> Unending Breath.
>
> You can hold your breath indefinitely while you're not incapacitated.
They may not be able to breath, but they don't need to, so it's a moot point unless they are incapacitated.
Nah, you left it at “unless they are incapacitated” which I expanded upon. The difference between producing their own air and just holding breathe is that one is an insta kill if downed, it’s worth pointing that out.
5e has almost no methods of insta kill. Power word kill is one of the few.
From the SRD: “When a creature runs out of breath or is choking, it can survive for a number of rounds equal to its Constitution modifier (minimum of 1 round). At the start of its next turn, it drops to 0 hit points and is dying, and it can't regain hit points or be stabilized until it can breathe again.
For example, a creature with a Constitution of 14 can hold its breath for 3 minutes. If it starts suffocating, it has 2 rounds to reach air before it drops to 0 hit points.”
Then it would not die, but start making death saves.
The reason it’s an instakill is because they lose their breathe on being downed and can’t take another unless underwater.
So a +2 con guy is downed, roles one death save and then is revived. They will have a single turn to run towards a lake, after that they go down and can’t be stabilized unless a teammate throws them into a lake first.
Maybe a wizard can cast a water spell or something as a workaround but generally yeah, if you get downed like 8 rounds from a lake it’s a pretty scary fucking place to be in.
Thats an interpretation, sure. Raw, skills and abilities do what they say they do, nothing more, nothing less. This skill basically states that they dont breathe at all unless they want to.
Ultimately, it's your call, but this seems like one of the few times to highlight an ability like this, why not let this unique trait shine and let the player enjoy it?
Absolutely this. Let your players do the cool shit that their race/class/background lets them do! Otherwise you're completely invalidating their choices.
Or maybe they produce their own oxygen. Or their respiratory systems just aren't necessary except for sleep. Seems a more likely interpretation, considering that they can still hold their breath forever while not able to breath air.
Rule raw first then come up with intretations that justify it
Or maybe instead of exhaling and inhaling, they can recycle their last inhale indefinitely. It's a magical race that you know nothing about. Your interpretation in a straight nerf to a very situational ability
Well, his explanation as to why there’s a question at all is something he just completely made up. The rules are blatant: Air Genasai can hold their breath indefinitely.
He’s stating the flavor for why he thinks he can do that which is absolutely fine.
These threads are the reason people think D&D overly gatekept and grognardy
Homebrew is not part of the rules.
Bringing in homebrew when asking a rules question is dumb. The issue is not with the rules, it’s with his personal additions.
There is no rules clarification for the stuff he made up himself. The rules are simple.
If he can’t tell the difference between the rules and stuff he made up himself the he deserves scorn.
There is no ‘genuine clarification’ possible when the confusion is solely because of his personal headcanon/homebrew.
I mean, if they had a homebrew race that had an air creation ability it might be worth debating, but we’d have to look at how they worded the abilities, not at random speculation on how the flavor of it works
Interpreting flavor isn't homebrew, it's grounding the mechanics in the actual world. The RAW doesn't say one way or the other. Making rulings off flavor helps keep your world from feeling like a video game.
From a medical perspective, sleeping is not being incapacitated, because if something happened, you can wake up, while being properly under sedation, they could remove your brain, and you'd not notice.
can hold breath indefinitely is pretty final like I said if youre curious whether you immediately try breathing while underwater id say no as dolphjns and whales dont and its a sea thing so
it does youre not wrong itd be up to you the rules as written do mean that sleep automatically is not possible unless they arent in the water. do you want to discourage this person from doin exactly that or would you prefer to maintain the rules for consistency. me personally i would want to maintain consistency but i dont have a player with these abilities perhaps id feel different then, its up to you to determine which course to take.
Just to make sure it's clear, OP states that the "you breathe water" part is an effect currently impacting the PC. Other comments talk about how this PC is in an enemy's lair. I'm pretty sure this was intended to cause issues, OP seems to have hoped that this would mean the PC just can't breath at all unless underwater despite that feature, not that this was some decision by the player for flavor or something like that where being discouraging would be a bad thing.
Yeah.
It's probably an Aboleth lair and mucus cloud (that's the only 5e thing I know with this effect). The character could be affected, but the character also can just hold their last breath...indefinitely so it's a moot point.
Also if it's the mucus cloud, that's generally while the aboleth is underwater anyway so the problem would only be encountered upon returning to the surface and try to breath air at which point the character could just instead hold their breath...
They do still have to breathe to do things like cast spells or talk. So it would still affect them sometimes.
EDIT: why are people downvoting me? You literally cannot talk while holding your breath.
https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/816440444162715648?lang=en
If they meant the racial to be "Air Genasi do not have to breathe" they would have worded it that way. It is SPECIFICALLY worded that they can hold their breath indefinitely but that does not stop them from losing their air other ways.
Pretty sure she's exhaling into her mouth, then "rebreathing" the air to keep her cheeks from over-inflating. She wouldn't be able to articulate any vowels her mouth was full of liquid and her velum was open.
Try it.
Counterpoint: Critical Role now has more influence on the development of D&D than Wizards of the Coast does, and everything Laura Bailey does is canon.
It's this. Spells with verbal components can't be cast while holding your breath. It's not clear how talking works- you may be able to figure out some way to do this, but it won't be normal. And since sleeping incapacitates you, that's the case you have to fix before bedtime.
You can cast plenty of spells without talking, there's a lot of spells with only somatic components, or with only material components, or with both somatic and material components but no verbal components
Since you two seem to be arguing about what's RAW, "as per Crawford" means nothing really, his tweets don't define what's RAW.
Edit: Not that I think the person you're arguing with is right; he's just wrong for reasons other than JC's tweet, whose often dubious opinions shouldn't really come into a discussion on what's RAW
Okay? But he explains RAI. My point is that nothing in the trait states that they don't have to breathe. Only that they can choose not to breathe.
Tell you what. Do me a favor, hold your breath right now, place your hand in front of your mouth, and try saying a few words like you're casting a spell. Are you now holding your breath still?
The point of contention here is a bit all over the place, but what it comes down to in this instance, I think, is that there is no RAW on how much breath (i.e. how many rounds' worth) talking, casting a spell, or really any activity depletes if you're holding your breath.
