would allow various work arounds if there are story book reasons for these situations. but amung me and the people I play with magic is magic, dragons are dragons and more or less real world equivalents have more or less real world results.
again... thats just us. I know some people wont like this but it works for us.
Exactly, even the bends does'nt happen unless you surface too fast (your body needs time to equalize pressure)
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Ships don't really generate that much suction when they go down, and it's not a sustained suction (i.e. suction ends at water's surface).
That's incorrect. Any object (such as a ship) moving through a fluid generates a 'suction' effect as fluid rushes in to fill the space left as the object moves away. A few minutes experimentation in a bathtub should be enough to convince you of this.
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Glad it looks like everything has been resolved in this instance. In general, my thoughts on this sort of situation are:
1) I do like Int/Wis checks to give players hints or let them know if they're taking a particularly risky action. The player may be saying "It's not that dangerous, I'll be fine" but a Wis 20 character (or one with Knowledge skills such as in this case engineering) is likely aware of the risk and the player should therefore be aware at least that it is a risky decision before he acts.
2) I would allow a skill check, saving throw, or some other roll to evade almost any certain death scenario, since ordinary people in real life manage to survive pretty incredible things and mid-high level PF characters are far from ordinary. It also gives the player the feeling that at least he had a chance to survive. In this particular instance, I'd probably give 1-3 swim checks with the DC increasing the longer he remains on the ship. Round by round is unnecessary, but at least one or two rolls should be made.
3) If the GM has any hard "point of no return" in mind for risky actions, he should be extra-careful to inform the players either directly and explicitly or by giving very strong descriptions that give the sense of danger (in this situation, not just "the water is up to your neck" but "the ship shudders horribly and think you feel it accelerate in its descent. You think it will be carried very quickly to the deeps.")
Have you been diving? Its perfectly possible to go down 100 feet without crushing damage. Humans can dive up to 300 feet without equipment in the real world. Pathfinder allows for superhuman levels of constitution that could surpass that.a vast majority of the environmental damages in PF are crap.
10d6 damage for a 100 foot fall.
hold your breath for minutes at a time while swiming in 50 pounds of equipment.
etc etc.
I think most of them are pretty stupid.I employ the mass damage rule for all environmental effects and my players know that I reserve the right to say 'your dead' on the flip side of that they also know that I am fair with it and will try to warn them in advance of any such situation so if they are on a cliff 50 feet above jagged rocks I will tell them "there is a narrow path allong the side of a steep drop to cirtain death on jagged rocks." and for me a humanoid is probably going to take heavy damage to anything under 50 feet and crush depth for a non-specialist swimmer would be around 100f.. period.
they will probably take heavy damage for any. again I am not generally going to put players in this situation and I would allow various work arounds if there are story book reasons for these situations. but amung me and the people I play with magic is magic, dragons are dragons and more or less real world equivalents have more or less real world results.
again... thats just us. I know some people wont like this but it works for us.
not all constitution is the same, a prime Olympic decathlete is probably the most perfect physical specimen in sports and they would not be able to just dive to the bottom of a fifty foot lake on a whim. it requires training, conditioning and the knowledge of how fast and slow to descend and ascend. by the same token I know old women in korea who can dive that same fifty feet, spend 5 mins at the bottom prying up shells and come to the top singing, LITERALLY SINGING. of course they probably cant run a marathon without a bit of practice.
the point is just because a small sliver of highly trained individuals can do it does mean that anyone and every one do it.
also you kind of miss the point. crush depth is one aspect, falling damage, suffocation, and other types of environmental damage also apply to the issue.
Ships don't really generate that much suction when they go down, and it's not a sustained suction (i.e. suction ends at water's surface).That's incorrect. Any object (such as a ship) moving through a fluid generates a 'suction' effect as fluid rushes in to fill the space left as the object moves away. A few minutes experimentation in a bathtub should be enough to convince you of this.
And as soon as the thing is full of water (i.e. once it's all under the water's surface and all the cabins are filled with water, as is obviously the case here) the suction ends since there's nowhere else for the water to flow into. There might be a little bit of "suction" but there won't be enough to actually pull a person under any more just by the displacement of the full-of-water boat sinking.
^ This, exactly.
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an empty wooden boat generally floats. its the weight of cargo that brings it down.
having said that...
"Are you sure?"
