Combat (and other activity) Underwater

[The_Nightwatch]

Originally Posted by davidtmoore

He can Retreat on that bad boy as well

Well...maybe. Move backwards is halved, so unless he's got enoug Swimming move, he have a Move of 1. If so, I wouldn't let him retreat, myself.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by The_Nightwatch

Well...maybe. Move backwards is halved, so unless he's got enoug Swimming move, he have a Move of 1. If so, I wouldn't let him retreat, myself.

Isn't Retreat allowed to everybody with any Move above zero? (Given that Move is usually expressed as an integer . . .)

[davidtmoore]

Originally Posted by davidtmoore

...Aquatic or Amphibious. Might also be worth allowing a Perk: Underwater Vision (like Nictating Membrane without the HT bonus) and a Feature (for the Machine meta-trait, etc.)

On a rethink, I wouldn't make in an automatic feature of Aquatic or Amphibious. I'd say being able to see underwater is a Feature that comes packaged with Nictating Membrane, with a suitable Unusual Background Perk (Underwater Vision), and with the Body of Water, Machine, Icthyoform and other relevant meta-traits.

[davidtmoore]

Originally Posted by The_Nightwatch

Well...maybe. Move backwards is halved, so unless he's got enoug Swimming move, he have a Move of 1. If so, I wouldn't let him retreat, myself.

In my example, the swimmer has a Swimming Move of 3, so I'd say he could do it.

My general point is that the Swimming Dodge is deliberately heavily penalised, as people just aren't a lot of use in a fight underwater, but you can partly compensate with maneuvers, techniques and/or high attributes and skills.

[Erik_Nielsen]

Originally Posted by davidtmoore

This is why I want underwater attacks to provide the target with a bonus to dodge. A strong swimmer with a BS of, say, 6.25 might have a land Dodge of 9 and swimming Dodge of 5. But the evil merman's trident thrust gives him a +2 to Dodge (as below), so he's dodging at 7. He can Retreat on that bad boy as well, giving him a final Dodge of 8, which is pretty respectable. In fact, he probably has Aquabatics, so can attempt an Aquabatic Dodge to boot. The merman's dodging the swimmer's own attacks at 11, but then, you probably shouldn't throw down with a merman in his own environment.

Here's the thing: JQ Mortal, with everything at 10, gets BS 5, Dodge 8-, Basic Move 5, Swimming Move 1. Under your scheme, JQ Mortal gets a Dodge of 8- vs. any Swinging Attack, 6- vs. Thrusting, and 4- vs. all ranged attacks. With a Retreat (or Dodge and Drop), the numbers go to 11-, 9-, and 7-, respectively. Oddly enough, our fearless Ninja with DX29, BS 9.75, and Basic Move of 9 gets the same numbers.

I'm exaggerating, of course; Ninja's likely to have also purchased Combat Reflexes and a level of Enhanced Dodge, not to mention Increased Basic Move, but the problem remains the same: basing Dodge on Move runs us into game balance issues. Assigning modifiers to defenses, however, such as the -4 for being stunned or the -1 for Bad Footing, is based on good RAW precedent. And since I think we can agree that Dodging underwater is easier than Dodging while Stunned and harder than contending with Bad Footing, -3 sounds good to me. And, just like Bad Footing, I think it totally makes sense to be able to purchase a Perk to reduce this to, say, -1.

Perk: Underwater Combat Training [1]
You’ve trained at fighting underwater. You attack at -1 for swinging weapons, no penalty for thrusting weapons, and you suffer no penalty to Parry or Block and your Dodge is at -1 when fighting underwater.

More to come, I promise.

[davidtmoore]

Originally Posted by Erik_Nielsen

Here's the thing: JQ Mortal, with everything at 10, gets BS 5, Dodge 8-, Basic Move 5, Swimming Move 1. Under your scheme, JQ Mortal gets a Dodge of 8- vs. any Swinging Attack, 6- vs. Thrusting, and 4- vs. all ranged attacks. With a Retreat (or Dodge and Drop), the numbers go to 11-, 9-, and 7-, respectively. Oddly enough, our fearless Ninja with DX29, BS 9.75, and Basic Move of 9 gets the same numbers.

I'm exaggerating, of course; Ninja's likely to have also purchased Combat Reflexes and a level of Enhanced Dodge, not to mention Increased Basic Move, but the problem remains the same: basing Dodge on Move runs us into game balance issues. Assigning modifiers to defenses, however, such as the -4 for being stunned or the -1 for Bad Footing, is based on good RAW precedent. And since I think we can agree that Dodging underwater is easier than Dodging while Stunned and harder than contending with Bad Footing, -3 sounds good to me.

Okay, fair points. I wanted a correlation so as to reward people with increased Swimming Move, but fairer and more detailed solutions would probably get too crunchy.

Thinking on it, the bonus should really be for all defenses rather than Dodge. Ranged weapons underwater should definitely also give a +2 bonus, as they're also much slower than their above-water counterparts.

Originally Posted by Erik_Nielsen

And, just like Bad Footing, I think it totally makes sense to be able to purchase a Perk to reduce this to, say, -1.

Twitchy about this. There isn't a direct analogy - the BF penalty's about being clumsy and unsteady, while the underwater penalty's about a physical force slowing you down. Training should have a smaller impact - maybe reducing the penalty by 1.

Originally Posted by Erik_Nielsen

Perk: Underwater Combat Training [1]
You’ve trained at fighting underwater. You attack at -1 for swinging weapons, no penalty for thrusting weapons, and you suffer no penalty to Parry or Block and your Dodge is at -1 when fighting underwater.

To be consistent with MA, this should probably be specialised by combat skill.