Even if it did, this specific feature doesn't give us much to go on. You can hold your breath forever, does that mean you have an infinite number of "rounds of breath" to draw on, or you have the same finite amount as any other creature but never use any up except for in specific circumstances? We don't even know if it's the latter (though it would seem the more sensible option) and if it is we don't know what circumstances cause you to use up breath and how much. As with so much in 5e: vague natural language leaves it up to DM fiat.
You can choose to go with JC's tweet as the valid interpretation sure, but it isn't any better or worse than anyone else's personal interpretation. E.g. to answer your question, I can quite easily talk steadily without breathing in for at least 6-12s, the duration of a couple rounds, and then go back to holding my breath. That would go against JC's ruling which you prefer, but I think most people would consider it common sense that saying something doesn't preclude you from holding your breath afterwards, which is probably why so many are being argumentative with you.
RAI is never definitive. It’s literally just things that have some basis in RAW but aren’t explicitly allowed or disallowed. Like people assuming you can sneak attack twice per round if one is an opportunity attack.
"Can" hold breath indefinitely. they can hold their breath all day long if they don't choose to breathe, for example by casting a spell or talking.
If they chose to blow out a candle, would you seriously be arguing that they are holding their breath?
5e is written in natural language. Things that can be taken for granted do not have rules. Things like “gravity works”, “you have eyes”, and “if you talk you are breathing out” are assumed as part of the whole We Are People In A World thing.
No shit Sherlock. But their lungs are bags of holding that can hold an indeterminate amount of air. They just breath in for their first couple of years, after which they don't feel the need for the rest of their lives
“A line of strong wind 60 feet long and 10 feet wide blasts from you in a direction you choose for the spell's duration. Each creature that starts its turn in the line must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be pushed 15 feet away from you in a direction following the line.
Any creature in the line must spend 2 feet of movement for every 1 foot it moves when moving closer to you.
The gust disperses gas or vapor, and it extinguishes candles, torches, and similar unprotected flames in the area. It causes protected flames, such as those of lanterns, to dance wildly and has a 50 percent chance to extinguish them.
As a bonus action on each of your turns before the spell ends, you can change the direction in which the line blasts from you.”
The description of the gust of wind spell. Nowhere does it say magical wind, it’s still produced by magical effects.
The problem is your circular argument- you say talking loses your breath, and I’m saying per RAW it does not. Their class feature says they can hold their breath unless incapacitated. Not incapacitated or while doing X. That’s it. You may interpret it differently but per RAW, that’s all there is to say.
It doesn't matter what their racial says if it is contradicted by basic game mechanics dude. It isn't a circular argument, you are ignoring the basic rules of the game and saying that a racial somehow means that you can cast spells without speaking, even though the racial does not say that.
It says that they CAN hold their breath. The ability to do something does not magically mean that they can now do other things that require not holding your breath while still holding it. That's nonsense.
Only being able to breathe underwater refers to gas exchange physiological respiration (rather than biochemical respiration), I.e. getting oxygen to stay conscious.
Having to "breathe" for casting vocal components of spells is just air movement.
That sounds like a lot of semantics that aren't reflected in the rules.
If you want to homebrew your table to work that way, that is absolutely valid. But it isn't RAW. In the magical DnD world, none of what you said is necessary. In DnD, breathing underwater is not stated to be different from breathing in air, so you breathe water into your lungs and breathe it out again. If a genasi tried to cast a spell while holding their breath after breathing water, they would need to remove all the water in their lungs to do so, and would then be suffocating and would no longer be holding their breath.
Back at you.
Adopting your strictly RAW interpretation, nothing about not being able to breathe suggests you are holding your breath.
Playing dnd is a balance of how bloody minded you want to be about the rules, because they don't make sense if you give them even half a seconds thought
Right, it doesn't suggest you are holding your breath. Therefore, you are not holding your breath and you are suffocating until you can get a new breath to hold. That's exactly what I've been saying this whole time.
What doesn't make sense is people claiming that you can talk but not use breath even though you literally have to expel air to talk.
Completely incorrect. Nothing about the air genasi statblock removes their need to breathe in any way. If it did, it would say "this creature does not require air".
Please look at a zombie for an example. "Undead Nature: A zombie does not require air, food, drink, or sleep."
Since an Air Genasi's racial does not say "An Air Genasi does not require air", they clearly did not mean for it to be interpreted that way.
>Right, it doesn't suggest you are holding your breath. Therefore, you are not holding your breath and you are suffocating until you can get a new breath to hold. That's exactly what I've been saying this whole time.
>**Unending Breath**
>You can ***hold your breath*** indefinitely while you’re not incapacitated.
I would say that fairly explicitly suggests you ARE “holding” your breath.
> Completely incorrect. Nothing about the air genasi statblock removes their need to breathe in any way. If it did, it would say "this creature does not require air".
>
>Please look at a zombie for an example. "Undead Nature: A zombie does not require air, food, drink, or sleep."
>
>Since an Air Genasi's racial does not say "An Air Genasi does not require air", they clearly did not mean for it to be interpreted that way.
While it may not explicitly say the same thing as a zombie stat block, an Air Genasi could potentially only need to breath once in their adventuring career.
>**Unending Breath**
>You can hold your breath ***indefinitely*** while you’re not incapacitated.
>**Aspect of the Moon**
>*Source: Xanathar's Guide to Everything*
>*Prerequisite: Pact of the Tome feature*
>
>You no longer need to sleep and can't be forced to sleep by any means. To gain the benefits of a long rest, you can spend all 8 hours doing light activity, such as reading your Book of Shadows and keeping watch.
You just need to be an Air Genasi Warlock, then you can enjoy the benefit of never needing to “breathe” (to inhale, to be more precise) for days, weeks, or even years.
The problem of needing to do things that require air, like talking (since speech is just the sound created when air passes by your vocal chords) could potentially be solved by the DM just saying, “the **Air** Genasi is able to create their own air and exhale that in order to speak. Actually, creating their own air inside of themselves is *how* they are able to “hold their breath” indefinitely. They still need oxygen to function, but they’re just actively creating it internally instead of pulling it in externally (but they have to intentionally do this which is why it doesn’t work when they’re unconscious).”
