D&D is not a physics simulator, it's a role playing game about heroes and drama. A game that becomes decidedly unfun for many players when you try too hard to impose physics in places where physics was intentionally ignored. You think the devs never considered if someone could swim in heavy armor? Of course they did. They just had the wherewithal to realize that in many cases it's more important for the game to be entertaining than it is for the game to be realistic. When you can't have both, you err on the side of what's fun. If you want to challenge that notion in your own games, that's totally fine. But don't be surprised if it goes over like... well, like a full suit of armor dropped in a lake.
It doesn't make sense but, just go with it. It will not destroy your game.
If you're not planning on running underwater adventures it will mostly be irrelevant, and if you are planning on running underwater adventures additional realism will make the game worse, not better.
We used to just plan for underwater activity as players back in the day.
We used magic to breath and if we planned on fighting we used either magic or went without armor.
Preplanning prevents poor performance. This is also why we had powerful magic users with us with a wide variety of magic(spells) available. We never just dove into an adventure without planning and needed equipment. And yes there were cases that we lost equipment to the deep. If we could not dive for them later to get them back then well we just lived with it and planned better next time.
Thats part of the game. Without the risk of loss of either equipment or life the game gets stale and boring. Risk is the base of the game. Heroism is great but your only as heroic as your opponent is a villein. Your only as good as you opponent. A game is only fun if you can loose. If you hand wave away all the troubles your environment gives you your just playing out a play on an empty set. Your dancing to no music. Without all the walking through the environments the story 'The Hobbit' was few fights, a riddle, and nice meal.
My point is: heavy armor doesn't need more drawbacks. If you were to give all heavy armors +2 AC or free heavy armor mastery it would be more justified to give it more drawbacks.
My point is: heavy armor doesn't need more drawbacks. If you were to give all heavy armors +2 AC or free heavy armor mastery it would be more justified to give it more drawbacks.
And also, not every situation has to be life or death. The Hobbit wouldn't have been a very exciting story if everyone had drowned while trying to cross a river halfway through the book.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
in all honesty 5E does not cover armor well at all.
No armor should have a dex penalty unless your not skilled for it. Thats right, your dex bonus should apply.
They tried to use weight as an encumbrance penalty but forgot most people do not use any kind of encumbrance or weight penalties.
5E tried to make things as easy as possible for new players. Eventually though older/more experienced players can add in more and more rules and complexity. Such as a better armor and shield rule set, Better swimming, flying and climbing rules. Better mounted combat rules. Better 'down time' rules and examples for things like research, design and construction for things like strong holds and magic items.
By this time after 10 years of running the same core rules you would think that they could have come up with an official supplement covering a whole plethora of things questioned on this site alone./*
Not sure the DEX one makes sense. It's hard enough to move freely in something like a collared shirt; you really think 40+ lbs. of metal is going to be more flexible?
Plus it would also make DEX even more the optimized pick for weapon users.
in all honesty 5E does not cover armor well at all.
No armor should have a dex penalty unless your not skilled for it. Thats right, your dex bonus should apply.
The way D&D handles armor (and weapons) is entirely for compatibility with genre tropes, not realism. Neither the low str/high dex nor the high str/low dex warrior is realistic, but they're both cinematic tropes.
The problem is that most people spend very little of their lives swimming, this is even more true for people who are likely to play RPGs. As such, a large portion of rules design takes very little of water-involved encounters into consideration. It's a lot more than a heavy armor penalty or not issue, it also plays itself out in spell design. Almost half the evocation spells would have different or reduced effect in water, like the old staple crowd killer of Fireball; would be a pretty weak spell, along with the 7 or other Fire-themed spells. Which would be okay, except there really isn't much else to compensate for raw damage underwater. So there are quite a few issues, which will never be addressed because the devs and their audience consists of people who prefer to stay dry most of the time, well away from oceans or rivers. So it plays towards the land lubber perspectives of land people, not water people.
The problem is that most people spend very little of their lives swimming, this is even more true for people who are likely to play RPGs. As such, a large portion of rules design takes very little of water-involved encounters into consideration. It's a lot more than a heavy armor penalty or not issue, it also plays itself out in spell design. Almost half the evocation spells would have different or reduced effect in water, like the old staple crowd killer of Fireball; would be a pretty weak spell, along with the 7 or other Fire-themed spells.
