Pretty simple how far do you sink when you fail a swim check in water? There is no reference to it that I could find.
All I can find is that if you fail, you are underwater. So I guess if you fail you are just right beneath the surface unless you were already deeper.
I found myself looking for this once before... but I never found an answer. The page defining the skill, itself, mainly just talks about successful checks making progress, and some nonsense about holding your breath. The rules for swimming seem to just repeat what the skill definition says, without expanding on what a failed check entails. I can't find anything on buoyancy, either.
I know it doesn't make sense to use the rules for falling, but it seems like there should be some sort of defined rate at which you sink...
If you fail by 4 or less, you make no progress. If you fail by 5 or more, you go underwater.
That's all we have to go by. Frankly, falling like a stone doesn't make much sense, even in most armors. At worst, I'd maybe have the character sink 5 foot down every round that they fail by 5 or more.
When you envision someone getting sucked down, that's because of extra forces, like a strong current or some creature dragging the person.
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There's info in the Aquatic Adventures book. Here's the summary I made for my cheat sheet:
A normal Swim check allows a character to move up to ¼ of its land speed with a single move, or half its land speed with a double move (on a failure, it doesn’t make any progress, and a failure by 5 or more means it goes underwater or sinks as based on buoyancy); no run, charge, or 5’ step actions underwater.
PC in the water begins to sink at the end of the first turn they fail a Swim check by 5 or more, moving down 10 feet; the speed increases by 10 feet each round to a maximum speed of 30 feet downward per round after 3 rounds (movement provokes AoOs, and sinking creatures are considered off-balance); once per round if sinking, a creature can try to stop its sinking with a DC 20 Swim check as a move action; once stopped, a creature can swim upward treating each square as double.
Thanks Jhaeman.
Any chance you, or anyone else, has got a link to said "Aquatic Adeventures" material that I could maybe look at and make me own notes?
Here's the link: Aquatic Adventures. Still in stock, and a trustworthy reviewer gave it 5 stars :)
when you see a musical lobster you know you've gone too far 'under da sea'...
oh, and Aquatic Adventures on AoN, sadly no Rules or Skill notes.
PC in the water begins to sink at the end of the first turn they fail a Swim check by 5 or more, moving down 10 feet; the speed increases by 10 feet each round to a maximum speed of 30 feet downward per round after 3 rounds (movement provokes AoOs, and sinking creatures are considered off-balance); once per round if sinking, a creature can try to stop its sinking with a DC 20 Swim check as a move action; once stopped, a creature can swim upward treating each square as double.
Wow… thats some crazy fast sinking… and DC20 to stop… that pretty much ensures most PCs will drown once they start sinking… I can’t help but feel like these rules were written with the assumption that everyone was wearing heavy plate armor… because objects with any amount of buoyancy (like a human body) don't sink at an ever increasing rate normally, objects sink faster as they take in more water, thus reducing their buoyancy by replacing air with water. 3 rounds to reach maximum sinking rate lines up with someone wearing full plate armor as 18 seconds is about how long it would take to completely saturate the armor…
I’m just flabbergasted by how overly punitive those swim rules are…
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I’m just flabbergasted by how overly punitive those swim rules are…
I agree. Seems very unrealistic. Like it was written by people who've never been in the water before, but just watched a bunch of cartoons about it.
To be fair, please keep in mind this is only my homemade summary of the rules from a long time back, and I can't promise they're an accurate translation of what's actually in the book.
Wow… thats some crazy fast sinking… and DC20 to stop… that pretty much ensures most PCs will drown once they start sinking… I can’t help but feel like these rules were written with the assumption that everyone was wearing heavy plate armor… because objects with any amount of buoyancy (like a human body) don't sink at an ever increasing rate normally, objects sink faster as they take in more water, thus reducing their buoyancy by replacing air with water. 3 rounds to reach maximum sinking rate lines up with someone wearing full plate armor as 18 seconds is about how long it would take to completely saturate the armor…I’m just flabbergasted by how overly punitive those swim rules are…
Actually, as you sink you do become less buoyant as air spaces (eg lungs) and other compressible materials get crushed by the increasing pressure (1 atmosphere every 10m). From experience (~1000 dives) a terminal velocity of 30m/min - 10ft/rd is reasonable assuming the character is not swimming down.
