Probably more of a discussion of the rules than a question
The new rules for falling into water is it reduces the effective distance by the maximum depth of the water
This is a very big change. So for example Book 1 of Serpents Skull has a 40ft fall into 10ft water. Encountered at level 1 . With an underwater fight at the end
In 1E the creature falling takes 2d3 damage.
In 2E they take 15. This makes it incredibly deadly.
Does anyone have any theories as to why the damage from falling into water has been increased ? Or is does it go the other way in that falling into very deep water doesn’t hurt anymore but in this case you are still going to hit the bottom
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Well, for one, Serpent's Skull wasn't written for 2e. So there's that.
Second, because hitting water from any considerable distance is like hitting concrete unless you're actively diving (and then the distance is just a bit longer depending on good form).
Also, that's not exactly how falling damage into water is decided. It says that the maximum it can be reduced by is the depth of the water, more as a limiting factor than anything. 20 foot reduction to the fall is the baseline, 30 for diving. Less if the water isn't deep enough.
But what it comes down to is use your best judgment when converting AP stuff, because some of the rules have changed. You can't expect all of the numbers to line up.
In addition, if you fall into water, snow, or another relatively soft substance, you can treat the fall as though it were 20 feet shorter, or 30 feet shorter if you intentionally dove in. The effective reduction can’t be greater than the depth (so when falling into 10-foot-deep water, you treat the fall as 10 feet shorter).
I think in this case I’d adjust the water depth to 20 feet deep at the point of impact. 40 feet minus 20 is 20 foot fall for 10 damage.
Or you could simply reverse engineer things based on average damage... a 1st edition character has somewhere between 6 (wizard) and 14 (barbarian) HP. 2d3 damage is about 4, so you want damage that is 2/3 of a squishy character’s HP and 1/3 of a beefy character's HP.
In PF2 your squishy character has around 12 HP and your beefy barbarian has around 24 HP. So you want roughly 5-8 damage. A 10-15 foot fall will do that, so with a 40 foot drop you want a 25-30 foot deep pool below.
If the AP wants shallower water for some reason, then have a deep pool surrounded by shallower water. The PCs can swim to the shallower water... though honestly for most purposes 10 feet of water may as well be 100 feet of water, it's still over their heads...
Your last point on 10 feet suddenly meaning they need to swim is the most pertinent point here
So I don’t know the details of the adventure you’re converting, but in calm water swimming doesn’t even require a skill check, you just need to pay attention to the rules on holding breath if the characters go underwater. Insert a current or bad weather or whatnot and that may change of course.
Pretty sure if you don't spend at least one action to swim you sink underwater in the new rules
Yeah, that's what I was getting at. In past editions of pathfinder and d&d water was either something you built for, or it was the deadliest obstacle ever. PF2 allows for dangerous water situations while also making flat water something any adventurer can manage.
Still takes the action... typically you would move with that action, but 1 action to tread water isn’t a bad thing. Makes water different from difficult land terrain.
Man, now I want to plan a water encounter......
I've only run one swimming combat. It didn't end up being that difficult, but we did notice one thing that felt really weird. One fighter that had made an improvised spear while camping before heading down into the wetlands. We then realized that normal improvised weapon penalties were the same as the penalty you get trying to use an axe in the water.
Metal weapons, no. Metal armor, not if you have enough STR.
That requirement to spend an action to swim can be particularly nasty if you end up confused while swimming (sea serpents are mean!), especially if you are carrying a ranged weapon.
Confusion will let you take actions to facilitate attacks, which could keep you at the surface if you are a melee fighter, but if you rely on ranged weapons that work underwater confusion can easily drown you...
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That requirement to spend an action to swim can be particularly nasty if you end up confused while swimming (sea serpents are mean!), especially if you are carrying a ranged weapon.
Confusion will let you take actions to facilitate attacks, which could keep you at the surface if you are a melee fighter, but if you rely on ranged weapons that work underwater confusion can easily drown you...
*** laughs in Breath Control feat ***
That feat is amazing. I love how they recognized, "this is totally mechanically out of line with every other feat in the game in terms of how big of a difference it makes, but if someone is going to take this feat we need to make it amazing".