Create Area Full Of Water

[Gauntlet]

What would be the best way to make an area magically filled with water so that a radius of water appears and stays there so anyone going into it will have to swim and have the same problems as being under water?

[Hugh Neilson]

Sounds like Change Environment to me.  IIRC, suffocation made it into APG I as an added to CE.

[Doc Democracy]

I would be content with creating a barrier of water.  I would be content with the SFX being "water" and applying the usual environmental effects.  It would be DEF 0 with enough BODY to soak up damage, should people decide to try destroying it rather than swimming through.

 

If the barrier was in a hole, then once the DEF of the barrier was overcome, the water would still exist and fill the hole.

 

Doc

Edited December 4, 2023 by Doc Democracy

[Rich McGee]

That fact that both approaches work fine is a real selling point of HERO.

 

Mechanically, the barrier option could be stuck in a multipower if you wanted so you could make ice (solid, so decent DEF) and steam (a heat damage area damage effect) out of your water if it fits the power/spell concept.  That would be kind of neat. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Transform works: air into water; but its special water that stays in the area without being held by boundaries.  Probably a Major transform though that is a pretty radical change.

 

Create Object from the Advanced Player Guide works well for this also: it actually makes water in an area.  But it will behave exactly like normal water so if nothing is holding it in place, it will immediately spread out to the lowest parts of the area.

[Rich McGee]

27 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Create Object from the Advanced Player Guide works well for this also: it actually makes water in an area.  But it will behave exactly like normal water so if nothing is holding it in place, it will immediately spread out to the lowest parts of the area.

Combine with Change Environment to zero gee and you fix that last problem.    Probably not very efficient, but funny.

[Duke Bushido]

7 hours ago, Rich McGee said:

That fact that both approaches work fine is a real selling point of HERO.

 

 

Right.

 

The problem,is the ensuing discussion about what is _most_ correct; asking "how to" is like taking the NCLEX all over again:

 

Every answer is correct, but which is _most_ correct?  For my money, it's the simplest.  I have an appreciation for elegance.  Thus, in this case, I would probably use Change Environment or, if using it defensively, to with Doc's Barrier suggestion.

 

However, I in actuality do neither, because about the time 4e hit shelves, I snagged a copy of Fantasy HERO (the original; not the 4e one), and _immediately_ cribbed the Create rules into the Champiins rules.  For me, that is the most elegant solution for creating something.   Apparently after publishing 6e, Steve decided it was, too, and tossed a variant of them into one of the APGS.

 

 

 

[Gauntlet]

It looks like Change Environment would be the best way to make an area just of water, but I am not sure how it would be done. Other ways really don't work for making a room or hallway fill with water without the water spilling immediately to other areas. Doing it as transform into water just makes water that splashes away. A barrier is just a wall, not an area of water and other than stopping someone it would not give any effects that water would give, such as drowning, and once it is broken it goes away.

[Doc Democracy]

3 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

It looks like Change Environment would be the best way to make an area just of water, but I am not sure how it would be done. Other ways really don't work for making a room or hallway fill with water without the water spilling immediately to other areas. Doing it as transform into water just makes water that splashes away. A barrier is just a wall, not an area of water and other than stopping someone it would not give any effects that water would give, such as drowning, and once it is broken it goes away.

 

Barrier in 6th Edition is much more than erecting a wall.  Indeed, the description says that "a barrier, once created, is a physical object that remains in existence until destroyed by attacks, the passage of time, or other factors".  it is an incredible tool to do a lot of things.  As such, my idea is to create a coherent body of water, you can enter that body of water as it has 0 PD, and swim thorugh it.  While in it you would be subject to the SFX of being inside a body of water (I might need to add an advantage because barrier, by default, allows the passage of gases etc).  You can configure the barrier to whatever shape you want - it also allows a certain amount of flexibility such as adpating to the surface (or fill a location). 