Well, it might be a party killer. Essentially all ranged abilities that aren't based on electric or thunder damage will have a range of 5' or less in water due to water being about 800x denser than air. Electricity will go through water fairly well but probably won't go where you want it to go, instead favoring electrocuting whoever is nearest the caster.
The problem is that most people spend very little of their lives swimming, this is even more true for people who are likely to play RPGs. As such, a large portion of rules design takes very little of water-involved encounters into consideration. It's a lot more than a heavy armor penalty or not issue, it also plays itself out in spell design. Almost half the evocation spells would have different or reduced effect in water, like the old staple crowd killer of Fireball; would be a pretty weak spell, along with the 7 or other Fire-themed spells.
Well, it might be a party killer. Essentially all ranged abilities that aren't based on electric or thunder damage will have a range of 5' or less in water due to water being about 800x denser than air. Electricity will go through water fairly well but probably won't go where you want it to go, instead favoring electAcrocuting whoever is nearest the caster.
I agree. That just goes to emphasize how little forethought has been put into how the changed dynamics of fighting underwater would have massive implications for what spells are "good to OP" and what types of weapons/armor would work well. Blindfighting, for instance, would become far more useful since obscuring vision is easier underwater if you're near the seafloor. Not to mention the ways that 3D maneuverability changes the value of spells that reposition stuff, or put up barriers.
I agree. That just goes to emphasize how little forethought has been put into how the changed dynamics of fighting underwater would have massive implications for what spells are "good to OP" and what types of weapons/armor would work well. Blindfighting, for instance, would become far more useful since obscuring vision is easier underwater if you're near the seafloor. Not to mention the ways that 3D maneuverability changes the value of spells that reposition stuff, or put up barriers.
There are already rules for weapons use underwater. Not perfect but they are there. Blind Fighting only works to 10 feet. Not exactly a big deal.
The problem is that most people spend very little of their lives swimming, this is even more true for people who are likely to play RPGs.
That is not the problem. The problem is that coming up with realistic rules and playing by them is difficult and can severely weaken a party. Sure if they know it's coming they can prepare for it, but what GM is going to tell the party upfront that there are underground lakes you might have to enter in order to progress so prepare for water encounters? Freedom of Movement doesn't give you waterbreating, and Waterbreathing doesn't give you a swim speed.
Making a broad spectrum attack like that is rude by the way. There are at least a few people here that were qualified lifeguards. The testing requirements are tough looking at them from a non-regular swimmer. The fact that they post here proves that RPG players can indeed swim and are better at it than regular folk.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
It's quite surprising to me how dominant the RAW crowd is here. I've played RPG's since ZX81 was the name of a computer you might realistically own and use, and it's never been any sort of discussion what so ever: Of course you cannot swim in armor!
I've yet to physically meet anyone who'd venture the opinion - in polite, adult conversation - that because the rules do not explicitly state that you cannot state that you cannot do the impossible ... you can.
In all that long time of playing these games, it's come up once. The need, that is, to solve a water/armor problem. And it became a discussion of how fast can my character get out of said armor to save his life. I've played so long that a significant portion of posters on this forum could be my grandchildren - not counting my age, just how long I've played. Only once has this come up.
Don't ruin believability just because the rules don't explicitly instruct you do not be silly.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Not sure the DEX one makes sense. It's hard enough to move freely in something like a collared shirt; you really think 40+ lbs. of metal is going to be more flexible?
Plus it would also make DEX even more the optimized pick for weapon users.
And as for strength effecting your swimming. Muscle is denser than fat so the stronger a person is the less they can swim compared to a fatter or just less muscled person.
As for swimming in armor. Ever see the movie Saving Private Ryan? Those solders had 85 lb or gear, back pack and weapons on themselves and drowned in 10 feet of water. They could not take it all off fast enough. And those were solders from WW2 who more than likely had almost no training in swimming. Just like most people throughout history. Just like most solders throughout history. Just like most people today. Proficiency in armor does not say it gives you swimming as an ability or skill. If it did why wouldn't it just give you any other of the skills?
