Water walk and waves

[heavyfuel]

Say, a big wave hits you while you're under the effect of a Water Walk spell. What happens? Do you get carried off? Do you float to top of the wave and then back down?

I'm not asking in the RAW threads because I'm pretty sure there's no RAW here. The rules are Pathfinder for what it's worth, although the language used in 3.5 is identical.

[tyckspoon]

Do you float to top of the wave and then back down?

This seems most consistent with the description of the spell to me. You're not walking on the water, you're levitating above it, and if you would be submerged you're carried to the surface. The motion of the liquid underneath you doesn't seem to matter; otherwise you'd need to ask the same question about what happens if you are trying to walk on a flowing river or an ocean current. Simplest ruling would be that it doesn't affect you. (That said, if something is actively throwing a wave at you rather than it being the normal movement of the water, I'd probably treat that as a bull rush or trip check, assuming there aren't already existing rules for the attacker's special ability to create waves.)

[heavyfuel]

and if you would be submerged you're carried to the surface.

This is only true in the moment of the casting. This isn't true after the spell's already been cast

If the spell is cast underwater (or while the subjects are partially or wholly submerged in whatever liquid they are in), the subjects are borne toward the surface at 60 feet per round until they can stand on it.

[Segev]

What happens if you're standing on a rubber floor that is tossing and churning with enormous waves from the medium below its surface? You get thrown about by them. Water walk makes you treat the water as an impermeable surface you can walk, stand, lie, or sit upon. If it's unstable beneath your feet, you may well have trouble moving around or keeping to your feet, but you're still not sinking beneath it.

Should waves collapse atop you, you would rise to the surface as per what happens if it's cast when you're underwater, because it's pretty much the same circumstance. Any ruling that would negate the spell or cause it to forcibly drown you by trapping you beneath the surface is inventing problems that aren't present in the RAW.

[heavyfuel]

What happens if you're standing on a rubber floor that is tossing and churning with enormous waves from the medium below its surface? You get thrown about by them. Water walk makes you treat the water as an impermeable surface you can walk, stand, lie, or sit upon. If it's unstable beneath your feet, you may well have trouble moving around or keeping to your feet, but you're still not sinking beneath it.

While I like this analogy, I don't think you can sit using Water Wall, since only your feet hover

[Segev]

While I like this analogy, I don't think you can sit using Water Wall, since only your feet hover

Hm, point. Still, it's more than "only your feet hover"ing, or you'd have people slipping and falling and dangling upside-down in the water with their feet unable to get under them. Yet the spell expressly states that the surfaces named can be "traversed easily," as if they were "firm ground." I imagine the whole person hovers over the liquid by the same amount; it's just the feat that matter when walking. And there's obviously no slickness - you have friction as if on a normal-ish walking surface despite hovering.

Since the "firm ground" beneath you is tossing and turning, though, you'll find yourself walking on an earthquake-prone surface when it's choppy with heavy waves.

I imagine lighter waves - only a few inches of displacement - have no discernable impact as you're hovering above them.

[Ashtagon]

I'd interpret it as walking on it is like walking on a rubber surface that's about as bouncy as the waves are choppy. If you lose your balance, you fall to the water surface, but stay afloat. You can pick yourself up and stand, but you can't crawl along the surface - only walk.