How Long Can You Hold Your Breath?

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WARNING —
This turned into a very long post of more than 12,500 words – that’s three times my usual length.
Get yourself a drink and a snack before you start!
How Long Can You Hold Your Breath?
It’s a simple enough question, isn’t it? And so easy to resolve – all it takes is a wristwatch or stopwatch – anything with a seconds counter, really!
Things get a little more interesting when you aren’t given the chance to take a deep breath first, because you could be at any point in your breathing cycle from having just taken a breath to having just exhaled. If we accept the premise that most ordinary breaths won’t be as deep as a deliberate intake, then we can map the results against the take-a-deep-breath standard, on the basis of the volume of oxygen in the lungs.
I’m not trying to suggest that these are proportionate to the real events; the typical human, at rest, breathes 12 to 20 times a minute, each breath being 3-5 seconds in length. We can easily exceed that simply by talking; an automatic mechanism prolongs the use of a breath, so you don’t need to breathe as often.
I don’t know about you, but I can hold my breath for a lot longer than the 2-3 breaths suggested by the diagram. So don’t read into it things that aren’t there. In fact, the average person can hold their breath for 30 seconds and some for a great deal longer. The general upper limit is around the two minute mark, but that’s with training and excellent health. The world record would take some beating, though – Aleix Segura Vendrell of Barcelona, Spain managed a proven 24 minutes and 3 seconds in February 2016!
But the diagram does incorporate a number of fiddly little technical details. When we take a deep breath, it doesn’t take that much longer than an ordinary breath; most of the added oxygen (relative to a normal breath) gets used up fairly quickly; and we have nowhere near exhausted the available oxygen when we can’t hold our breath any longer. That’s because the breathing reflex is actually a response to the partial pressure of Carbon Dioxide, which effectively poisons the breath that’s remaining.
Healthline.com list the following as the effects of holding your breath:
- 0:00 to 0:30. You might feel relaxed as you close your eyes and tune out the world around you.
- 0:30 to 2:00. You’ll start to feel uncomfortable pain in your lungs. The most common misconception about holding your breath is that you’re running out of air – you’re not. Learning to slow your breathing and increase intake during inhalation is part of this. But holding your breath is difficult and dangerous because carbon dioxide (CO2) is building up in your blood from not exhaling.
- 2:00 to 3:00. Your stomach starts to rapidly convulse and contract. This is because your diaphragm is trying to force you to take a breath.
- 3:00 to 5:00. You’ll begin to feel lightheaded. As CO2‚‚ builds to higher and higher levels, it pushes the oxygen out of your bloodstream and reduces the amount of oxygenated blood traveling to your brain.
- 5:00 to 6:00. Your body will start to shake as your muscles begin to uncontrollably contract. This is when holding your breath can become dangerous.
- 6:00 and longer. You’ll black out. Your brain badly needs oxygen, so it knocks you unconscious so your automatic breathing mechanisms will kick back in. If you’re underwater, you’ll probably inhale water into your lungs, which is life threatening.
But wait – those are normal people. Athletes are different, and fall into two groups: endurance athletes and burst athletes (I couldn’t find an official term, so I made one up).
When working hard, a burst athlete will breathe about 45 times a minute, while endurance athletes will only breathe 30 times a minute. Untrained humans naturally fall into the burst athlete category; it takes practice and training to do better. That training slows the consumption of oxygen early in the process to extend the breath’s duration later on by lowering the relative CO2 levels.
So, even with all that complication, it’s still a fairly simple question that is fairly simple to answer. Here’s a far more difficult one: How long can a character hold his breath?
There are multiple possible answers to contemplate.
Some options
I’ve broken those options down into Eight general categories. Magic Items, Magic in general, Metagaming a solution, Single Saves, Compound Saves, Stat Derivatives, Character Stat choices, and initial character status. Each of these represents a consideration that any solution to the question will need to have taken into account, even if it is eventually decided that it’s not part of the solution. To a certain extent, this review is to establish design parameters for the mechanics.
I’m also mindful that, like the Lifestyle rules a few weeks ago, the results have to accommodate a large variety of game systems, with different tolerances for realism. At the very least, D&D, Hero System, and Zenith-3 rules will need to be accommodated.
1. The Tray of Many Rings
There are some magic items in just about every game system that supports such things that makes the question moot, at least for some, and possibly for the whole party if enough of these items have been accumulated by the PCs. In most campaigns, by the time characters reach high levels, it’s not even an issue unless extraordinary measures are taken.
Whenever I encounter a broad question like the one under discussion today, and where magic items can solve the problem, I always have nightmarish visions of a PC (the keeper of the loot) whipping out a jeweler’s tray with fifty or so rings on it, consulting the tags, and lifting such a ring out of the tray for each PC.
Of course, there’s usually a limit to how many magic items of a given type a character can wield at any given time, so this might restrict the characters in other ways – but they can always take off the ring when they no longer need it and replace it with their usual choice, so really, it’s not much of a restriction – most of the time.
If the question doesn’t matter to you, you might continue reading out of intellectual curiosity, or to prepare yourself for one of those rare occasions when magic items can’t solve a particular dilemma that the characters face, but in general, magic can completely override the relevance of the question.
One solution is to make sure that the party never have enough such items to equip everyone; this preserves at least a minimal level of suspense about the situation.
Actually, it doesn’t matter if this is a solution to the problem if the PCs don’t think it is. Contemplate this – a long series of submerged passageways, far lengthier than the PCs can swim before running out of air. No problem, they break out their magic trinkets as above. Half-way down the passageways, they encounter some kind of anti-magic field that knocks out their magic items, however temporarily. (To be especially mean, portcullis might also drop on both sides, making the danger even more dramatically real). Suddenly, the problem seems very relevant to the players, life-or-death even! But even better, there’s a ‘fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me’ factor – one such trap implies that there could be more. And that means that their h-so-clever magic item solution can no longer be relied on.
If magic items solve the problem, and the GM prefers to keep the counter for a more appropriate time, the answer is, indefinitely.
GMs should always scrutinize the fine print that comes with descriptions of such magic items. There have been occasions when players have been known to (gasp) cheat. But there are also some creative solutions that might be employed – summoning an Air Elemental to create a moving air pocket around the PCs, for example.
So, what are the effects of an anti-magic field on a life-form that is innately magical?
It’s always worthwhile if you can find the time to scour the rulebooks for paths around the problems that you intend to pose. Being able to anticipate possible solutions that the PCs might use lets you plan in advance what the outcome will be. You won’t usually be able to cover everything, but the better you know the players and their PCs, the more accurately you will be able to predict what they might do.
2. Other Magics
Magic Items typically solve such problems at an individual level0 Magic Spells, on the other hand, can solve them for a whole party. Of course, anti-magic fields that temporarily negate spells can certainly go some distance to making the question relevant again even in the face of a determined spellcaster. So can other techniques, such as temporal manipulation effects that make spells run out sooner.
Whenever a PC uses a spell to overcome some obstacle for the entire party, GMs should at least glance at the fine print on the spell. Again, learning to anticipate PC solutions to the basic problem at least gives you a head-start on any rulings that you might have to make.