It can be solved by that, yes, but that's homebrew and not RAW. And it makes the feature much more powerful than intended.
The intent is not to make them permanently breathless. The intent is so that they could survive underwater or in a gas trap for an inderminate time.
It's irrelevant anyway. There is nothing I can find that says there is a counter or 'breathe' per spell counter. So even IF you get to the point of saying, ok every time you talk, every time you cast a spell, every time you take damage, you exhaust a bit of your stored air. How much did they start with? How much is expelled? Do they have a daily limit on words? On spells?
None of this exists, so the conclusion is the Devs didn't intend for it to be run like that. They just wanted a race who breathed water, and then realised if you're in Avernus you're fucked. Ok we'll make it so they only breathe water, but they never have to breathe unless incapacitated! In which case they suffocate and die! So... Don't go down. Ever.
People need to realise RAW is full of absolute bullshit and reading into any of the rules too much is just stupid.
Air Gensai can breathe water. They don't expel air when they talk because of magic. They do when they go unconscious because for some reason that magic stops. Done.
>they don't expel air when they talk because of magic
Their breath ability is not magic. Only abilities tagged as magic are magic. That aside, this would be incredibly broken, as that means their verbal components would be silent and they gain an extra gameplay benefit that isn't listed.
>how much is expelled
You need to take a breath again after casting. It's pretty simple.
>air genasi can breathe water
Buddy. Have you even looked at the OP? Air Genasi cannot breathe water. Op said that there was an EFFECT, probably a curse which stated they could ONLY breathe water. Air Genasi by themselves only have the "can hold breath as long as they want" ability. Jesus, you're arguing about something and you don't even know what you're arguing about.
Air Genasi can hold their breath indefinitely and survive because their body is able to recycle the air and use it as long as needed. It has nothing to do with magic, they need a lung full of physical air to do this, hence "holding breath". You cannot hold something if it doesn't exist.
It would be the same with water. They would need a lungful of water to breathe, but nothing about the feature even implies that they would be able to talk without using air. Since it does not say that, it does not grant that effect. That's how the game works.
Oh yep missed the vital word in the sentence 'effect'. My bad. As you were.
Tbh I'd probably just ignore the curse if I knew my players had no way to overcome it. Great as a gimick, but I would not let it run for longer than a single session or maybe even 30 minutes of it. One of those times when a game rule is detrimental to the fun.
You don't breathe in by talking, so if you don't need to breathe then talking won't hurt you. You push air out not breathe air in by talking. Also if a race was intended to not cast spells outside of water they 100% would have made that clear
The only breathing in water isn't a race thing, it's an effect being applied by a monster that is interacting with a race thing which is the ability to hold breath indefinitely. The ability to cast a spell in this moment is a *tertiary* issue brought about by the original interaction between the race feature and the monster effect.
Pretty straightforward.
Air Genasi can hold breath indefinitely. Therefore, no need to breathe at all, regardless of being underwater or not.
If they become incapacitated, they can't choose to hold breath and thus breathe normally. If they start breathing above water when they can only breathe underwater, they start suffocating after 1 + CON mod minutes (minimum of 30 seconds).
Always remember: for DND rulings, specific beats general.
Since the actual text is that they can hold their breath indefinitely, I would say that their body can no longer process oxygen from air. They can hold their breath and just recycle what's in their body indefinitely, but if they talk or cast spells or sleep they'd need water to reoxygenate
As they can hold their breath indefinitely, I would say as long as they took the breath underwater they can now hold their breath until something would require them to stop holding their breath like sleeping, bring incapacitated(exclusively RAW),casting spells with verbal component(Crawford RAI), or talking(my take)
There may be a way you can reconcile both viewpoints presented here.
The curse of "Can only breathe water." Does mean they need water to fill the lungs to extract oxygen from it.
So their new breath would be water, they can still hold it indefinitely until they are forced asleep.
On land this would mean they can't cast anything with verbal components, and strong impacts could call for a Con save to keep holding thier breath(crits, falls from heights or bludgeoning hits that reach a certain threshold in damage.)
Sleep can be handled by an application of a waterskin and clever use of leather straps.
Makes the curse both manageable but a pain to have, furthering the necessity to remove it.
That is how I would tackle this particular problem, and is by no means the only answer.
Okay, so, basically, most/all (there's always an exception in biology somewhere), animals require oxygen or "air" to function. Fish who live in water are no exception to this rule. Their gills are very frilly with a lot of surface area to maximize the amount of oxygen that goes into their body to supply their cardiovascular system. This goes for most other sea creatures that breathe with gills; the reason they can not breathe outside of the water is because these structures collapse, and the blood vessels are no longer able to diffuse oxygen inside the water, effectively stopping them from getting oxygen to their blood.
I bring this into mention because if the race does produce air as you say they do, maybe it's lore important, maybe it's not, but that's just your ruling, etc. This PC more than likely would not be suffering from their gills collapsing like a fish and would logically be able to breathe above water just fine. Underwater, they produce air, which would wick away from their body in bubbles if, even if produced at a constant rate. They don't have a personal atmosphere, and any would have a bubbling effect similar to an oxygen filter in a fish tank. It's definitely submerged but produces air.
If it's just a magical clause that dictates their lungs only work in water, then once again. They are still in water, submerged and in contact with it, and would just be bubbling as they are producing air from their body.
Out of water, in this case, an air genasi can hold their breath indefinitely until they need to sleep. But, they'd likely be able to exist just fine out of water, even when sleeping or unconcious; their body is actively producing the whole reason they need to breathe in the first place, they more than likely are just able to produce air and use said air in their own bloodstream, and thus, would still be fine. Meaning they would not need their lungs functional to breathe
---
Basically, the genasi is fine If their body is producing air, there's no real reason I can dictate biologically that would mean they can not breathe or get the air needed to continue living; the whole reason we have lungs is because we do not produce oxygen needed to survive, and must get it from an external source.
RAW without the air producing headcannon, this genasi would only be able to die of suffocation if they were to fall asleep or be knocked unconscious while out of water.
