Why haven't we ever seen an aquatic setting? It would open up all kinds of new possibilities with underwater species, new combat techniques, sea gods, and concepts that often get overlooked on land.
Of course, if there is a setting and rules for such a game and I'm overlooking it then feel free to correct my idiocy.
Despite the abundance of underwater themed enemies in say, DnD, DM's don't like underwater combat because keeping track of 3d movement on a 2d grid is annoying and cumbersome. Because of that, you don't see very many underwater focused campaigns
The Cerulean Seas Campaign Setting for Pathfinder is a very developed setting with multiple lengthy books. It contains almost everything you are looking for.
Flying combat is just as bad, especially if players don't have to return to the ground before the end of their turn without dropping. The upside is besides races with flying speed, the average character doesn't gain the ability to fly until 5th level, and even then its a waste of a slot better spent on better utility or damage spells
Man, a rouge in my party got a pair of Boots of Spiderclimb and he uses it every combat
While that would be bothersome out in the open ocean, if it was kept in an enclosed space, like an underwater dungeon, it wouldn't be a problem. You could make up an excuse like there being giant sharks that the party isn't yet equipped to deal with out in the open ocean.
Most every GM tries this at some point if they've been in the hobby long enough, myself included. And while I honestly love the idea in theory, if it were done well, I've never met a single GM capable of creating such a satisfying and cohesive setting — again, myself included.
You put the minatures on top of the dice boxes
why does your party have sentient makeup?
The DM doesn't forgive spelling errors
The question is what races would be playable? Would humans in diving suits or using magic underwater breathing be playable? What about other land races? Would only aquatic races be playable? What would be the best way to handle it?
Most people can't into 3D movement or orientation. See also: Damn near every game with space combat or travel ever.
And if you do that, then you've essentially just slapped a coat of paint on a land based game. Really, what makes the game you just described different than a regular old dungeon crawl? At that point, it seems more like you're attempting to tic a box that says "yea, I did that" and not trying to get anything unique from this particular game.
Is 3D navigation really so difficult? Isn't there any system or adjustments that could be made to ease the players into it?
>Why haven't we ever seen an aquatic setting?
Because you don't read enough.
50 fathoms for Savage Worlds.
Of course magic and combat would have to be revamped a bit. A crossbow wouldn't work underwater, but a harpoon, shot or thrown, would. Fire and air magic would do very little good, but water and ice magic would have quite a bit of potential. The weight of armor could be used to your advantage, allowing you to walk along the bottom of the seabed without worrying about floating to the top from your natural buoyancy. And of course a Cleric of Tempest is of the utmost help on excursions like this.
3D navigation requires two things: To have the tools to properly represent it, and for the players to understand what the representation means so that they can easily see which possibilities they have.
With computer support, we're getting there, slowly. Tabletop Simulator could work nicely, but is weirdly restricted in many ways - moving a figure below some floor is a pain, as is temporarily hiding whole layers or walls to reveal areas. Of course, you can use Blender and stream the 3D view to your players, and that actually works well, as long as it doesn't matter that only one person manipulates the play area and that person knows the software reasonably well.
Other than that, I didn't find any nice solution, and in particular not one you could use without a computer display. Even doing something crazy like a 2D dungeon in hyperbolic space is easier - as long as it stays mostly in 2D.
The players though ... that's mostly on them. Some people just don't "grok" three dimensions and mostly people have no reason in their daily life to ever try learning it.
Basic D&D had the Sea People as a setting for Mystara.
I see. So until we get better computer support for 3D tabletop games its not ideal to run a true underwater adventure yet.
While not directly an underwater setting, I did start work on a sea-based post apocalyptic setting. Wide shallow sea + ancient towers, vaguely inspired by catastrophe, monster hunter and subnautica. Mostly did items and race designs, some of those including aquatic creatures.
Maybe you just need to cut the combat and do something more based on exploration. Or you go sufficiently scifi and make all combat projectile based. Then you could maybe just use whatever plane two entities are on at a given time.
Like the other user said, blender can do the job, but you only have one guy in control. I think I could do a JS based web version that syncs movements from different clients, but where's the time?