As a general rule, though, magic can solve most problems if the practitioner is skilled enough, and there are times when that’s fine – the whole question might be nothing more than a way to give a mage PC some spotlight time! You’ll need to decide such things – that’s what the ‘pay’ you for, you’re the GM!
Which reminds me of a variant elemental plane that I once submerged the PCs in. It had a high level of dissolved copper sulphate which turned the water bright blue, and limited visibility even more than usual. It also made the water a splendid conductor of electricity, which was the primary attack mode of the inhabitant creatures…
3. Metagaming a solution: The Speed Of Plot
A character succumbing to a breath weapon is one thing, drowning on the way to the battle is quite something else. There are few more ignoble ways for a Hero to perish. It may be realistic for a character to drown, but there are times when realism does the GM no favors – it’s fun if the hazard can be overcome, it’s no fun if it can’t.
Being unable to access part of the adventure simply because they aren’t able to reach it is also no fun for those unable to participate.
There is, therefore, some justification for threatening characters while making sure that there is some means of getting through or around the obstacle. The alternative is to force the party to divide and have plotline in readiness for those left behind, to operate in parallel with the adventuring of those who have gone ahead.
Either solution is an example of Metagaming a solution to the challenge. The outcome proceeds “at the speed of plot”.
Whatever the mechanics of our solution to the broader question, they have to take this potential into account, presenting the GM with the options that he needs to be able to go in any direction desired. The bark has to be potentially worse than the bite – but at the same time, the bite has to have enough teeth that the bark is taken seriously. That’s a delicate balancing act to pull off.
It might even be that we need two subtly different sets of mechanics, a harsh option and a soft option. That’s never my preferred approach, but at the very least, we should be alert to the possibility as we proceed.
3a. But What About Player Agency?
There’s also a counter-argument that has merit – that player agency is violated when the GM leads the players by the nose in this way, that while the GM would have the responsibility of making the players aware of the inherent risks in proceeding, once they have done so, they should be ready to face the consequences of that choice.
It’s a position that I support, at least some of the time. As I said, it’s one thing to fall to a breath weapon, and another to drown on the way into the dungeon.
One solution to this aspect of the problem is to mandate that an ‘active threat’ of some kind presents itself as characters approach the critical point of the challenge. But that’s entirely too predictable and not all that acceptable. A better solution might be to provide life-sustaining but debilitating air pockets (stale air) – enough to sustain life, but not enough to maintain full capabilities, at least for a while.
Debilitation
But that raises another issue to be considered – simply being exposed to conditions that warrant engaging any proposed mechanics must trigger some sort of temporary debilitation. Pulling yourself from the water, you lung burning as you gasp for air, your muscles feeling like lumps of lead as a result of the effort involved – no-one should expect to be at their best in dealing with whatever is waiting for the PCs. The mechanics need to generate this debilitation, specify the way that it manifests, and also provide a recovery mechanism.
That recovery mechanism will need to be fairly sophisticated and flexible, capable of dealing with everything from active conflict through to less-stressful activities through to lying there like a fish gasping for air but doing nothing more. Te system needs to determine how and when a minimum level of restrictions are mandated, and ho those mandates are lifted.
4. Single Saves
There’s always a lot of justification in terms of playability for a single roll to determine results, even if that represents a compromising of reality. But there can also be an inflexibility to this approach, and it might be a compromise too far.
5. Compound Saves
There is also something to be said for requiring multiple saves, with rising penalties or difficulty levels. This builds tension and excitement – so long as the rolls don’t happen too frequently, which would create tedium and additional work.
But this in turn opens up a new can of worms – how should those difficulty numbers increase? In a linear fashion? Geometrically? Exponentially? Fibonacci Sequence? And at what intervals – fixed, variable, or one of those other sequences?
6. Stat Derivatives
For that matter, as already identified, the fundamental basis of the mechanics needs to be determined – should they be determined, in whole or in part, by characteristics, or some derivative of them, with no rolls at all? This trades agency – the capacity to fail or excel – for mechanical simplicity.
7. Will or Strength or Con?
There’s the question of what characteristics are fundamental – the heading identifies three that could plausibly relate to the situation. And the question of debilitation also comes into play here – is the debilitation impact to be separate from the increase in difficulty targets or can the one set of numbers cover everything?
8. Initial Status
Finally, the system should take into account the character’s initial state – someone who has been engaged in combat or doing something else strenuous should not have the same capacity as if they were alert and rested.
Not simple at all.
The most realistic approach would probably be to have a stat-based buffer, perhaps modified with a saving throw of some sort, followed by a series of Will Rolls as the character resists the natural urge to breathe, and then a series of Con Rolls to resist the involuntary burning need to breathe for just a little longer.
It would also be necessary to distinguish between resting characters and characters who are working hard, or engaging in combat while operating within these mechanics. Any sort of activity should consume some of the character’s capacity, so that such activities reduce the duration of a character’s capabilities. It’s one thing to simply hold your breath for a while, and quite another to hold your breath AND run or swim, AND fight a battle. Any such effects should be on top of any environmental considerations the GM considers appropriate – it’s much harder to swing a weapon underwater, for example, to the point of virtual ineffectiveness; thrusting is better, but not by very much, and having anything in your hands or any sort of load can severely compromise your mobility and ability to swim.
It’s not difficult to come up with such a system – whether or not it’s realistic enough in its determinations is another question, but any system can be tweaked; so a perfect answer isn’t necessary, just something to serve as a guideline.
A realistic system
I had an unfair advantage when considering that list – I already had the rudiments of a system in mind, without having yet done the hard work of actually attaching numbers to the general principles. But the preceding section was still a valuable check to ensure that nothing had been overlooked. It’s a system with eight elements: Time Measurement, Buffer Time, Progressive Difficulty, Will Checks, Con Checks for more will checks, Initial Character State, Debilitation State and consequences, and putting the whole thing together to yield definitive answers to the question.
- you can attack, use a skill, or use an active power;
- you can actively defend yourself;
- or you can move (or use a movement power)
- For D&D/Pathfinder, you get your FORT save. It doesn’t matter if this is on 3d6 or on d20.
- For the Hero System, you get your CON save, plus two for every point by which that save exceeds 11. This is rolled on 3d6, but is calculated as 11+(CON/5), round up.
- For the Zenith-3 System, you get one-fifth of your CON save, plus 10, plus one for every ten by which your CON save exceeds zero (or part thereof). This is a d% save ranging from -100 to +250 – with an average of -11 because the mathematics were perverse and wouldn’t give a neat answer.
- The difficulty of this check in D&D / Pathfinder is 10+Penalty.
- In the Hero system, it is your usual saving roll-penalty.
- In the Zenith-3 system, it is your usual saving roll-(5 × difficulty). Other standard difficulty modifiers also apply.
- In D&D / Pathfinder the difficulty is (20-Save)+Penalty.
- In the Hero system, it is your usual saving roll +10 -penalty.
