Underwater Light and Vision?

[Big Blue 22]

Are there any written rules for low light vision/darkvision/light sources under water? I have a campaign in flooded catacombs.

[Kazaan]

Nothing hard, except that fire doesn't work underwater. So spells like continual flame would be useless for illumination. Other than that, water seriously hampers light penetration so you don't need to go down too far from the surface for the light conditions to drop to dim or dark conditions. Closed catacombs, without some sort of underwater light source, would certainly be dark. Spells like Light or Daylight would be ideal, and I don't think their range should be reduced since it's magical light anyway, though any cloudiness in the water would apply a penalty to perception checks. If a lot of dirt gets kicked up, it might generate a cloud that can provide concealment or total concealment and, in these cases, I'd suggest cutting light spell radii in half through dirt-clouded water. There's one ability, called Deepsight, that grants darkvision that only works underwater.

[burkoJames]

continual flame can't be quenched. works just fine underwater

[Kazaan]

Good point. Continual Flame is technically not a fire spell; it's a light spell. So that works. But a spell like Produce Flame wouldn't.

[Hugo Rune]

Only in the environment rules

CRB wrote:

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).

It's also worth noting that colours get absorbed underwater. Red gets absorbed after about 5M, Orange 10M, Yellow 20M, Green 30M and Blue 60M.

As you are in flooded catacombs, you may find this video informative. I would suggest the effects of a silt out are equivalent to the Fog Cloud spell centred on the person kicking up the silt. The answer to what to do is to stay absolutely still and off the floor and to wait for it to settle. 5-10 mins is usually sufficient. Also, you may have noted that the bright light was reflecting off the silt even before the visibility was reduced to 0. Sometimes a dim light can actually allow you to see further underwater, particularly in marginal visibility conditions.

[dragonhunterq]

the 3.5 book Stormwrack has some slightly more detailed rules, limiting your maximum sight further by depth and surface light conditions. I doubt I'm allowed to quote it here, but a quick search on t'internet should yield further information.

[lemeres]

Yeah....lets not add too amny more detailed rules for underwater fights.

They already have enough going on that it discourages people to even begin to touch them.

[Hugo Rune]

lemeres wrote:

Yeah....lets not add too amny more detailed rules for underwater fights.

They already have enough going on that it discourages people to even begin to touch them.

I understand what you mean about keeping the rules simple but I think having the different environmental conditions impact the tactical choices adds a lot to encounters and makes the game more interesting.