unless you're a red dragon, I seriously counsel against trying to wim in hot lava... it's fairly liquid for molten rock, so you can swim in it, but it's really nearly as hot as a fire elemental.
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It’s three times as dense as you and pretty viscous, so less “swimming” and more “sitting on top”.
That said, rule of cool encourages the treatment of lava as more like fire-flavor Kool-Aid.
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Yes, but is it so dense that you would just float, is it still dense but dragons are even more dense, or does rock expand significantly when melted?
I looked up the density of lava rather than of rocks. Dragons are also built for flight- even if we know that’s entirely impractical, I don’t think their approach is “screw water and hydrocarbons, what have you got with some more heft?”
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Personally, I think a slight upgrade in damage for lava immersion is in order for PF2...say, a flat 100 points a turn? That'd fit with the '1 damage per foot' rule they're using for falling.
That said, if you can survive that, I think you do so in character by being just that tough. If you still take half damage for a few turns after getting out (I'd go for the full three as the default, with maybe some skill check or magic reducing that), that also means that even one round is likely lethal for the vast majority of characters (250+ HP is not very common in PF2...I think you can theoretically manage it as a max Con Barbarian at 14th level, so that's well into Legendary...I guess maybe lower with Rage if it still grants bonus HP somehow, but not much lower). More than one round? We're talking near max level 10+HP per level Classes only.
Those seem about the category of people who should survive a round or two of lava immersion/sitting on.
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So, short version, I'm fine with tough enough characters surviving this by being just that tough, but think the bar on how tough that is may be calibrated a bit low at the moment (in PF1 you only need 150 or so HP to survive a turn of lava exposure on average, and that seems a bit low given that I can probably manage that on an 9th level Barbarian and 9th level characters should not reasonably survive this).
Real world lava should be more dense than pretty much anything but other rocks/metal. It's also so viscous that it if you somehow were submerged in it, you wouldn't be able to move, at least not without significant strength.
However, that's not how lava works in most fantasy. Look at Lord of the Rings and Gollum, sinking into the lava. Not really what would happen. But it's much more interesting that way.
Fire flavored water is the more "fun" way to run it. Otherwise it's just ground that causes fire damage.
I do agree however, that it's should basically just kill you unless you're immune to fire damage.
Personally, I think a slight upgrade in damage for lava immersion is in order for PF2...say, a flat 100 points a turn? That'd fit with the '1 damage per foot' rule they're using for falling.
Just as a note, I remember that '1 damage per foot' was mentioned to be specifically terminal velocity, so lower levels of falling probably wouldn't be that deadly.
Just an FYI, you reach "terminal velocity" in approximately 1 round in Pathfinder, and that's an okay approximation of physics if not particularly accurate. In PF1 you fell 500 ft per round. Honestly, I'm of the opinion that there's no need to separate falling damage between terminal and non-terminal falls. Falls should be deadly. Just let them do 1 pt of damage per foot fallen. With an ability for an acrobatics check to reduce the damage if you fall purposefully. Maybe treating the first 10ft as nonlethal damage.
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What is lava in PF? Is it viscous? Dense? comfortable temperature for swimming?From other thread.
This is incorrect as there are different types of magma. The least viscous type, basaltic, is about as viscous as a thick salsa, ketchup or lard. Magma ranges from 100 pa [basaltic] to 100000000000 pa [silicic]. This means if your 'lucky' you could move through it.
As to density, yes you'd float [if horizontal] but if you are in the lower end pa magma's, you could move your limbs through it and swim on the surface. Walking though can be an issue.
Here is a video to show someone stepping on lava: hint you sink. Lava Video
Personally, I think a slight upgrade in damage for lava immersion is in order for PF2...say, a flat 100 points a turn? That'd fit with the '1 damage per foot' rule they're using for falling.Just as a note, I remember that '1 damage per foot' was mentioned to be specifically terminal velocity, so lower levels of falling probably wouldn't be that deadly.
I haven't read the other thread, but that sounds really wrong to me.
If you're at terminal velocity, that means you aren't accelerating any more. You are pushing through air as fast as you can. It shouldn't matter if you were falling at terminal velocity for hours or if you just got up to speed; the only reasonable thing to base falling damage off of is how fast you were moving when you hit the ground.
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Yeah, but unless you want people to start doing calculus to determine how fast they're moving after falling for 4.5 seconds at 9.8 m/s/s we're not going for accuracy. And for that matter you'd have to start taking into account the actual force generated and the composition of the surface you're hitting.