EDIT Also, once you are dropping due to a lack of buoyancy faster than you can swim you are stuffed unless you can add to your buoyancy. I can't see how a DC20 check is relevant.
Wow… thats some crazy fast sinking… and DC20 to stop… that pretty much ensures most PCs will drown once they start sinking… I can’t help but feel like these rules were written with the assumption that everyone was wearing heavy plate armor… because objects with any amount of buoyancy (like a human body) don't sink at an ever increasing rate normally, objects sink faster as they take in more water, thus reducing their buoyancy by replacing air with water. 3 rounds to reach maximum sinking rate lines up with someone wearing full plate armor as 18 seconds is about how long it would take to completely saturate the armor…I’m just flabbergasted by how overly punitive those swim rules are…
Actually, as you sink you do become less buoyant as air spaces (eg lungs) and other compressible materials get crushed by the increasing pressure (1 atmosphere every 10m). From experience (~1000 dives) a terminal velocity of 30m/min - 10ft/rd is reasonable assuming the character is not swimming down.
EDIT Also, once you are dropping due to a lack of buoyancy faster than you can swim you are stuffed unless you can add to your buoyancy. I can't see how a DC20 check is relevant.
Yes a terminal velocity of 10ft per round is reasonable… but apparently thats the starting point and terminal velocity is 3x that… and while yes, if the air is compressed out of your lungs or if you swallow water you will sink faster, this typically doesn't occur until after a living creature is unable to hold its breath any longer, be it reaching their natural limit or having the air forced out of their lungs by an impact or strong current.
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So - how many people between 18-30 who cannot swim and are placed in Calm 15-30C water deeper than 10ft drown in Real Life? What are the actual statistics? Rough water should increase the drowning rate. Cold water (especially near 0 to 5C) can cause issues. That would give you a better sense of the realism of the model.
My point is that it IS a game and not necessarily meant to be accurate.
I'd just like to point out that a character with a +0 Swim check won't have any issues swimming in calm waters as long as they can 'take 10' on their checks (it's only DC 10 after all). Even with a swim modifier in the -1 to -4 range, you can keep yourself afloat with a 'take 10' (basically, you'll be treading water) since you only go under if you fail by 5 or more.
So, drowning 'in game' in calm water generally requires that you are unable to focus on what you are doing (unable to 'take 10'), a very weak swimmer (no ranks and/or a single-digit strength score), and/or encumbered or otherwise hindered in your swimming (encumbrance or armor check penalties).
Swim being it's own skill has always been a bit of an issue with the D&D3.x & PF1 games: It's just too specialized and rarely used for a lot of characters to invest skill points in. Rolling it into the more general Athletics skill in PF2e was a significant improvement...
@Chell, the pressure resistance of the body/lungs is negligible (they are designed to expand and contract). At 10 metres, they will be squeezed to half their surface volume and a 1/3 at 20m.
[The reason scuba divers lungs don't get squeezed is because they breathe pressurized air.]
My estimate for terminal velocity is based on my 'skydiving' down without inflating my buoyancy control device (the jacket/harness divers wear). My dive computer shows about 30m/min after the first few metres of descent where I'm basically neutrally buoyant at the surface.
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My estimate for terminal velocity is based on my 'skydiving' down without inflating my buoyancy control device (the jacket/harness divers wear). My dive computer shows about 30m/min after the first few metres of descent where I'm basically neutrally buoyant at the surface.that's what I'd expect at 10-30m depth, 3m/6s or 10ft per round. I did the cube as a sanity check, a human would be slower as drag in a liquid is important.
Next time you go down can you fold up into a cube so we can get better data? We'll need salinity and temperature as well... lol...
Ha ha. The deepest I've gone on a rapid descent is approx 50m in Truk lagoon and I started filling the BCD from about 40m to avoid crashing into the bottom. Looking at my logs, the rate of descent is remarkably consistent all the way down.
Most skydiving descents don't go beyond 25-30m but are pretty consistent whether in the English channel, Maldives, Red Sea or NZ waters.
FWIW when I'm doing the descents my right arm is bent with my fingers pinching my nose as I have to equalize near constantly, the left arm is in a similar position so I can read the dive computer on my wrist and hold the inflator valve and both knees are bent back because of the drag on the fins. So I guess there is a reasonable amount of drag from my head, torso, arms and upper legs being on a plane. Somebody sinking feet first might well go faster.