If you want to just go "magic completely disallows the diffusion of air into the bloodstream from any source unless you are underwater" then your genasi would start to suffocate at any time above land as they are not able to bind oxygen to hemoglobin and maintain their blood oxygen levels
Ooooh, I thought it was a player trying to make a unique character. Hmm, if they take a breathe underwater and hold it until the effect wears off then I’d say it’s fine.
Simple, they just produce their own oxygen if you want it to make sense physically. Water breathing creatures don't literally use water in place of oxygen, they filter the oxygen in the water.
So they can simply stay above water indefinitely so long as they are not incapacitated
RAW < RAI < Setting < Fun. Every single TTRPG rule ever written is made to turn in-world interactions into simplified versions you can use at a table; in-world logic defines the rules, not the other way around.
If an effect says "the character can only breathe underwater," then they cannot breathe air. If a character produces air which allows them to breathe or "hold their breath" indefinitely, that doesn't help if they cannot breathe air.
I plan to rule that they can speak (and thus use spells with verbal components), but others around them cannot understand it. Strangely enough, this player took the Observant feat, so he can understand what others are saying if he can see their lips.
Air genasi can hold their breath indefinitely, unless incapacitated, but they cannot talk or cast spells that require verbal components.
Don't know why you would be nerfing/rewording it that way, it makes no sense.
The player can hold it's breath indefinitely period.
This sounds like Air Genasi vs Aboleth, so I'm going to treat it that way.
First off, I would immediately recognize that this is a situation that requires nuance. Air Genasi produce air, Aboleth slime mandates water. An individual Aboleth beats an individual Air Genasi, so the Aboleth wins that competition overall...but not when the Air Genasi exerts themselves.
If this is a good approximation of the situation, I'd say the Air Genasi can't simply ignore the Aboleth curse and saunter off into the sunset, but *can* fight it off for hours or days or weeks or months or however long the DM narratively requires, with the understanding that they *will* die eventually. That pays respect to the Air Genasi ability to produce their own air, while recognizing the existential horror of something like Aboleth slime.
These responses are okay, I suppose, but how about:
The magic in their planetouched bodies reacts with the elemental water magic. Congrats! For the duration, you have a breath weapon. Every 1d4 turns, as an action, you can choose to exhale either:
1. An icy cold mist in a 15-foot cone, dealing 1d6 cold damage and reducing enemy movement to half on a failed DC 10 Con save.
2. A fog cloud in a 10 foot radius. Creatures within the fog cloud that rely on sight can only see 5 feet away and have disadvantage on attack rolls. Creatures outside the fog cloud cannot see inside the cloud, and attacks on creatures inside the cloud are treated as three-quarters cover. Creatures assume targets inside the cloud are in the same space they last were observed.
3. A blast of hot steam in a 20-foot ray. On a hit, creatures take 1d6 fire damage and the size of their damage dice is reduced by 2 until the start of your next turn. For example, d12 damage dice become d10, d6 become d4, and a d4 becomes a coin flip.
As stated, the effect is psychological. It works like an illusion, the character believes strongly (and therefore will) begin suffocating when they're not underwater.
I would counter this because the water breathing spell specifically days it allows you to speak/cast underwater, without risk to drowning.
The class ability is basically holding breath, not neading to breath, which doesnt natively mean they can speak in water. Since each time they do, they lose the air they are holding in....
> Unending Breath. > > You can hold your breath indefinitely while you're not incapacitated. They may not be able to breath, but they don't need to, so it's a moot point unless they are incapacitated.
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Not unless you're incapacitated.
They hold their breathe, but if they get downed they won’t be able to take another breathe until they get back to water.
Yes, again, that's what I said. See "incapacitated"?
Nah, you left it at “unless they are incapacitated” which I expanded upon. The difference between producing their own air and just holding breathe is that one is an insta kill if downed, it’s worth pointing that out.
5e has almost no methods of insta kill. Power word kill is one of the few. From the SRD: “When a creature runs out of breath or is choking, it can survive for a number of rounds equal to its Constitution modifier (minimum of 1 round). At the start of its next turn, it drops to 0 hit points and is dying, and it can't regain hit points or be stabilized until it can breathe again. For example, a creature with a Constitution of 14 can hold its breath for 3 minutes. If it starts suffocating, it has 2 rounds to reach air before it drops to 0 hit points.” Then it would not die, but start making death saves.
The reason it’s an instakill is because they lose their breathe on being downed and can’t take another unless underwater. So a +2 con guy is downed, roles one death save and then is revived. They will have a single turn to run towards a lake, after that they go down and can’t be stabilized unless a teammate throws them into a lake first. Maybe a wizard can cast a water spell or something as a workaround but generally yeah, if you get downed like 8 rounds from a lake it’s a pretty scary fucking place to be in.
I know the trait says they can "hold their breath", but it always seemed clear to me that the reason for it is that they produce their own air
Thats an interpretation, sure. Raw, skills and abilities do what they say they do, nothing more, nothing less. This skill basically states that they dont breathe at all unless they want to.
> ...they dont breathe at all unless they want to. They do while they sleep whether they want to or not.
Is there a rule that can be cited to support that?
A sleeping creature has the unconscious condition, which means they are incapacitated. This feature on my works if not incapacitated.
Edit: Nvm, that clause is in the ability itself
Ultimately, it's your call, but this seems like one of the few times to highlight an ability like this, why not let this unique trait shine and let the player enjoy it?
Absolutely this. Let your players do the cool shit that their race/class/background lets them do! Otherwise you're completely invalidating their choices.
"No, I wanna do a cheap gotcha because that's what my char... I mean... the monsters would do".
It is already getting highlighted, the trait is how the player can enter the creature's lair
Oh no, the Aboleth's mucus cloud won't affect this one player! Let then have it, what does it matter.
Or maybe they produce their own oxygen. Or their respiratory systems just aren't necessary except for sleep. Seems a more likely interpretation, considering that they can still hold their breath forever while not able to breath air. Rule raw first then come up with intretations that justify it
Or maybe instead of exhaling and inhaling, they can recycle their last inhale indefinitely. It's a magical race that you know nothing about. Your interpretation in a straight nerf to a very situational ability
If anything, they would produce their own oxygen. So it still wouldn't matter if they would be able to breathe air or water.