- In the Zenith-3 system, it is your usual saving roll + 30 – (5 × difficulty). Other standard difficulty modifiers also apply as usual.
- An initial buffer before the character gets into trouble;
- Escalating trouble once it starts;
- Responsive to initial conditions and physical and mental capabilities
- Increasing difficulty in accomplishing tasks
- A recovery system for afterwards;
- A flavor that can create excitement and drama;
- Mechanics that are unlikely to kill a character outright or force a split in the party.
- Note that by the simple mechanism of roping characters together in a chain, even if one succumbs and the stronger characters have to make a STR check to pull them through, even low-stat characters should be Okay – after a while.
1. Measuring Time
Forget anything so rigid as minutes and seconds. This system is going to measure time in Events. An event is any action, any locomotion, using any ability.
If you do something that inflicts damage, it’s one action per dice of damage or per five points if there are no dice rolled. If you take damage, it’s one action for every 5 points inflicted before any defenses are taken into account (that matters in the Hero system).
Moving however far you can swim, or anything more than staying in the same hex, is an action. And staying still in the same hex under adverse conditions – like having to hold your breath – counts as an action. Pausing for a second to listen or look at something? That’s an action. Trying to grab something or pick something up, you’d better believe that that’s an action…
The mechanics will give you plenty of them, so don’t be afraid to chew them up.
This completely decouples time from the rest of the system mechanics – except that the normal limits of how much you can do in any period of time within your game system remain.
In the Zenith-3 system, for example:
– but you can only do two of those in a given round. You can use any passive powers you might have at any time. And using two different active powers counts as your two choices.
You can also pay additional Endurance and take various penalties to attempt additional actions beyond the two.
The point is that the more active you are, the faster you will burn through your allocation of events.
It’s just possible that someone might wonder why taking damage burns through event points. In response, I would say: Have you ever contemplated how hard it would be to keep holding your breath while getting punched in the belly? Or suffering a serious burn or cut?
2. Buffer Time
You get so many events before you have to start making rolls. This is a critically important number. You get 5 points for every turn or round that begins before you run out of event capacity, and you get a certain number based on your constitution.
How many depends on the game system.
Any other game system will have some equivalent to one of these, so just use them as a guideline.
So, for example, if you are a pulp hero with a CON of 22, your save is 11+(22/5), round up, or 16 or less. That gives you 16+10=26 events, plus 5 each time you get to start a new action round before using up all of those 26-plus.
Note that this is not attempting to be a full parity conversion from one system to another, just a ballpark figure.
3. Progressive Difficulty
Every 5 Events that you count off adds one to your progressive difficulty. This is a cumulative penalty applied to all saves and rolls that you make. In D&D / Pathfinder, the penalty is -1 per difficulty point; in the Hero system, it is also -1; and in the Zenith-3 system it is -10.
These penalties appear quite low, but they will NEVER go down until you can both breathe normally AND undergo a complete recovery afterwards, so they can add up.
They apply to every roll that you make, effective immediately they are incurred.
4. Will Checks For More time
When your time (in the form of available events) runs out, you reach the point where you want to take a breath but can use your willpower to resist this urge.
If you succeed, you add 5 more actions to your event capacity, plus one quarter of the number determined in step 2, LESS the cumulative penalty. Each turn or action started before these run out also adds FOUR to this total.
Eventually, you will have to roll again. If you succeed, the same thing happens but now each round only adds THREE to the total. Then two, then one, and then – finally – none.
5. Con Checks For More Will Checks
When you fail one of these Will checks, you enter a more dangerous stage in which your will has faltered just long enough to inhale some water.
The difficulty modifier immediately worsens by 1/2 of the amount by which you failed the will save plus 5.
You have to immediately make a CON save (FORT save in D&D / Pathfinder) with this new difficulty modifier.
If you SUCCEED, the difficulty modifier goes up by 1, and you get an additional series of will saves for more time, and immediately lose 10% of your remaining hit points or BODY.
The additional will saves are calculated as:
Eventually, you will fail (or the penalties will grow to a total that makes success impossible). That will put you back into the situation of making another CON save for more Will checks, as above.
If you FAIL one of these CON / FORT checks, all hope is not lost. The difficulty modifier goes up by the amount by which you failed, you immediately lose half your remaining hit points or BODY or 10 points, whichever is worse, and you get an additional series of will saves for more time.
With the second CON / FORT check, if you succeed, the HP loss is unchanged at 10% loss. With every odd-numbered CON / FORT check, that loss increases by 10%. So with the third, it’s 20% of what’s left, and the same with the fourth; with the fifth and sixth, it’s 30%; with the seventh and eighth, it’s 40%; and thereafter, it’s 50% or 10 points, whichever is worse, the same as if you had failed.
With each successive CON / FORT check after the first, the initial starting point for the WILL saves improves by 10 – but the penalties are quite likely to have increased by more than that, so the effective starting point gets progressively lower.
Let’s say you start with 100 HP, for an example. The first CON check succeeds and drops you to 90HP. The second one succeeds and drops you to 81HP. The third one succeeds and costs you 20% of 81, or 16 HP, leaving you with 65. You fail the fourth, costing you 32 HP, and leaving you with 33. You fail the fifth, costing you 16 HP, and leaving you with 17. You fail at the sixth, and lose 10, leaving you with 7 HP. You fail at the seventh, and you are out of HP, unconscious, and drowning. The increase in difficulty penalties makes this quite a likely scenario.
Let’s say you start with 200 HP, as a comparison. The first CON check succeeds and drops you to 180HP. The second one succeeds and drops you to 162HP. The third one succeeds and costs you 20% of 162, or 32 HP, leaving you with 130. You fail the fourth, costing you 65 HP, and leaving you with 65. You fail the fifth, costing you 32 HP, and leaving you with 33. You fail at the sixth, and lose 16, leaving you with 17 HP. You fail at the seventh, lose 10 HP leaving 7. You fail at the eighth and are out of HP, unconscious, and drowning.
Doubling the initial HP bought you one whole extra set of Will rolls.
Again, for a comparison, let’s consider 50 hp. The first CON check succeeds and drops you to 45 HP. The second one also succeeds and takes another 4 HP, leaving 41. The third one is probably more problematic, because this is likely to be a lower-level character, but let’s say that it succeeds, too, just because that’s what happened in the previous examples; you will lose 20% of the remaining 41 HP, or 8 HP, leaving you with 33. You fail the fourth, losing half of that 33, which is 16 HP. That leaves you with 17 HP. You fail the fifth, dropping that 17 to 7 HP. You then fail the sixth, and are out of HP, unconscious and drowning. So halving the initial HP (but changing nothing else) costs you a single set of Will Rolls.
If, however, we presume that the character’s save is considerably lower, and more quickly overcome by penalties, it is far more likely that they would fail that 3rd roll, and so lose half the 41 HP, dropping your total to 21. Fail the 4th, and you’re down to 11 HP. Fail the 5th, and you’re down to 1 HP. Fail the sixth, and once again you’re out of HP, unconscious and drowning. So the impact cuts it finer, but you still last just as long as you otherwise would have done – so long as nothing is nibbling on your toes or otherwise causing distress!
