Swimming

Type: Movement

Action: Move (active)

Range: Personal

Duration: Sustained

Saving Throw: None

Cost: 1 point per rank

You can swim faster than normal. You have a water speed of 2.5 MPH (25 ft.) at rank 1. Each additional rank moves your speed one step up the Progression Table. Speed per rank is shown on the Swimming Movement table. You can always take 10 on Swim skill checks, even while under pressure. This effect does not allow you to survive underwater (for that, see the Associated Effects section of Swimming).Generally, you’re limited to towing weights along with you if you

want to carry more than you can fit under your arm or on your back. More than a light load reduces movement speed to two-thirds while a heavy load also reduces your all-out speed to one half. More than a heavy load drops your speed to a mere 5 feet per round as you fight your way through the water, pushing or dragging your burden.

POWER FEATS

• Environmental Adaptation (aquatic): This feat may also be a power feat of Swimming, allowing you to move through water as easily as you do air.

EXTRAS

• Affects Others: With this extra you can grant the benefits of your Swimming speed to others in contact with you. Note this isn’t the same as simply carrying someone along with you while you swim, it is granting them the same Swimming movement as yours.

FLAWS

• Duration: Concentration duration Swimming can represent a type of focused movement effect requiring more of your concentration and effort. Since maintaining a concentration effect is a standard action, you can’t use accelerated or all-out swimming movement, you’re limited to the normal movement pace

of your Swimming rank.

ASSOCIATED EFFECTS

Enhanced Strength: Muscles strong enough to withstand deep water pressure and move a character at high speeds through the water may also feature truly Enhanced Strength or even Super-Strength, in the water and on land.

Immunity: Immunity to drowning (1 rank) is common for swimmers, allowing them to breathe normally underwater. Immunity to cold and pressure (1 rank each) are also common effects for avoiding the frigid temperatures and crushing pressures of the ocean depths.Super-Senses: Traits like low-light vision and darkvision are useful for navigating the dim ocean depths and tremorsense allows swimmers to pick up vibrations in the water. Sharks and many other aquatic creatures have the scent trait, picking up minute traces in the water around them.

Native Swimmers

Much of the Swimming effect is intended for amphibious characters, those equally at home in the water and on land. For aquatic creatures, those limited solely to the water, use the following guidelines:

• Breathing: Aquatic creatures have Immunity (drowning) but they suffocate in air like air-breathers do in the water, for a net cost of 0 points. Aquatic creatures are often Immune to cold and pressure as well, but not necessarily (paying the normal cost for those Immunities).

• Movement: Aquatic creatures have a normal swimming movement speed of 30 feet and can always take 10 on their Swim checks, but cannot move on land except by flopping around (about 5 feet per full-round action at most) for a net cost of 0 points. Aquatic creatures often have Swimming to improve their speed, just as many land animals have the Speed effect to improve their ground movement.

• Senses: Aquatic creatures often (but not necessarily) have some of the Super-Senses options discussed under the Associated Effects of Swimming. They pay normal cost for these.

• Environment: Aquatic creatures automatically have Environmental Adaptation (aquatic) at no cost, but suffer penalties when operating in a non-aquatic environment; generally a –2 penalty for poor conditions is the most appropriate (and easiest to apply). Those with access to the Mastermind’s Manual may want to reverse-engineer the modifiers for aquatic environments to apply appropriate modifiers to water-breathers operating in air, but generally the condition penalty is sufficient, since the situation isn’t likely to arise often.

REALISTIC SWIMMING SPEEDS

The fastest real-world marine creatures can swim around 30 MPH (Swimming 2, approximately), while the fastest underwater torpedoes can go about 250 MPH or so (Swimming 7). Gamemasters running a more realistic M&M game may want to limit ranks of Swimming to these speeds.

SWIMMING LEVERAGE

Gamemaster may want to apply the guidelines for Flight leverage (given in the Flight effect description) to Swimming movement as well, allowing powerful swimmers to push heavier weights, provided those weights are buoyant enough to float. This allows a high-rank swimmer to function like an “outboard motor” for a water vessel, for example.

SWIM SPEEDS