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Currently going through the emerald spire super dungeon. There is a level with lava and I am playing a synthesist summoner immune to fire. My DM using logic, that I agree with, says that swimming in lava is difficult if not impossible. Like swimming in mud or pudding. Are there rules somewhere that show a DC or anything like that for lava?
The closest I can find is:
Lava Effects
Lava or magma deals 2d6 points of fire damage per round of exposure, except in the case of total immersion (such as when a character falls into the crater of an active volcano), which deals 20d6 points of fire damage per round.
Damage from lava continues for 1d3 rounds after exposure ceases, but this additional damage is only half of that dealt during actual contact (that is, 1d6 or 10d6 points per round). Immunity or resistance to fire serves as an immunity or resistance to fire, lava or magma. A creature immune to fire might still drown if completely immersed in lava (see Drowning).
So it doesn't mention how difficult it is to swim through lava. Assuming you are not in combat I would suggest that you most likely simply succeed.
Why? Lava is going to be more dense than you are in reality. This would actually enable you to float with more ease. To a point where you might be able to crawl or walk on it depending on the exact density.
In general increasing density leads to increasing viscosity (resistance to flow) which would make make it more difficult to swim through but easier to walk on. Possibly a bit like walking on cornstarch mixed with water.
In favor of gameplay, it's probably easiest to just ignore the realism and just act as if it was water that was on fire.
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According to Mythbusters, you can swim in syrup almost as fast as you can in water.
the quick sand DC i find funny, considering quicksand is mostly water and behaves pretty much the same if you try to swim through it. people just panic and reach for something instead of trying to swim.
I would agree that swimming in Lava would be "easier" in that you'll be hard pressed to go underneath, but it definitely should be slower and easier to "crawl" over the lava than swim through it.
Note that you would get heavily encrusted in lava, which (on exit) soon turns to a lumpy coating of solid basalt. It would get in your clothes, in your hair, in your nose and mouth, in your boots and so on. Moving at that point would be uncomfortable at best, probably painfully dangerous and possibly impossible. Proposing methods for its removal is left as an exercise for the reader.
Note that you would get heavily encrusted in lava, which (on exit) soon turns to a lumpy coating of solid basalt. It would get in your clothes, in your hair, in your nose and mouth, in your boots and so on. Moving at that point would be uncomfortable at best, probably painfully dangerous and possibly impossible. Proposing methods for its removal is left as an exercise for the reader.
it would actually be pretty crumbly and filled with air pockets and flake off of soft objects pretty easily(such as skin or hair, assuming of course your immune to fire damage).
That and I have seen examples of monsters that lurk and swim in lava but haven't seen rules for it.
Like red dragons. It's a favorite spot of their's to lay in a lava lake and sumerge themselves when adventurers show up.
Now they also wait and cast antimagic field when the adventurers start to traverse the lava pit.
You swim in lava, you die. No save. See Cheapy's link above.
You swim in lava, you die. No save. See Cheapy's link above.If you have Immunity to fire damage and no need to breathe, what exactly is killing you?
DM Fiat, of course... Rule 0 is the deadliest rule after all!
Extreme crushing pressures? Permanent entombment and starvation upon exiting?
Molten lava is nothing like water. Sure, everyone thinks that liquid rock (magma) is going to behave like any other liquid (e.g., water), but there are some key physical properties that tell us it just isn’t the case. Let’s compare!
Water has a density of 1000 kg/m3 and a viscosity of 0.00089 Pa*s.
Lava has a density of 3100 kg/m3 and a viscosity of 100-1000 Pa*s.
Pa*s is the SI unit for viscosity — some people might be familiar with other viscosity measures like poise. Viscosity is, more or less, the resistance to flow, so if you throw something in a liquid, a low viscosity liquid (like water) will “get out the way” and you’ll sink faster relative to a high viscosity liquid (like cold corn syrup). The density of the liquid will also play a role in how quickly you might sink based on your own density. So, when we’re looking at water versus lava, lava is ~3.1 times the density and between ~100,000 to 1,100,000 times the viscosity. They are very different!
Read the full article.
Read the full article.Molten lava is nothing like water. Sure, everyone thinks that liquid rock (magma) is going to behave like any other liquid (e.g., water), but there are some key physical properties that tell us it just isn’t the case. Let’s compare!
Water has a density of 1000 kg/m3 and a viscosity of 0.00089 Pa*s.
Lava has a density of 3100 kg/m3 and a viscosity of 100-1000 Pa*s.
Pa*s is the SI unit for viscosity — some people might be familiar with other viscosity measures like poise. Viscosity is, more or less, the resistance to flow, so if you throw something in a liquid, a low viscosity liquid (like water) will “get out the way” and you’ll sink faster relative to a high viscosity liquid (like cold corn syrup). The density of the liquid will also play a role in how quickly you might sink based on your own density. So, when we’re looking at water versus lava, lava is ~3.1 times the density and between ~100,000 to 1,100,000 times the viscosity. They are very different!
Though I imagine that guy is right about sinking, I think he missed the fact that you would basically explode on impact due to the extreme temperatures super-heating your blood in a second, increasing your internal pressure to the point of near-instantaneous explosion. [REFERENCE]
Hey OP, when you are asking rules questions, you should leave out the spoilers that suggest where the encounters come from. Now my players know what to expect.