6. Initial State
That shows that the system is responsive to initial conditions, but the impact is largely one of making you more vulnerable as initial HP drop.
So, to initial state: the ratio of HP lost vs the fully-healed total, rounded to the nearest 10%, is the fraction of initial actions that are considered consumed, which brings the first check on that much more quickly. This same fixed ratio is applied to each subsequent set of actions permitted by a Will Roll. Always round in the character’s favor.
If the character has no opportunity to take a deep breath, the GM should secretly roll a d10 for how far they are through their normal breath cycle, and apply the result in 10% increments. In practical terms, this simply multiplies one percentage by another. Technically, since we want to know how long the character will last, we need to subtract this roll from 100 before multiplying.
Let’s say that a character who normally has 200 HP has been in combat and is down to just 142 HP when they take a deep breath and go swimming. 142/200 is 71% but that gets rounded to 80%. If you normally would get, say, 24 events before your first Will roll, that drops to 80% of 24. which equals 19. How quickly those get used up depends on what the character is doing – it could be 19 actions, it could be just one. Most likely, the character will use 2-3 per turn, and would normally get 5 back.
That’s right, if a character never does anything except swim, they can effectively hold their breath indefinitely – all they have to do is be sure not to use any more than 5 event points per turn / round.
Of course, engaging in combat changes that usage markedly. Move, plus defend, plus take 3 dice of damage, plus an attack or two doing 1 dice each (2 Events each, one for the Attack Roll and one for the damage) – that’s 9 event points each round. Throw in looking for additional combatants and assessing the state of the battlefield – something that’s normally taken for granted – and you’re up to 10. You’ll still get quite a few rounds of combat in.
Unless, of course, a Mage drops a fireball into the situation, for an additional 6 dice (3 if you make your save). That’s an extra action for the save, and an extra 3 for the damage if you succeed, or six if you don’t. That 10 rockets up for a round to 14-to-17. Is the damage inflicted on the enemy worth the loss of breath? Finishing the combat more quickly is definitely worthwhile…
Things start to become different in this whole situation when the initial condition is factored in. Characters normally get 5 additional event points at the start of each turn or round – but if the character is down to 80% HP when they go swimming, not only do they only get 19 Events instead of 24 (in the case of our example), but each round they only get 80% of the 5 additional events – four.
☆ Round 1: 19 Events available, 10 used; 9 remain. Penalties -2.
☆ Round 2: 9 Events available, plus 4, = 13. 10 used, 3 remain. 10+10=20, so penalties are -4.
☆ Round 3: 3 Events available, plus 4, = 7. 10 to be used but the character doesn’t have that many left. The Will Roll itself will use one Event, so the character can only get through 6 of their desired 10. Twenty already used +6 makes the penalty -5.
Based on the initial value of number of events, this probably drops the character to a nine or less chance on 3d6 or d20 for that will roll.
If they succeed, they would normally get 5 more actions to your event capacity, plus one quarter of the number determined in step 2, LESS the cumulative penalty. Each turn or action started before these run out will add four to this total. But they aren’t fully fit.
So, Apply the 80%: 80%x5=4 more Events, plus one quarter of 19 (which already takes the 80% into account) = 5, minus 5. 4+5-5= plus 4 Events; and each round they will now get 80% of 4, which rounds back to four.
☆ Round 6, continued: 0 events available, +4, =4. completing the full slate of actions uses all four – the character will have to start Round 7 by making another Will Roll. 26+4=30, so the penalty is now -6.
☆ Round 7: 0 events available, +4 = 4. The character wants to use 10. 3 used in combat and one for the Will Roll is not enough to worsen the penalty. That Will Roll is now effectively 8 or less on 3d6 or d20 (depending on your game system). Either way, that’s difficult but doable.
Success gives 4 more events, plus 5, minus 6. 4+5-6=3, and each round they get 80% of 3 event points, which rounds back to 3.
☆ Round 7 continued. 0 events remain +3 = 3. The character gets to use two more Event points and must again make a Will Save. 30+4+3 events = 37 used in total, so the penalty is now -7, which makes the Will Save a 7 or less. Getting progressively worse.
Success gives 4 more events, plus 5, minus 7: 4+5-7=2.
☆ Round 7 continued. 0 events remain +2 = 2. The character gets to use just one more Event point before they have to again make a Will Save. 37+2=39, so on the verge of a -8 but not quite there yet. The Will Save remains a 7 or less.
The character has had a good run of luck with these saves – but sooner or later, that luck will run out. They have, so far, succeeded on one roll at 9 or less, one at 8 or less, and one at 7 or less. Now they have to make a fourth – but even if they succeed, they will only get enough Event points to make a fifth (at 6 or less), and not to actually do anything.
The overall chance on d20s is easy to calculate: 9 × 8 × 7 × 7 / 20 × 20 × 20 × 20 = 3528 / 160,000 = 2.205% chance of making the 4th save; × 6/20 = 0.6615% chance of the fifth. It’s practically certain that one of these rolls will fail.
The chances on 3d6 are harder to calculate, because they aren’t linear. For the 9 or less roll, 1+2+3+4+5+6+5 +1+2+3+4+5+6 +1+2+3+4+5 + 1+2+3+4 + 1+2+3 + 1+2 chances out of 216 = 6×1 +6×2 +5×3 +4×4 +3×5 +2×6 +5 = 6+12+16+15+12+5 = 66; out of 216, that’s 30.555%.
For the 8 or less: 1+2+3+4+5+6 +1+2+3+4+5 +1+2+3+4 + 1+2+3 + 1+2 + 1 = 6×1 +5×2 +4×3 +3×4 +2×5 +6 = 6+10+12+12+10+6 = 56 / 216 = 25.926%.
For the 7 or less rolls, it’s 1+2+3+4+5 +1+2+3+4 +1+2+3 + 1+2 + 1 = 5×1 +4×2 +3×3 +2×4 +5 = 5+8+9+8+5 = 35 / 216 = 16.203%.
For a 6 or less roll, it’s 1+2+3+4 +1+2+3 +1+2 + 1 = 4×1 +3×2 +2×3 +4 = 4+6+6+4 = 20/216 = 9.26%.
Putting those together: 30.555% × 25.926% × 16.203% × 16.203% = 0.208% chance of making the 4th save, x9.26% = 0.019% of the 5th.
Once in about 5263 attempts, you would expect that series of rolls to come off. But even if you make the 5th, that only demands a 6th and then a 7th and an 8th immediately, still without letting the character actually do anything else in between. In essence, they have entered a “roll until you fail” loop. All that a success on the 5th roll gets you is an additional -1 penalty.
Any fair GM encountering this situation will let the character fail automatically and keep the better penalty number of -7, in my opinion. But some players are stubborn and will insist on trying for the 5th save, anyway.
