Does a character without Swim just... drown? (RAW)

[SerBeavington]

tl/dr:
Since Swim is an advanced skill, does a character without it lack any ability to move when in deeper water and would therefore just drown after some time without external help?


In the basic rule book on the pages 117f it says that one difference between a basic and an advanced skill is, that you can test a basic skill even if you have zero advances in it, you just use the appropriate characteristic instead for the test. Advanced skills however can not be substituted if you have no advances in it, if you don't have the skill, you simply cannot do this. For most advanced skills this makes sense, if you have never heard of laws, no amount of intelligence will make you gain knowledge out of thin air.

Quote from the book (page 118):

You may only Test an Advanced Skill if you have taken at least one Advance in it. If you have not, you cannot attempt to Test the Skill. So, no matter how intelligent you are, you will not understand the finer points of law without the Lore (Law) Skill.

Would this apply in that way to Swim? Let's say a character without Swim jumps into the village pond. The pond is too deep to stand and the pond bank is too far away to grab it with their hands. What can they do? They cannot make a test for Swim since they lack the skill, and since it is an advanced skill, it cannot be replaced with something else. Am I missing something here or does the character lacks any kind of agency in that situation and would simply drown without external help?

It feels weird to me, because in reality, even though swimming is definitely something you need to learn, not everyone who never learned it just drowns when they get in a body of water. Some do, but others manage to at least manage to move a few meters to get back to land, or can keep their head above the surface for a bit. My gut feeling would say to replace in that case Swim with a very difficult athletic check, to at least give the player a chance to do anything about their situation. But I don't find any rule in the book about substituting an advanced skill with a basic one.

How do you handle this in your groups? Am I overlooking something, or is it Rules as Written that a character without Swim literally cannot move in deep water and just starts drowning?

[Capitaneus Fractus]

As for the first edition of WFRP, characters without swimming skill start to sink after a number of rounds equal to their their T bonus. Then, they lose 1 W per round. When they reach 0 W, they're drowned.

To have a system a bit closer to reality, I would ask to the character who doesn't know how to swim a WP test, to ensure he doesn't panic.
1. If he doesn't panic:
a) he could stay calm and immobile for a number of rounds equal to his T bonus, waiting for any help;
b) or attempt to move, after a successful athletic difficult test (if the water is quiet... a more difficult test, is the water isn't, according to its actual state...), at the third of his prudent speed (or at half of what he would with the swimming skill), for a number of rounds equal to half of his T bonus; The athletic check have to be made each round. Except if the success is impressive or more, the character becomes extenuated;
c) or mitigate both (each round to move costs him 2 × T bonus in his delaying death pool; each round to wait costs him T bonus, in his delaying death pool).
After having spent his whole T bonus pool, the character start to sink and cannot move any more. He loses 1 W per round. When he reaches 0 W, he's drowned. Only a fate point might save him.

2. If he panics, the character is unable to move, and immediately loses 1 W for the round. He could however make another WP test for the next round. Would he succeed that new test: vide 1. ; would he fail again: vide 2.. When he reaches 0 W, he's drowned. Only a fate point might save him.

[SerBeavington]

Thank you, I appreciate the response. Those are some good thoughts, especially making a cool check first - I'd think that in real life, the survivability in water of someone who cannot swim depends vastly on their panic levels.

I am new to WFRP (not new to pen&paper as a whole) and what I am curious about is if I correctly understand the rules from the core rulebook. Do I read the rules from the core rulebook correctly that it is not intended by the authors to substitute an advanced skill with anything else? And if that is their intention, do I conclude correctly that - taking the rules as they are written - a character without Swim cannot attempt to move in water at all, since only the Swim skill would allow that and it is not possible to substitute it for it being "advanced"?

To be clear: I intend on home brewing this, but I have a desire to understand the logic behind the rules. And in this case they lead - as I read them - to a rather silly possible outcomes, e.g. a character with exceptional high athletic and cool skills not being able to move even 1 meter in water if they lack the swim talent. Worse: They are not just being able to, it is not even possible to roll an attempt to do so.

If the answer is just "jep, RAW would lead to that, 'tis a bit silly, home brew it" I am fine with it, but I want to make sure I didn't misread the official rules.