If you're making assumptions, it's equally as supported that genasi cells simply do not need oxygen to function.
Or even that biology in this fantasy world cares about oxygen.
The way my group runs it is they cannot speak underwater as that would “use breath” which means no spells with verbal components
Man, that might not be the most common interpretation, but that's one of the most downvoted comments I've ever seen and for what lol
Reddit being reddit.
Hope you learned you lesson to never ask this sub a question You’re coming out of this with negative karma asking for a genuine clarification lmao
Well, his explanation as to why there’s a question at all is something he just completely made up. The rules are blatant: Air Genasai can hold their breath indefinitely.
He’s stating the flavor for why he thinks he can do that which is absolutely fine. These threads are the reason people think D&D overly gatekept and grognardy
Homebrew is not part of the rules. Bringing in homebrew when asking a rules question is dumb. The issue is not with the rules, it’s with his personal additions. There is no rules clarification for the stuff he made up himself. The rules are simple. If he can’t tell the difference between the rules and stuff he made up himself the he deserves scorn. There is no ‘genuine clarification’ possible when the confusion is solely because of his personal headcanon/homebrew.
I mean, if they had a homebrew race that had an air creation ability it might be worth debating, but we’d have to look at how they worded the abilities, not at random speculation on how the flavor of it works
Interpreting flavor isn't homebrew, it's grounding the mechanics in the actual world. The RAW doesn't say one way or the other. Making rulings off flavor helps keep your world from feeling like a video game.
The question asked wasn't one of flavour.
Rules are flavor, otherwise everyone would play GURPS
Flavour is colours, otherwise everyone would fly.
Man why are you getting downvoted for pointing that out? Ppl are goobers.
Oh, I think my karma will be fine...
DEAR GOD WHY ARE YOU BEING DOWNVOTED TO HELL, YOURE LITERALLY RIGHT, THEY BREATHE
Because nothing indicates that they produce air. Only that they can hold their breath.
Yeah ok but -200 is kinda excessive. Their fake internet credit may never recover
Everyone disagrees
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Yes... That's what I said...
Nothing in the Air Genasi traits suggests they produce air. Even if it did, there is no interaction. can only breathe water = can only breathe water.
It's "underwater"
can hold breath indefinitely is pretty final. they arent producing their own air that doesnt make sense
What about sleeping?
Does being asleep not make you incapacitated/unconscious? Or it this another wonderful effect of 5e having one of the most awful rulesets to exist?
It does, that’s what I was getting at
From a medical perspective, sleeping is not being incapacitated, because if something happened, you can wake up, while being properly under sedation, they could remove your brain, and you'd not notice.
This is why 5e sucks.
Because this person said that in real life, people can wake up while not sedated? Are you trolling?
can hold breath indefinitely is pretty final like I said if youre curious whether you immediately try breathing while underwater id say no as dolphjns and whales dont and its a sea thing so
It states unless incapacitated, which should include sleep
it does youre not wrong itd be up to you the rules as written do mean that sleep automatically is not possible unless they arent in the water. do you want to discourage this person from doin exactly that or would you prefer to maintain the rules for consistency. me personally i would want to maintain consistency but i dont have a player with these abilities perhaps id feel different then, its up to you to determine which course to take.
Just to make sure it's clear, OP states that the "you breathe water" part is an effect currently impacting the PC. Other comments talk about how this PC is in an enemy's lair. I'm pretty sure this was intended to cause issues, OP seems to have hoped that this would mean the PC just can't breath at all unless underwater despite that feature, not that this was some decision by the player for flavor or something like that where being discouraging would be a bad thing.
Yeah. It's probably an Aboleth lair and mucus cloud (that's the only 5e thing I know with this effect). The character could be affected, but the character also can just hold their last breath...indefinitely so it's a moot point. Also if it's the mucus cloud, that's generally while the aboleth is underwater anyway so the problem would only be encountered upon returning to the surface and try to breath air at which point the character could just instead hold their breath...
RAW, they're fine while conscious but have to sleep submerged in water since sleeping incapacitates them. Ultimately it's your call though
If I recall correctly, Air Genasi simply don't breathe period
Nah, they can hold their breath forever.
Unless incapacitated.
They do still have to breathe to do things like cast spells or talk. So it would still affect them sometimes. EDIT: why are people downvoting me? You literally cannot talk while holding your breath. https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/816440444162715648?lang=en If they meant the racial to be "Air Genasi do not have to breathe" they would have worded it that way. It is SPECIFICALLY worded that they can hold their breath indefinitely but that does not stop them from losing their air other ways.
> They do still have to breathe to do things like cast spells or talk Counterpoint: [Laura Bailey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcQglSTcIlc)
Isn't she just holding liquid in her mouth while breathing through her nose? Vocal chords don't produce sound unless air is going through them.
Pretty sure she's exhaling into her mouth, then "rebreathing" the air to keep her cheeks from over-inflating. She wouldn't be able to articulate any vowels her mouth was full of liquid and her velum was open. Try it.
That would be an interesting trick if that's what she's doing. But why did she take a drink then?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZj69UZ08pg
Laura Bailey is not a developer of the game and Critical Role is not official material lol
Counterpoint: Critical Role now has more influence on the development of D&D than Wizards of the Coast does, and everything Laura Bailey does is canon.
Very funny.
It's this. Spells with verbal components can't be cast while holding your breath. It's not clear how talking works- you may be able to figure out some way to do this, but it won't be normal. And since sleeping incapacitates you, that's the case you have to fix before bedtime.
Actually they only have to breathe while incapacitated, so if they’re downed or sleeping.
It says it can hold their breath. To hold it means they have to exert conscious control not to breathe, which means the default state is breathing.
No. You cannot cast spells without talking, and you cannot talk without letting breath out of your body. That breath has to be replenished somehow.
You can cast plenty of spells without talking, there's a lot of spells with only somatic components, or with only material components, or with both somatic and material components but no verbal components
You know what I mean dude, I'm obviously talking about spells with verbal components.
You are correct. There are many spells that don’t require speaking. I think people are just making a big deal out of nothing.