The answer is always "No, just joking." Seriously, that phrase is GM code for "You're about to die, dumbass!"
is as basic to the game as "roll initiative"
I always figured it was a combination of both. Water's rushing into the cabins (displacing a lot of water and making it flow inward) while the boat itself displaces water outwards, creating a sort of mini-whirlpool for the first few seconds after the boat sinks.
I'll admit I'm no physicist or anything but that seems like it makes sense.
The other day I had my second PC death since I started running Pathfinder (which was less than a year ago). The first time it was during the final encounter of the adventure and was simply a matter of not dodging the boss's fire breath and taking too much damage. Sad, but a fitting end for a PC that had already survived countless challenges. The second time, however... well, it raised some questions.
** spoiler omitted **...
well played!!
as a dm, you have the control of the game in the table. if u warning him about posible death, and he reacts greedy, then, nothing more to do with.3 sentences that he will die if dont run away (this has nothing to do with fisics apply or not itself, it has to deal the fact that was one GM sentence).
maybe the gm want to create an hurry of retreat scene, and because the player´s lack of empathy, it waste the option, in/out game time, the less for him as a punishment was the dead of that greedy char!!
i call that real experience, now on, he gonna thin twice (i hope) when the gm says something like "¿are you sure?"
in one of my games, there was a player with a Pelor cleric (sun, etc)
the fight at the center of the town was with a 15 zombies comming forward, then the other players, ran away, and hide into a house behind the cleric. the cleric who has a lot of places to go and do something or even use her turn undead ability says:
"i run into the crowd of zombies trying to push them back and trying to take no damage to me"
i ask him, the other players start to laugh and say him the result of his idea, we even suggest that he can run to another place but he insist and: 2 rounds later, the cleric provokes a lot of aoo and dies with several injuries.
it has to be noticed that that player playing a cleric is the best barbarian i ever seen ever!!
The abstractions makes the gane easier to play generally, but not understanding the exact physicals behind, such as "A ships sinks fully after 10 rounds" makes it harder when things go off the rails. By how much shoukd the cabins be filled after 3 rounds? At what point does the water become difficult terrain? It can become too much, especially when it's near the end of a sessions and 3 out of 4 players are sitting around waiting to be able to do something.
well played!!
as a dm, you have the control of the game in the table. if u warning him about posible death, and he reacts greedy, then, nothing more to do with.3 sentences that he will die if dont run away (this has nothing to do with fisics apply or not itself, it has to deal the fact that was one GM sentence).
Except that's not what happened because the GM's description didn't imply anything about instant death. The "final warning" was simply "the water begins to splash at your feet" - hardly what anyone with an extra 4 minutes of magical breathing would consider a sign of imminent instant death.
And as soon as the thing is full of water (i.e. once it's all under the water's surface and all the cabins are filled with water, as is obviously the case here) the suction ends since there's nowhere else for the water to flow into. There might be a little bit of "suction" but there won't be enough to actually pull a person under any more just by the displacement of the full-of-water boat sinking.Ships don't really generate that much suction when they go down, and it's not a sustained suction (i.e. suction ends at water's surface).That's incorrect. Any object (such as a ship) moving through a fluid generates a 'suction' effect as fluid rushes in to fill the space left as the object moves away. A few minutes experimentation in a bathtub should be enough to convince you of this.
No. I don't think so. The suction doesn't come from the boat filling up, it comes from the boat moving down through the water. It pushed water away below it and water has to rush to fill in behind it or there would be a vacuum where it had been.
Now, how much trouble that suction would be for a person to swim through, especially in the case of a more buoyant wooden ship, which would be expected to float below the surface or at least sink more slowly, I don't know.
It isn't suction but aeration lowering the density of the water above the ship that causes once bouyant objects to sink down.
Bubbles cause sinking ships as well:
http://www.aip.org/pnu/2003/split/658-3.html
While a ship is sinking, it may create a suction but not after it is underwater:
http://lonniebruner.blogspot.com/2006/01/in-fact-there-is-no-suction-caused -by.html
These guys say it doesn't happen as well:
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen01/gen01313.htm
A theory that might fit:
With ship's suction, it depends on how the ship is sinking. If the ship still contains a lot of air filled spaces when it goes down, than the suction may be the water rushing to fill the volume just vacated by the ship. But if the ship fills slowly and sinks, than there is much less vloume that needs to be replaced when the ship goes down.
