Them Bones of Adventure - XIII: Matters of Sinew (Swimming, Jumping, Digging)

Continuing my exposition on table procedures for common exploration feats & rules, which began here with part one.

Introduction

S’funny, everytime I think that I’m scraping the very bottom of the barrel I find myself fashioning a new post wholecloth out of things I thought I could do without or simply had not remembered until recently.

As I was thinking about some of the more tendon-torsion inducing feats I realized that I hate the way the current version of the game pretty much conflates Acrobatics with Athletics, enforcing a feeling of redundance between the Dexterity and Strength attributes, usually to the detriment of the later. 

This post is aimed at fixing some of that by detailing a handful of feats that only those in possession of the gift of athleticism can hope to pull off. Note that I’m not out to expand every damn skill into its own little world, at least not intentionally.

Anyhow, here we go once again, mallet-meets-heart style.

The Crunchy Bits

Adult Swim

Borrowing from myself for once, I’m going to abstractly interpret swimming as a mechanical cousin to my original proposal for climbing, which I might soon revise anyway;

In light of deeper reading from interesting new horizons, I feel like it is a more adequate fit: climbs are more dynamic environments (just picture the mish-mash of difficulties potentially encountered in your average rockface compared to the much more uniform behaviour from a body of water) and the stakes for failing during a climb are higher, thus being deserving of greater player input and agency.

As with climbing, if the waters are still, help is at hand and nothing is truly at stake as the character’s just getting his feet wet, do away with rolls and make do with halving the character’s movement.

If faced with a hazardous or overlong (or overdeep) stretch of water or attempting something risky, such as wading into the murk while carrying weight:

- Extended roll of [Strength (Athletics), DC 2+], success propels the character an horizontal number of feet equal to the result.

- For downward diving movement halve the result and double it for upward motion. While diving, the player is well advised to keep in mind his character's capacity for holding his breath. 

- The DC is set at two because failures are fairly meaningless in a calm water context outside of Fumbling, the poor progress yielded by a low roll already representing the character’s need to slow down to catch breath. However, choppier waters can and will carry the risk of the character being momentarily overwhelmed by the current, meaning an altered course and higher DCs, with failure dragging the character in the vector of the current’s wake.

- Fumbles mean the character has messed his stroke-breathing pattern and a CON save to prevent Exhaustion must be passed to reestablish a rythm lest he end up drowning in a flailing mass. Being encumbered aggravates the fumble range.

- Lack of training in Athletics indicates the character is not a competent swimmer and will be at a Disadvantage in any but the calmest of waters.

Note that, depending on the current encountered, this activity can count as a demanding or strenuous task.

Power-jumping the Shark

I can say without the least bit of irony that I like the Jumping rules in the PHB. They’re simple, logical, dependable, roll-free and account for differing character traits. Almost a full package.

This is just a small addenda for the concept of power-jumps that the book mentions but doesn’t cover.

- If a character trained in Athletics devotes his action to a jump with the requisite momentum and succeeds on a roll of [Strength (Athletics), DC 10], the jump will carry him an additional number of feet equal to a roll of his Proficiency Die for Long Jumps and half of that, rounded down, for High Jumps.

Digging (for honour and glory)

Finally, we come to the roman army’s weapon of choice. For a game about treasure hunting, DnD features remarkably little digging, whereas LotFP took the time and care to think of the topic. It’s a lovely little gem of a mechanic, so I’ll just coopt it without further ado.

- An adequately equipped character can dig a number of cubic feet equal to one plus his strength modifier in an hour (half of that if lacking proper tools). Negative modifiers imply additional hours to dig a single cubic foot.