Hey Guys

My group is gearing up for a pac rim based campaign and i was thinking about an ex underwater construction worker / freediver type consept but we couldnt find any rules for pressures of the depth and wasnt sure what all to take my GM may go with the genetic infusion from some kind of deepsea fish thing but i thought i'd ask here what you all though about it


1 is there any crunch in the faq or printed for depth or the bends?

2 what cyber/bio were would combat this? like ortho skin or somthing?

3 im pretty sure i will go with gills but does anyone have a prefence? (gills vs cyber gill vs breath holding increase)

thanks in advance

1. See Arsenal, page 170.
2. I don't think any does.
3. SURGE!

I don't believe the rules provided are either particularly useful or have much to do with reality. I'd suggest using google if you want anything generally useful with some relationship to reality.

Tough skin and bones don't help, the pressure increases to astonishingly high levels at depth that don't seem crazy.

i seem to recall a drug that was supposed to be a treatment for the bends or something like that...

Again... there is a lot of information in Arsenal, Page 169 - 171 that is specific to deep diving, complete with a useable dive time chart (though nothing useable for decompression, though they have a fairly general rule of thumb (Ascent/Descent no greater thatn 1 Meter/Combat Turn or resist 2p damage))... and anything uder 80 meters, you should probably use an LBA setup, as this will allow you to somewhat bypass the Diving times listed...

Do yourself a favor and ignore the rules from arsenal, they're neither realistic nor do they provide a good game mechanic to handle diving hazards.
Simply get gills and be done with it, using some common sense to determine what might be dangerous and which effects would occur.

Who needs realistic in a game with cybernetic augmentations, cyberzombies, dragons, magic and elves...

The rules/guidelines in Arsenal are good enough to use, though they are, as you say, not entirely realistic... but tehn again, who cares...

thanks for the imput guys ill check arsenal

Let me rephrase it:
Perfectly safe dives that are done in real life are lethal under those rules and suicidal dives are perfectly safe under the same rules.
Also the rules imply that liquids are compressible which would render that LBA useless and would have dramatic effects on the composition of earth as a whole including a weaker magnetic field, either a smaller earth or less gravity and so on.

On top of that the rules are extremely clumsy, you don't need rules that have you role dice a hundred times just to quickly decent to 100m.
That all for something that basically needs no addressing at all.

This "uh we have magic so completely fucked up rules are perfectly ok" argument really is nonsense.

Okay... More to the point... The ruiles suffice for what they do... if you are having someone roll 100 times to descend 100 meters (or whatever) when no roles would really need to be performed, well then that is not the fault of the system (and of course, I am not sure about the relevance of the dice rolls you implied anyways; with a quick scan of the diving rules in Arsenal, I did not see any such requirements)... do you have everyone roll for simple driving around the city? (of course you don't, or at least I assume you don't)... If it is not cinematically necessary or appropriate to have a roll, Don't... you will be a lot less tense that way...

Of Course the rules are not 100% realistic, and diving is damn dangerous IRL... but who cares, this is a game, and some people just want to be like James Bond (how often do you see him roll a diving roll in the movies?)... the rules are okay for what they portray... And no, I am not trying to provoke an argument...


Also, Just curious, but Where do the rules Imply that liquids are compressable... that is the REASON to use an LBA, because they are not compressable...

My 2

I agree, the rules suffice for what they are needed for. Is a good GM going to make you role every time you put a HEATs bottle to your mouth or go frog-manning through the Seattle sound... I surely hope not, it's the same thing as do you really need to roll every time you walk trough town with a pistol in a concealed holster or is the roll required only when dramatic storytelling requires... I certainly hope the answer is the later there'd just be to darn many dice rolls in a single game. As far as diving there's a lot that can go wrong in shallow water. You can get an air embolisim in less than 3 foot of water while breathing compressed air if you don't exhale upon assent. So if during some daring underseas harpoon fight you're bobbing up and down 5 feet or so then maybe there should be a roll from time to time to see if you're paying enough attention to what's happening outside of the... ummm skewer-fight to correctly use your equipment but otherwise if you've got the appropriate active skill then I don't see why just swimming around an underwater archology doing general repairs should even be an issue.

LOOK A LEVIATHAN!

If a character ascends or descends faster than 1 meter per Combat Turn, she must resist 2P damage with Body [p. 170]
Damage resistance roles are not meant to be skipped imo.
The rules require it and if i ignore that because i think it's silly it still doesn't make the rules better.
This btw is also the rule that implies compressible liquids since it doesn't take depth into account.

The other rules concerning diving hazards aren't much better, they don't even state when those hazards occur.
The problem is that the rules try to be realistic when in fact they're not and a more abstract approach would have been way better, for instance with a scuba skill that requires a roll only if you try something extraordinary.

Trying to write good and detailed rules for things like diving requires that you have a couple of people who know the actual facts pretty well (or are willing to do some pretty serious research) and can write rules well. It's easy to write crappy rules that look good to the casual observer, but actually suck.

Come on Suppenhuhn, you are being stubborn here...

Just don't ascend more than 1 meter/3 Seconds... Problem solved... with the appropriate training, this will be drilled into your cranium time and time again (and even again and again after that)... why the beef?

The hazards occure when it is dramatically appropriate, and at no other time... problem solved

As for the More Abstract... that is what you already have... you make a roll when you try something extraordinary... and no need to do so otherwise... for that the rules are perfect already...

Anyway... there you go... My 2 and YMMV, as always...

This is indeed true... but in the end, these rules suffice...

I have some pretty sever problems with the ways that guns are often depicted in games... I vent to the sky in a bout of rage, and then play the game as written, as the rules are an abstraction, not reality... they (generally) work for what they are intended to do...