A quick rule for swimming could be something like an encumbrance check. Your strength or dexterity and constitution added together equals the weight you could carry while swimming. Or get proficiency in it.
But like it has been said before 5E is for simple rules.
I am with you on that whole age thing. 'I remember when' is a common statement around our old group. And my first computer was a green screen HP terminal running Unix manual dial up. Then a TRS80 model3 with 16 colors running NEWDOS.
A quick rule for swimming could be something like an encumbrance check. Your strength or dexterity and constitution added together equals the weight you could carry while swimming. Or get proficiency in it.
But like it has been said before 5E is for simple rules.
The proficiency for swimming is Athletics RAW.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
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D&D is not a physics simulator, it's a role playing game about heroes and drama. A game that becomes decidedly unfun for many players when you try too hard to impose physics in places where physics was intentionally ignored. You think the devs never considered if someone could swim in heavy armor? Of course they did. They just had the wherewithal to realize that in many cases it's more important for the game to be entertaining than it is for the game to be realistic. When you can't have both, you err on the side of what's fun. If you want to challenge that notion in your own games, that's totally fine. But don't be surprised if it goes over like... well, like a full suit of armor dropped in a lake.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
It doesn't make sense but, just go with it. It will not destroy your game.
Replotting time and encounters for when the party needs to strip off their armor all the time is a waste.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
If you're not planning on running underwater adventures it will mostly be irrelevant, and if you are planning on running underwater adventures additional realism will make the game worse, not better.
We used to just plan for underwater activity as players back in the day.
We used magic to breath and if we planned on fighting we used either magic or went without armor.
Preplanning prevents poor performance.
This is also why we had powerful magic users with us with a wide variety of magic(spells) available.
We never just dove into an adventure without planning and needed equipment. And yes there were cases that we lost equipment to the deep. If we could not dive for them later to get them back then well we just lived with it and planned better next time.
Thats part of the game. Without the risk of loss of either equipment or life the game gets stale and boring. Risk is the base of the game.
Heroism is great but your only as heroic as your opponent is a villein. Your only as good as you opponent. A game is only fun if you can loose.
If you hand wave away all the troubles your environment gives you your just playing out a play on an empty set. Your dancing to no music.
Without all the walking through the environments the story 'The Hobbit' was few fights, a riddle, and nice meal.
The problem is that the disadvantage is disproportionate: it mostly harms heavy armor users, and heavy armor is already kind of bad.
We all live with giving something up sometimes.
Or just cast the spell Freedom of Movement.
My point is: heavy armor doesn't need more drawbacks. If you were to give all heavy armors +2 AC or free heavy armor mastery it would be more justified to give it more drawbacks.
Armor doesn't affect if you can swim or not
Free Content: [Basic Rules],
[Lost Mine of Phandelver], [Acquisitions Incorporated], [The Vecna Dossier], [The Radiant Citadel], [Spelljammer Academy],[Dragonlance], [Prisoner 13],[Minecraft],[Giants of the Star Forge], [Baldur’s Gate Gazetteer], [Lightning Keep], [Intro to Stormwreck Isle], [Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth], [Vecna Dossier].Free Dice: [Frostmaiden],
[Flourishing], [Sanguine],[Themberchaud],[Pride],[Baldur's Gate 3], [Lego].And also, not every situation has to be life or death. The Hobbit wouldn't have been a very exciting story if everyone had drowned while trying to cross a river halfway through the book.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
in all honesty 5E does not cover armor well at all.
No armor should have a dex penalty unless your not skilled for it. Thats right, your dex bonus should apply.
They tried to use weight as an encumbrance penalty but forgot most people do not use any kind of encumbrance or weight penalties.
5E tried to make things as easy as possible for new players. Eventually though older/more experienced players can add in more and more rules and complexity.
Such as a better armor and shield rule set,
Better swimming, flying and climbing rules.
Better mounted combat rules.
Better 'down time' rules and examples for things like research, design and construction for things like strong holds and magic items.
By this time after 10 years of running the same core rules you would think that they could have come up with an official supplement covering a whole plethora of things questioned on this site alone./*
Not sure the DEX one makes sense. It's hard enough to move freely in something like a collared shirt; you really think 40+ lbs. of metal is going to be more flexible?
