Not breathing for HOW long?, Diving and holding breath Options

[The Jopp]

Low Oxygen Adaption (0,5 essence)
Allows the character to hold their breath for Body X5 minutes before feeling an urge to breathe again.

Extended Volume Lvl 3 (0,3 Essence)
Extended Volume adds +100% average time for holdings one breath (+48 seconds per lvl)

Ok, what do we have then?
Now, if I calculate this correctly a lvl 3 Extended volume should increase the time the character can hold its breath to Body X20 minutes since the Extended Volume adds 3 times the original volume.

A troll with body 10 could then hold his breath for approximately 3,5 hours before he need to take a breath.

If we then add an internal airtank we have even sillier things since 2 hours compares to 150 times the usual lung capacity of holdings ones breath. With this in mind and the total time before he has to surface or breath in a hostile environment becomes 4+150=154

Total time: Body X (5 X 154)=770 / 60= 128 hours.

And there’s no stopping someone for adding more than one airtank…

For those that prefers breathing underwater the combination of cybergills and Natural Immunity: Nitrogen Narcosis positive quality is also an option.

Yes, i was bored - and i havent added the adept combo yet...

[Irian]

...and what's the problem?

[The Jopp]

[Serial_Peacemake...]

Well to be fair you are kind of supposed to be better, stronger, faster when you have cyber. So I can buy that with advanced cyber, and biotech you could get a person to the point where they need to breath less often than they need to eat. I mean look how long some animals can hold their breath. A whale can hold its breath for something along the line of two hours, without an air tank implanted in it. I'm willing to bet that cyber would be even better.

[Dashifen]

Wow. Cyber-whales. I'm totally finding a way to use cyber-whales in my game. They may not even be a bad guy or a problem for players, but I'm thinking that they could be outfitted with orientation gear and other mapping/locating cyber for patrol duties along their migration. Hell, the research potential is probably worth the cash to some universities......

</hijack>

[Irian]

Of course it seems long, but I really don't see a problem here. In gaming terms it normaly doesn't matter if you can hold your breath for 1 hour or 3 days. Situations where you have an advantage by holding your breath for longer than an hour are very, very, very, very... rare :-) Being able to hold it for 10 Minutes may be a great advantage, because some toxins will probably not affect you, but the longer it gets, the less often you'll need it.

Personally, I also don't see why an astronaut should hold it's breath for 2,5 days... :-)

[Whipstitch]

That's rather impressive but considering the essence cost attached to the full combo, it would have to be. It's very effective but we're talking about a pretty narrow application. It stretches the imagination a bit, especially when you throw in troll sized body scores, but overall, it's kind of cool and I would think it'd be rather unlikely to cause any problems in most campaigns.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Irian]

That's probably because most Shadowrun submarines lack ultrasonic computer interfaces for the dolphin hackers. This isn't a bad movie, where every submarine has one :-)

[The Jopp]

[eidolon]

It is a long time, but a lot of times when I find myself looking at something like this, I have to actively remind myself of whether it really means all that much in game.

Sure, that troll could stay underwater for 5 days.

How often is the runner team going to be underwater (and not in a vehicle) for more than 5 minutes? More than 5 hours? Obviously this answer depends on your campaign, but in my games in the last 5 years, only once has one runner ever ended up underwater and outside a vehicle, and even then, since they were aboard a sub, he just threw on a suit.

So yeah, a troll could potentially hold his breath for 5 days underwater. But to do so, that troll has to spend essence and cash on something with a very limited application. The rest of the team has to wear enclosed diving suits or at least SCUBA gear. For once, the troll has a greater freedom of movement. :)

[Tarantula]

Actually Jopp, the text for extended volume just says it adds 48 seconds per rating. So, you get 48 x 3 = 144 extra seconds. Plus the body * 5 minutes. Taking a body 10 troll you get 50 minutes + 144 seconds = 52 minutes 24 seconds of time. Before you have to start making tests.

[Fortune]

<shrug>

One dose of Rating 5 OxyRush allows anyone to hold their breath for 2 1/2 hours before they even have to start trying.

[nathanross]

I was wondering when someone was going to say Oxyrush. Totally my style compared to the others. Much cheaper on essence if you have cyberlimbs and whatnot.

[The Jopp]

[Ol' Scratch]

No, what they say is that they allow you to hold your breath for +48 seconds per level, and that that's double the (normal) time most metahumans can do so. The former is the actual rule, the latter is a fluff description for clarification purposes. Can see why you're reading it the other way, though. But whenever they give an actual number or rule, that number or rule supercedes the fluff.

[mfb]

might be interesting for some kind of SEAL (or ex-SEAL) underwater demo-type character. not sure how much such a character would contribute to a team, unless the game were specifically designed around him. though, honestly, why go to all this trouble when you can just get cybergills and an internal helium tank?

as far as the rules go, isn't 100% a number? seems like the +48 seconds thing is the fluff, to me.

[Ol' Scratch]

[mfb]

yeah, i hadn't checked the text, i thought the OP was quoting. still, i think any GM that tried to enforce that'd get a kick in the teeth. (that means you, toturi!)

[Tarantula]

I'd definately hold to the +48 seconds rule. Buy an airtank if you want to go stupid amounts of time without breathing.