Heck, the Titanic movie was a lie:
If you mean the suction of a ship sinking, then yes, relatively, there was little. I believe this was due to the angle that she sank and the extended time that she took to finally go under. For the Ships Baker to be able to virtually step off the stern and never get his head wet, I would have to say there was not much suction, at least at that part of the ship.
In the A&E documentary "Titanic, Death of a Dream", it was stated that there was very little suction when the stern went under as well.
Now, the Titanic's difference might be because it sank on one side, but iy does show suction might be minimal.
Except that's not what happened because the GM's description didn't imply anything about instant death. The "final warning" was simply "the water begins to splash at your feet" - hardly what anyone with an extra 4 minutes of magical breathing would consider a sign of imminent instant death.well played!!
as a dm, you have the control of the game in the table. if u warning him about posible death, and he reacts greedy, then, nothing more to do with.3 sentences that he will die if dont run away (this has nothing to do with fisics apply or not itself, it has to deal the fact that was one GM sentence).
of course, but all of this are nothing more important, since the gm decides it as he told us!!
if he decides that in his campaign a human can fly at will, then, they can.
if an orc can be a main themed race at his campaigns, then they are!!
so, if he says that a sunking ship drags the pc to the bottom and its instant dead for give a rpg lesson to one player who ignores the party member advices, consternations, etc. the gm advices, and feel munchking at all because he has a mask and greeddely are looting for more...
even if at the last point the gm says that a maidman cames and took his head away or something, that is the way which he decides the things happens... otherwise, there will be a bunch of munchkins playing at his table!!
the advices is far enough to me...
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of course, but all of this are nothing more important, since the gm decides it as he told us!!
if he decides that in his campaign a human can fly at will, then, they can.
if an orc can be a main themed race at his campaigns, then they are!!
so, if he says that a sunking ship drags the pc to the bottom and its instant dead for give a rpg lesson to one player who ignores the party member advices, consternations, etc. the gm advices, and feel munchking at all because he has a mask and greeddely are looting for more...
even if at the last point the gm says that a maidman cames and took his head away or something, that is the way which he decides the things happens... otherwise, there will be a bunch of munchkins playing at his table!!the advices is far enough to me...
This is an unintelligible mess and I have no idea what you are trying to say.
The only point I can decipher is "if a player ever looks for treasure, they are a munchkin and should die", which is several kinds of terrible.
so, if he says that a sunking ship drags the pc to the bottom and its instant dead for give a rpg lesson to one player who ignores the party member advices, consternations, etc. the gm advices, and feel munchking at all because he has a mask and greeddely are looting for more...
even if at the last point the gm says that a maidman cames and took his head away or something, that is the way which he decides the things happens... otherwise, there will be a bunch of munchkins playing at his table!!the advices is far enough to me...
Scrabbleshart: (noun) the resulting effect of eating all the pieces from the scrabble game, sharting them out violently, and posting the results in the forums.
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My two cents: The dm was right, and it is an epic ending for a very greedy character.
He could be stuck under the ceiling of the captain's quarter, his belt stuck on the railing, maybe bumped his head. Could have rolled some, maybe 3x Swim Check of DC20, but in the end, I believe in "The DM knows best" :)
Also: "My character can survive for 40 rounds" doesn't sound very roleplay -y :p
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And as soon as the thing is full of water (i.e. once it's all under the water's surface and all the cabins are filled with water, as is obviously the case here) the suction ends since there's nowhere else for the water to flow into. There might be a little bit of "suction" but there won't be enough to actually pull a person under any more just by the displacement of the full-of-water boat sinking.Ships don't really generate that much suction when they go down, and it's not a sustained suction (i.e. suction ends at water's surface).That's incorrect. Any object (such as a ship) moving through a fluid generates a 'suction' effect as fluid rushes in to fill the space left as the object moves away. A few minutes experimentation in a bathtub should be enough to convince you of this.
Of course there's somewhere for the water to flow to - the space that was occupied by the ship until it moved away (sunk a bit further, in this case). If the ship is aerodynamically (or, to be pedantic, hydrodynamically) designed about as well as an Americas Cup racer it might slip through the water smoothly enough to avoid a drag pocket, but for the typical ship we are talking about here, with lots of flat surfaces, there's going to be a pretty strong current generated as the ship moves.
The inrush of water to displace air below the mean water level may well stop once the ship fills up, but that's not the major generator of currents that can be hazardous to swimmers.