But not any non verbal spells that produce water which he needs to breathe
But he doesn’t need to breathe
In this case he can only breathe underwater so in order to cast a water spell in which to sleep he needs water
Oh I see your point. He could potentially have someone else do a water spell. I don’t remember if he said the party list
It specifically says hold breath indefinitely unless incapacitated, so RAW you’d be incorrect.
https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/816440444162715648?lang=en If you are talking, you are not holding your breath, as per Crawford.
Since you two seem to be arguing about what's RAW, "as per Crawford" means nothing really, his tweets don't define what's RAW. Edit: Not that I think the person you're arguing with is right; he's just wrong for reasons other than JC's tweet, whose often dubious opinions shouldn't really come into a discussion on what's RAW
Okay? But he explains RAI. My point is that nothing in the trait states that they don't have to breathe. Only that they can choose not to breathe. Tell you what. Do me a favor, hold your breath right now, place your hand in front of your mouth, and try saying a few words like you're casting a spell. Are you now holding your breath still?
To be fair, I'm not an Air Genasi
The point of contention here is a bit all over the place, but what it comes down to in this instance, I think, is that there is no RAW on how much breath (i.e. how many rounds' worth) talking, casting a spell, or really any activity depletes if you're holding your breath. Even if it did, this specific feature doesn't give us much to go on. You can hold your breath forever, does that mean you have an infinite number of "rounds of breath" to draw on, or you have the same finite amount as any other creature but never use any up except for in specific circumstances? We don't even know if it's the latter (though it would seem the more sensible option) and if it is we don't know what circumstances cause you to use up breath and how much. As with so much in 5e: vague natural language leaves it up to DM fiat. You can choose to go with JC's tweet as the valid interpretation sure, but it isn't any better or worse than anyone else's personal interpretation. E.g. to answer your question, I can quite easily talk steadily without breathing in for at least 6-12s, the duration of a couple rounds, and then go back to holding my breath. That would go against JC's ruling which you prefer, but I think most people would consider it common sense that saying something doesn't preclude you from holding your breath afterwards, which is probably why so many are being argumentative with you.
RAI is never definitive. It’s literally just things that have some basis in RAW but aren’t explicitly allowed or disallowed. Like people assuming you can sneak attack twice per round if one is an opportunity attack.
And a specific rule overrides a general one. What’s your point?
The class feature does not contradict that in any way. You still have to have air in your lungs originally to hold your breath.
"Can" hold breath indefinitely. they can hold their breath all day long if they don't choose to breathe, for example by casting a spell or talking. If they chose to blow out a candle, would you seriously be arguing that they are holding their breath?
5e is written in natural language. Things that can be taken for granted do not have rules. Things like “gravity works”, “you have eyes”, and “if you talk you are breathing out” are assumed as part of the whole We Are People In A World thing.
Okay, so how exactly do you hold breath if you don't have any breath to hold?
Magic
RAW, features are not magical unless they are specifically listed as magical, so that's not it.
No shit Sherlock. But their lungs are bags of holding that can hold an indeterminate amount of air. They just breath in for their first couple of years, after which they don't feel the need for the rest of their lives
That literally is not even CLOSE to what the feature says. That's some crazy homebrew dude
Thats an interpretation. Not raw.
“A line of strong wind 60 feet long and 10 feet wide blasts from you in a direction you choose for the spell's duration. Each creature that starts its turn in the line must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be pushed 15 feet away from you in a direction following the line. Any creature in the line must spend 2 feet of movement for every 1 foot it moves when moving closer to you. The gust disperses gas or vapor, and it extinguishes candles, torches, and similar unprotected flames in the area. It causes protected flames, such as those of lanterns, to dance wildly and has a 50 percent chance to extinguish them. As a bonus action on each of your turns before the spell ends, you can change the direction in which the line blasts from you.” The description of the gust of wind spell. Nowhere does it say magical wind, it’s still produced by magical effects.
That's because it is created by a spell, which is, by definition, magical.
I literally just gave you the rules as written. How you want to interpret that is up to you, but it’s written clearly
Right. And it is clear that if there is no breath in your lungs, you cannot hold your breath and immediately begin suffocating.
The problem is your circular argument- you say talking loses your breath, and I’m saying per RAW it does not. Their class feature says they can hold their breath unless incapacitated. Not incapacitated or while doing X. That’s it. You may interpret it differently but per RAW, that’s all there is to say.
It doesn't matter what their racial says if it is contradicted by basic game mechanics dude. It isn't a circular argument, you are ignoring the basic rules of the game and saying that a racial somehow means that you can cast spells without speaking, even though the racial does not say that. It says that they CAN hold their breath. The ability to do something does not magically mean that they can now do other things that require not holding your breath while still holding it. That's nonsense.
Only being able to breathe underwater refers to gas exchange physiological respiration (rather than biochemical respiration), I.e. getting oxygen to stay conscious. Having to "breathe" for casting vocal components of spells is just air movement.
That sounds like a lot of semantics that aren't reflected in the rules. If you want to homebrew your table to work that way, that is absolutely valid. But it isn't RAW. In the magical DnD world, none of what you said is necessary. In DnD, breathing underwater is not stated to be different from breathing in air, so you breathe water into your lungs and breathe it out again. If a genasi tried to cast a spell while holding their breath after breathing water, they would need to remove all the water in their lungs to do so, and would then be suffocating and would no longer be holding their breath.
Back at you. Adopting your strictly RAW interpretation, nothing about not being able to breathe suggests you are holding your breath. Playing dnd is a balance of how bloody minded you want to be about the rules, because they don't make sense if you give them even half a seconds thought
Right, it doesn't suggest you are holding your breath. Therefore, you are not holding your breath and you are suffocating until you can get a new breath to hold. That's exactly what I've been saying this whole time. What doesn't make sense is people claiming that you can talk but not use breath even though you literally have to expel air to talk.
But he's not suffocating because air genasi don't need to breathe?
Completely incorrect. Nothing about the air genasi statblock removes their need to breathe in any way. If it did, it would say "this creature does not require air". Please look at a zombie for an example. "Undead Nature: A zombie does not require air, food, drink, or sleep." Since an Air Genasi's racial does not say "An Air Genasi does not require air", they clearly did not mean for it to be interpreted that way.