Or a third option, an app for tablets. Would require a sufficiently large device you can place at the center of the table and have everyone touch to move characters.
Most D&D settings have at least one underwater civilisation.
There ought to be a sort of sea druid, maybe one that can transform into an octopus or shark.
There are other things to get from an underwater adventure than combat with Z levels.
>3D navigation requires two things: To have the tools to properly represent it, and for the players to understand what the representation means so that they can easily see which possibilities they have
If only we humans were used to navigate in a 3d environment in real life...
It's your own damn fault for not being born a monkey.
The whole Z-levels depth thing is highly blown out of proportion as a problem, for combat purposes combat will almost always occur between two units standing on a grid, and for non-combat purposes you don't even need the grid and can just use descriptions.
so keeping track of the depth level of around 10+ participants in the combat isn't a massive pain in the ass? Adding the Z-axis completely changes maneuvering and the utility of movement speed too, and changes how spells are used. suddenly people can be attacked from twice as many angles, and you have to calculate the total area of all your cone effect spells and how many squares that take up, and keeping all that in mind so that you can visualize that on an imaginary 3d plane
>how many squares that take up
Forget the squares, use real-world measurements.
There should really only be 3 Z-levels, player height, above, and below. If they're near the ocean floor then you can reduce that to 2 Z-levels. It's true that calculating range would be a pain, but most combat should be around melee range due to the nature of water combat limiting ranged options.
Such poor, two-dimensional thinking ...
Water is easily one of the worst mediums for fights. You basically grant every party member flight and there's largely no cover.
>there's largely no cover
That's because you're only imagining the open ocean. You aren't imagining combat in the coral reefs, or in the great underwater cities, or in a water cave.
Two people are always fighting on a plane, right? It all depends on the angle, but you can always abstract it to a single plane.
And when you add a third, the third will always be fighting on a plane with the first and the second, because two people are always fighting on a plane, right? So three people are always fighting on a plane.
We don't need 3d. In fact I just disproved the existence of the third dimension.
Yeah, this was a sourcebook for playing as them.
Why, on Gods green earth, are there so many giant sea monster animu drawings
When you get right down to it all you gotta do is tilt the plane.
Water supports the weight of animals in the water, allowing for creatures of larger size to exist that would otherwise collapse in on themselves on land. Hence the existence of whales. Extending this idea to fantasy, if mermaids exist, it would be reasonable to assume that whalemaids would also exist, and would be unusually giant thanks to the support their water has for their weight.
It's the magical realm of the OP. Don't worry about it.
Sounds like a flimsy excuse to justify an giantess fetish to me
Dunno, getting very tired about fetish posters tough.This one at least isn't of the worst kind, he at least post interesting stuff, lots of them simply post the most inane shit along the shitty image, like the loliposter than I seen scrolling down.
Well, yeah, I ran out of non-fetishistic pics and I'm too lazy to go browsing for new ones so I'm just digging out of the porn folder. But still, just because it's my fetish doesn't mean whalemaids shouldn't be a thing.
There is such a thing as a non-fetishistic pic of a mermaid or mermaid-like creature?
Come to think of it mermaids are basically the embodiment of fap bait, so I suppose there isn't.
There are, lots of them. It isn't that difficult to find them either so you are either baiting people to post non fetish pics or you are retarded. Or both. Anyway I will post some because I'm tired of the low quality fetish pics you are posting.
The modern ones owe lots to the "Little Mermaid" story: Beautiful, silent, unconditionally loving, turn into sea foam when done with. That said, I prefer mine to be closer to the Sirens. Still fapbait, but dangerous fapbait.
Like Selkies, than depending of the legend are seal than can transform themselves in humans or simply seal human hibrids.
user, if your mermaids look like that then whatever setting you have is purposely deviating from the norm to make them look like shit.
If that's what a siren is supposed to look like, then honestly, it's even hotter.
Nah, that's not a siren, that's a shark-maid. Still dangerous. Something something sharpest fangs win.
That's a selkie, there are lots of humanoids in myths and legends.
