Shipwreck survival

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Where do you come up with either 30 MPH winds and that extreme cold?

I'm going with a worst case example. That's what it takes to actually threaten these guys. Anything less than that and they're laughing!

[Vynticator]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

I'm going with a worst case example. That's what it takes to actually threaten these guys. Anything less than that and they're laughing!

Hmm. Southern Sweden pretty much never gets *that* cold! more likely the nights will be about 20'F if it's windy and at the cold end of average.

Couple of points- using The Last Gasp means their HT and Swimming skills and Survival skills will be at penalties by the time they leave the water. There's also the 'deep fatigue' rules to consider. I'm also thinking the regeneration may be interrupted once fatigue falls below a certain level.

-swimming: we haven't discussed penalties for open water swimming, or for swimming in rough seas. I'd say lake swimming is -1, sea swimming -2 to skill, worse if it's rough. You've got sighting, waves and tides to contend with.

Back on shore: The range of temperature tolerance GURPS gives starts at 35F for normal humans and goes up to 90'F. I think one has to assume clothing is factored into those numbers. If you're nearly naked I'm pretty sure 35F would be outside your comfort zone. So I think the temperatures and physical challenges we're talking about will test even these fellas.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Vynticator

...
-swimming: we haven't discussed penalties for open water swimming, or for swimming in rough seas. I'd say lake swimming is -1, sea swimming -2 to skill, worse if it's rough. You've got sighting, waves and tides to contend with.
....

Gurps skills assume use in the field. Swimming isn't how to not drown by staying afloat. That's default use with +4 for perfect conditions.
But extra rough seas certainly would accrue penalties.

[mikec964]

This will be a huge help for my campaign, too.

Swimming rules say you roll every 6 long-distance turns (basically per minute) to see if you lose an FP, and every every 5 minutes for swimming to see if you start to drown. I think.

If the players are going to swim 5 miles (8800 yards), and the typical speed is 60 yards/minute, that's 146 die rolls. I think they'd rather drown than roll that many times.

How do you turn something like that into something like 5 to 20 rolls? It'd be nice to have, maybe, 5 rolls before their FP drops to 1/3, and 5 rolls after that to reach shore.

How would you handle it?