As has been pointed out above, though, most wooden ships don't actually sink to the bottom - they just sink to the level where only a small portion of them is above water (including the mast). In that case the ship won't be moving through the water, so there won't be any further currents being generated. But if the ship has a heavy enough cargo (or ballast) to continue to sink rapidly, you really don't want to be swimming around anywhere near it.
As I said - a few minutes experimentation in a bathtub should convince you of this. Put something (such as a washcloth) on the bottom of the tub, under water, and put your open hand next to it with the palm vertical, and nearly touching the cloth. Then move your hand sharply away. The cloth will follow your hand, because the water rushing in to fill the space your hand has vacated will carry the cloth along with it.
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I don't beleive most players have degrees in physics or know the scientific equations for comaparative aerodynamics of wooden ships.
The AVERAGE person is going to think 1) the boat is sinking. 2) I have a mask that lets me breath underwater. 3) AWESOME!!! I thought I'd NEVER get to use this thing!!!
I've seen the rules in Pathfinder for 'drowning'. I have not seen the rules for boat 'suction' and getting dragged to the bottom of the sea...
MAYBE they exist in one of the new pirate focused books... I haven't seen them. I will say that if you plan on bringing in rules and physics that the player doesn't know... then a roll or specific warning should be presented.
We have stats for swimming... we have stats for strength... we have Con for drowning... we have RULES that are designed to deal with situations... and I suspect that the Player thought he could look at his stats, guage his magic items, and figured he had a decent enough chance at success.
Bringing in other concepts in a fantasy game (that people here in RL can't agree on'... DOES kind of have a 'rocks fall, all die' kind of feel to it.
a few minutes experimentation in a bathtub should convince you of this. Put something (such as a washcloth) on the bottom of the tub, under water, and put your open hand next to it with the palm vertical, and nearly touching the cloth. Then move your hand sharply away. The cloth will follow your hand, because the water rushing in to fill the space your hand has vacated will carry the cloth along with it.
The Mythbuster experiments referred to earlier ( http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/sinking-titanic-minimy th.htm ) using a human and a boat are more convincing than your experiments using a hand and a washcloth.
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My two cents: The dm was right, and it is an epic ending for a very greedy character.
He could be stuck under the ceiling of the captain's quarter, his belt stuck on the railing, maybe bumped his head. Could have rolled some, maybe 3x Swim Check of DC20, but in the end, I believe in "The DM knows best" :)Also: "My character can survive for 40 rounds" doesn't sound very roleplay -y :p
So what do you think of this scenario?
Monk: "I open the door to the crypt."
GM: "You hear some creaking inside."
Monk: "I step in and have a look around."
GM: "You die, make a new character."
Monk: "What?"
GM: "A vampire wakes up, it dominates you. Could roll some but it really doesn't matter."
Monk: "What?"
GM: "I warned you. I told you you heard some creaking inside. It's not my fault you chose to ignore my final warning."
Monk: "What kind of warning is that? Also, how the hell do I automatically die?"
GM: "Maybe you panic and trip or something. Who cares. You can't escape, the vampire dominates you."
Monk: "How? I'm a monk, I have great Will saves, and I even have a magic item that specifically helps me resist dominate effects!"
GM: "'I have great Will saves'? That doesn't sound very roleplay-y to me."
Monk: "Neither does, 'Screw it, you die offscreen for unclear questionable reasons, no save'."
GM: "Look, your character chose to be an adventurer, right?"
Monk: "Well, actually, it was kind of forced on him, in the backstory his temple was burned by an evil pyromancer and-"
GM: "And you chose to enter the crypt, right? You were hoping for treasure and knew it might be risky?"
Monk: "But-"
GM: "Then I don't see the problem here. You had a very greedy character, and you've received the epic ending you deserve, you munchkin."
Monk: "What the hell are you talking ab-"
GM: "If you didn't want to die offscreen with no save and the scantest warning, why didn't you just stay at home? Because you were greedy. You chose to throw your life away, and guess what, your life was thrown away because of your actions. This is all your fault."
Monk: "This is stupid. This is seriously stupid."
GM: "I'm the GM, therefore every ruling I make is inherently by definition the best ruling I could possibly have made! It's like Candide."
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I think Roberta pretty much nailed it down.
I don't like the idea of saying "Ship sinks. You die.". The character should have had a chance to do something about it, even if his chances are very slim. Not only that, but the player also didn't have the chance to enjoy the benefits of his very situational item when said situation presented itself.
