Breathing (SofS)

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﻿The ability to breathe precludes all other needs underwater, and magic provides the key for underwater breathing. Characters can use anything from potions of water breathing to airy water spells, which enable them to exist and adventure in an underwater setting. Dungeon Masters can also provide "naturally" occurring plants, such as oxygen-supplying seaweed, minerals (look for hissing coral in the "Encyclopedia Serôsica" chapter), or other objects as a way of solving this dilemma. If some method of breathing is not devised, adventurers must resort to the last-ditch solution of holding their breath. Rules for holding one's breath, as well as drowning, are in Chapter 14 of the Player's Handbook (see "Swimming").
==Magical Breathing Methods==
Especially in the Realms, magical means of breathing underwater are varied in form and function. Potions, rings, helms, and spells allow surface-dwelling player characters access to the mysterious underwater realms. Magical breathing falls into three general categories: conversion, transformation, and adaptation.
Conversion dweomers change the environment around the caster or magical-item wielder, converting the water into air. These allow the recipient to speak while underwater, since the lungs are not filled with water, but creatures outside the influence of the item or spell might not easily understand the speaker. Conversion dweomers automatically compensate for pressure changes. The atmosphere generated by the magic gradually matches the pressure of the surrounding water, thereby protecting users from the negative effects of pressure. However, these dweomers do not protect the user from cold temperatures.
* Example 1— Airy Water: This spell changes a volume of normal liquid into a bubbling, breathable substance, The sphere the spell creates does not float, but slowly sinks until at rest against a solid surface. Those creatures inside an airy water sphere can freely speak with and understand creatures outside the sphere if they understand each other's languages. Additionally, anyone in combat inside an airy water sphere does not suffer the negative effects of underwater combat and combat occurs normally.
* Example 2— Helm of Underwater Action: This magical item converts a quantity of water into a bubble of air surrounding the wearer's head and enables normal breathing while underwater. The item also grants exceptional underwater vision and hearing, but the helm does not nullify water resistance, so the wearer still suffers all movement and combat penalties associated with underwater adventuring.
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Transformation dweomers effect changes in the caster or user that allow survival in the surrounding environment-specifically, undersea. Instead of changing water to air, these magics change the user to get the needed oxygen from water. These allow breathing, but they do not surround the recipient with pressurized atmosphere and their users are often subject to the full effects of pressure, temperature, and other dangers.
* Example 1— Water Breathing (spell or potion): All forms of this spell or potion transform the recipient's body so it can extract oxygen from water. The recipient's lungs and vocal chords fill with water, thereby cutting off both normal speech and spellcasting. Although recipients of such magic can breathe water, they gain no other abilities to move more easily underwater. Thus, all attack and movement penalties usually apply to creatures using these methods.
* Example 2— Polymorph Self/Other: These wizard spells can completely transform a surface-dwelling creature into a water-breathing one. This transformation protects the recipient from all negative effects of pressure and temperature while in marine form. Both spells allow the recipient to hear, see, and attack as the marine creature they become, and they negate movement penalties incurred by pressure and water resistance.
﻿Adaptation dweomers facilitate complete adaptation to a hostile environment and grant total immunity to some specific negative effects associated with environmental conditions-penalties on movement, combat, temperature, and pressure. The benefits and drawbacks of adaptation methods are:
* Example 1— Ioun Stone (Iridescent): This stone does not serve a biological function-it grants its user complete independence from the need to breathe at all. However, it does not allow the user to speak without air, nor does it provide ways to bypass the penalties to movement and combat due to pressure, temperature, and water resistance.
* Example 2— Necklace of Adaptation: This magical item protects the wearer from harmful gases. The adaptation dweomer completely protects the wearer from the effects of pressure, but not movement or combat penalties.
==Freshwater vs. Seawater==
Most of the races within the Inner Sea breathe only saltwater, since that is more than 99% of its total volume. However, near the coastal shallows and at inlets ﻿where rivers drain into Seròs, brackish mixtures of fresh and saltwater occur. Due to different body structures (such as redundant lungs and gills), only sea elves, aquatic trolls known as scrags, and koalinth all share the ability to breathe fresh, salt, or mixed water with no ill effects.
Should Serôsian natives breathe brackish water, they become sluggish (or light-headed and tipsy) due to the freshwater content, halving their movement and losing two maneuverability ranks.
Continued exposure to brackish water for more than an hour, or freshwater for more than a turn, reduces movement by half again, leads to extreme nausea (and a subsequent loss of one point of Strength per hour). This leads to unconsciousness (when Strength is less than 3) or death if removed from saltwater for more than their Strength in hours.