As always you bring the quality content. Excellent video particularly the visibility was interesting as it’s something overlooked constantly in and out of water.
Thank you, Scott! I thought the underwater visibility was fantastic, so I wanted to share it and make more players aware of it. I still find it weird that "no light" still allows for ten feet of vision underwater when that would normally blind a creature lacking darkvision.
@@FlutesLoot I think vision is one of the many things hand waved away but it’s something important and can make or break exploration and combat encounters Yeah the murky water puzzled me too I think I would rule otherwise just based off the clip of the diver and shark Cheers
I am a first time DM preparing a one on one adventure with my wife. Don´t know much about rules yet, but the essentials kit said that I should check underwater rules for the Tower of the Storms quest. Thanks for this video, it was insightful and what I was looking for.
Thank you! I think the underwater rules are interesting, even if the "no light" miraculously provides 10-feet of vision haha. How did your encounter go?
I'm glad you mentioned the suffocation rules. that's one of the underused mechanics i like taking advantage of. even made a control build whose core tactic is drowning people on land. anyway great discussion of all the underwater rules and i agree DMs should use underwater combat and exploration more often. it's a good change of pace. yeah the visibility stuff is interesting. it can be a good way to work in obscurement to party tactics and let some niche spells like mind spike or abilities like hound of ill omen shine.
It's good stuff, so I want to enable more DMs to use water :P The visibility stuff is interesting, indeed! It would be cool if someone with Control Water, for example, could hold their action to part the murky water so their ally could suddenly gain visibility of the enemy for whatever they want to do. The enemy could potentially be "dead in the water" without visibility. An easy way to make underwater enemies scarier is to give them echolocation features that work as sight.
@@FlutesLoot agreed. people forget that without visibility lots of spells just arent available. not only is martial prowess hampered underwater but most spells as well. it's a good challenge for the player to kind of look at his spell list and see what can he use because there won't be alot and they'll be forced to play with unusual spells and tactics. seconded on echo location. blindsight works too. and as i mentioned earlier, spells like mind spike become useful if you can land it (no verbal so easily cast underwater). a sorcerer with subtle spell can turn psychic lance into an auto-kill spell as long as they know the enemy's name. they don't need to see the enemy to aim it, subtle cast it to continue holding your breath and if the enemy fails their save not only do they take dmg but are incapacitated (they start suffocating if they can't breathe underwater).
I agree there needs to be more underwater combat and maps or dungeons with water traps like when you fall into an Ooze but instead its a water elemental or barrels of water in this room with there lids off then a bunch of Water Weird's attack, stuff of that sort.
This rule might be to brutal, but if you ever tried diving you have been told to always breath in or out while diving up and down. This is because air get compress when you dive down and expand when you go up. So if you don't breath your lung will explode, killing you instand
@@FlutesLoot Not just that, I do think the way you structured your video is admittedly much better than mine. That, and I tend to bog down my videos with homebrew insertions, so I think you did better overall.
Thats actually a cool adventure idea, the BBEG tosses a decanter of endless water into a lake, which now threatens to overwhelm nearby settlements. The party must find the item and seal it before more harm can be done.
I hate underwater stuff. In my experience it involves the DM/GM bending tons of rules to avoid a TPK since nothing works right, you need magical dice to do even a slight amount of damage to anything, your AC plummets, and the adventure didn't even give us a chance to buy the right stuff to breathe underwater. If I find out the adventure involves underwater, I just start working on a new character.
Interesting! I haven't heard such a strong adverse reaction to underwater before. Why did your AC plummet? I'm assuming that was a house rule. I'm interested to know more about your perspective. On the flip side, I often wonder if DMs should avoid the videogame method of giving players exactly what they need to ignore the fact that they're going underwater. I think a good mix is healthy.
Purify food and drink. Purify the water in a 5ft radius from a point of your choosing. It ain't much but it could gain you an extra 5ft. of visibility. One might also rule it causes damage to saltwater creatures contacting this section of freshwater.
While there's no action to strangle someone, I think suffocation would be a useful mechanic for anyone homebrewing a chokehold! I would recommend at minimum that the strangle would need to last for as long as the character can suffocate before dropping to zero hitpoints, so it would take several rounds.
As always you bring the quality content.
Excellent video particularly the visibility was interesting as it’s something overlooked constantly in and out of water.
Thank you, Scott! I thought the underwater visibility was fantastic, so I wanted to share it and make more players aware of it. I still find it weird that "no light" still allows for ten feet of vision underwater when that would normally blind a creature lacking darkvision.
@@FlutesLoot
I think vision is one of the many things hand waved away but it’s something important and can make or break exploration and combat encounters
Yeah the murky water puzzled me too
I think I would rule otherwise just based off the clip of the diver and shark
Cheers
I am a first time DM preparing a one on one adventure with my wife. Don´t know much about rules yet, but the essentials kit said that I should check underwater rules for the Tower of the Storms quest. Thanks for this video, it was insightful and what I was looking for.
