# Holding breath?

**URL:** <https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/holding-breath/9977>\
**Category:** The Drawing Board\
**Created:** [July 2, 2015, 8:57pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/holding-breath/9977 "2015-07-02T20:57:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 10\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![voskhod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/e19b73/32.png) [@voskhod](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/voskhod)\
**Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 8:57pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/holding-breath/9977/1 "2015-07-02T20:57:35Z")

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Could there perhaps be a command for a character to hold their breath? As a way of dealing with smokers / bloated zombies before finding a filter or gas mask. Stops stamina recovery altogether, or causes it to drain in exchange for not being affected by inhaling smoke or toxic gas.

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**Author:** ![WIndburns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WIndburns](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/WIndburns)\
**Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 11:23pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/holding-breath/9977/2 "2015-07-02T23:23:21Z")

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That’s neat, intergrate it with the stamina counter.

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**Author:** ![CosmicKobal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@CosmicKobal](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/CosmicKobal)\
**Post date:** [July 2, 2015, 11:35pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/holding-breath/9977/3 "2015-07-02T23:35:11Z")

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+1

Like this idea.

Would holding your breath also help make you less ‘visible’ to enemies? make you SLIGHTLY more stealthy?

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**Author:** ![Pthalocy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/22d042/32.png) [@Pthalocy](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Pthalocy)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 1:56am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/holding-breath/9977/4 "2015-07-03T01:56:41Z")

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Enemies track by sight, sound, and scent. I don’t think holding your breath would diminish anything but sound. As the system currently functions, you do not produce sound while holding still, which leads me to believe it is your footsteps producing the noise rather than breathing.

In my experience, holding my breath near rancid things like trash compactors does not entirely prevent me from noticing the stink - unless I also plug my nose. I guess you could assume that’s the case in-game too? That’d get in the way of wielding things though. My real concern is that irritants like fire smoke (unknown if zombie smoke is different) and chemical clouds will affect the eyes and nose lining as well, not just one’s breathing.

Holding your breath might reduce the effects of airborn hazards, rather than prevent them entirely. But I’m playing hard and fast with realism here. Fun value is also important I realize. Despite my negativity, I think the idea has merit and I really like the stamina tie-in.

Also: how does stamina come into play when swimming? Not quite on topic I realize, but I’m curious.

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**Author:** ![voskhod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/e19b73/32.png) [@voskhod](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/voskhod)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 7:56am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/holding-breath/9977/5 "2015-07-03T07:56:42Z")

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[quote=“Pthalocy, post:4, topic:9977”]Enemies track by sight, sound, and scent. I don’t think holding your breath would diminish anything but sound. As the system currently functions, you do not produce sound while holding still, which leads me to believe it is your footsteps producing the noise rather than breathing.

In my experience, holding my breath near rancid things like trash compactors does not entirely prevent me from noticing the stink - unless I also plug my nose. I guess you could assume that’s the case in-game too? That’d get in the way of wielding things though. My real concern is that irritants like fire smoke (unknown if zombie smoke is different) and chemical clouds will affect the eyes and nose lining as well, not just one’s breathing.

Holding your breath might reduce the effects of airborn hazards, rather than prevent them entirely. But I’m playing hard and fast with realism here. Fun value is also important I realize. Despite my negativity, I think the idea has merit and I really like the stamina tie-in.

Also: how does stamina come into play when swimming? Not quite on topic I realize, but I’m curious.[/quote]

In this case, its not about things like stink, its about inhalation - toxic substances making their way into the lungs, like smoke or poison gas. Its fine if its get into your nose, so long as it doesn’t make its way past your nose and into the lungs.

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**Author:** ![jcd](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/jcd/32/338_2.png) [@jcd](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/jcd)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 8:18am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/holding-breath/9977/6 "2015-07-03T08:18:00Z")

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Holding breath might also give an accurancy bonus for long-range sniping.

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**Author:** ![Azrad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Azrad](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Azrad)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 8:24am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/holding-breath/9977/7 "2015-07-03T08:24:12Z")

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[quote=“Pthalocy, post:4, topic:9977”]Enemies track by sight, sound, and scent. I don’t think holding your breath would diminish anything but sound. As the system currently functions, you do not produce sound while holding still, which leads me to believe it is your footsteps producing the noise rather than breathing.

In my experience, holding my breath near rancid things like trash compactors does not entirely prevent me from noticing the stink - unless I also plug my nose. I guess you could assume that’s the case in-game too? That’d get in the way of wielding things though. My real concern is that irritants like fire smoke (unknown if zombie smoke is different) and chemical clouds will affect the eyes and nose lining as well, not just one’s breathing.

Holding your breath might reduce the effects of airborn hazards, rather than prevent them entirely. But I’m playing hard and fast with realism here. Fun value is also important I realize. Despite my negativity, I think the idea has merit and I really like the stamina tie-in.

Also: how does stamina come into play when swimming? Not quite on topic I realize, but I’m curious.[/quote]

I remember diving on the flooded room in labs to retrieve the human corpses. Even with just 10 encumbrance stamina drops like a rock while swimming, or at least it does on low skill.

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**Author:** ![kevin.granade](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/kevin.granade/32/1316_2.png) [@kevin.granade](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/kevin.granade)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 5:52pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/holding-breath/9977/8 "2015-07-03T17:52:43Z")

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Manually toggling “holding breath” is a massive “no”. It’s pretty much as micro-managey as you can get and it would be terribly tedious. What would work now that we have stamina in the game is to assume the player is holding their breath if they are exposed to dangerous gasses. One effect is that the effects of dangerous gasses would be reduced as long as you have stamina reserves, on the other hand it would drain stamina very rapidly, and once your stamina reserves run out you’d start breathing heavily and get an extra-strong dose of the gas. It could also be halted by coughing, so it wouldn’t help much against toxic gasses that cause coughing.

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**Author:** ![Pthalocy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/22d042/32.png) [@Pthalocy](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Pthalocy)\
**Post date:** [July 4, 2015, 4:13am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/holding-breath/9977/9 "2015-07-04T04:13:25Z")

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> [@voskhod](#):
>
> [quote=“Pthalocy, post:4, topic:9977”][my previous post]

In this case, its not about things like stink, its about inhalation - toxic substances making their way into the lungs, like smoke or poison gas. Its fine if its get into your nose, so long as it doesn’t make its way past your nose and into the lungs.[/quote]

Any irritant that affects the mucous linings (I’m thinking teargas namely) will affect your nose if it gets in, inhalation or no. My point with noticing stink is that I do not have to inhale the nasty air in order to detect its presence. Merely being in it was sufficient. Hence my assumption that something similar would happen from more hazardous substances. I realize in hindsight, my issue is rather specific to the chemicals being used. For simple smoke, you’re probably quite correct.

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**Author:** ![Coolthulhu](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/coolthulhu/32/2446_2.png) [@Coolthulhu](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Coolthulhu)\
**Post date:** [July 4, 2015, 5:04am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/holding-breath/9977/10 "2015-07-04T05:04:08Z")

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We have an oxygen meter that is quite under-used (only for diving under water). Having it affect stamina (and be affected by stamina) could be more realistic than just pure stamina, though I’m not sure if it would be worth the extra complexity.