The penalty modifier immediately changes. If the character rolled a fairly average 10, they fail the 4th roll by 3, so the change is -1+5=+4. But this is very variable – if they had rolled an equally-average 11, they would have failed by 4, so the change would be +3. Either result is equally likely, and that one difference in the penalty value makes a big difference. But let’s be generous in our assumptions, and give the character the +4. That means that instead of a -7, they are now looking at a -3 in penalties.
Now we’re in the province of the CON saves – at minus 3. Maybe a 13 or less, overall? They have a pretty good chance of success, the first time around.
If they DO succeed, they lose 10% of whatever hit points they had left after all those rounds of combat, which might not be very many, and the difficulty modifier improves by another 1 to -2, and they get another set of Will Saves, which means that they get another 19 Event points, and each round, they will again get 4 additional Event points.
☆ Round 7 continued. 19 Events remain. The character gets to finish his turn using six of those event points, and leaving 13. 6 events used = -1 additional penalty, which returns to -3. Each round they start, they would normally get 3 Event Points, but they only get 80% of that, which is 2.4 – and that, happily for them, rounds in their favor back to 3.
☆ Round 8: 13 Events remaining, +4 = 17 to use. 10 used, leaves 7. 16 Events used worsens the penalty by 3 from the initial -2 to -5.
☆ Round 9: 7 Events remaining, +4 = 11 to use. The character uses 10 of them. 10 more Events used =26, which worsens the penalty from the initial -2 by -5, to -7 in total.
☆ Round 10: 0 Events remaining, +4 = 4 to use. The character uses 3 and is forced to make another Will Save to try and get some more. 29 events used is still a -5 adjustment to the penalty, which remains a -7.
The successful CON roll didn’t buy much time, did it? There’s still a reasonable chance that the character will make this Will save, but there’s a better chance that they will fail. It took four sets of Will Saves for things to get this difficult last time.
The character fails. So it’s time to make a second CON check. The character fails this roll, too, and starts to drown.
Things would get a lot worse for the character if their initial condition was worse. At 50% or below, some of those roundings would stop being in their favor – four would become 3, and 2 would become 1. Instead of 19, they might only have 12 Events, and fewer each round to boot. In effect, there is a geometric progress of difficulty with HP loss.
In reality, this very much represents a worst case for the character. The penalty applies to their attack rolls, for example, and if they miss, they don’t inflict damage, which therefore only costs them one Event Point for the attempt. It also affects damage inflicted in the case of most melee weaponry (water resists movement far more than air) – and that might also be enough to negate that Event point (do no damage, take no pain). So the potential is there for a character to last much longer in underwater combat.
7. Debilitation State
Whatever the final penalty is when the character drags themselves from the water (STR check, that’s another Event!) becomes their debilitation state. Each round, they have to make a CON / FORT save at the current penalty level. If they succeed, they improve that penalty by 1. The penalty continues to apply to all attacks and damage in the meantime.
The GM should assess the debilitation state and estimate any other impacts (END used, for example) that are relevant.
If the character actually failed one or more Will Checks, and was therefore forced to make a CON / FORT check, they have swallowed water (or whatever the noxious substance is). The CON check sequence tracks the worsening physical condition that results but doesn’t take the actual effects of the whatever into account.
Each CON / FORT roll that the character fails should be noted by the GM. They add half the number of rounds or turns spent in the hazardous environment and 2 for every CON check that was failed while in the Hazardous environment, and compare the results to the characters CON. If the total exceeds the CON then the character has swallowed enough of the hazardous substance that it could potentially be lethal – they are coughing up water. (Of course, if their HP dropped to zero, they drowned).
NONE of the HP lost to the hazardous environment are actual; they will return in proportion to the recovery from the debilitated state. This doesn’t include damage inflicted by an enemy, obviously.
8. How Long is A Piece Of String?
I found that example in the last section to be very beneficial. If I were to consider tweaks to the mechanics, I would reduce the initial number of Events conferred, increase the number of Events gained each round by a little, and maybe add a reduction in the initial number of Events conferred by a successful CON save – but overall, the system did everything required of it.
The objective, after all, was never to kill the party or any of its members; it’s to pose a challenge and reflect an environment in which characters are at a severe and increasing disadvantage compared to those who can live there.
But that’s still a lot of fart-arsing around. We really need something that’s faster, and simpler, and more abstract. Perhaps modeled on the system given above, but faster, simpler, and cleaner. And it’s because I knew this was coming before I wrote word one of the mechanics above that I didn’t go back and apply those tweaks!
An abstract system
I’m structuring this in a very similar way to the system given above. In fact, I’ll be using copy-and-paste to get the initial draft of the mechanics (so don’t be surprised if parts of it sound familiar).
- For D&D/Pathfinder, you get your FORT save. It doesn’t matter if this is on 3d6 or on d20.
- For the Hero System, you get your CON save, plus two for every point by which that save exceeds 11.
- For the Zenith-3 System, you get one-fifth of your CON save, plus 5, plus one for every ten by which your CON save exceeds zero (or part thereof).
- Make a Will Roll (with difficulty modifier) and determine the amount by which you succeed, if you succeed at all.
- Compare that value with the list below to determine the number of “successful rolls” that result:
Succeed by 0 = 1 success
Succeed by 1 = 1 success
Succeed by 2 = 2 successes
Succeed by 3 = 2 successes
Succeed by 4 = 3 successes
Succeed by 5 = 3 successes
Succeed by 6 = 3 successes
Succeed by 7 = 4 successes
Succeed by 8 = 4 successes
Succeed by 9 = 4 successes
Succeed by 10 = 4 successes
Succeed by 11 = 5 successes
Succeed by 12 = 5 successes
Succeed by 13 = 5 successes
Succeed by 14 = 5 successes
Succeed by 15 = 6 successes
Succeed by 16 = 6 successes
Succeed by 17 = 6 successes
Succeed by 18 = 7 successes
Succeed by 19 = 8 successes
Succeed by 20 = 9 successes<./li>
- Each ‘success’ grants additional successful Will Saves before a CON check is needed equal to Base Number + Current Difficulty Modifier, with a minimum of 1.
- Each new turn continues to add Events to his capacity as usual.
1. Measuring Time
Using Events as a timekeeping system is an important innovation that should be retained, because it ties the answer to the overall question with the activity levels of the character. Be very active, and you’ll burn through your allocation quickly; conserve your air, and you will last for quite a while. You may not get as much done in any given round, but the long term will be more than comparable.
2. Buffer Time
This also remains almost unchanged in this more abstract system:
I thought about reducing this allocation, as suggested in the concluding analysis of the realistic system, but these results are so straightforward that it wasn’t worth the effort.
Every turn that you start with unused Events adds 6 Events to the total, until you have to make a CON check for more time; then it’s +5 each turn, followed by +4, +3, +2, and +1.
This is slightly more generous than the realistic system.
3. Progressive Difficulty
This is also unchanged – every 5 Events that you count off adds one to your progressive difficulty modifier. This confers a -1 to every roll or save in D&D, Pathfinder, and the Hero system, and -10 in the Zenith-3 system.
4. A Will Check
This is where things start to change. Instead of a succession of Will Checks, I want to replace them all with a single roll in which the amount by which you succeed or fail translates into an equivalent number of successful will saves.
