cheezewizz2000
2010-05-09, 04:59 AM
First, this is largely irrelevant after level 5 when create food and drink becomes freely available and easily castable. Second, this requires more book-keeping than is strictly necessary. Nonetheless, I enjoy trying to straddle the line between versimilitude and gameplay mechanics and creating ways to model things like this is something I enjoy. The utility of this, then, is limited to low level games where the GM wants food availability to be a limiting factor and wants a way to keep track of how little food he is feeding his PCs. With that out the way, I present:
Food and Calories (spoilered to keep things from becoming walls of text)
To keep things simple, 1000kCal is the basic unit of "food" that will be presented here. According to this economics thread (http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=10821) is equivalent to about two cups of rice or a 12oz steak. For the sake of simplicity, 1000kCal of generic food is equivalent to 1lb, though trail rations (salted nuts, dried fruit, salt beef and dry biscuits) contain 2000kCal/lb.
In order to survive and to take no penalty from starvation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#starvationAndThirst) a medium character must take in 1000kCal worth of food per day. