I just made a new race in ck gave um water breathing, done. Sure it's unrealistic but so is shooting fire from your hands.

Seriously? You can hear your character struggling under water when they are about to run out of air.

I don't think I've ever drowned as these sounds cues warn me what is about to happen. Then when I'm swimming back to the surface my health bar appears and begins to drain rapidly but I always manage to reach the surface in time.

A 'time bar' would ruin it for me as I always feel a sense of uneasiness diving in unknown waters just as I would in real life. Although for the sake of fairness there should be the option to have one somewhere I guess.

For all intents and purposes, your health meter is the breath gauge.

That was your game auto saving.

My Mage is Argonian, so he doesn't have any problem with diving. My Nord Warrior (Werewolf) and Dunmer Nightblade (Vampire) don't need to dive long enough to worry about breath...and why is it that Vampires don't have Underwater Breathing as a passive? Seriously, they're Undead, they don't need to breathe. The lore even states Volkihar hanging out beneath frozen lakes, waiting for someone to grab.

I do miss some of the underwater stuff from Morrowind though, like underwater combat. Especially when i had a mod installed that added stuff like Dreugh cities underwater, and Whales along with all types of fish. I used to go deep sea diving on my Argonian and spear fish, and fight off Great Whites like a boss. The functional ship with cannon mod made it great too, i used to shoot my cannons at Whales when i saw them. Was pretty funny sailing around Fort Firemoth too and blowing the crap out of all the Skeletons with the cannons.

Personally i don't mind no meter as it makes it feel more real with a real risk of drowning...i never feared drowing in previous games because i could see every inch of breath on screen

LMFAO, what is this Sonic the Hedgehog?

I completely agree with the OP though. Still don't fully understand why a Gauge was left out? Honestly the dumbest thing they did besides remove Spell Making...

I agree I really don't think it's needed. It would just create more screen clutter when all you need to do is go back up to the surface every once in a while

I don`t agree. Many times in Morrowind I dived deep to somewhere and there is still that tension of whther your breath will hold out or not. You watch your breath meter in exactly the same way you monitor holding your breath and feeling your body beginning to struggle for air in real life.

It wouldn`t take anything away from the game at all.

The way it`s done now it`s the equivalent of diving in the swimming pool, feeling nothing at all as you hold your breath 6 feet underwater, then suddenly gulping in water because you didn`t know exactly when your lungs needed air.

Have any of you actually gone swimming? Because from some of these answers I`m beginning to wonder.

My game autosaving? I never noticed it before.I'm on PC if it matters.

Hehe, you should've played Daggerfall then. The breath bar drained much more rapidly (And the Swimming skill was a pain in the ass to gain), and the weight of your armor would actually cause you to sink, and you couldn't swim upwards in it. Plus, as soon as you ran out of air, you instantly drowned and died.

That may be an engine limitation. I remember when I first started playing Fallout 3 and I was trying to reach Rivet City for the first time. The easiest route there involved swimming across the Potomac River, but for the longest time I was terrified of doing it because I thought the Mirelurks would rip me to pieces while I was swimming.

And then I discovered that they can't attack while they're swimming either.

Another sign of streamlining.

You know that the signs you are talking about is your lungs starting to hurt right? Pain is represented by the health bar (what else would it represent since it regenerates automatically, certainly not blood loss or trauma...) so, as your lungs start to hurt, your health bar is drained.

You say you don't want hand-holding, and then when the game for once doesn't provide this...you complain about that...

Another problem with Skyrim rarely discussed in the forums ... the lack of underwater places or quest-involved underwater destinations. Boethiah's quest in Morrowind started entirely under water. I have never used a water breathing potion in Skyrim ... NEVER! Oh, and yes, to be on topic, a water breathing meter would be nice

(Skyrim is still a great game, though ...)

I'm not sure I understand how some people keep saying that "if you're health starts to go down you have plenty of time to swim to the top and breath". If this happens to me then I'm dead unless I'm right at the waters surface. My health depletes fast when I'm drowning. Does the drowning effect last longer if you have more health? My current character has only 200 health and I die in no time at all if I start to drown. Would it take longer for me to drown say if I had 400 health?

A breath gauge is needed or some other indicator of breath you have left when underwater. I really can't see a reason why there isn't one. And this notion that it creates tension by not having it makes me wonder if anyone that's against it has ever played a race-against-the-clock game before. There's loads of tension when you rush to beat the clock. When you try to do a little more in the time given hoping you are a successful.

Are you now telling me what I know from swimming in real life? Now let me correct you because it is clear you have never held your breath under water in real life. they`ll be much repeating to help it sink in for you.

As I and most swimmers know when you hold your breath under water you hold your breath. As your body uses up this air your body then begins to feel the urge to expel and take in new air. THIS is the feeling you get as your body informs you of the STATE of your AIR INTAKE and TOLERANCE. Your body is warning you already that you are not taking in air- This is our real life `breath Meter` ticking. Of course, you hold on because the body, while it would like to breath is not in any kind of danger yet and can still function. There is no bar or visual indicater because we don`t need one as we can `feel` what`s happening.

THIS IS NOT PAIN. You are aware of your body not taking in air and are monitering the situation as you continue to hold your breath.

In games like Morrowind, the Breath meter is monitering this reality for you, counting down until you actually have NO MORE AIR LEFT. The `pain` of the lungs before you start to actually drown is not real body-harming pain until you actually start gulping in water. That`s where the real pain and drowning comes in.

In reality the `pain` (as you think it is) from no air is not true pain until you start to gulp in amounts of water and begin dying. The feeling before that is the anxiety from you mentally and your body screaming for air. The ingame meter measures the true pain from when you have no more power to hold in your breathing and start drowning.


Absolute rubbish. Typical for someone on the internets to completely misunderstand and try to twist what handholding actually is.

Definition of handholding:
Handholding is where you give people the kind of over-the-top help they don`t actually need and would not have in real life, like a GPS compass in a world of no satellites or computer tech when all they need to do is use a normal ingame map and explore. Learn this.

Definition of common sense Monitering ingame Character Status bars:

A Breath meter is a realism monitering Character Status AID much like having a Health meter or Stamina bar.

In real life we can moniter our endurance (stamina), our air and how much we`re breathing. We can tell if we are hurt a lot or very little in most cases- You`d know if someone pricked your hand with a needle or stabbed you in the arm with a sharp knife and you`d have a pretty good idea how severe the damage was in most cases to act on it.

Because we don`t have monitors from our computers to our brains we cannot similarly know our game character`s condition this way, so THAT`S WHY WE NEED THESE MONITORING INDICATERS so we know what we`d know if it was real. This applies to the amount of time we hold our breath underwater.

I can`t believe I`m having to explain the difference between hand-holding and common sense indicaters- But hey it`s the internets. Sheesh.

And no doubt you`ll still argue back, no matter how right the common sense logic.

...but you have a bar - the health bar. When it starts to decline the game gives you feedback that your situation is becoming serious, just like your body would. You make for the surface and as long as you get there on time, all you need is a moment of rest and you are fine again. No bodily harm has occured, it is the same realism that you just described.


In RL we have no exact measure of our stamina, we don't know exactly at what moment our lactic acid will start to kick in, or exactly when our reflexes will override our brain and start inhaling water. Sure, it's not very realistic that we have no idea or indication either, but an exact meter is by no means a realistic representation and as such it is an extra help that we wouldn't have - i.e. handholding. Listening for sound cues and having less accurate warning signs is less handholding.

I don't have any common sense...I find it highly overrated...

I would like something to indicate when i'm losing breath. I'm too used to an Argonian being able to breath underwater.