 

So, the barrier of water will stand free but once it takes enough damage, it will collapse into that much water and act just like a body of water that is no longer being held in place.  I think it is ideal to be used for this purpose.  It requires a slight handwave of SFX by allowing people to swi through it for no damage but the lack of utility as a barrier is more than made up for in other places.

 

Barrier is worth a good read - it is one of the powers that contributed to the expansion of pages but it adds a bch of utility that makes the reading worthwhile.

 

Doc

[Hugh Neilson]

All dimensions of Barrier can be changed, so that element can work.  There's a lot of handwaving required, though. 

 

Once we tack on CE's "suffocation" from APG, it becomes a better choice, in my view, although we still have no direct mechanic for changing the mode of movement used to pass through a CE area.

 

"Suffocation" is, on the one hand, something missing from the core rules.  On the other hand, it is pretty slow in game terms.

[LoneWolf]

One reason for using CE is that it can have multiple combat effects.   An area filled with water could have multiple effects.  Drowning is an obvious one, but being underwater can also give penalties to running and perception rolls.  Drowning could also be done as point of NND damage with the defense holding your breath.   

 

The real question is what do you want the water to do?   
 

[Doc Democracy]

I think there is less handwaving than in other things.  At least barrier is fundamentally about creating volumes of some substance or another.  The big handwave is allowing people to move through the barrier without causing it damage, everything else is about aplying the standard environmental effects of being inside a body of water.  We would not create a pool with the suffocation element from APG, we would say - "you are under water, here are the rules for that".    As I said, would need to apply the advantage of blocking gaseous transfer for barrier....

 

Doc

[dmjalund]

Does it matter if the water is drinkable

[DShomshak]

Checking the nvironmental Conditions Table (p. 379 od 5e, which is what I have handy at the moment), being in water results in -2 DC and, if underwater, -2 DC to all attacks unless you wear SCUBA gear or make a suitable (undefined here) Skill Roll. You're also holding your breath or drowning. Change Environment is sufficiently broad to cover that, I think -- though Doc persuades me Barrier could work in 6th/CC.

 

Currently I'm puzzling over the reverse of this: opening a gap in a body of water, a la Moses parting the Red Sea. Telekinesis to force the water apart is the simplest, but water is so heavy that even spending 100 points (the limit here -- the Power is a Multipower slot) only moves a fairly unimpressive volume of water. Say, 67 STR TK moves 270 tons of water, which could correspond to a passage 2 meters wide, 3 meters high, and 45 meters long, which is only twice the length of my house. Not very impressive, considering what else one can do with 100 Active Points.

 

I've thought of Change Environment, which can sometimes be allowed to *remove* the same penalties it creates. In this case, a CE to counter the -2 DCV penalty, the -2 DC penalty (stretching things here, guessing that a 5-point CE effect such as TK STR or points of damage will work for countering 5-point DCs), and the damage of drowning (same, and perhaps stretching things even more). CE can also be MegaScaled. But a nitpicker might say that such a CE wouldn't force one to walk instead of swim. I am not a nitpicker for my own games, but this is to update Brother Bone (from Creatures of the Night: Horror Enemies) for new publication. I would prefer not to handwave such details.

 

But Doc D makes me wonder if Barrier could do the job: create a Barrier that *only blocks passage of water* and is fully permeable to everything else. Reading through Barrier, I'm... not sure this can work. The best I might be able to do is a Barrier that expands outward in the shape of a rectangular tube to push aside the water, leaving an air gap in which people may walk but cannot swim. Even this feels kind of handwavy, though.

 

Does anyone have any better ideas?

 

Dean Shomshak

[Chris Goodwin]

This seems like a bit of cheese, but if you apply Not Vs. Water to the Barrier? 
 

Maybe also the Transparent adder with Only Vs. Water?

[Doc Democracy]

For the red sea style thing, I might be inclined to use tunnelling where the "tunnel" remains intact. If the radius of the tunnel is enough, you get to the surface, or you might give the headroom for free.

