Two tanky people with heavy armor(A and B) are barely swinming in a rough river (DC 15), both get hit with insanity, both fail their save and A rolls a 89% and attacks B. Now B has to attack back. At the same Moment the water gets stormy (DC 20 to swim)
A is the worse swimmer of the two and will fail most swim checks and will be sinking. B has to dive deeper to keep attacking A.
In case neither is able to kill the other one and one of them keeps failing the swim check each round, both will just drown.
Is that correct? Because its kinda a form of self harm and even dominate person (a spell of a higher spell level than confusion, which insanity is based on) states: Obviously self-destructive orders are not carried out.
But neither confusion nor insanity have that line in them, so self destructive should be ok.
And thats my next question:
What if A is hit with insanity and B is hit with dominate person and both fail their saves. (And B is told to attack A until A is dead and fails his second save).
Will B still swim after A until both drown?
Or will the "sef-destructive line" from dominate person kick in and let him surface to prevent B's death?
While we are at the topic.
If you hit a 26-50% (babble) or 51-74% (hit yourself) on the confusion chart, you arent allowed to move, so are you allowed to make swim checks to reach the other shore or to stay above water? Or are you just start to sink if you hit one of these two.
In case neither is able to kill the other one and one of them keeps failing the swim check each round, both will just drown.
Is that correct?
Technically, yes, it is correct. The insane person (A) is generally beholden to the whims of random action (a GM can adjust this for specific situations). The dominated one (B) will have a bit more agency depending on the specific command. If ordered to attack A, then B can take actions that would move them into position or give them a better advantage, they can also try and breathe if they start to run out of breath, but trying to say they need to breathe every round is not a reasonable excuse to avoid following the command (in a game where you can generally hold you breath at least a number of rounds equal to your Con while performing strenuous activity).
Space Saver:
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In reality, unless both characters are literally not moving, or constantly staying in combat reach every 2 rounds, it will probably not happen. A will always try and attack B if attacked (otherwise they have a chance to act normally and try and not drown). B will always try and attack A (if that's the command), but they don't have to stop breathing, they can take a round or so to set up a position (or take a life-saving action) as long as they are continuing to follow the command (ie. some player obviously trying to not do the action by making a claim or excuse about how they have to breathe every single round or that the water might be polluted and they could maybe catch a disease).
Eventually B will miss a round of attacking A, and A will have a chance at a Confusion roll (they might still end up attacking or babbling). Or they will be too far apart to attack each other (even if they try and swim closer, one will fail), and the same thing will happen.
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If the two continue to remain in combat range and keep attacking each other, however, then that's just what happens, assuming the current doesn't carry them into shallower water.
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And thats my next question:
Will B still swim after A until both drown?
They will if they were dominated and the command was to specifically swim after them and attack them. This is assuming a relatively normal situation; two humans in a lake or something. Ordering a dwarf to swim out after a fish or mermaid, or chase a ship out into the open ocean purely by swimming is obviously self-destructive on its face (again, barring a specific factor to the unique situation).
Space Saver:
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As long as it's possible for them to do it, they will (but that's not the same as being ordered to drown). If A leaves the water, B will probably pursue, since the command seems more about attacking (so it might depend on the actual command given). A dominator could certainly order them to only attack in or from the water for some reason. If a specific situation occurs, that can alter things. Let's say during this time, person A reaches the end of the reservoir and plummets over the dam. Person B doesn't have to logically follow them over (unless the dam is clearly small). They can move out. If they spot person A still alive, they can then continue the pursuit in a reasonable manner. If person B goes over 'the falls', then person A can't reasonably attack them, and will likely babble since they can't take the attack action (which could lead to them going over the edge anyway).
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Or will the "sef-destructive line" from dominate person kick in and let him surface to prevent B's death?
It won't kick in (in this example), since the command isn't to drown or stay underwater for an absurd amount of time. Just like a command to attack a dragon or storm giant isn't 'obviously self-destructive' (unlike "Jump into that lake of lava and attack that red dragon"), swimming isn't innately harmful, even in possibly contaminated water (though a lake of acid would be different). B can still take steps to breathe as long as they are continuing to try and attack A. If A is below the surface, they will try and swim down to attack, they could even conceivably try and swim a little ahead and prepare to hit them as they pass, as long as the action is a reasonable attempt and not an attempt to cheese or negate being dominated or follow a command (like trying to waste time or run out the duration).
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While we are at the topic.
If you hit a 26-50% (babble) or 51-74% (hit yourself) on the confusion chart, you aren't allowed to move, so are you allowed to make swim checks to reach the other shore or to stay above water? Or are you just start to sink if you hit one of these two.
The babble option specifically says 'do nothing else', the damaging one isn't quite so clear. A GM could reasonably rule that damaging yourself is a standard and let them take a move action to do something (as long as it was reasonable to the situation or environment), but that's a GM's call and based entirely on an individual situation.
For this scenario its a stormy water in a really deep and wide river (something like 450 feet wide and 100 feet deep) and no real chance to hit bank or to get to shallower water or just a stormy lake with no shore in sight and 100 feet deep.
So if A is failing nearly all his swim checks he will sink fast (i just realised that their is no sinking speed in the rules, i always handeld it with 10 feet per round if you fail you swim check by 5 or more)
Say both have a constution of 20 (tanks), thats 20 rounds of fighting under water.
B has a +10 in swim, so he can only ascend if he rolls a 10 (45% chance), if A sinks 10 feet every round he will hit the ground in 10 rounds. Thats half his air. If B has to attack A for this whole 10 rounds (which is reasonable), there is no real chance either of them could surface now to catch their breath.