Like the Water troll.
Or the pincoy.
Huh, haven't heard much about Selkies, I'll look more into them.
Mermaids, sharkmaids, whalemaids, selkies, if an adventure is going to be ran almost entirely underwater then it probably ought to include as many intelligent aquatic species as it can.
Weird considering selkies were supposed to be beautiful women who turned into seals with magical seal coats. You steal the coat and they became the perfect housewife. I dont remember anything in the myths about them being terrifying bodyhorror freaks.
Thievery and forced marriage? Stop right there, criminal scum.
The nixies are another interesting beings, they are related to the Nekkers, the scandinavian drowner.
People don't give ancient mythology the credit its due, it could be pretty damn magical realm when you got right down to it.
If it helps they almost always ended up running away back to the sea if and when they got their magic seal coat back. Often leaving the children and man behind. There are also male selkies but thwy are less common and tended to be playboys iirc.
Is this what fulfilled the role of the waifu in ancient times? Were lonely virgins and tired men sick of their wives thinking ">tfw no selkie gf"?
I tough they where fae seals than turned to females (or males). If a woman wanted a shapely young lad, she could cry seven times in the sea to call a male selkie, than where handsome in they human form (and seals in the normal form), a man could marry one stealing they seal hide when the females transformed to humans. It tends to end in tragedy tough, with lots of drowned,
>air magic wouldn’t do much
I disagree.
Learn how to create a bubble of air and hold it static and you can immediately disable any foe. How many undersea animals can function without water to swim in?
Beyond that, it also means interesting things for transporting goods or items etc. Push air into some sealable bags and you have buoyant ballast bags to lighten any load.
Also means you can preserve the life of any drylanders if they for some reason enter your watery realm - invaluable for brokering deals for things you can’t get so easy underwater.
Any party would do well to have an air mage.
There are scottish clans who claim to be decended from selkies because of an extra bone growth common in the hands. But basically yeah, ye old times had lots of waifus. There is also a troll who looks and acts like the perfect wife who is eager to please and does anything you want, except she has a tree hole in her back, as in a wooden hole, and if you see it either you die or she runs away never to be seen again. Also may or may not have had a cow tail and ears.
This thread needs more mermen, too.
>what are stairs
Isn't that a Huldra? It's related to the Lamias, wich normally had animals traits like goat/raptor feet or cow tails and tried to seduce humans (to get kids or to eat them, depending of the Lamia).
The Nuckalavee is another sea faerie.
At your command.
That guy sure looks like a wise wizard or cleric. Too bad I only have pictures of pretty boys.
Thats the name, huldra.
Fuck Nucklavee that thing is terror incarnate. Or disease incarnate, whatever it is a legit nightmare. Iirc it had the torsoe of a man, body of a horse, a spear for an arm, and absolutely no skin.
Its a pretty common legend, the sea monk/sea bishop. Pretty common in Northern Spain and other parts of the atlantic.
I'm not gay but I still think the pretty boys look better as mermaids, much better than the other user's merman (no offense, other user).
There are documented captures of them even like this one:
A copy [of the news] from the Spanish town of Vigo from the 6th of April. The fishermen of the village of Fustin (Enfesta?) caught a sea monster or the so-called water man and with great difficulty dragged him by force in the net ashore. This amazing and rarely seen monstrum or sea wonder is from head to foot about 6 feet tall. Its head resembles a stake and is so smooth that it does not have even one hair on the top, only at the bottom it has a beard with long strands. The skin on its head and on the whole body is black and in some places covered with thin hair. The neck of this water old man is extremely long and the body unusually long and thick but in many respects it resembles the human body. The forearms and arms are very short, the palms are quite short, while the fingers are very long and up to the first joint, like a goose's feet, they are grown together and from there they go like human fingers. Its extraordinarily long nails resemble animals' and even though this monstrosity has low hanging breasts, it is, by all indications, of masculine gender. Its loins are short and grown together to the knees, and the shins are not very long either, but they are separated. Even though its feet are quite similar to human, the large toes hang quite close to each other like duck's feet. On its heels it has fish's scales, and on the skin of its back at the very bottom a bone has grown. A fin sticking out from it is just like a woman's fan, about 12 inches long, and when it opens it reaches even more than 12 inches. This was excerpted from the printed St. Petersburg News, received on the 20th of May of this, 1739, year, and the above news were reported in the No. 41."