Plus it would also make DEX even more the optimized pick for weapon users.
The way D&D handles armor (and weapons) is entirely for compatibility with genre tropes, not realism. Neither the low str/high dex nor the high str/low dex warrior is realistic, but they're both cinematic tropes.
The problem is that most people spend very little of their lives swimming, this is even more true for people who are likely to play RPGs. As such, a large portion of rules design takes very little of water-involved encounters into consideration. It's a lot more than a heavy armor penalty or not issue, it also plays itself out in spell design. Almost half the evocation spells would have different or reduced effect in water, like the old staple crowd killer of Fireball; would be a pretty weak spell, along with the 7 or other Fire-themed spells. Which would be okay, except there really isn't much else to compensate for raw damage underwater. So there are quite a few issues, which will never be addressed because the devs and their audience consists of people who prefer to stay dry most of the time, well away from oceans or rivers. So it plays towards the land lubber perspectives of land people, not water people.
Well, it might be a party killer. Essentially all ranged abilities that aren't based on electric or thunder damage will have a range of 5' or less in water due to water being about 800x denser than air. Electricity will go through water fairly well but probably won't go where you want it to go, instead favoring electrocuting whoever is nearest the caster.
I agree. That just goes to emphasize how little forethought has been put into how the changed dynamics of fighting underwater would have massive implications for what spells are "good to OP" and what types of weapons/armor would work well. Blindfighting, for instance, would become far more useful since obscuring vision is easier underwater if you're near the seafloor. Not to mention the ways that 3D maneuverability changes the value of spells that reposition stuff, or put up barriers.
There are already rules for weapons use underwater. Not perfect but they are there. Blind Fighting only works to 10 feet. Not exactly a big deal.
That is not the problem. The problem is that coming up with realistic rules and playing by them is difficult and can severely weaken a party. Sure if they know it's coming they can prepare for it, but what GM is going to tell the party upfront that there are underground lakes you might have to enter in order to progress so prepare for water encounters? Freedom of Movement doesn't give you waterbreating, and Waterbreathing doesn't give you a swim speed.
Making a broad spectrum attack like that is rude by the way. There are at least a few people here that were qualified lifeguards. The testing requirements are tough looking at them from a non-regular swimmer. The fact that they post here proves that RPG players can indeed swim and are better at it than regular folk.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
It's quite surprising to me how dominant the RAW crowd is here. I've played RPG's since ZX81 was the name of a computer you might realistically own and use, and it's never been any sort of discussion what so ever: Of course you cannot swim in armor!
I've yet to physically meet anyone who'd venture the opinion - in polite, adult conversation - that because the rules do not explicitly state that you cannot state that you cannot do the impossible ... you can.
In all that long time of playing these games, it's come up once. The need, that is, to solve a water/armor problem. And it became a discussion of how fast can my character get out of said armor to save his life. I've played so long that a significant portion of posters on this forum could be my grandchildren - not counting my age, just how long I've played. Only once has this come up.
Don't ruin believability just because the rules don't explicitly instruct you do not be silly.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
This show alone proved to me that a warriors dexterity is not effected by heavy full plate armor.
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/resurrecting-richard-iii-preview/1896/
And as for strength effecting your swimming. Muscle is denser than fat so the stronger a person is the less they can swim compared to a fatter or just less muscled person.
As for swimming in armor. Ever see the movie Saving Private Ryan? Those solders had 85 lb or gear, back pack and weapons on themselves and drowned in 10 feet of water. They could not take it all off fast enough.
And those were solders from WW2 who more than likely had almost no training in swimming. Just like most people throughout history. Just like most solders throughout history. Just like most people today.
Proficiency in armor does not say it gives you swimming as an ability or skill. If it did why wouldn't it just give you any other of the skills?
A quick rule for swimming could be something like an encumbrance check. Your strength or dexterity and constitution added together equals the weight you could carry while swimming. Or get proficiency in it.
But like it has been said before 5E is for simple rules.
Acromos
I am with you on that whole age thing. 'I remember when' is a common statement around our old group.
And my first computer was a green screen HP terminal running Unix manual dial up. Then a TRS80 model3 with 16 colors running NEWDOS.
The proficiency for swimming is Athletics RAW.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale