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Land Is Bland, Take D&D 5e Underwater: 🌊Rules for Visibility, Combat, Suffocation, and More!🏊
Sep 27, 2022
Prepare for underwater combat in #DungeonsandDragons! Underwater rules of #DND5e don’t come up often, but I wish I knew them better each time they do.
I’ve summarized each official underwater rule in this one spot to help other #DND DMs and players. Read along with my article: https://www.flutesloot.com/underwater-swimming-rules-explained-dnd-5e/?utm_source=youtube
Have you taken your campaign underwater?
⏰Time Stamps:
00:00 Intro and article link
00:30 Underwater visibility
01:34 How can players deal with murky water?
01:53 Melee combat underwater
02:11 Ranged combat underwater
02:47 Fire resistance underwater
03:16 Spellcasting underwater
04:00 Holding your breath
04:17 Suffocation
04:44 Distance swimming and endurance
05:38 Deep diving
06:36 Falling into water
07:19 Remove the wet suit
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
I want underwater to come up more in D&D 5th edition, so I'm going to review all the rules
0:04
regarding going underwater so that you can use it more in your game and know what the rules are
0:09
We're going to talk about underwater visibility, underwater combat, long distance and prolonged
0:14
swimming, diving in deep water, and falling into water. I have an article accompanying this video
0:23
where you can see the summary and where all these rules are found in the DM's guide, Tasha's, etc
0:28
You can find the link to that in the description below. Underwater visibility is interesting because a lot of people don't like how darkvision works in D&D 5th edition
0:39
They think it makes the game less scary because darkness isn't as to be feared. But what about underwater
0:44
So I'll go through three kinds of water murkiness. One is clear water with bright light, clear water with dim light, and then there's murky water or no light
0:53
So in clear water with bright light, you can see underwater up to 60 feet
0:58
to notice an encounter coming to you. If you're in clear water but the light is dim, your visibility
1:03
is reduced to 30 feet. Reminder, dark vision counts as seeing darkness as if it is dim light, so if you
1:08
are underwater in the dark, you would see 30 feet in front of you because you see it as dim light
1:13
as long as the water is clear. What if the water is not clear? In murky water, or no light, you only
1:19
have 10 feet of visibility to see an encounter coming, which always reminds me of this video of
1:24
this diver getting booped by a shark from behind, and you can barely see the shark coming until it
1:28
is right there. No wonder a lot of aquatic creatures use echolocation and other means of
1:33
navigating. By the way, how would you deal with murky water as a player? To put it in perspective
1:38
if you were walking around on ground and someone cast fog cloud, you could try to deal with it with
1:43
gusts of wind. Underwater, what spells would help you deal with murkiness so that you can see better
1:48
Let me know in the comments what you would try to do to make your visibility better in murky
1:52
or dark water. Melee weapon attacks have disadvantage while you are underwater unless you have a swimming speed or you attacking with a weapon that is a dagger javelin short sword spear or trident
2:08
Those five melee weapons do not get disadvantage underwater. Ranged weapon attacks automatically miss if the target is beyond the weapon's normal range
2:16
So for example, a longbow would automatically miss beyond 150 feet because its range is 150
2:22
slash 600. You roll ranged weapon attacks with disadvantage underwater unless the weapon is a
2:28
crossbow, net, dart, javelin, spear, trident, or some other thrown weapon. So bows don't work very
2:36
well underwater, but a crossbow does. Regardless of what kind of ranged attack it is though, you just
2:41
need to know what its normal range is and then its long range because once it gets to the normal
2:45
range end, it'll automatically miss. Any creature fully immersed in water is resistant to fire
2:51
damage. So fireball doesn't do great against a bunch of people in water. Go figure. This is one
2:56
reason the dragon turtle monster has its breath weapon that is based on boiling hot water
3:01
Specifically says that resistance from being underwater doesn't work against it because that
3:05
wouldn't make sense to have boiling water hurt you but you have resistance to the fire damage from
3:10
the boiling water because you're immersed in water and so they actually got that one right to make
3:14
that specific call out for the dragon turtle. Underwater spell attacks function just fine
3:18
there's no stipulations about those working differently, but keep in mind if you're underwater
3:23
you probably are going to have a hard time speaking without being able to breathe water
3:28
and even then your DM has to say that you can still perform verbal components of a spell while
3:32
breathing underwater. If you do not have underwater breathing, there is actually a ruling for this
3:37