You should always give your players a chance to act. If he charges against a 1000 dragons, let him roll iniative and attack. Do not simply say "A dragon eats you".
Let him have his chance to succeed. Let him know what are the stakes.
Then, if he does fail, he won't feel cheated.
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I think Halo: Reach has a good example.
Some of the best stories come from letting the dice show you that the impossible was merely improbable.
I think Halo: Reach has a good example.
** spoiler omitted **
Some of the best stories come from letting the dice show you that the impossible was merely improbable.
I thought that was awesome because while evitable, you got go out like a badass.
For all of those arguing the physics of sinking ships, forgetaboutit! The very fact that it's getting argued back and forth so much demonstrates that the answer to, "What happens to swimmers when a ship sinks?" is not common knowledge.
Also, many are comparing the sinking of a 300 ton wooden sailing ship to the sinking of a 52,310 ton steel steam ship. There's a difference in scale of two orders of magnitude!
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On the other hand, what works in a video game may not work at the table. If that few minutes of awesome "going out like a badass" turns into an hour or so of combat grind at the table, while the rest of the players sit around and wait for the inevitable, it might not be quite so much fun.
If the DM is taking an hour to resolve the characters 4 minutes of air and how ever many rounds of holding his breath, something is wrong.
Yeah, not allowing any dice rolls or chance to escape his folly is pretty aweful way to GM, especially, when the rules are quite clear that dying from water pressure is hardly instantaneous:
Very deep water is not only generally pitch black, posing a navigational hazard, but worse, deals water pressure damage of 1d6 points per minute for every 100 feet the character is below the surface. A successful Fortitude save (DC 15, +1 for each previous check) means the diver takes no damage in that minute. Very cold water deals 1d6 points of nonlethal damage from hypothermia per minute of exposure.
Depending on his level, he could have survived for tens of minutes, or more likely, until his magical mask gave up on him and he drowned.
I'm amazed nobody has mentioned this yet.
Remember that the player's last action was taken while the ship was still afloat and the water had only just begun to splash at his feet. That's hardly grounds to say, "Welp, you'd probably continue to play it out round by round searching every room with the ship already at the bottom of the sea, may as well just kill you now."
At the PCs shoulders - stated in the OP.
Read the OP again:
Me: Now the water is past your waste.
Frank: I head back up to the top deck.
Me: The water is almost to your shoulders by the time you make it to the top deck.
Frank: The captain's quarters is on the top deck, right?
Me:...yes, yes it is.
Frank: I'm going to go search it.
Me: As you reach the doors to the captain's quarters, water is starting to come over the edge of the deck and splashes around your feet
It reached his shoulders when he was in the lower decks. He went back up to the top deck, where the water was only just beginning to splash at his feet when he took his last action.
He'd been asked "are you sure?" three times...
Actually, he was asked "Are you sure?" zero times. He was told "The water continues to rise" three times. And if you consider "The water splashes at your feet" to be a terrifying final warning then I dunno how your adventuring party ever leaves the house.
GM: "As you come over the hill, you see some sort of horrible-"
Player: "I turn and run away!"
GM: "What?"
Player: "You said there was something horrible out there. You were asking me if I was sure I wanted to proceed. That's GM Code for run away or die."
GM: "Wha- um, okay, you bolt back down the hil-"
Player: "Bolt!? I cast Resist Energy [Lightning]."
a few minutes experimentation in a bathtub should convince you of this. Put something (such as a washcloth) on the bottom of the tub, under water, and put your open hand next to it with the palm vertical, and nearly touching the cloth. Then move your hand sharply away. The cloth will follow your hand, because the water rushing in to fill the space your hand has vacated will carry the cloth along with it.The Mythbuster experiments referred to earlier ( http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/sinking-titanic-minimy th.htm ) using a human and a boat are more convincing than your experiments using a hand and a washcloth.
I am as big a fan of the Mythbusters as anyone, but they sometimes get things wrong.
To model the potential suction action of a large ship sinking, you need to sink multiple large ships. There are many, many physical events that don't scale linearly, sinking ships and turbulent fluid flow would definitely be one of them.
There are plenty of stories of people who were sucked underwater by the turbulent flow of water created by the sinking of a massive vessel. Just as there are plenty of stories of people who were in the water directly above a sinking ship who were not sucked down at all. That's a fundamental aspect of turbulent fluid mechanics. It is "chaotic" by definition.
