[Basic] Skills of the week: Environment Suit and Scuba

[johndallman]

Environment Suit/TL is the DX/A skill of donning and operating body-enclosing suits that need to be operated, rather than simply worn. While wearing an environment suit, DX and DX-based skills are capped at Environment Suit skill. Suits that don't need to be operated, such as the wetsuits and drysuits used with Scuba skill, and unsealed, unpowered armour, don't require this skill. If you know the skill, you don't actually need to roll for basic use of a suit, and on a successful skill roll, you can get in or out of a suit in half the base time. IQ-based skill rolls are used to check the suit, and operate gadgets built into it.

Scuba/TL is the IQ/A skill of using self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. You need to roll on entering the water, and every 30 minutes thereafter to keep breathing. If you know the skill, it's worth rolling before entering the water to check for problems with the equipment.

Some professions that use Environment Suit or Scuba skill have working practices that require working in pairs, who check each other's suits as a basic safety precaution. The rules don't actually require a skill roll to don the equipment correctly, if you aren't hurrying, but a buddy-check is still a good idea.

All Environment Suit specialisations default to DX-5. Battlesuit, NBC Suit and Vacc Suit default to each other at -2, Diving Suit defaults to Scuba-2, or any other Environment Suit at -4. Soldier skill at TL7+ in rich militaries should allow a roll to don and use an NBC suit, under conditions where someone with the skill doesn't have to roll. Scuba defaults to IQ-5 or Diving Suit -2.

Scuba and NBC Suit are quite common on TL7+ character templates, with Vacc Suit and Diving Suit reserved for specialists and Battlesuit for science-fiction settings. Action covers infiltration by Scuba, NBC suits and WMDs, underwater shooting and plagues. Disease-protective gear is used with NBC Suit, and Bio-Tech has more on that. High-Tech has quite a bit about present-day and historical equipment and its variations. Martial Arts has combat in suits. PU2: Perks, PU3: Talents and PU7: Wildcard Skills have examples for these skills. Space has ubiquitous Vacc Suit and adds Hydrosuit/TL for aquatic creatures operating out of water. Supers has more on Battlesuit. Ultra-Tech has lots of SF equipment for these skills. Underground Adventures has detail on cave diving including SOP perks, equipment and procedures, and Zombies has NBC suit use for plagues.

Scuba is excellent for stealthy infiltration, provided the target isn't looking out for the bubbles of used air emitted by conventional scuba gear. An opponent unsporting enough to drop explosives into the water can kill divers quite easily, although I can't find any GURPS rules for underwater explosions. Rebreather gear, which emits few or no bubbles, is much preferable for infiltration, and is described on High-Tech p76. The hazards of early pure oxygen rebreathers aren't The Bends, as described on B435, but oxygen toxicity. In the same way, nitrogen narcosis, referenced on p12 of Underground Adventures isn't the same thing as The Bends, although both of them involve nitrogen.

I've played several games that involved these skills, including NBC Suit for not getting killed when Madness Dossier irruptors used military nerve gas, and Scuba for sneaking into a Reign of Steel robot base and infiltrating a Spanish harbour in WWII. Usually they're "don't get harmed" or "get in somewhere" solutions.

What have you done with them in a game?

[Flyndaran]

While it is 3rd edition, Gurps Blue Planet has quite a few bits of useful information on underwater dangers and activities.

[whswhs]

The Underground Adventures rules for cave diving are also applicable to exploring sunken wrecks, which PCs might want to do.

[Kabufu]

Drysuits are sealed against water, though they do not provide life support. In the diving community it is strongly recommended that you take a class on their use before purchasing or using one. I'm not sure if it merits it's own skill or would just be a technique of scuba.

Drysuits have one-way vents to release some of their air if the diver ascends. However drysuits are at risk for runaway ascents if they are not used correctly, where the air pocket travels to a part of the suit, usually the feet/legs, where it cannot be vented. The vent is usually on the upper arm. More advanced (read: more expensive) suits have additional vents on the legs to avoid this.

Uncontrolled ascents of any kind are dangerous. Rupturing your lungs is a real danger, in addition to the bends. Divers are trained to do emergency ascents by exhaling continuously during the ascent. That would probably be something like an HT-based scuba roll.

[RogerBW]

See "Explosions in Other Environments" box, p. B415.

Gratuitous Plug: I put all the 4e underwater rules together, and filled in most of the gaps, in GURPS Fathom Five in Pyramid #3/26.

I have Scuba skill in real life, and players who've known me for a while tend to find an excuse to put it on their characters as it has a habit of being a useful thing to do in my games.

Kabufu, the risk of uncontrolled ascent (or just loss of balance as your arm or leg floats up at an awkward angle) is indeed a problem with dry suits, but I'd be inclined to call it a familiarity more than anything else.

Battlesuit shows up on some of my Reign of Steel PCs since it's the skill for powered exoskeletons. I haven't played a game in which it's been a major consideration.

Diving Suit also came up in Reign of Steel (investigating a "lost" sub-sea colony, using a hijacked Moray which is really not well designed for human habitation), and I've just noticed one of the Torg PCs has it. I'd better find an excuse for him to use it.

NBC suit is a skill every Reign of Steel character should have, what with nanoburn and Ebola Zaire B floating about the place. In a more ragged campaign than the ones I've played, note that roll to improvise NBC gear!

And Vacc Suit is a survival skill for spacers, and anyone in a spacegoing campaign will have to put a point or two in it eventually.

Rolling against the suit skill itself hasn't happened that often; it usually takes the form of "you have encountered some sort of hazard; do you deal with it calmly and effectively". More commonly encountered is the DX-based skill cap.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

Gratuitous Plug: I put all the 4e underwater rules together, and filled in most of the gaps, in GURPS Fathom Five in Pyramid #3/26.

Aha! I thought I'd seen that rule for underwater explosions somewhere.

[Kabufu]

RogerBW, I agree it probably is a familiarity thing. I was really unsure of what to call it. I too have the scuba skill in real life and just wanted to clarify that drysuits are not the same-as-wetsuits-but-better and require nothing else to use other than putting them on. There is more potential for drama with them than with a wetsuit.