There's tons of different ways of getting water-breathing on a character. A few to get it on a creature. But what if I want an aquatic creature to breathe air? What non-homebrew options are there? Are there any at all?
I was thinking there'd be an option for turning a cap of water breathing into a bubble of water...but it stops working outside of water. So I don't know if that'd do the trick.
Unfortunately, the game rules assume air-breathing as a default for PCs. And due to the streamlining philosophy of 5th edition, no such official spell exists that grants air-breathing. That is homebrew territory.
The least invasive homebrew I can think of would just be allowing Water Breathing and Water Walk to impart the opposite breathing/movement for aquatic creatures than it does for land. Or, a relatively simple homebrew wondrous item or ring would do the trick.
The other thing to consider is that a water-breathing creature may not need to breath air, depending on the circumstance.
For example,
If you cast Find Familiar and choose the Octopus, it can hold its breath for 30 minutes. When that time runs out, you can use an action to send it back to its pocket dimension and then another action to resummon it with a fresh clock. Easy peasy.
For something like a shark, it can still "hold its breath" for 6 minutes, so the question ends up being, "what is the minimum amount of water necessary for water-breathing?"
Shape Water allows you to control a 5-ft cube of water, so an aquatic creature with access to the Cantrip, or a magical handler, could sustain themselves out of the water indefinitely, though they would want to make sure they got back into a body of water before falling asleep.
If you want to share the specific creature that you are considering bringing on land, we might be able to give you work-arounds for that particular scenario.
I was thinking octopus or anything larger. The full idea was trying to do something super goofy like make a cavalier that rides a floating aquatic creature out of water. The PC itself would have to be small or tiny (if I can accomplish it without eating concentration). I'll probably need concentration for fly so the creature has more than a 5ft movement. Or 10ft with dash.
A Giant Octopus can hold its breath for 1 hour, which is pretty darn amazing. Casting Find Steed to conjure it might work but wouldn't be worth much for overland travel. Since Fly only lasts for 10 minutes, it looks like mobility is going to be a bigger issues than Air-breathing.
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There's tons of different ways of getting water-breathing on a character. A few to get it on a creature. But what if I want an aquatic creature to breathe air? What non-homebrew options are there? Are there any at all?
I was thinking there'd be an option for turning a cap of water breathing into a bubble of water...but it stops working outside of water. So I don't know if that'd do the trick.
Unfortunately, the game rules assume air-breathing as a default for PCs. And due to the streamlining philosophy of 5th edition, no such official spell exists that grants air-breathing. That is homebrew territory.
The only non-homebrew item that would achieve this is Ventilating Lungs and that would mean interpreting gills to count as lungs for the attunement.
Outside of this, you are stuck with homebrew
The least invasive homebrew I can think of would just be allowing Water Breathing and Water Walk to impart the opposite breathing/movement for aquatic creatures than it does for land. Or, a relatively simple homebrew wondrous item or ring would do the trick.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
These answers are super useful. Didn't know about the lungs. Thanks for the assistance!
The other thing to consider is that a water-breathing creature may not need to breath air, depending on the circumstance.
For example,
If you cast Find Familiar and choose the Octopus, it can hold its breath for 30 minutes. When that time runs out, you can use an action to send it back to its pocket dimension and then another action to resummon it with a fresh clock. Easy peasy.
For something like a shark, it can still "hold its breath" for 6 minutes, so the question ends up being, "what is the minimum amount of water necessary for water-breathing?"
Shape Water allows you to control a 5-ft cube of water, so an aquatic creature with access to the Cantrip, or a magical handler, could sustain themselves out of the water indefinitely, though they would want to make sure they got back into a body of water before falling asleep.
If you want to share the specific creature that you are considering bringing on land, we might be able to give you work-arounds for that particular scenario.
I was thinking octopus or anything larger. The full idea was trying to do something super goofy like make a cavalier that rides a floating aquatic creature out of water. The PC itself would have to be small or tiny (if I can accomplish it without eating concentration). I'll probably need concentration for fly so the creature has more than a 5ft movement. Or 10ft with dash.
A Giant Octopus can hold its breath for 1 hour, which is pretty darn amazing. Casting Find Steed to conjure it might work but wouldn't be worth much for overland travel. Since Fly only lasts for 10 minutes, it looks like mobility is going to be a bigger issues than Air-breathing.