They can only move 15 feet upwards as a full round action, if they hit the DC of 20. B (the better swimmer of the two) will need a 10 to succeed. From 10 rounds he only makes his swim check 6 rounds (5,5 on average), so he can only ascend 90 feet (6x 15 feet). (not including that a 4 or lower will set him back 10 feet)
He would only be able to safetly attack A until a depth of around 40-50 feet. But thats totally depending on his swim checks and would mean that he would abandon attack A after just a few rounds and than not being able to find him again if he surfaces ones (not much to see underwater).
Is it self-destructive or just dangerous to follow A to the ground? I mean there is still a chance he succeeds 6 times in a row and hits to surface after he was on the ground of the river.
On the other hand its a very slim chance to survive this sort of dive for B.
And just for clarification:
If both are insane and keep attacking/hitting each other, there is no such thing as using a move action to get to the surface. They rly have to spend their full action for a full attack and keep drowning.
Pizza Lord wrote:
The babble option specifically says 'do nothing else', the damaging one isn't quite so clear. A GM could reasonably rule that damaging yourself is a standard and let them take a move action to do something (as long as it was reasonable to the situation or environment), but that's a GM's call and based entirely on an individual situation.
I never thought that a creature who hits himself can use their move action to move. For me that was always a full-round action to hit oneself. Because the cant determine their actions, i always thoug 26-74 are full-round action with nothing to spare (not even a quick spell or using a free action to speak).
Thanks for you answears.
In my last session two NPC get hit with this and i just realised how deadly confusion can be in water
Attack nearest creature (for this purpose, a familiar counts as part of the subject's self)
To attack the nearest creature you need to be able to see/perceive him.
In stormy water, a guy swimming has a hard time localizing a creature that is submerged and a few yards from him.
The confused guy who is compelled to attack back his attacker will swim down to find him, but it is hardly guaranteed he will be able to localize his target.
The "babbling" part of the spell is way more dangerous underwater. It is possible to babble and hold your breath?
It will shorten your air reserve?
In stormy water, a guy swimming has a hard time localizing a creature that is submerged and a few yards from him.
The confused guy who is compelled to attack back his attacker will swim down to find him, but it is hardly guaranteed he will be able to localize his target.
Thats an aspect i totally forget to be honest, on the other hand i know if they stay near me and attack me or if they move, if they move up or down (ofc 5 feet down, than 5 feet right would be hard to catch, but just down shouldnt be a problem).
So if A fails hiw swim check and drowns, B just has to dive deeper/fail their swim check too and will be right next to A again.
If i would have applied more realism (moving in random direction on the start of ones turn, like 1d4 squares if you fail an additional swim check), than they would have lost their enemy really fast.
But their are no rules for that and it was a more or less random encounter with a lot going on to keep track, so i didnt implemented any rules with additional movement.
Diego Rossi wrote:
The "babbling" part of the spell is way more dangerous underwater. It is possible to babble and hold your breath?
It will shorten your air reserve?
That are rly good questions. RAW i wouldnt say so, because there is no such ruling. But it would make an aweful lot of sense.
B has a +10 in swim, so he can only ascend if he rolls a 10 (45% chance) ...
Is it self-destructive or just dangerous to follow A to the ground? I mean there is still a chance he succeeds 6 times in a row and hits to surface after he was on the ground of the river.
On the other hand its a very slim chance to survive this sort of dive for B.
Like you said, he has a 45% of success. There's a difference between dangerous and certain death or self-destruction. Ordering someone to attack a dragon is dangerous, but combat has enough chance and variables that anything is possible (even if the odds are highly against it). Ordering someone to stand in place and let a dragon try and bite them over an over is clearly self-destructive, even if the dragon might roll a miss on the bite attack a few times.
Even so, there becomes certain points where a reasonable action becomes dangerous then becomes unreasonable or obviously impossible. Asking someone to jump in the river and hold their breath for 1 minute is reasonable, asking them to go 2 minutes is probably going to be attempted, but they'll be 'forced' to surface for air if they can't. Asking someone to stay underwater for 5 minutes is not (unless they know they can, or can breathe water). The character will probably try to attack the other, but at a point, self-preservation will kick in (assuming the effect they're under allows or takes it into account).
Is it a bad situation? Sure, but that would likely be the same case if both characters just fell into the middle of the river without any effects on them (they'd just have more chances to try and make Swim checks).
The "babbling" part of the spell is way more dangerous underwater. It is possible to babble and hold your breath?
It will shorten your air reserve?
That are rly good questions. RAW i wouldnt say so, because there is no such ruling. But it would make an aweful lot of sense.
Actually there are rules for this, they are just bunched together without being overly specific. Doing standard\full round actions underwater reduce the time one can hold his breath:
"A character who has no air to breathe can hold her breath for 2 rounds per point of Constitution. If a character takes a standard or full-round action, the remaining duration that the character can hold her breath is reduced by 1 round. "
since this would include stuff like casting a spell (I'm not going into ALL the things that include) babbling should follow suit.
I would rule that babbling would count as a 1 round reduction despite it saying they're basically doing nothing else. Even though it isn't a strenuous activity (I wouldn't make someone drop to –1 if they were staggered and did it) I would rule that it is expending air faster than holding your breath.
There are some actions that I would rule use up your whole, or most of, your held breath, like gasping or blowing up a balloon, in which case I would reduce the remaining time by some number of rounds or all of them. Similar to if someone was trapped underwater and a character was swimming down and transferring breath or doing CPR, I would cut the rounds (and add some to the other). But those are specific situations and calls.