[davidtmoore]

This is my effort:

Fighting Underwater

When fighting underwater, surface creatures suffer a base -1 to all attack, parry and block rolls, and -3 to all dodge rolls, and may not attack at higher than their DX-based Swimming skill, or defend at higher than (DX-based Swimming/2)+3 (before bonuses for Enhanced Defenses, Combat Reflexes etc.). The Aquatic Combat perk (see below) partly compensates for this; Amphibious and Aquatic characters, or those benefiting from the Swim spell, are unaffected.

All maneuvers, techniques and options are valid except those based on gravity (Takedown, Pin, Dropping Dodge, Flying Attack, etc.). For both surface and sea-going attackers, unarmed, close combat and thrusting attacks grant the target a +2 to defense rolls and inflict -2 damage (or -1 per die, whichever is worse). Bite attacks are unaffected. Thrown weapons and reach 1 swinging attacks are at -1 to hit (cumulative with the penalty for surface creatures), grant a +4 to defense rolls and inflict -3 damage (or -2 per die, whichever is worse). Thrown weapons also divide 1/2D and Max ranges by 10; if this reduces Max below 2, the weapon is useless underwater (Exception: a net can be thrown at range C,1, provided the target moved at least 2 yards in his previous turn). Bows and Crossbows and reach 2+ swinging attacks are effectively useless underwater. Knockback, in all cases, is halved.

For all purposes, Aquabatics skill replaces Acrobatics. Surface creatures suffer from the effects of Bad Sight (Farsighted) while underwater; Aquatic, Nictating Membrane, and the Swim spell all negate this effect. Non-combat skills, if possible at all (GM’s call) suffer a -2 penalty underwater; depending on the skill, the GM may allow a Perk or Technique to compensate, or create a separate, “Underwater” version of the skill (see Explosives (Underwater Demolition)/TL, p.B194) that defaults to the main skill at -2.

New Perk:

Aquatic Combat†

You’re experienced at fighting underwater, and can partly compensate for the challenges of the medium. You fight without the -1 to attack, parry and block, and reduce the dodge penalty to -2. The Swimming cap still applies. You must specialize in a combat skill; multiple specializations do not further reduce the dodge penalty.

New Technique:

Underwater Strike (Hard)

Default: prerequisite skill-4 or -8.
Prerequisite: Any unarmed or reach C or 1 melee weapon skill; Amphibious or Aquatic or the relevant Aquatic Combat perk.

Normally, attacks underwater grant the target bonuses to defense due to drag. Aquatic races have developed techniques for mitigating this effect, using lateral moves, exploiting light-refraction “bend,” and so on to undermine their opponents’ guards. This is a specialized form of Deceptive Attack.

The technique defaults to skill-4 (for unarmed, close combat and any thrusting weapon skill) or -8 (for reach 1 swinging weapon skills); a weapon that can be used either way is learned at the easier default, and negates only half the defense bonus against swung attacks. Techniques that default to the core skill can be improved from this maneuver separately.

An attack made using Underwater Strike grants no bonus to the target’s active defense rolls, although see Countering Feints and Deceptive Attacks (p.MA100).

[davidtmoore]

Erik, we're waiting with bated breath! What are your final thoughts on underwater combat?

[Ts_]

Slight threadjack & revival: I'm just trying to understand the basic Swimming skill and the associated rules.

Now, B354 says that swimming works like this: Roll Swimming after a certain amount of time. If the roll is successful, nothing happens. Otherwise 1 FP is lost and the next roll happens much sooner (after 5 seconds, instead of 5 minutes).

Do I get my Water move, even if I fail the Swimming roll? Or do I tread water unsucessfully until I make the roll (in hopefully 5 seconds)? The rules only say that one "inhales water", that does not really stop me suddenly, I would think.

Compare to Running: It always "works" and the skill only affects the rate of FP loss. But it would be weird if the Swimming skill would not affect the effective speed at all.

Why am I worrying about those 5 seconds? During (horizontal) diving (without gear), the total time is about 15 seconds for normal humans. You can at most fail 3 Swimming rolls in that time (and inhaling water doesn't even make much sense while holding your breath), so everybody can pretty much cover the same 15-18 yards underwater independent of Swimming skill. The only difference is that some will lose 3 FPs and others emerge with full FP.

Thanks!
Ts

Disclaimer: The search didn't help me.

[davidtmoore]

Originally Posted by Ts_

Slight threadjack & revival: I'm just trying to understand the basic Swimming skill and the associated rules.

Now, B354 says that swimming works like this: Roll Swimming after a certain amount of time. If the roll is successful, nothing happens. Otherwise 1 FP is lost and the next roll happens much sooner (after 5 seconds, instead of 5 minutes).

Do I get my Water move, even if I fail the Swimming roll? Or do I tread water unsucessfully until I make the roll (in hopefully 5 seconds)? The rules only say that one "inhales water", that does not really stop me suddenly, I would think.

Compare to Running: It always "works" and the skill only affects the rate of FP loss. But it would be weird if the Swimming skill would not affect the effective speed at all.

Why am I worrying about those 5 seconds? During (horizontal) diving (without gear), the total time is about 15 seconds for normal humans. You can at most fail 3 Swimming rolls in that time (and inhaling water doesn't even make much sense while holding your breath), so everybody can pretty much cover the same 15-18 yards underwater independent of Swimming skill. The only difference is that some will lose 3 FPs and others emerge with full FP.

Thanks!
Ts

Disclaimer: The search didn't help me.

Those are drowning rules. You mostly only use them if you fall into water unexpectedly. They assume you're treading water and trying to breathe, so a failed roll means you're taking on water.

If you're swimming normally, you shouldn't be having a problem. If you're diving, use the breath-holding rules instead.