"You failed your dexterity saving throw, so you fall off the side of the ship into the stormy waters."

Well, if you're specifically talking about salvation...

The Machiavelli school of thought.

>True, it was in the backstory I wrote that her being unable to swim led to her capture. But that was a long time ago and she has since learned to swim.

Say that she's handily fallen right next to the anchor. Give her an easy check to grap it and climb out.

>As her DM, what to do you do?
Ok. Reroll then. You die a watery, undignified death. Crabs eat your corpse.

Jesus might be a entity that only ever existed in people's thoughts but that doesn't make him a school of thought himself,

Aren't we pretty sure there was at least some guy by that name who went around preaching at around that time, and it's only whether or not he's divine that's in dispute?

> Implying dignity exists in any form of death

It seems clear that she wants the character to die so just kill it off.

>implying dignity exists

Have her awaken from the waters as a undead creature due to something special about that storm or the area of sea she perished in. It can be character development as she adjusts to being a creature of the sea who'll have to hide her deathly cold pale skin, pretending to breath and hoping people can still accept her for what she is now, something to further her bond with the party.

It's always neat for a party member to inadvertently become a monster. You can bullshit a reason later and make it a le mystery premise.

>Implying spook

Wasted quints

>she
>18 STR

Quints are a spook

-4 STR is a dead meme.

What's the matter Engie

Can't handle the sight of a strong woman who can't swim

>1: Disadvantage on Perception (water in eyes)

This doesn't really seem like it's part of fatigue.

>2: Disadvatage on Str and Dex Rolls (arms getting tired)

There arms getting tired makes sense, but the disadvantage would likely make them fail their subsequent checks.

5e's official exhaustion rules have the same problem, where the first stage of exhaustion is disadvantage on ability checks, which makes subsequent checks that much harder. It may be because you typically get further levels of exhaustion through saving throw failures (which you get disadvantage on at stage 3 exhaustion), but it being the first penalty you get kind of has a slippery slope effect.

If she wants her character to die that badly, I don't see a reason not to let it happen.

>Can't stand the sight of a strong Redguard woman?

The power of Christ compels you, user.

I feel like I would at least give the players an opportunity to have one of their players dive into the waters and try to rescue her, with the clear caveat that failing would drown both characters.

Not sure what school of thought that falls into, but it seems like the reasonable thing to do.

Jesus was a real guy, it's all the stories about him that are up for debate.

>with the clear caveat that failing would drown both characters.
>Not sure what school of thought that falls into

If you phrase it right,
>"You see your ally fall over board. You know she can't swim. Now, you're faced with a choice. Stay clutching to the rail, listening to her choked screams? Or do you dive in after her, and see how well you can swim in the middle of a storm while trying to carry another person back to the ship?"

Shhh, they just want to tip their fedora.

...

I give them props for thinking about their character in a non-mechanical way even when their sheet would suggest it, but also give the character an "out" to continue onwards regardless. Maybe someone else in the party needs to roll a thrown attack to toss a life-preserver at her and get her to cling to it for dear life; still an Athletics check on her part, but in a way that makes sense for the character concept.

>her

Why didn't the GM gave the party a shell for calling friendly mermaids in case someone falls?

Barbarian used up all the minutes with phone sex.

>Roll to grab hold of Jesus' leg and get him to piggyback you back to the ship.

How the fuck did the player get a base Str score of 22 for their character? Is it a high level barbarian?

*tips fedorah

I tie a rope around my waist and jump into the drink.

Rule 1: if straightforward answer is risky, think laterally

Well, it looks like you won't be saved on the Island of Chult with that kind of attitude user.

This.

Plus
>The OSR school
Yup, guess you're right, she's fucked. This is why you don't wear chainmail on a boat, kids. Now roll up a new character while I check out the random encounter tables.

In OSR games, a character falling off the boat and drowning is just.. business as usual, really.

>As her DM, what to do you do?
>"I guess that's just what she gets for sailing during a storm without being able to swim."

I guess that's just what she gets for sailing during a storm without being able to swim. It's never a bad time to learn that your decisions and actions have consequences.

>treading water is pretty instinctive
Not if you never learned how to swim.

Jesus is sorta an invented name. Joshua is the proper name. When transcribing from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English, they ended up with Jesus.

YEEET

Generally if something is instinctive you dont have to learn it

Ask if they want to reroll a character.
If yes, let the character die.
If no, let the character wash up on shore somewhere, or get rescued by someone else passing by. Depending on the setting, perhaps a divine resurrection. Whatever fits the setting.

Wrong. As long as your body isn't familiar with certain actions you can do jack shit.

Your character splashes loudly and awkwardly into the water, struggling desperatly to stay a float in the rough green and grey swell, you cry out to the others aboard.

Next players action decides if the rescue is successful. If no-ones able to rescue it's a slow drowning/or captured by deep ones.

why does "she" have a death wish?

str check to see if her flailing keeps her afloat
breath time only equal to her con bonus before she starts drowning for real

should be enough for the others to save her, if they don't, that's a damn shame.

>This is why you don't wear chainmail on a boat
Funnily enough, the assumption that sailors have to swim is very recent. Until the 19th century, most sailor did not effectively know how to swim.
Actually, whether you knew how to swim or not, you'd be as good as dead if you fell out of a ship.
Under those circumstances, you probably won't be surprised to learn that wearing metal armor on a ship was not uncommon, especially if you were expected to fight.