Example: A character needs 8 or more to succeed on d20 (D&D). He rolls a 14, succeeding by 6. This is considered the equivalent of succeeding three times in a row. Each time his available number of Events runs out, he gets his base number, less the current difficulty modifier, additional Actions, with a minimum of 1 additional success.
Example: A character needs 15 or less to succeed on 3d6 (Hero system). He rolls a 4, succeeding by 11. This is considered the equivalent of succeeding at five Will checks in a row, less the current modifier, with a minimum of 1 successful Will Roll.
Each ‘success’ adds 6 more actions to your event capacity, plus one quarter of the base number, less the cumulative penalty.
5. A Con / Fort Check
The CON checks described in the realistic system had significant effects on the character even if they succeeded, so there should be minimal changes to this section.
The difficulty modifier immediately worsens by 1/2 the number of Will Saves that were indicated above, minus 1, with a minimum worsening of 1.
If you succeed, the difficulty modifier remains unchanged and you get an additional set of Will saves determined as above, using the worsened difficulty modifier. You also immediately lose 10% of your remaining Hit Points, or 10, whichever is greater. This “10% loss” increases by 10% with every odd-numbered Con / Fort check.
If you fail, the difficulty modifier increases by the amount that you failed, and you immediately lose half your remaining hit points or less (or equivalent), or 20 points (whichever is worse). If you still have Hit Points remaining, you then get to make a Will Save as above for more events.
6. Initial State
This is handled in the same way as in the realistic system:
The ratio of HP lost vs the fully-healed total, rounded to the nearest 10%, is the fraction of initial actions that are considered “pre-consumed”, which brings the first check on that much more quickly. This same fixed ratio is applied to each subsequent set of actions permitted by a Will Roll. Always round in the character’s favor.
If the character has no opportunity to take a deep breath, the GM should secretly roll a d10 for how far they are through their normal breath cycle, and apply the result in 10% increments. In practical terms, this simply multiplies one percentage by another. Technically, since we want to know how long the character will last, we need to subtract this roll from 100 before multiplying.
Debilitation
These rules are also unchanged from the Realistic System:
Whatever the final penalty is when the character drags themselves from the water (STR check, that’s another Event!) becomes their debilitation state. Each round, they have to make a CON / FORT save at the current penalty level. If they succeed, they improve that penalty by 1. The penalty continues to apply to all attacks and damage in the meantime.
The GM should assess the debilitation state and estimate any other impacts (END used, for example) that are relevant.
If the character actually failed one or more Will Checks, and was therefore forced to make a CON / FORT check, they have swallowed water (or whatever the noxious substance is). The CON check sequence tracks the worsening physical condition that results but doesn’t take the actual effects of the whatever into account.
Each CON / FORT roll that the character fails should be noted by the GM. They add half the number of rounds or turns spent in the hazardous environment and 2 for every CON check that was failed while in the Hazardous environment, and compare the results to the characters CON. If the total exceeds the CON then the character has swallowed enough of the hazardous substance that it could potentially be lethal – they are coughing up water. (Of course, if their HP dropped to zero, they drowned).
NONE of the HP lost to the hazardous environment are actual; they will return in proportion to the recovery from the debilitated state. This doesn’t include damage inflicted by an enemy, obviously.
8. How Long is A Piece Of String?
This system works almost exactly as the “realistic” system except that it’s been streamlined.
That’s more like it! But it’s too soon to call this a definitive answer. You see, asking the question also means that you need to think about the circumstances under which you might need an answer, and that leads to the consequences of failure / running out of breath.
The Need To Breathe
I was only able to come up with five reasons (and a catch-all) why you might need to hold your breath, each with its own consequences. I’ve listed these from solid to liquid to gas. to a lack of gas.
- New York State Department of Health, Exposure to Smoke from Fires – “Inhaling smoke for a short time can cause immediate (acute) effects. Smoke is irritating to the eyes, nose, and throat, and its odor may be nauseating. Studies have shown that some people exposed to heavy smoke have temporary changes in lung function, which makes breathing more difficult.” – A good general introduction and overview.
- Michigan State University, Smoke inhalation is the most common cause of death in house fires – “…once oxygen levels drop to half the normal amount, movement toward exits becomes difficult or impossible…” – lists the physical effects of declining oxygen levels.
- WebMD, Smoke Inhalation – “A fire can produce compounds that do damage by interfering with your body’s oxygen use at a cellular level. Carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, and hydrogen sulfide are all examples of chemicals produced in fires that interfere with the use of oxygen by the cell.” – goes into greater detail on the effects of smoke inhalation, and how they are treated in modern times.
- Linkedin Pulse, Fire smoke inhalation is dangerous and the number one cause of death in house fires! – “Once you start to inhale the smoke, you are not getting enough oxygen to live. Depending on the density and heat of the smoke, it may take 2 to 10 minutes to pass out or die.” – goes into the time limits that apply to smoke exposure and also the impact on pets and animals.
Buried Alive
At first glance, you might think that this category doesn’t belong. The problem when buried alive is often that you can’t expand your lungs enough to take a breath due to the weight pressing on your body, after all – certainly, that’s the problem when you are buried in sand, gravel, or loose earth.
But, if by chance, you find yourself in a hollow after an avalanche or mine collapse, this might not be a problem; the difficulty then is that there is limited air to consume. Slow, shallow breaths, and minimal activity, are the primary survival techniques in this situation, but the inexperienced will tend to hold their breath for as long as they can, then gasp for a bit, then hold their breath again. If people could limit themselves to a single exhalation and gasp of air, this might work – but no-one can.
That means that there are no real immediate consequences for taking a breath – either you can, or you can’t (but try anyway) – but there may be dire long-term consequences. The CO2 content of fresh air varies between 0.036% and 0.041%. With every intake of breath in an enclosed space, some Oxygen is breathed in and some CO2 exhaled. Up to about 1%, increased concentrations of CO2 make the lungs feel stuffy and cause rapid, shallow breathing in an attempt to obtain sufficient oxygen. It often also causes drowsiness. In concentrations of 1-3%, hearing is reduced, the heart begins to race, blood pressure rises, and mild narcosis results. From 3-5%, shortness of breath, dizziness, confusion and headaches result. Around 8%, Sight becomes dimmed, the victim starts sweating uncontrollably and experiencing muscle tremors and spasms, and eventually loses consciousness. And somewhere between 7 and 10%, individuals can suffocate even if there is sufficient breathable oxygen. The technical name for CO2 ‘poisoning’ is Hypercapnia.
Rather than use this breath-holding game mechanic for such situations, it is often more useful to consider how long normal activity levels can be sustained in a given concentration of CO2.
⋄ Up to 1%, people can survive for a lifetime at full productivity.
⋄ From 1% to 2.5%, productivity is over 1 month, and any side-effects (mild respiratory stimulation) temporary.
⋄ From 2.5% to 3%, productivity is still >1 month, but the impact on respiration is more pronounced.