It might also be the case that I annoyed my DM with this topic, resulting in a heated debate if people in real life will drown if they never swam before, and now I want to make sure I didn't misread the official rules.

[Whymme]

Yes, a character without an advance in an advanced skill will automatically fail a test in that skill. The first question, however, is not what happens then, but whether the GM should call for a skill test. Not saying that he shouldn’t, just that calling for tests shouldn’t be an automatism.
The second thing is that the GM determines the outcome of a failed test.

>> Let's say a character without Swim jumps into the village pond. The pond is too deep to stand and the pond bank is too far away to grab it with their hands.

Are your players prone to have their characters commit suicide like that?
Remember that PCs have fate points; if one of my players would do such a thing, I’d have him dock a Fate Point to make a Giant Turtle rise out of the water and swim to the shore, dragging the almost drowned PC with it.

[Capitaneus Fractus]

In a low fantasy context, if the adventurer is alone (he jumped by night, when everyone was sleeping, or the village is abandoned), then I would let him be drowned and, with his fate point spent, he would simply be found by the other adventurers lying on the shore, or regain consciousness by himself there... keeping things unexplained... that would be up to adventurers to explain such mystery how they could.
If the adventurer jumped into the pond to flee hostile antagonists, without other witness, then he would regain consciousness captured by these antagonists after having spent his fate point to avoid being drowned. If one of these antagonists would have to say how he was saved, I would invent something plausible such as one of them saved him to capture him.

If however, things have to be explained, because other adventurers see their companion to foolishly jump on the pond, that I would favour something simple such as the intervention of a wandering dog to save the adventurer, and the venue just after of his master or of his mistress, from the village or related to the village. It would impact less the setting than generating out of the hat a giant turtle on the village pond, except if there are elements to back the existence of such giant monsters in the village pond.

I feel it is better to keep the spent fate points' effects as much as possible without significant side effect on the context.
So keeping it either mysterious or down to earth.

(But that's just me, and that's up to each one preference. Latter publications of the fantasy role playing game contributed to raise the importance of fantasy elements, even by the time of the 1st edition.)

[SerBeavington]

>> Let's say a character without Swim jumps into the village pond. The pond is too deep to stand and the pond bank is too far away to grab it with their hands.

Are your players prone to have their characters commit suicide like that?
Remember that PCs have fate points; if one of my players would do such a thing, I’d have him dock a Fate Point to make a Giant Turtle rise out of the water and swim to the shore, dragging the almost drowned PC with it.

That was not a situation that happened at the table. I tried to come up with a scenario where someone who has never learned to swim has a decent chance of survival. I would think that in reality a healthy adult who never learned to swim would not just die if they would jump in a village pond. If they don't panic, there is a decent chance that they end up splashing and paddling towards the pond's edge and get out of the water. Not guaranteed, but there is a chance that they survive this. Some people can instinctively dog paddle, some don't.

I like to think about how the rules simulate the world, and it feels weird to me that a person cannot even attempt not to drown. Treating Swim as an advanced skill has the effect that anybody who cannot Swim just kind of "freezes" in the water and is not even able to try to move in any direction or stay above the surface. Maybe I am just vastly overestimating the survivability of swimming when you never did it, because I was a natural swimmer as a child (according to my mother...). My dm has the rather strict opinion that also in real life, if you never learned to swim, you will simply drown in 99% of cases, while I think there is at least a 50% chance to survive, at least in a calm, controlled environment like a village pond when there is no additional reason to panic or waves, wind and such.

But okay then, I understand that the RAW do say: Without swimming you drown without external help, fair enough. But you still saved it for me - with the fate points. I guess it wouldn't even need to be a giant turtle, I wouldn't even mind if a fate point had the effect that the character gets super lucky with their splashing and paddling and slowly move towards the pond's edge until they can grab it. That would satisfy my need for "simulation", as this can be treated as the "splash-paddling to the edge" and additionally also puts an actual cost to the characters foolish behaviour.

My issue so far is resolved, thank you. It could also very well be that I am just utterly wrong about the survivability of untrained swimming, if anybody has a personal anecdote to share, feel free.