Abe
New Member
Posts: 48
|
Post by Abe on Jan 15, 2019 13:46:03 GMT -8
So I set up an encounter in a sewer system with an Epochian Mermaid and Shockbus. It was your standard video game boss affair. The players have platforms they can stand on and fire on the creatures as they pop up, the creatures have access to pipes under the platform allowing them to move across the platform quickly and get some lovely back attacks.
4 rounds in and one of the party members, tired of wack a mole, dives into the 30M deep water. I was able to cobble some basic rules together from the base rules (HC Agility checks for swimming and Willpower for breath holding) which held us over.
Any idea on some more... expansive rules?
|
|
|
Post by aardvark892 on Jan 17, 2020 9:34:54 GMT -8
Loved the "wack a mole" comment. Laughed out loud and woke up my cat.
As far as underwater adventuring goes, I have wanted to run an all-underwater adventure since my early days GMing. I'd love to see a city of the Ancients almost completely flooded and the characters have to figure out a way to travel and explore the ruined city deep under water. The whole 3D effect of movement would be great to play out.
Don't forget that each PC should have a rating on how well they can swim. And pg. 121 in Hazards has an entry specifically about swimming. I'm not sure about how the water may affect attacks... maybe slow them to one attack every two rounds instead? Or just speed up the speeds of underwater creatures to reflect that this is their natural habitat?
Tim
|
|
toddk
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by toddk on Jan 17, 2020 18:18:51 GMT -8
One thing to keep in mind is soundwaves and shockwaves travel through water for a long distance. So audio cues where someone/something is will be very off. Similarly, explosives have likely much larger blast radii
Oxygen supply or a way to breathe underwater will be needed, so the characters can live
Water drag will be another problem, anything that causes drag will cause problems. Physical shields (like a Medieval knight would carry) would have to move through water edge on, as moving the flat face through water will be difficult.
Water conducts. So if you have electrical equipment, a small crack that you would ignore on land can cause your battery pack to short out. If that is providing power for your underwater vision gear, you are now blind. If that is providing the power for your underwater power armor, you might just electrocute yourself.
Waterlogged stuff. Trying to find books in a submerged city? You have goop instead. Better hope that the ink in the books was not water-soluble, otherwise you just have blank pages.
Rotted stuff. Wooden shingles, supports, and other wooden material that is fastened in place would become waterlogged and soon start rotting. This means a wooden roof will not keep the giant shark away from your bleeding characters.
The 3D movement would definitely be a change. Instead of the characters ascending through a submerged castle defeating the traps/hazards one floor at a time, the characters might just go into the top window and work their way down. Going from the top of one tower to the top of another tower is a relatively quick swim, as long as both have openings.
Currents. There can be currents flowing, with the characters being flowed gently downstream and unaware of the effect unless they are paying close attention to their surroundings. Indoors the current might go through a choke point and pick up speed, so some passageways might be impassable from one direction during part of the day (and on the other side of that passageway, anything in the way will steadily get sucked through).
Barnacles (with their sharp shells) can be a serious threat here, as the characters get scraped by a wall covered in barnacles, causing wounds, and getting the local sea life agitated from the blood in the water. Leading to a famous quote, "Thank goodness all the fish cleared out of the way, now I can see the other side of the room. Wait, why are the fish hiding?"
This is an exploration into a maze that has a hostile environment both between the characters and at the destination. It will take time to explore the entire area, putting together clues, backtracking due to a wall having fallen down, avoiding the hungry shark(s), and all of their gear has to be on a boat. If they forgot a piece of equipment they need to either make a replacement, use something else, or go without.
|
|
Abe
New Member
Posts: 48
|
Post by Abe on Jan 18, 2020 7:22:45 GMT -8
Thanks for the comments, this falls largely in line with what I was able to cobble together. Big Thumbs up to Toddk that's given me a bunch of help for an underwater adventure I'm planning.
I did have to reverse engineer the breath-holding rules. They made sense if only one thing happens to the players underwater but not if the situation changes. I'll post them here when I find my note book
|
|