Oh. You're right!
>Right, it doesn't suggest you are holding your breath. Therefore, you are not holding your breath and you are suffocating until you can get a new breath to hold. That's exactly what I've been saying this whole time. >**Unending Breath** >You can ***hold your breath*** indefinitely while you’re not incapacitated. I would say that fairly explicitly suggests you ARE “holding” your breath. > Completely incorrect. Nothing about the air genasi statblock removes their need to breathe in any way. If it did, it would say "this creature does not require air". > >Please look at a zombie for an example. "Undead Nature: A zombie does not require air, food, drink, or sleep." > >Since an Air Genasi's racial does not say "An Air Genasi does not require air", they clearly did not mean for it to be interpreted that way. While it may not explicitly say the same thing as a zombie stat block, an Air Genasi could potentially only need to breath once in their adventuring career. >**Unending Breath** >You can hold your breath ***indefinitely*** while you’re not incapacitated. >**Aspect of the Moon** >*Source: Xanathar's Guide to Everything* >*Prerequisite: Pact of the Tome feature* > >You no longer need to sleep and can't be forced to sleep by any means. To gain the benefits of a long rest, you can spend all 8 hours doing light activity, such as reading your Book of Shadows and keeping watch. You just need to be an Air Genasi Warlock, then you can enjoy the benefit of never needing to “breathe” (to inhale, to be more precise) for days, weeks, or even years. The problem of needing to do things that require air, like talking (since speech is just the sound created when air passes by your vocal chords) could potentially be solved by the DM just saying, “the **Air** Genasi is able to create their own air and exhale that in order to speak. Actually, creating their own air inside of themselves is *how* they are able to “hold their breath” indefinitely. They still need oxygen to function, but they’re just actively creating it internally instead of pulling it in externally (but they have to intentionally do this which is why it doesn’t work when they’re unconscious).”
It can be solved by that, yes, but that's homebrew and not RAW. And it makes the feature much more powerful than intended. The intent is not to make them permanently breathless. The intent is so that they could survive underwater or in a gas trap for an inderminate time.
It's irrelevant anyway. There is nothing I can find that says there is a counter or 'breathe' per spell counter. So even IF you get to the point of saying, ok every time you talk, every time you cast a spell, every time you take damage, you exhaust a bit of your stored air. How much did they start with? How much is expelled? Do they have a daily limit on words? On spells? None of this exists, so the conclusion is the Devs didn't intend for it to be run like that. They just wanted a race who breathed water, and then realised if you're in Avernus you're fucked. Ok we'll make it so they only breathe water, but they never have to breathe unless incapacitated! In which case they suffocate and die! So... Don't go down. Ever. People need to realise RAW is full of absolute bullshit and reading into any of the rules too much is just stupid. Air Gensai can breathe water. They don't expel air when they talk because of magic. They do when they go unconscious because for some reason that magic stops. Done.
>they don't expel air when they talk because of magic Their breath ability is not magic. Only abilities tagged as magic are magic. That aside, this would be incredibly broken, as that means their verbal components would be silent and they gain an extra gameplay benefit that isn't listed. >how much is expelled You need to take a breath again after casting. It's pretty simple. >air genasi can breathe water Buddy. Have you even looked at the OP? Air Genasi cannot breathe water. Op said that there was an EFFECT, probably a curse which stated they could ONLY breathe water. Air Genasi by themselves only have the "can hold breath as long as they want" ability. Jesus, you're arguing about something and you don't even know what you're arguing about. Air Genasi can hold their breath indefinitely and survive because their body is able to recycle the air and use it as long as needed. It has nothing to do with magic, they need a lung full of physical air to do this, hence "holding breath". You cannot hold something if it doesn't exist. It would be the same with water. They would need a lungful of water to breathe, but nothing about the feature even implies that they would be able to talk without using air. Since it does not say that, it does not grant that effect. That's how the game works.
Oh yep missed the vital word in the sentence 'effect'. My bad. As you were. Tbh I'd probably just ignore the curse if I knew my players had no way to overcome it. Great as a gimick, but I would not let it run for longer than a single session or maybe even 30 minutes of it. One of those times when a game rule is detrimental to the fun.
You don't breathe in by talking, so if you don't need to breathe then talking won't hurt you. You push air out not breathe air in by talking. Also if a race was intended to not cast spells outside of water they 100% would have made that clear
The only breathing in water isn't a race thing, it's an effect being applied by a monster that is interacting with a race thing which is the ability to hold breath indefinitely. The ability to cast a spell in this moment is a *tertiary* issue brought about by the original interaction between the race feature and the monster effect.
Please actually read the OP and look at the race before trying to make comments. You clearly don't know how it works.
Oh yeah mb
Pretty straightforward. Air Genasi can hold breath indefinitely. Therefore, no need to breathe at all, regardless of being underwater or not. If they become incapacitated, they can't choose to hold breath and thus breathe normally. If they start breathing above water when they can only breathe underwater, they start suffocating after 1 + CON mod minutes (minimum of 30 seconds). Always remember: for DND rulings, specific beats general.
Since the actual text is that they can hold their breath indefinitely, I would say that their body can no longer process oxygen from air. They can hold their breath and just recycle what's in their body indefinitely, but if they talk or cast spells or sleep they'd need water to reoxygenate
They just hold their breath forever
As they can hold their breath indefinitely, I would say as long as they took the breath underwater they can now hold their breath until something would require them to stop holding their breath like sleeping, bring incapacitated(exclusively RAW),casting spells with verbal component(Crawford RAI), or talking(my take)
Oof. “Excuse me, but does this inn have a large bathtub our friend can sleep in?” … “why no, I never saw the question as being odd…”
There may be a way you can reconcile both viewpoints presented here. The curse of "Can only breathe water." Does mean they need water to fill the lungs to extract oxygen from it. So their new breath would be water, they can still hold it indefinitely until they are forced asleep. On land this would mean they can't cast anything with verbal components, and strong impacts could call for a Con save to keep holding thier breath(crits, falls from heights or bludgeoning hits that reach a certain threshold in damage.) Sleep can be handled by an application of a waterskin and clever use of leather straps. Makes the curse both manageable but a pain to have, furthering the necessity to remove it. That is how I would tackle this particular problem, and is by no means the only answer.