 

Depends on what additional use you think the character might make of having a u-pipe rather than a pipe.

[GDShore]

If you wanted to do a Part the Red Sea effect Tunnel would be the best effect in concert with Barrier, the tunnel would drill a hole through the water, the barrier would then effectively coat t5he inside of the tunnel. Thus allowing passage through a body of water. The tunnel should be cheaper to buy, as water while dense is far less dense than any land formation. I suspect that there probably exists a table of relative materials density but have no idea where to begin looking for same.

[Christopher R Taylor]

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Doing it as transform into water just makes water that splashes away.

 

The nice thing about transform is that you can make the air into anything so it can be "water that defies gravity" if you want.

 

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Currently I'm puzzling over the reverse of this: opening a gap in a body of water, a la Moses parting the Red Sea. Telekinesis to force the water apart is the simplest

 

The trick is to remember that area effect applies the same effect to the entire area, so you don't have to move all of the water, just however much 2 cubic meters of water weighs (2000 kg, I believe).  That's a pretty hefty telekinesis still (around 32 STR) and you just apply it to an area effect line of the chosen size.  Each and every 2m area in that line has 32 STR applied to it to push it to the side and hold it there.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Christopher R Taylor

[Gauntlet]

How much BODY would a 16-meter-wide globe of water have?

[GDShore]

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1 hour ago, Gauntlet said:

How much BODY would a 16-meter-wide globe of water have?

 

I don't know if water has body, while it has mass, and resistance it does not function as a substance that has body. If you punch it , it retreats in front of your blow flowing around your fist and arm and when you withdraw it flows back into the hole undamaged. If you shoot a bullet into water it will travel only at most a couple hundred cm. even with the most hi-powered rifles at most a meter. (funny though, a bow will fire an arrow as much as 3-4 meters at 45 degrees and 1.2 -2 meters at 90 degrees , with ice it seems to be reversed).  However water does seem to have RPD, and .5 meter of water should stop any projectile except that from point blank range. 

[GDShore]

You will not just have to move 2000 kg., you have to overcome the resistance of the water you are pushing the displaced water into. I supposed you could change the state of the water to either steam or ice. If to steam as soon as the steam move the water will return to fill the hole and all that will be accomplished is to speed up the evaporation of the body of water. If to ice the ice will act as a barrier until it melts or the pressure of the water punch's a hole thru it. The longer the route the more the effort, unless it has the weight of a god behind the effort.

[Gauntlet]

It has BODY as pretty much everything does. Even if you were desolid and can walk through walls, have bullets go through you, and everything else desolification gives you, you still have a BODY characteristic. Plus, transform requires a BODY characteristic for changing. So to create a spell that makes a 16 meter radius of water via Transform, you have to have a BODY Characteristic.

[Christopher R Taylor]

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So to create a spell that makes a 16 meter radius of water via Transform, you have to have a BODY Characteristic.

 

Remember again, you only have to affect a 2m area of water and that affects everything in the area the same way.  Just like a 6d6 blast does the 6d6 to everything identically in a radius effect to each 2m area.

 

I estimated a 2m area of water to have 16 body based on other substances, but I am open to debate on the subject.

[LoneWolf]

Water can take damage from some attacks.  Fire works just fine in destroying water.  It turns it into steam, but it still destroys the current form of the water.  

If you are using Barrier transparent to physical might be something to add.   

[GDShore]

Actually heat does not destroy water, it merely makes it change state, steam is still water when it rises high enough it returns to the original state. Cold also does not destroy water, again causing a change of state, turning it to ice. Only one thing can destroy water high output energy ie. electricity or a nuclear reaction that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. If this is done outside of a secure container the results can be quite spectacular, quite spectacular. I do agree that water in fact must have a body, but to find that body you will have to find the molecular density of water and then the molecular density of more than object that the body of has been established.