if you want to cast a verbal component spell. If you want to stop holding your breath while you are
3:42
underwater so that you can cast a spell, then you begin suffocating. In D&D 5e, suffocating means
3:48
is you die in a number of rounds equal to your constitution modifier
3:52
So water breathing is a good investment if you gonna be underwater or near water so that you can freely cast spells with your verbal components covered underwater without suffocating The suffocating rules are based on the rules for holding your breath which is usually you can hold your breath for one plus your constitution modifier minutes
4:07
And then when you get that limit, then you start suffocating. But if you just give up your breath to try to do a verbal component or to speak under the water, you forego your holding breath and you instead just start suffocating right away
4:17
So suffocating in D&D 5th edition means you have a constitution modifier number of rounds to reach air and take a breath
4:24
If you do not succeed at that, you drop to zero hit points. And at that point, you also begin dying
4:29
Just like if you had been reduced to zero hit points by an attack, you're going to be making death saves. If you're in this situation where you're suffocating and you did not get air, and so you start dying, when does that dying start happen
4:39
It starts at the beginning of your turn after the last round when you ran out of chances
4:47
Long distance and prolonged swimming. It's possible to become exhausted, gain a point of exhaustion, when you are doing prolonged swimming
4:54
You roll a constitution saving throw, a DC 10, for each hour you spend swimming
4:59
So you're swimming for an hour, every hour, boom, constitution saving throw, boom, constitution saving throw, DC 10
5:05
Failing this saving throw will result in one level of exhaustion, and the rules also place a hard limit on swimming for 8 hours
5:12
so specifically stating a character cannot swim for beyond an 8 hour period
5:16
Though characters with swimming speeds can swim all day, no penalties, no cap at 8 hours, and no constitution saving throw along the way
5:22
They just can do it all day. In that case, they do use the forced march rules from the player's handbook
5:27
So even though you have a swing speed, you could start incurring exhaustion if you do it too much. Just like on land where you're going on foot that you're used to, if you don't have a swing speed, a forced march going too long without resting is going to wear you out
5:42
Diving through deep water. Similar to when you go up into the mountains and you affected by high altitudes pressures freezing temperatures you can have the same problems at very low altitudes while diving below all that water pressure Creatures that lack swimming speeds will treat each hour of swimming at least 100 feet below the surface as if it were two hours of land travel for the sake of determining exhaustion In other words creatures without swimming speeds need to work
6:06
twice as hard to dive deep in waters, which is defined as more than 100 feet below the surface
6:12
If you get to 200 feet below the surface, this intensifies. Each hour of swimming will count as
6:17
four hours of land travel for the sake of determining exhaustion when you're 200 feet below
6:21
That's clearly an intense aquatic experience, and it assumes a character can breathe or hold its breath for that long
6:27
Having a swim speed will mean a character's exhaustion is determined by the normal rules for travel and exhaustion
6:32
So swimming speed is huge if you're underwater, and that's especially true deep diving
6:39
How about falling into water? This one comes to us from Tasha's. The suggestion is any creature falling into water, or any liquid really, can use its reaction to make an athletics or acrobatic skill check with a DC of 15
6:51
Succeeding at this saving throw causes the falling damage to be halved
6:54
as the character successfully dives head first or feet first into the water
6:59
avoiding a deadly belly flop. If you've ever belly flopped from even just like five feet above the water
7:04
you know it hurts. If you've ever been cliff jumping and you see people jumping in the water
7:08
it's important to make your feet hit first and not try to share that impact with the water
7:13
because it can really mess you up. After all, from the right distance, if you don't fall right
7:18
it's just like hitting concrete. So these are all the rules that I was able to gather about underwater anything in D&D 5th edition
7:24
Is there anything that I missed? I'd love to hear about it and add it to my article. I'd also like to know if the visibility underwater was interesting to you
7:31
because that's one of my favorite parts of it that can really make underwater feel eerie. Go to the like button below and remove that wetsuit from the thumb to reveal its true colors
7:39
And if you really want to deep dive into our content, check out our other videos and be sure to hit that subscribe button
7:43
Have a good adventure this weekend and I'll see you in the next video. Bye
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