Swimming

Unless you are Amphibious (p. 40)
or Aquatic (p. 145), you must roll
against Swimming skill (p. 224) any
time you enter water over your head.
Swimming defaults to HT-4. Roll
when you first enter the water, and
again every five minutes.
Modifiers: +3 if you entered the
water intentionally; a penalty equal to
twice your encumbrance level (e.g.,
Heavy encumbrance gives -6); +1 if
you are Overweight, +3 if Fat, or +5 if
Very Fat (see Build, p. 18).
On a failure, you inhale water!
Lose 1 FP and roll again in five sec-
onds – and so on, until you drown, are
rescued (see Lifesaving, below), or
make a successful Swimming roll and
get your head above water. If you suc-
cessfully recover, roll again in one
minute; if you succeed, go back to
making rolls five minutes apart. Yes,
you can shout for help!
You may try to get rid of armor, etc.
after making your first successful
Swimming roll. Roll vs. DX for each
item you try to remove; roll at -4 to
remove shields, helmets, or torso
armor. A failed roll means you inhale
water, with penalties as above.
Once you reach 0 FP, you must
make a Will roll every second or fall
unconscious, and are likely to die
unless
you
are
rescued.
See
Suffocation (p. 436) for details.