Quote:
Originally Posted by Langy
That doesn't make everyone automatically able to swim. Also, it makes it so people who are trained in athletics can swim - this is one skill I, personally, always seem to forget to add to any character I make. In fact, almost every character I've seene except ones with Swimming as a big part of their nature have the Swimming skill missing even though not being able to swim is actually really rare in a modern setting.
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Having been in the pool with a great many non-swimming recruits in a modern setting, I have to strongly disagree, swimming is a skill the majority of the people in the world completely lack, but the default is generous enough for most people.
It's fascinating when people who grew up on islands and go to the beach regularly and people who spend their Summers in public pools in cities never learned to swim.
About 1/3 of Americans can Swim, another 1/3 get regular default rolls for familiarity, about a 1/3 should get penalized for lack of familiarity on their default since they panic when you toss them in the deep end of the pool and need remedial training just to get their default rolls, and about 10% of those probably need incompetence since they need to be rescued in a pool.
Keep in mind too that 1/3 of Americans are Fat for a +3 bonus to default and another 1/3 are Overweight for a +1 bonus to default, add on another +3 for entering the water normally and that rolling against default isn't bad at all.
However, this is a tangent we don't need to go on so as not to derail this thread.