Topic: Harp Swimming and being attacked?

[jasonbrisbane]

Hello All,

I have just watched an episode of Man V wild with Bear Grysom (sp?) where he parachuted onto a swamp in high ecuador where air is 12% thinner. He waded through it, down the mountain fast to get into the Cloud Forest, and through that to a river.

That is where I left it.


But it got me thinking about something.

Swimming in a raging torrent of a river where swimming is basically out of the question and its more of a semi-controlled push along the river.
The rocks are all black and smooth from centuries of glacial melt and high altitude water condensation (bear literally riped bark off a tree and rung it out as it was so waterlogged!)

Basically trying to swim such a river is not possible - not even he was game to try it!

However, in a PC adventure, PC's would like to use it to try to get downriver As fast as possible.

Throw in:
- water at or just above freezing due to high altitude
- extremely fast flowing torrents
- high altitude making normal breathing difficult

Someone trying to swim in it would not be able to gain a foothold on the bottom (impossible -~).
They would be thrown to the rocks and bashed for fall/crush criticals.

The Initial shock of entering the water would be a medium or larger cold critical, (RR v stamina at a huge negative).
That would cause stun and prevent the person form using their full swimming ability to swim against or even effectively with the current.

Yet in HARP swimming is a matter of drowning, not a physical fight.

How would you handle PC's using high swim skills (and high stats) to get a 100+ swimming bonus in such a horrendous environment where even such skills should be penalised due tothe above mentioned factors?

Cause every 5 rounds to be a fall crush as they are bashed against rocks and thrown around river bends?
Every round suffer a small or medium cold critical?
Swimming maneuvers to be sheer folly or absurd due to the above factors?

Would you make it a simple percentage roll to get to the other side, or some other mechanism?

Thanks in advance for the ideas!

*just trying to make a very difficult swimming maneuver realistic in a RPG game - yes I knwo the irony there!*

[Umpteenth]

My thoughs on this:

Freezing Water: Cascading Stamina RR or suffer activity penalty. The activity penalty will make their swimming harder as would the cold water. Apply cold criticals on fumble results.

Fall Damage: If you want to apply crush critical for the rocks at least let they try to dodge it: Swimming check (with the torrent difficult) and as they get a percentage in the maneuver column, add this number to their DB. But that would cost their action for the round and as such their only option would be keep swimming trying to dodge the rocks till they get by the end of the river, a waterfall (fall damage, swimming to try soften, i.e.: a dive) or any other way they could end the current situation such as the river flow get soften or a thinner water volumen.

Hard Breathing: I would just increase the difficult of any attempted maneuver by one. And make they do Routine, Easy or Normal maneuver checks for basic actions that usually doesnt require rolls.

[Right Wing Wacko]

Great job Umpteenth!
That's how I see it as well.

[Maelstrom]

One comment on air and altitude.  At 5,000 ft air has half the density it does at sea-level.  It decreases by 50% again at 30,000 to 35,000 feet (meaning density is 1/4 of sea-level.)

You'll notice that change in air density most if you go from sea level to 5,000 feet in just a couple of days or less.  Given mideival transportation the speed of altitude change is unlikely to be noticed and cause little impact.  Once at the higher elevation for a couple of weeks the body has adjusted to the lower air density and shouldn't have any further effects.

[Umpteenth]

Great job Umpteenth!
That's how I see it as well.

Thank you Wacko! =)