Rude, poor sea monks.
Underwater dungeon end boss appears!
You think it can control the fingers with any degree of dexterity?
>Tfw no Jenny greenteth gf.
Yet another avenue of science fantasy exploration!
Humans who have adapted their bodies to live on an ocean world filled with giant whale people, psychic octopi overlords and lovecraftian merfolk of the deep
>Tfw no merman bf.
Take aspects of such settings like FFX. Have people who can hold their breath for 40+ minutes even under heavy activity underwater and have fights that can and do take place in it fairly often but doesn't have to the entire time.
Makes dungeons more interesting when the water hazard is only as such because it's like fighting your way down a regular hallway
>I'm kawaii oni-chan?
Such a Kawaii merman uguu :3
because I don't know a single thing about underwater
pressure
paper & parchment & ink
smithing
god damn doors
large scale farming / food production
sight distance, signaling, hearing distance, every number that I take take for granted on the surface
would every settlement have to be on a floor, what are my options here?
>Wha.
>Pomf.
>What are we going to do in the duckweed bed oni chan?
I like aquatic settings because it contains all my fetishes. Wet half-naked, barefoot brown tribal girls. If the are surfers that would be cool too
>paper /parchment/ink
Go roman, pseudo-undersea-wax sheets and a stylus to scratch into them.
Or go fantasy - there’s a kind d help with big brow ‘leaves’, and when the leaves are bruised they discolour. You use a short blunt stylus and now you can write in bruises on these large leaves. To destroy documents you just blunt force the leaf and now it’s all a bruised discoloured mess.
>farming
Coral reefs, keep away predators and you have lots of smaller fish and animals who have a lot of young at a time.
Only a couple need to survive to propagate species so you can eat the rest. Fish still come here because hey, no other predators.
Also kelp farms, huge plantations that stretch up towards the surface.
>doors
Are all sliding - up, sideways, you name it.
>building locations
The bed is obviously one place, but huge coral reefs jeweller with a million different colours, the backs of great undersea creatures like turtles and whale, nestled among man-sized barnacles.
Houses built into the tallest and most giant kelp forests, with giant kelp braided together and forming structural support.
A kind of kelp with big broad leaves*
Fuck phone posting
>Underwater Sci-Fi Setting
>No electricity, because of short circuits
>Genetically Engineered Plancton provides holograms via bioluminescence
>Computers are Fluidics based
>Hackers inject different jets of water at certain locations to change the program
>A train-like transport system rides on underwater currents
>Ranged combat is difficult and only really possible for larger weapons that are meant for vehicle to vehicle/monster combat
I see potential in this.
I particularly dislike underwater settings and even adventures underwater. Even though I really like to swim.
No idea why, I think it's because how harder and slower people move within the water when compared to the surface.
I could see a lot of bio-tech being used, electronics that have semi-organic parts to allow them to be used in and out of water with ease. Your computer has nerve like circuitry and various animals with Eva like control plugs inserted into their bodies so you can pilot them and shit like that.
Well thanks op now I have a selkie fetish
I think the problems with 3D movement tend to be exagerrated. In most situations saying that you're, say, 10 feet from the target is enough, regardless whether siad target is 10 feet above or to the left of you, at least when you can move horizontally as easily as vertically. Aside from specific circumstances where you for example use three dimensional movement to flank enemies, you could run most underwater battles on a grid and just assume there's a third dimension involved (i.e the target's distance from you on a grid is the direct distance between you and the target, even if they're not on the same plane as you).
It's really not that hard to do 3D combat, you just use a battle cube
It's hot
Posting something I got from Veeky Forums.
pic?
nvm, just saw it
Oh, right, the third one.
Bumping for interest. Would merfolk be able to take down a giant deep sea horror with tridents alone?
Vore