Swimming

So, White Wolf never really outlined a process for setting swimming speeds. And since I'm creating a campaign in a sea-based setting, I sort of need to know. So here's what I've come up with.
-- Darkkling

Full Action:

• (Strength + Athletics) in yards {Exalted Power Combat – Sprinting)
• (Strength* + Athletics)/2 in yards/tick {2nd Edition – Dash(3/-2)}

This was pretty easy since I used to swim competitively. It's far less than land movement; people aren't meant for the sea. Wyld twisted beings that are for the sea should have special abnormalities that make it easier for them. Also, Strength vs. Dexterity, it should be Strength. First, Strength is more important as it's about propelling oneself through water, overcoming resistance, sort of like jumping uses Strength to overcome gravity. Secondly, Dexterity is already so powerful as a deciding factor in the White Wolf systems. It's gotten a little better with Exalted, and a little better still with Power Combat, but it's still way too pivotal at times. Even the devs know this, hence the increased cost for Dexterity in Lunar DBT.
I realize that this varies from the system stated in the 2nd Edition book, but Dexterity is already a powerful trait and needs no more importance to the game; besides, swimming speed has more to do with Strength and style, than finesse, which is why it's Strength+Athletics, halved. Furthermore, using the Dash action in combat time may require that the player make the Strength+Athletics roll at standard difficulty, though this should not be required as long as there are no external penalties.

w/ Actions:

• (Strength + Atheltics)/2 in yards (Exalted Power Combat)
• not possible* {2nd Edition – Move(0/none)}

This was trickier. How do you go from an already small movement rate to something even smaller. This is how. There are a couple of notes on this though. Do anything other than just swimming is incredibly hard. So I've made swimming movement that isn't sprinting, into a dice-action. If you want to do anything while swimming (and I mean actually moving, not just treading water), you get to split your action. The bonus is that since you're not rolling anything for movement here, the multiple action penalities don't apply. But the swimming dice-action is the first that you take in the round. Secondly, if you have no athletics, you don't just halve Strength, you can't swim. Congrats, and not everyone who has Athletics can swim. Though any Exalt with Athletics should be assumed to be able to swim (otherwise you don't deserve your mote).
Swimming and performing actions during a turn in Power Combat was already difficult enough. Creating a system to represent that here would be even more inhibiting, plus with the restructuring of combat time, it makes it pointless. Performing actions while swimming is exceedingly difficult; should you want to do so, take a Dash action and get more movement out of it, making everyone's life easier.

Modifiers:
Power Combat
Mobility Penalties and other die penalties

• Simple. This type of die penalty gets applied directly to the movement rates for swimming.
  

Wound Penalties

• Since wound penalties have different effect on movement than do other sorts, they have a separate effect here as well. Basically, just use the system that Exalted has for augmented speeds working under injuries. That is:
• -0 - no change (obviously)
• -1 - subtract 30% from all movement rates
• -2 - subtract 60% from all movement rates
• -3/-4 - subtract 90% from all movement rates
• Incap – no movement at all

2nd Edition
Wound Penalties and Mobility Penalties

• Wound and Mobility Penalties act as they normally do; they interact as internal penalties and apply to the unmodified Strength+Athletics score.
  

Fatigue

• Swimming in armor is even more dangerous than swimming, and a large part of the reason that most sailors don't wear anything heavier than a buff jacket (usually reserved for officers as part of their uniform), and most sailors wear no armor at all. In order to even attempt swimming in armor, one must possess a Strength at least one higher than the Fatigue value of the armor (for this purpose only standard Buff Jackets, not Reinforced Buff Jackets, have an effective Fatigue value of 1). The mobility penalty still inhibits swimming normally, but the sheer weight of the armor is represented in Fatigue. Fatigue penalties interact as internal penalties, like Mobility and Wound Penalties do.