⋄ From 3% to 3.5%, productivity is >1 week, and there is moderate respiratory stimulation. Some side effects of exposure may persist after exposure.
⋄ From 3.5% to 4%, productivity is > 1 week and not only is there moderate respiratory stimulation when resting, there is an exaggerated respiratory response to exercise. Mild lethargy is common.
⋄ From 4% to 4.5%, productivity declines to >8 hours, and a flushed appearance to the skin becomes noticeable, otherwise as above.
⋄ From 4.5% to 5%, productivity declines to >4 hours and the respiratory stimulation is pronounced, as though you were working hard even when resting. Capacity for exertion begins to be impacted. Lethargy becomes more serious.
.
⋄ From 5% to 5.5%, productivity declines to >1 hour, otherwise as above.
⋄ From 5.5% to 6%, productivity declines to >30 minutes and cognitive abilities begin to be impaired in addition to the effects listed above. Some individuals appear to be drunken. Some people experience recurring headaches and periods of confusion afterwards.
⋄ From 6% to 6.5%, productivity declines to >15 minutes and cognitive impairment becomes more pronounced. Permanent after-effects become more common, signifying permanent brain injury. Otherwise as above.
⋄ From 6.5% to 7%, productivity declines to >6 minutes. Panic, Convulsions, and Hyperventilation may result, limiting ‘productivity’. Unconsciousness may occur.
⋄ From 7% up, unconsciousness will result in less than three minutes. Individuals may experience Panic, Convulsions, and/or Hyperventilation. Once unconscious, death will follow in minutes.
With this array of consequences in hand, all we need to know is how quickly C02 rises with breathing. Obviously, this will depend on exertion levels amongst other factors (temperature, food, pressure), which makes it harder to be definitive.
As a general rule, the amount of CO2 produced is roughly equal to the amount of O2 consumed. It may be up to 30% below this number, but the usual practice in computing survival times to take the worst case, not the best case.
24 cubic feet of oxygen an hour will become CO2 through normal respiration. This can double in periods of high stress or activity.
If you have a volume of 500 cubic feet of air at 1 atmosphere, that’s 24 to 48 / 500 = 4.8% to 9.6% per hour – but this is a fairly blunt time measure. Let’s use 1/5 of this, an interval of 12 minutes – giving 1-2% of the available oxygen consumed.
CO2 levels effectively start at 0. Air is 21% oxygen, so we need to multiply the accumulating CO2 % by 0.21 to get the overall percentage of C02 for use in the consequences listed above.
▸ 0 hours, 100% of the available O2, 0% CO2.
▸ 12 minutes, 1%-2% O2 consumed, CO2 1×0.21 – 2×0.21 = 0.21 – 0.42%.
▸ 24 minutes, 2%-4% O2 consumed, CO2 2×0.21 – 4×0.21 = 0.42 – 0.84%.
▸ 36 minutes, 3%-6% O2 consumed, CO2 3×0.21 – 6×0.21 = 0.63% – 1.26%.
▸ 48 minutes, 4%-8% O2 consumed, CO2 4×0.21 – 8×0.21 = 0.84% – 1.68%.
▸ 1 hour, 5%-10% O2 consumed, CO2 5×0.21 – 10×0.21 = 1.05% – 2.1%.
▸ 1 hour 12 minutes, 6%-12% O2 consumed, CO2 6×0.21 – 12×0.21 = 1.26% – 2.52%.
▸ 1 hour 24 minutes, 7%-14% O2 consumed, CO2 7×0.21 – 14×0.21 = 1.47% – 2.94%.
▸ 1 hour 36 minutes, 8%-16% O2 consumed, CO2 8×0.21 – 16×0.21 = 1.68% – 3.36%.
▸ 1 hour 48 minutes, 9%-18% O2 consumed, CO2 9×0.21 – 18×0.21 = 1.89% – 3.78%.
▸ 2 hours, 10%-20% O2 consumed, CO2 10×0.21 – 20×0.21 = 2.1% – 4.2%.
… and so on.
Of course, this is for just one character breathing the air. If there are four of them, multiply the C02 percentage by four…
▸ 1 hour 36 minutes, 32%-64% O2 consumed, CO2 32×0.21 – 64×0.21 = 1.68×4 – 2×1.68×4 = 6.72% – 13.44%. With 7% being the lethal threshold (effectively). that says that resting in such a space, four characters could survive for 1 hr 36 minutes awaiting rescue; if they take matters into their own hands, they have about half that long (48 minutes) to open an air passage.
The final consideration is how realistic that 500 cubic feet is. That’s a space of 10′ x 10′ x 5′ – which is fairly small. Ten times this much would not be surprising – and that means 10 times the survival times. For four characters, that would be 16 hours at rest, or eight hours of exertion.
The good news is that all this is a simple multiplication by a factor relative to the base assumption. It’s not too difficult to put together a table for each specific occasion that you need one.
Compound exertion levels – some characters resting, some characters exerting themselves – are not much more difficult:
NR + NE×2 = multiple of resting time for one character.
EG: 3 characters resting, one character exerting themselves = 3+2=5 x resting rate for one character.
CO2 is heavier than air, and can concentrate into pockets if released from volcanic processes; so long as the head is above the “pool” of CO2, you would not even notice. It is possible to go from trivial levels to lethal levels in a single step. Of course, smaller animals are more susceptible, and carrion-eaters such as vultures are drawn to the bodies and also succumb. Children have been killed by CO2 exposure in the vicinity of Mount Nyiragongo in the Congo.
Clearly, the situations where you can’t take a breath at all are more dire than the alternatives within this category, but the alternative is no picnic!
Under fluid
As soon as you mention “holding your breath”, most people immediately think of underwater travel. In fact, drowning is so significant in this context that I’ve given it a section of its own.
But what of fluids that aren’t water?
This is surprisingly simple – simply multiply the effort by the square root of the viscosity of the liquid and divide the results of such effort by the square root of the viscosity.
Which means that all you need to know is the viscosity.
This table gives you most of what you will ever need, but it doesn’t list water so we have no referent. Wikipedia to the rescue; according to this list, water is the standard, with a Viscosity of 1.0016 at 1 atmosphere and 20°C (room temperature). I suspect that the units were originally defined to give water a value of exactly one, but more accurate measurements later ‘tweaked’ that value. Never mind, 1 is close enough for our purposes. And a couple of entries above, we find Methanol with a viscosity of 0.553 – and the big table lists Methanol (under Alcohol) with a value of 0.56. So far as I’m concerned, that’s a match – and that means that we can just read Viscosity values straight off the table.
So, for example, Coconut Oil is listed as having a Viscosity of 30. That means a factor of √30 = 5.48. Which means that it takes 5.48 times as much effort to do something, like swim, and if your normal swim is 30′, you would only travel about 5½ feet.
If you need to determine a stat, like effective STR, the easiest thing to do is to subtract √Viscosity from the stat, then add 1 for water. In coconut oil, that means that a character with STR 18 would only have an effective STR of 13. If a character has a 12+ chance of hitting (D&D), add √Viscosity to get an adjusted chance – and then factor in the difference in STR bonuses. 12+5.5-1=16.5 — call it 16+ — and then adjust for effective STR, and you end up with 19+.
