An unconscious creature under water - does it hold its breath or start to drown?

[ksbsnowowl]

If a creature is brought to unconsciousness through nonlethal damage, and falls into a lake, will it immediately start to drown?  Or can it hold its breath even while unconscious?

A real-world example would be a drunk passing out and suffocating on his own vomit, but that doesn't tell us if he held his breath for 3 minutes before dying or not.

FYI, the situation in question will be a troll who is made unconscious from damage that will be regenerating (though it could be anywhere from 1 to 13 rounds before the troll would regain consciousness.)

[littha]

No idea RAW but I am pretty sure if you are knocked out and dropped off a bridge you would begin drowning immediately.

Not that I know from personal experience at all. 

[nijineko]

i think that in real life the body does not try to hold the breath when unconscious. after all, the primal reflex is to breath water. we did it for the first 9-ish months of our lives, ne.

of course, per the drowning rules, the hp would be set to what, 0 or -1, once they start drowning? then the regen would kick them above 0. they might get woken up immediately if they start drowning.

technically.

[Kethrian]

I think you'll have to adjudicate your own ruling for when exactly the troll would start to drown.  But once it does, regen will not help in the slightest, because drowning does not do any HP damage for regen to convert to subdual.  It lowers current HP to 0, then -1, then death.

Fast healing, on the other hand....

[ksbsnowowl]

I think you'll have to adjudicate your own ruling for when exactly the troll would start to drown.  But once it does, regen will not help in the slightest, because drowning does not do any HP damage for regen to convert to subdual.  It lowers current HP to 0, then -1, then death.

Fast healing, on the other hand....

Right, Regen doesn't help with drowning (even says so in the entry for Regen), but I'd never realized that fast healing effectively prevents drowning... interesting corner case.  Would have been interesting to see the Sage fumble with answering that...

I assumed that an unconscious person started drowning right away, just wanted to make sure.

[phaedrusxy]

I think you'll have to adjudicate your own ruling for when exactly the troll would start to drown.  But once it does, regen will not help in the slightest, because drowning does not do any HP damage for regen to convert to subdual.  It lowers current HP to 0, then -1, then death.

Fast healing, on the other hand....

I've seen pretty convincing arguments that fast healing doesn't work at all when you're below 0 hit points. It works like "normal healing", but you don't heal when you're below 0. You make stabilization checks.

[ksbsnowowl]

I've seen pretty convincing arguments that fast healing doesn't work at all when you're below 0 hit points. It works like "normal healing", but you don't heal when you're below 0. You make stabilization checks.

Some books specify that fast healing doesn't work when a creature has less than 1 hit point (Fiend Folio, for example), but Core doesn't ever say that, so it's been debatable if FF, et al, were in error.
Never seen this interpretation before, but I suppose it could be right.

[ksbsnowowl]

Fast healing does not restore hit points lost from starvation, thirst, or suffocation.

Yes, they left drowning off the list, but drowning is just suffocation under water.

[Kethrian]

I've seen pretty convincing arguments that fast healing doesn't work at all when you're below 0 hit points. It works like "normal healing", but you don't heal when you're below 0. You make stabilization checks.

The key word is "like" natural healing.  It is not natural healing.  For one thing, fast healing will kick in before a stabilization roll, healing and therefore stabilizing you, and preventing you from ever having to make a stabilization check.

Also, the dying state has no mention that natural healing does not work.  Only when you are stable but recovering without help, and failing the 1/hour rolls do you not get natural healing.  Though strangely, once you recover so that you are conscious but disabled, you again do not get natural healing, and have to roll to get it back.

[veekie]

Personally I'd let them hold their breath instinctively, largely for the sake of PCs. Otherwise getting knocked out into water is going to be super speedy kill. Possibly impose a penalty for being unconscious on the check to hold your breath.

[Kethrian]

Personally I'd let them hold their breath instinctively, largely for the sake of PCs. Otherwise getting knocked out into water is going to be super speedy kill. Possibly impose a penalty for being unconscious on the check to hold your breath.

Good idea.  Maybe set it to half the normal duration, because they wouldn't have a full lungful of air.

[The_Laughing_Man]

OTOH, There are plenty of magic and mundane items  that help you breath under water. Or a clever choice of race. I think the party should be prepared for the possibility of drowning. In any case there are a few rounds before death comes so the other party members can still react.

[ksbsnowowl]

Good ideas, everyone.

I'm tempted to let things hold their breath for a number of round equal to their Con score (that's half), because there is a decent chance this might happen to my PC's.

They are basically assaulting the city of Rhest from Red Hand of Doom, except the denizens are different (tanarukk and fiendish troll army).  The "fiendlord" at this location is a half-fiend scrag, and the black dragon from RHoD is instead a shadow creature red abishai with an item that lets him breath under water (and a potion of freedom of movement).  The lizardfolk have been replaced with Eneko Warrior 4's and Dekanter Goblins (both have Improved Bull Rush).

I think one of my PC's did prepare Water Breathing for investigating the sunken city after the assault, but they do not have it running on anyone at the moment.
There is a decent chance my PC's will have to retreat before they finish the job this time, but they are stubborn and are unlikely to retreat when they should.
They've already taken out six fiendish ice trolls, a scrag, a tanarukk caster, and a half-troll athach, but they are starting to run out of spells, some of their HP's are starting to run low, and the NPC druid is confused and fleeing at the moment.  The sentries are gone, but now the big-wigs are stepping in (as well as a few more troll "captains" showing up).

But as I said, there is a decent chance the PC's knock a troll unconscious into the water too.  There will shortly be three flying trolls bugging the crap out of the PC's.  Two of them will be scrags, so won't care about being under water, but one of them won't be a scrag.

[nijineko]

ah, yes. thanks again. i really need to go look things up instead of just going from memory. forgot about the no drowning vs regen. i was just thinking that if your hp got set to 0, then the regen would kick it up over 0.

[veekie]

Holding their breath for half normal should be fine I think. Enough time to enact a heroic rescue if necessary for a PC, and if its a monster, just knock it out real good and let it drown that way.

Though I'd have thought some of them would bring fire.

[ksbsnowowl]

Though I'd have thought some of them would bring fire.

Two of the players have the fiery burst reserve feat, and the Wiz//Rog also has acidic splatter.  They've got that end of it covered, they just haven't had time to dish it out yet as a mop-up (and they might actually get run off before they can, but most of the ice trolls were brought to negative HP by fire, and bled out already).

The problem with trolls is they'll regenerate... good luck finding that troll underwater, and burning it there, before he returns to consciousness.

The other side effect I hadn't initially intended... Half-Fiend trolls are impossible to burn with mundane fire. So you can't just knock them out, then burn them on a campfire.  Fiendish trolls are all but immune to that (they have a 16.15% chance to take one point of fire damage each round).

[veekie]

Well, if they win they can chop the fiendish trolls into very small pieces and stew the chunks. The half fiend ones would need a bucket of acid for the head though.