So...we shouldn't go for accuracy.
We just need a simple method.
The old method was 1d6 per 10 ft fallen. Capping at 20d6. Which was honestly a pathetic amount of damage (on average). Mid level characters could easily survive incredibly long falls.
We now potentially have a new deadlier method of 1 pt per ft fallen. It's deadlier, and I like it.
Not only does lava do lots of damage, it's also a bit messy. You come out dripping in molten rock, which has the consistency of molasses and rapidly solidifies to basalt. So you're now encrusted in rocks. Your clothes are full of concrete. Your boots are full of concrete. Your pants are full of concrete.
Swimming in lava makes about as much sense as burrow speeds over like 0.5 feet per round, and those exist.
And for that matter you'd have to start taking into account the actual force generated and the composition of the surface you're hitting.
I've been giving this some thought (maybe too much, but it staves off the bleaching) and I've decided that I really really really want falling damage to depend on the composition of what you land on.
The reason for that is, I think the new falling system is too lethal. There have been people on real life who've survived falling from air planes . The system needs to reflect that. Under the old system, the inherent variability of dice made it so falls from the same height could do different amounts of damage, which reflected the different things you could land on and the different ways you could land on it. Reflected the people who live to tell how they took a header off the Golden Gate Bridge, and reflected the larger percentage of people who didn't. Under the new system, the same fall is equally deadly for everyone.
I'll admit the old system had it's faults, the number of dice rolled could certainly use fine tuning to catch it up with hit point inflation, but I think it did it's job better than the new system will.
Uh, I'm not great at transitions. I mentioned earlier that I think ground composition should have some bearing on how much damage you take. That's because it really makes a huge difference in survivability. The people I mentioned, who've survived falls out of airplanes, didn't go splat against the rocks. They survived by landing on snowy inclines that let them decelerate gradually, or they fell through skylights that killed some of their momentum without stopping them completely, or they bounced off of high tension wires. I think that falls onto stone should definitely do more damage then falls into snow or bushes. That's fairly common sense, it should be codified into a rule.
And, post script, here's a guide for maximizing your odds of surviving a fall from 35,000 feet. Keep it in mind if you ever fall out of an airplane! (Of course, your odds still aren't good, but you might as well maximize them.
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Here is a video to show someone stepping on lava: hint you sink. Lava Video
You'll "sink" into a few inches of pahoehoe lava, but wouldn't sink more than up to your thighs in a thicker flow, and, if it were actually hot enough to still be liquid on the top (e.g., Gollum in RoTK), every part of you would spontaneously combust from the radiant heat.
That movie, as well as "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom", contain another "found only in fantasy" trope: the underground lava chamber that people are somehow capable of existing in. In reality, if you were in such a place, the radiant heat from the liquid rock would quickly convert the entire chamber into a glowing oven the temperature as the lava, and all oxygen would be driven out either through oxygenation (i.e., burning) of minerals into oxides, or by displacement by volcanic gases such as sulfur-dioxide, hydrogen-sulfide, hydrogen fluoride, and hydrogen-chloride, which are all poisonous and acidic, and corrosively injurious to both the PCs and the equipment.
"Revenge of the Sith" got it partly right by showing Anakin spontaneously combust while laying crippled next to a lava flow. In actually their big fight jumping around on various object floating in the huge lava river would have been impossible: they would have asphyxiated from the fumes, and their clothing and hair been smoking then aflame as they take massive fire damage every round.
There is only one semi-safe place to be near an active lava flow: upwind and above ground. This video is a good example of the outgassing fumes and spontaneous combustion associated with them. (Note the tree branches fifty feet above the flow front in the background smoking and bursting into flames.)
thaanks for the reality check Slim Jim
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In my homebrew you fall into lava you die. And you don't get to become a Sith Lord.
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thaanks for the reality check Slim Jim
The guy who made the video I linked has an awesome channel; he's had close-up video from almost every day of the eruption.
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In my homebrew you fall into lava you die. And you don't get to become a Sith Lord.
Oddly enough, if you fall onto lava that's partly crusted over and don't punch through, you might survive. However, you'd be on top of hot rock anywhere from 200F to 1000F, and have to hop and run for your life to the side of the flow while taking fire damage.
Liquid lava? Yeah, you're a goner.