Drowning For Beginners
It can take as little as 1/2 a cup of fluid entering the lungs for a person to start to drown. The exact amount varies with age, weight, and respiratory health. A rough guide is 1 milliliter per kilogram of weight – that’s 0.092 US standard teaspoons per pound.
Children can then drown in as little as 20 seconds, an adult in 40 – or it can take considerably longer.
Drowning is divided into six stages: (i) struggle to keep the airway clear of the water, (ii) initial submersion and breath-holding, (iii) aspiration of water, (iv) unconsciousness, (v) cardio-respiratory arrest and (vi) death – inability to revive. Under the circumstances we’re asking the question, (i), (ii) and (iii) have already happened.
For several seconds after inhaling water, the drowning victim is in a state of fight or flight as they struggle to breathe. Then the airways close in a reflex action to prevent more water from getting into the lungs. They start to hold their breath involuntarily, no matter how little air they have left in their lungs. This continues until the person is unconscious.
Breathing then stops and the heart slows; a person in this state can still be revived. The longer it persists, the worse their chances of a good outcome, though. This condition can last for several minutes.
Eventually, the body enters hypoxic convulsion. This can look like a seizure. Without oxygen, the person’s body appears to turn blue and may jerk around erratically. There is still a slim chance of revival with modern technology, but the odds are now grim.
The brain, heart, and lungs reach a state beyond where they can be revived. This final stage of drowning is called cerebral hypoxia, followed by clinical death.
Four to Six minutes ‘breathing water’ will result in brain damage and eventually, death by drowning.
What’s more, a person can drown on dry land hours after inhaling water in what is known as Secondary Drowning, especially if they have inhaled salt water; the body keeps diverting water to the lungs to dilute the salt, and the victim ends up drowning in the fluid.
Gas Attacks
While there are some gasses that prevent you from extracting oxygen from the air, most of the time you aren’t worried about that so much as other effects from breathing a noxious vapor. Most game systems will have specified effects for specific gasses, and the subject is too broad to really go into in any depth.
There are a few exceptions to this: Carbon Dioxide (already covered) and gasses that like to explode, for a start. The latter are bad news at the best of times, but inhaling the exploding vapors makes a bad situation immeasurably worse. That’s what happens if you happen to fail your CON / FORT check at exactly the wrong time – bearing in mind that each die of damage from the explosion brings your next CON / FORT check that much closer AND adds to the accumulated penalty that makes the check that much harder to pass.
I want to specifically call out an effect of gas that often gets overlooked – vision difficulties as a result of ocular irritation from the gas. This can easily lead a character to stumble or trip on an unseen obstacle, and that can cause a loss of sense of direction that can trap a character long enough to cause an inhaling of fumes.
And that brings me to the last of the exceptions – smoke. This is another complex subject; rather than trying to unpack it here, I think it better to give you some further reading on the subject. Below are links to a number of web-pages of relevance, together with a quote or two from each page or a description of the content of relevance.
Bad Air
Coal mines, amongst others, tend to have pockets of ‘bad air’ – often Carbon Monoxide or Methane. Small birds were often used as early warning signs of ‘Bad Air’.
Some gasses are lighter than air, and accumulate in hollows in the ceilings. Others are heavier than air and accumulate in depressions. Either can be lethal.
This article from Howden details the most dangerous gases in Mining – Firedamp, Black Damp, White Damp, Afterdamp, and Stinkdamp.
And this article from the US Forest Service about the dangers of exploring abandoned mines might also be of interest.
Finally, lest you be under the impression that it’s only Coal Mines that have problems with bad air, there’s this article from Western Australia: about Limestone Caves and foul air!
High Altitude / Vacuum
Holding your breath isn’t so much the problem at high altitude as the fact that there isn’t enough air to breathe! Of course, the ultimate expression of this lies in being blown out an airlock into space – and therein lies a tale.
Some sources say that you shouldn’t hold your breath under such circumstances; others that you should. The first doesn’t provide a lot of scope for player agency, however, so in most of my games, Holding Your Breath is the way to go.
Exotica
Finally, there are exotic and strange possibilities. A room full of radioactive dust, for example. These are so varied in their possibilities that they are well beyond the scope of this article, which is already long enough at almost 12000 words and counting!
Master, Have Mercy…
These dangers bring back into focus the discarded ‘speed of plot’ solution and player agency be damned – at least some of the time.
How is a GM to decide? Well, here’s what I think about when making such decisions:
- No encounter is as important as the adventure;
- No adventure is as important as player agency;
- No player choice is as important as the broader plotline;
- No plotline is as important as the campaign as a whole;
- No campaign is as important as everyone having fun.
What outcomes are acceptable?
Are you willing to let a PC die on the sword of verisimilitude? Is this supposed to be a difficulty or challenge to be overcome, is it supposed to force the party to divide, is it a steering mechanism, or is it supposed to be a hazard that can kill, possibly in conjunction with a combat encounter?
Temporary Impairment, not death?
If the mechanics indicate one or more deaths are likely, that’s not necessarily a refusal. Sometimes, you can restore player agency and soft-pedal the consequences just enough for characters to survive with a temporary impairment instead of death.
But I always remember the old woman in The Poseidon Adventure, who sacrificed herself to get everyone else through.
If the death will to be noble and heroic, and there are no campaign-adverse impacts, it is not necessary to show mercy. If both of these are not true, then I apply a set of maxims –
and quickly reach the conclusion that it’s more important to make the events dramatic and exciting and fun than to be a Killer GM.
As a general rule of thumb, I won’t kill a PC unless the player has them do something completely idiotic after ignoring multiple hints and warnings.
But there are all sorts of shades of gray in between, and one of those is taking a character to the point of death without actually killing them – so long as that won’t make them helpless for the rest of the adventure.
Descriptions and Narrative
So, drama and excitement. Those have to stem from gameplay and descriptions and other narrative.
Asking a player for his character’s stats automatically implies that your narrative is custom-tailored to the combination of that character and that circumstance. But it’s even better when that narrative is tailored to the individual character.
As a side-point – I once had a character experience a near-death situation purely so that he could experience a flashback to a situation that the player never knew of, and that the character had been encouraged to ‘forget’. So a mercy approach may be just as essential to the overall plotline as letting characters feel the full impact of their decisions.
A player should not know – building tension
It’s absolutely critical that if you intend to be merciful, that you don’t let the player know. The only way to build tension is to keep them in suspense, and it’s the release of tension that is exhilarating.
Escape Clauses and other Trap-doors
If I can think of a plausible one, I’ll use an escape clause instead of temporary impairment. This lets me go all-out toward killing the character if that’s what’s appropriate (it usually is), secure in the knowledge that at the last possible second, I’ll throw them a surprise lifeline.
How Long Can A Character Hold His Breath? The answer is a whole lot more complicated than it first appears.
There is no one answer – but this article at least gives you a suite of tools to use in deciding what answer best suits your needs at any particular time.
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