Having said that, real world physics and eye-witness accounts of turbulent flow are pretty much pointless here.
I always get a kick out of how many people will jump all over a poster who says "I did this in my game" when those very same people will leap up and say "there is no 'wrong' way to play!" Well, until they find one, I suppose.
It is entirely plausible and defensible to tell a player whose character has entered the Captain's quarters of a ship with water already coming over the gunwales that their character is in very real danger. Should that player continue into the cabin with the intent to search the place, it is also entirely plausible and defensible to say that "while you took a few rounds to search the cabin, the ship has sunk to such a depth that you no longer have time to break off the search, go out the door, deal with the turbulent flow of water in the wake of the descending ship and swim back to the surface. You're dead."
Totally within the rights of the GM to rule.
No problem at all. People giving the OP GM grief about this need to chill and remember that it's HIS WORLD and HIS GAME.
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"There is no wrong way to play!" is usually more fully stated as "There is no wrong way to play as long as you're having fun." The player who was killed complained about their manner of death; they obviously did not consider this instant death to be fun.
Literally anything a GM does is "Totally within the rights of the GM". If the GM wants to say "Rocks fall, everyone dies", the GM can totally do that. But that doesn't mean the players will enjoy it, and it doesn't mean I won't look at that and say, "Wow, that's some lousy GMing there." I'm going to point back to the Monk Versus Vampire example. Certainly, the GM isn't breaking the rules by saying, "Screw you, you die, you can't run away, your Will save doesn't matter, your anti-domination magic item doesn't help, no dice are rolled, you just die, you should have heeded my warning when I said you heard something moving." But something is still horribly wrong there.
Remember, it isn't just the GM's game. It's the players' game too.
While I think the player was being a bit derpy and greedy, I kinda think he should have a last gotten some sort of "hey dum dum" roll or possibly been put into a low-outcome-of-success situation where he could have worked himself to safety.
Still though, I can't get too worked up about the GM's decision in this particular case.
But something is still horribly wrong there.
Yep, there is something terribly wrong. In the example given the GM is cheating. Even if the DC was over-the-top, there is still a chance the monk would roll a natural 20. Not allowing the roll at all is nothing short of cheating the player out of what THE RULES say he should have been entitled to.
It is entirely plausible and defensible to tell a player whose character has entered the Captain's quarters of a ship with water already coming over the gunwales that their character is in very real danger. Should that player continue into the cabin with the intent to search the place, it is also entirely plausible and defensible to say that "while you took a few rounds to search the cabin, the ship has sunk to such a depth that you no longer have time to break off the search, go out the door, deal with the turbulent flow of water in the wake of the descending ship and swim back to the surface. You're dead."
But see being underwater doesn't kill you.
It is not breathing that kills people underwater: and he could breath underwater... why was he dead?
But see being underwater doesn't kill you.
It is not breathing that kills people underwater: and he could breath underwater... why was he dead?
As someone else said in this thread, suction from a ship "can" be caused due to the chaotic nature of the water. Combine this with what I imagine would be being plastered to the ceiling of the captains quarters as the ship plunged downward and the pressure of the water itself. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any information on how fast it would sink.
The closest I could find off hand of a wooden frigate is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_six_frigates_of_the_United_States_Nav y where it lists this information of the USS Constellation:
Class & type: 44-gun frigate
Tonnage: 1,576
Displacement: 2,200 tons
Length: 204 ft (62 m) (length overall);
175 ft (53 m) at waterline
Beam: 43 ft 6 in (13.26 m)
Draft: 21 ft (6.4 m) forward
23 ft (7.0 m) aft
Depth of hold: 14 ft 3 in (4.34 m)
Complement: 450 officers and enlisted, including 55 Marines and 30 boys[
Granted, this was in 1794 (approx) and they had 44 metal cannons. I doubt your frigate had these guns but this should give everyone a better idea of what it was like.
Hopefully this helps a little.
I blame the water.
I don't know about sinking ships, but making a common sense check doesn't seem like a very good mechanic. If you tell them to make one, they already know what they're about to do is stupid. And if they have to use their own discression to make one, they'll be making them all day and giving the GM a headache as he/she not only has to assess how stupid every action they make is, but only tell them just enough about how stupid it is based on their roll. And the role would be kind of arbitrary, unless you come up with a definitive table you can look at as part of your house rule.