Underwater Combat 5e – Everything You Need to Know (Guide) 2023
Beneath the water surface lies an exotic and alien world, filled with sunken temples, lost civilisations and submerged shipwrecks. This underwater world provides new opportunities for players to involve their character in something different. However, even after being a crucial aspect of the game, it’s gravely underutilized. The reason? LACK OF CLARITY ON RULES.
The rules, which in reality are entirely straightforward & logical, all you need is the willingness to learn, and you can unlock this realm of underwater combat 5e in D&D.
The mechanism of underwater combat in D&D 5e can be divided into 3 major boxes: Holding Breath, Movement, and Actual Combat. We will look into each box and try to make sense of its content.
Table of Contents
Holding breath in D&D 5e underwater combat
The first thing we need to talk about is holding your breath, and Unless your creature has water breathing ability, this is going to be a pretty essential part of combat.
According to the player’s handbook, a creature can hold its breath for (minutes)= 1+ its constitution modifier, which cannot be less than 30 seconds. That means even if you have negative constitution modifier, you will still be able to hold your breath for at least 30 seconds.
When a creature has run out of breath, it begins to drown. Therefore, here player requires help action 5e. However, it can still survive many rounds equal to its Constitution modifier (minimum of 1 game) when it runs out of oxygen. You can use these rounds to get to the surface & breathe again.
After you have run out of these rounds, then at the start of your next turn, you drop to 0 hit points, and you start dying. You can’t regain hit points or be stabilized until you can breathe again.
All these rules are simple and easy to manage. The number to remember is your constitution modifier. You add 1 for holding your breath, and you take it as is if you’re trying to remain alive after losing what’s left of your breath.
In the first case, it’s the number of minutes you can survive overall; and in the second case, it’s the number of rounds before you officially start suffocating.
If you still don’t want to involve yourself in these rules, you can choose a race that can breathe underwater.
What 5e races can breathe underwater?
Only Aquatic Races or races with special breathing abilities can breathe underwater; These are:
- Sea Elf
- Simic Hybrid (if Underwater Adaption is selected as part of Animal Enhancement)
- Triton
- Water Genasi
- Grung (not AL legal)
- Locathah (not AL legal)
Other races that have immense benefits in D&D underwater combat
- Air Genasi– While not incapacitated, it can hold its breath indefinitely.
- Warforged– It doesn’t need to breathe.
- Tortle– It can hold breath for 1 hour.
- Vedalken– It can hold breath once for 1 hour after each long rest.
Movement during 5e underwater combat
Inside the world of water, a creature can move omnidirectionally as though they are flying. They can move up, down, or in any 3 dimensional direction enabling the player to have creative options during underwater fighting.
Coming to the actual mechanism of movement underwater. The movement speed is halved, which means that each foot of movement costs another extra 1 foot. Don’t worry. There is a way to override this, by having SWIM SPEED.
Swim speed is usually the first thing that players look for during water combat. Since this can make or break the difference between being effective in underwater fighting and moving effectively.
But how do you gain swim speed? Swim speed can be gained from things like your class, race, or magic items. Many of the magic items that grant swim speed also give you underwater breathing, which allows you to negate both of those challenges at once. For example, the cloak of the manta ray
What are the best items for 5e underwater combat?
All items which grant swim speed and underwater breathing are best for underwater combat. These are-
Apparatus of the Crab
- Armor Class- 20
- Hit Points- 200
- Speed- 30 ft., swim 30 ft. (or 0 ft. for both if the legs and tail aren’t extended)
- Damage Immunities- poison, psychic
Cloak of the Manta Ray
This cloak grants you both: ability to breathe underwater and 60 feet of swim speed, given you have kept its hood up.
Gloves of Swimming & Climbing
These gloves grant you a +5 bonus to Strength or Athletics checks done for climbing and swimming. Furthermore, extra movement is also not costed for climbing and swimming.
Necklace of Adaptation
This necklace allows you to breathe normally under any condition.
Potion of water breathing
Fighting Underwater
Water is thicker than air, which means that most of the weapons which move swiftly on the ground will have immense disadvantages during water combat. Knowing this intuition makes understanding the rules effortless.
Melee Weapon
All non-piercing weapons have disadvantages underwater, which means you suffer a penalty on the attack roll. However, in the case of melee weapons, these disadvantages can be overruled with swim speed.
And since all piercing weapons are easier to use in underwater combat, weapons such as dagger, javelin, shortsword, spear, and tridents don’t suffer any disadvantage even without swim speed.
So, the key here is either to have something in your arsenal that you can use well underwater or to have swim speed and use the weapon you usually use in combat.
Ranged Weapon
In the case of ranged weapons, every weapon except crossbow, net, spear, trident, and dart have disadvantages during a D&D 5e Underwater combat. The disadvantages include missing any target that is out of the weapon’s natural range, and even for the attacks under the natural range, a penalty is suffered by the attack roll.
And also keep in mind that creatures and objects that are fully immersed in water have resistance to fire damage.
And that, my fellow men of culture, was all you needed. Now wear your D&D 5e hats and engrave yourself in this biblical realm of underwater combat.
How do you breathe underwater in 5e?
Only aquatic races like Sea Elf, Simic Hybrid, Water genasi, and Triton can breathe underwater. A non-aquatic race can only breathe underwater with items such as Potion of water breathing, Cloak of Manta Ray, and Necklace of Adaptation.
Nevertheless, a non-aquatic creature can hold its breath for (minutes)= 1+ constitution modifier, which cannot be less than 30 seconds. After it has run out of breath, it can still survive a number of rounds equal to its Constitution modifier (minimum of 1 round) before it starts dying.
FAQs
All piercing weapons work underwater in D&D 5e. However, a creature with swim speed can use all melee weapons effectively underwater. A creature without swim speed can only use daggers, javelins, short swords, and tridents effectively. In the case of ranged weapons, only crossbow, net, spear, trident, and dart work effectively underwater.
All non-piercing weapons have disadvantages underwater. However, in the case of melee weapons, these disadvantages can be overruled with swim speed. In the case of ranged weapons, every weapon except crossbow, net, spear, trident, and dart have a disadvantage during a D&D 5e Underwater combat.