Of course that's in a real-life setting. In a D&D setting where every adventurer has a shot at swimming, the chances of survival from falling off a ship are proably igher, so not wearing heavy armor may be appropriate.

Yes, you don't have to learn something instinctive to be able to do it, with varying degrees of success of course.
Point is, swimming is not instinctive to humans. Humans that lived close to coasts or aften went to te pool as kids will probably feel swimming is instinctual, but it's only because they were trained as kids. It's like riding a bike, you'd think that it's the easiest shit, but someone that never rode a bike would have the toughest of time even staying upright. Once you learn the ropes you never unlearn it. But unlike walking for instance, swimming is not instinctual.

Not sure about that one. Skim through some of the older edition Monster Manuals. A bunch of horrible shit lives in the ocean. Chances that you're eaten by some sort of sea serpent from hell, or what have you is very likely.

In my OSR setting, characters get to roll on this table.
1. Literacy
2. Swimming
3. Sex (actually being good at it)
4. Horseback Riding
5. Singing or some other performing art
6. Geography (beyond a 6 mile radius)

So if you ever seen an educated man who can read and write, you know he's bad at sex?

Well, death by horrible shit in the ocean is pretty unrelated to swimming, so you'd probably want to get as much armor as you can and just tread far from the deck if not necessary.

A big issue is also the invention of lifeboats. Until the 18th/19th century, lifeboats did not exist, so rescuing a sailor was very difficult. Big ships are not really good at steering. So even if you were good at swimming, there was no one coming back for you.

Maybe. It's not like this rule applies to the entire universe. It's a PC thing.

Plus, some characters start with Literacy. And I'm pretty sure if you roll the Prostitute background, some things are assumed. If you're a knight, you get Horseback Riding and you get to roll on the table, etc.

>Prostitute
>Good at sex
Well, PC are quite unconventional.

You've got to remember that this is by illiterate peasant standards. Sure, most peasants know how to have sex. Most of them even know about female orgasms.

But how many of them figured out more than 2 positions? Or how to do interesting things with olive oil and fingers?

You don't need to be some astonishing top-of-the-class fuck-wizard to get the skill. You just need to know more than most peasants.

Same with literacy. Sure, your PC is literate. Try reading some poetry. Try composing a formal letter. The skill is just a foot in the door. "Swimming" doesn't mean "can beat Phelps in 200m". It means "drowns more slowly."

Sounds pretty realistic to me.

Holding your breath and floating is instsinctual. Infants do it automatically, and it's why it's possible for babies to learn to swim

Panicing in the water and drowning, however, is a learned behaviour. You learn, quite counterintuitively, that you -can't- swim and are useless in water. The concept that you can't swim overrides your natural instincts.

>So even if you were good at swimming, there was no one coming back for you.
Yeah. The proximal issue isn't drowning, it's getting separated from the ship. If you had some rope, you could try throwing it or tying it to yourself and going after her; without the rope, you could try to grab something that floats and go after her; without anything at all, you could dive overboard, but then your situation would be almost as bad as hers.

You really want the rope.

Personally, I'm a big fan of friendly dolphins, but I'd want to find a tasteful way to work them in.

Not knowing how to swim =/= falling like a rock down in the deep of the sea instantly

People who are drowning drown because they struggle pretty closely to the surface of the water.
They get some gasps of air and more gasps of water. Eventually the fear and the crazy movjments you're doing to float makes you tired and you go down.
A person struggles generally 30, 40 seconds, sometime more (minutes) before going down. Death comes in 3-4 minutes or so before being submerged.
And they struggle a lot. If you have to save someone, you need to know how to do it, or the person will literally drag you down with him/try to drown you, trying to survive. As you're the only thing they can use to grab. That's why you don't hero, and save someone only when you think you're safe too.
Unless you have some sort of shock that makes you faint (heat shock, illness, etc) it's unlikely that you'll straight drop down on the bottom of the ocean.

>I worked as a lifeguard.

Then again, if you fall down a vessel in a storm, you'll probably never be able to get catched, as boats are pretty fast. Someone to toss you a rope, that's your best bet. A rope or sometjing floaty. Nobody sane would jump in the stormy sea to help you. I wouldn't. Then again, never been on a big boat

We have plenty of non-biblical sources that prove that he was around.

>And they struggle a lot. If you have to save someone, you need to know how to do it, or the person will literally drag you down with him/try to drown you, trying to survive. As you're the only thing they can use to grab. That's why you don't hero, and save someone only when you think you're safe too.
>Someone to toss you a rope, that's your best bet. A rope or sometjing floaty.
The Boy Scout summary was "Reach, Throw, Go": if you've got a pole or something you extend to them, use that; if you don't, but have something floaty you can throw, use that; if you have neither one of those things, attempt a rescue, but only if you're pretty sure you aren't going to get dragged down by them. I'm kind of amazed that I remember this, and a bit surprised to discover that it's actually right.

But yeah, it's a lousy way for someone's character to die, especially if I was under the misapprehension that said character could swim, so I'd go with the friendly dolphins or some other form of benevolent sea life. Not immediately, because that would be stupid; the rest of the party would be led to believe the character had in fact drowned.

>in b4 rape caves
*MY* setting contains only good Christian dolphins which do not have sex before marriage and would never dream of abusing a poor sailor. You'd wake up on the beach and there'd be a waterproof copy of "The Watchtower" next to you and oh god what have I done I never told them to proselytize.

Is she all by herself? No? Well there you go.

But I wouldn't make the decision to derail my own game from a single die roll in the first place.