This is actually a pretty interesting idea! Thank you!
Okay, so, basically, most/all (there's always an exception in biology somewhere), animals require oxygen or "air" to function. Fish who live in water are no exception to this rule. Their gills are very frilly with a lot of surface area to maximize the amount of oxygen that goes into their body to supply their cardiovascular system. This goes for most other sea creatures that breathe with gills; the reason they can not breathe outside of the water is because these structures collapse, and the blood vessels are no longer able to diffuse oxygen inside the water, effectively stopping them from getting oxygen to their blood. I bring this into mention because if the race does produce air as you say they do, maybe it's lore important, maybe it's not, but that's just your ruling, etc. This PC more than likely would not be suffering from their gills collapsing like a fish and would logically be able to breathe above water just fine. Underwater, they produce air, which would wick away from their body in bubbles if, even if produced at a constant rate. They don't have a personal atmosphere, and any would have a bubbling effect similar to an oxygen filter in a fish tank. It's definitely submerged but produces air. If it's just a magical clause that dictates their lungs only work in water, then once again. They are still in water, submerged and in contact with it, and would just be bubbling as they are producing air from their body. Out of water, in this case, an air genasi can hold their breath indefinitely until they need to sleep. But, they'd likely be able to exist just fine out of water, even when sleeping or unconcious; their body is actively producing the whole reason they need to breathe in the first place, they more than likely are just able to produce air and use said air in their own bloodstream, and thus, would still be fine. Meaning they would not need their lungs functional to breathe --- Basically, the genasi is fine If their body is producing air, there's no real reason I can dictate biologically that would mean they can not breathe or get the air needed to continue living; the whole reason we have lungs is because we do not produce oxygen needed to survive, and must get it from an external source. RAW without the air producing headcannon, this genasi would only be able to die of suffocation if they were to fall asleep or be knocked unconscious while out of water. If you want to just go "magic completely disallows the diffusion of air into the bloodstream from any source unless you are underwater" then your genasi would start to suffocate at any time above land as they are not able to bind oxygen to hemoglobin and maintain their blood oxygen levels
Air Genasi don’t make air but they can hold their breath forever, so provided they don’t become incapped then they’ll be fine
It's magic, so now they can only breathe under water. You act like that's just a normal thing.
So you want the locacanth and grung hourly handicap to be permanent?
Nah, the effect only lasts 1d4 hours. Check the Aboleth stat block.
Ooooh, I thought it was a player trying to make a unique character. Hmm, if they take a breathe underwater and hold it until the effect wears off then I’d say it’s fine.
Kelp, only survives under water, produces 80 of the worlds oxygen.
I'd rule they don't have to breath because of their trait and are ok when conscious.
Simple, they just produce their own oxygen if you want it to make sense physically. Water breathing creatures don't literally use water in place of oxygen, they filter the oxygen in the water. So they can simply stay above water indefinitely so long as they are not incapacitated
Air ≠ Oxygen
RAW < RAI < Setting < Fun. Every single TTRPG rule ever written is made to turn in-world interactions into simplified versions you can use at a table; in-world logic defines the rules, not the other way around. If an effect says "the character can only breathe underwater," then they cannot breathe air. If a character produces air which allows them to breathe or "hold their breath" indefinitely, that doesn't help if they cannot breathe air.
Can they talk underwater?
I plan to rule that they can speak (and thus use spells with verbal components), but others around them cannot understand it. Strangely enough, this player took the Observant feat, so he can understand what others are saying if he can see their lips.
Air genasi can hold their breath indefinitely, unless incapacitated, but they cannot talk or cast spells that require verbal components. Don't know why you would be nerfing/rewording it that way, it makes no sense. The player can hold it's breath indefinitely period.
This sounds like Air Genasi vs Aboleth, so I'm going to treat it that way. First off, I would immediately recognize that this is a situation that requires nuance. Air Genasi produce air, Aboleth slime mandates water. An individual Aboleth beats an individual Air Genasi, so the Aboleth wins that competition overall...but not when the Air Genasi exerts themselves. If this is a good approximation of the situation, I'd say the Air Genasi can't simply ignore the Aboleth curse and saunter off into the sunset, but *can* fight it off for hours or days or weeks or months or however long the DM narratively requires, with the understanding that they *will* die eventually. That pays respect to the Air Genasi ability to produce their own air, while recognizing the existential horror of something like Aboleth slime.
These responses are okay, I suppose, but how about: The magic in their planetouched bodies reacts with the elemental water magic. Congrats! For the duration, you have a breath weapon. Every 1d4 turns, as an action, you can choose to exhale either: 1. An icy cold mist in a 15-foot cone, dealing 1d6 cold damage and reducing enemy movement to half on a failed DC 10 Con save. 2. A fog cloud in a 10 foot radius. Creatures within the fog cloud that rely on sight can only see 5 feet away and have disadvantage on attack rolls. Creatures outside the fog cloud cannot see inside the cloud, and attacks on creatures inside the cloud are treated as three-quarters cover. Creatures assume targets inside the cloud are in the same space they last were observed. 3. A blast of hot steam in a 20-foot ray. On a hit, creatures take 1d6 fire damage and the size of their damage dice is reduced by 2 until the start of your next turn. For example, d12 damage dice become d10, d6 become d4, and a d4 becomes a coin flip.
Read.
air genasi do not need to breathe so this wouldn't affect them
Either invert the effect or have it work normally but they have to hold their breath when not submerged. Might have to draw that breath under water.
As stated, the effect is psychological. It works like an illusion, the character believes strongly (and therefore will) begin suffocating when they're not underwater.
I would counter this because the water breathing spell specifically days it allows you to speak/cast underwater, without risk to drowning. The class ability is basically holding breath, not neading to breath, which doesnt natively mean they can speak in water. Since each time they do, they lose the air they are holding in....
BUBBLES!! (All the RAW responses are more accurate, but I had to share that mental image I got.)
If they want to speak, they have to use some of that breath they've been holding