I'm glad I could help! Enjoy the adventure :)
Well done! Really could have used this info last week when I ran an underwater encounter in Waterdeep harbor. I got about 50% of the rules right, lol.
Thank you! I think the underwater rules are interesting, even if the "no light" miraculously provides 10-feet of vision haha. How did your encounter go?
Thank you for the video! So very helpful!!!
Happy to help!
Man I’m glad I saw that round table that led me to your channel
Me too! :D
I'm glad you mentioned the suffocation rules. that's one of the underused mechanics i like taking advantage of. even made a control build whose core tactic is drowning people on land. anyway great discussion of all the underwater rules and i agree DMs should use underwater combat and exploration more often. it's a good change of pace.
yeah the visibility stuff is interesting. it can be a good way to work in obscurement to party tactics and let some niche spells like mind spike or abilities like hound of ill omen shine.
It's good stuff, so I want to enable more DMs to use water :P
The visibility stuff is interesting, indeed! It would be cool if someone with Control Water, for example, could hold their action to part the murky water so their ally could suddenly gain visibility of the enemy for whatever they want to do. The enemy could potentially be "dead in the water" without visibility.
An easy way to make underwater enemies scarier is to give them echolocation features that work as sight.
@@FlutesLoot agreed. people forget that without visibility lots of spells just arent available. not only is martial prowess hampered underwater but most spells as well. it's a good challenge for the player to kind of look at his spell list and see what can he use because there won't be alot and they'll be forced to play with unusual spells and tactics.
seconded on echo location. blindsight works too. and as i mentioned earlier, spells like mind spike become useful if you can land it (no verbal so easily cast underwater).
a sorcerer with subtle spell can turn psychic lance into an auto-kill spell as long as they know the enemy's name. they don't need to see the enemy to aim it, subtle cast it to continue holding your breath and if the enemy fails their save not only do they take dmg but are incapacitated (they start suffocating if they can't breathe underwater).
I agree there needs to be more underwater combat and maps or dungeons with water traps like when you fall into an Ooze but instead its a water elemental or barrels of water in this room with there lids off then a bunch of Water Weird's attack, stuff of that sort.
100%
We are starting a water session soon, this is well timed!
Fantastic! Let me know how it goes :)
This rule might be to brutal, but if you ever tried diving you have been told to always breath in or out while diving up and down. This is because air get compress when you dive down and expand when you go up. So if you don't breath your lung will explode, killing you instand
I'd run that by a group before surprising them with it. Scuba diving may not function like water breathing, too.
Nice video! I missed the rule from Tasha's in my video on this, so thank you for pointing it out.
I'm glad I could add to what you've described already!
@@FlutesLoot Not just that, I do think the way you structured your video is admittedly much better than mine. That, and I tend to bog down my videos with homebrew insertions, so I think you did better overall.
@@Calavid thank you for the positive feedback! I watched your video months ago, and I didn't think it was too bogged down :) I like your videos.
maybe Create Water or a Decanter of Endless Water would help visibility, if we assume the created water is clear
I like it! I would assume it's pure, clean water. The Decanter is especially a fantastic idea.
Thats actually a cool adventure idea, the BBEG tosses a decanter of endless water into a lake, which now threatens to overwhelm nearby settlements. The party must find the item and seal it before more harm can be done.
@@Calavid "Why is the lake overflowing??? It hasn't rained in weeks!"
I think you could clear the water with Control Water probably
I like to think so, and I like that spell.
I hate underwater stuff. In my experience it involves the DM/GM bending tons of rules to avoid a TPK since nothing works right, you need magical dice to do even a slight amount of damage to anything, your AC plummets, and the adventure didn't even give us a chance to buy the right stuff to breathe underwater. If I find out the adventure involves underwater, I just start working on a new character.
So… unhappy out of your element?
You are gonna get wet in every game I run!
Interesting! I haven't heard such a strong adverse reaction to underwater before. Why did your AC plummet? I'm assuming that was a house rule. I'm interested to know more about your perspective.
On the flip side, I often wonder if DMs should avoid the videogame method of giving players exactly what they need to ignore the fact that they're going underwater. I think a good mix is healthy.
Purify food and drink. Purify the water in a 5ft radius from a point of your choosing. It ain't much but it could gain you an extra 5ft. of visibility. One might also rule it causes damage to saltwater creatures contacting this section of freshwater.
That's a fantastic idea! Thank you.
I wonder whether this suffocation rule also applies when a character tries to strangle someone to death. Or would it take at least 11 rounds?
While there's no action to strangle someone, I think suffocation would be a useful mechanic for anyone homebrewing a chokehold! I would recommend at minimum that the strangle would need to last for as long as the character can suffocate before dropping to zero hitpoints, so it would take several rounds.