I found this article on rules that might be important tonight
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Swimming
Each foot of movement costs 1 extra foot (2 extra feet in difficult terrain) when you’re climbing, swimming, or crawling. You ignore this extra cost if you have a climbing speed and use it to climb, or a swimming speed and use it to swim.
At the DM’s option, climbing a slippery vertical surface or one with few handholds requires a successful Strength (Athletics) check. Similarly, gaining any distance in rough water might require a successful Strength (Athletics) check.”
Drowning
“A creature can hold its breath for a number of minutes equal to 1 + it’s Constitution modifier (minimum of 30 seconds). When a creature runs out of breath, it can survive for a number of rounds equal to its Constitution modifier (minimum 1 round).
At the start of its next turn, it drops to 0 hit points and is dying. 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.”
Weapons and Armor
Although armor isn’t a concern by normal rules, weapons work differently when you are underwater.
Melee weapon attacks are much more restricted when you are underwater. Creatures without a swimming speed make their melee attacks with disadvantage while underwater.
The swimming speed could come from either a natural or magical source to count.
Also, this rule doesn’t apply if the creature is attacking with a dagger, javelin, shortsword, spear, or trident.
Ranged weapon attacks aren’t much better underwater. While underwater, attacks with ranged weapon attacks have disadvantage when used at their normal weapon range, and automatically miss when used up to their long range.
This means that firing a shortbow with a range of 80/320 underwater is done with disadvantage for the first 80 feet, and then misses at anything beyond that.
Like with melee weapons, certain ranged weapons don’t suffer this penalty. Crossbows, nets and thrown weapon attacks aren’t affected by this restriction.
Casting Spells
Casting spells underwater doesn’t have any restrictions on it based on the rules from the Player’s Handbook. The Dungeon Master’s Guide doesn’t have any extra insight, either.
In fact, Jeremy Crawford, one of 5e’s lead designers, has mentioned before that being underwater doesn’t prevent spellcasting.
However, another tweet from Crawford clarifies that being underwater doesn’t prevent casting a spell with verbal components, but that talking means you aren’t holding your breath.
The implication here is that, once you speak to cast a spell with a verbal component, you are no longer holding your breath and start counting down the rounds before you start suffocating.
Unconsciousness While Underwater
If the worst-case scenario happens and you’re knocked out underwater, this is bad news. Since an unconscious character is unable to hold their breath, that character would start counting down rounds before they are suffocating.
If one of the creature’s allies can heal them somehow, then everything is fine.
The problem is if the creature starts suffocating after its rounds have elapsed. According to the suffocating rules, the creature drops to 0 hit points and cannot regain hit points until they can breathe again.
Basically, if your buddy goes down underwater, get them back up and healthy as quickly as you can!
If you wait, you might not be able to heal them without getting them out of the water first.
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