If you dive (or fall) into water (or similar substance) do you end up at the surface like a bobbing cork? Or will you be starting your turn a dozen feet underwater and will need to spend actions swimming to the surface?
Regarding jumping into water, the Falling rules say the following:
Does this mean that if you jump into 50 feet of water you end up 30 feet below the surface?
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It's not the fall that kills you. It is the sudden stop at the end.
The damage caused by hitting the water still happens when you initially hit the water. So reducing the effective distance fallen by 20 or 30 feet is simply because you are being stopped by something that moves at least a bit, rather than something solid like dirt or sand.
Your idea of ending up 20 or 30 feet below the water's surface is probably what the game developers had in mind. That if you fall 50 feet and land in a lake, that you end up 20 feet below the surface. And if you instead dive off of a 40 foot high dive platform, that you had better have a 30 foot deep swimming pool that you are landing in.
Though that last one is a bit odd. From what I have found online professional diving pools are only about 10 feet deep for a diving platform of 33 feet high.
The game rules really don't say how far under the water you end up. I could see running it that the distance into the water that you end up is 5 ft + 1/10 of the distance fallen. Or 5 ft + 2/10 if you dove in (the extra damage reduction is because you are slowing down less quickly from the water and therefore traveling farther).
Though that ruling doesn't really explain why you need 20 feet of water to fall in to even if you only end up going through 4 feet of it.
But hey, this is a game. It only needs to approximate real physics.
Not to imply that the mechanics of the game should necessarily model real life, but I have found that, in general, no human falling from any height is likely to go any deeper than about 16' (whether or not they survive impact with the water's surface).
At the risk of stating the obvious, I feel like the Rules as Written are designed to give maximum cinematic leeway to characters attempting heroic dives off seaside cliffs.
Not to imply that the mechanics of the game should necessarily model real life, but I have found that, in general, no human falling from any height is likely to go any deeper than about 16' (whether or not they survive impact with the water's surface).
At the risk of stating the obvious, I feel like the Rules as Written are designed to give maximum cinematic leeway to characters attempting heroic dives off seaside cliffs.
Only so long as they turn into a fish on their way down though.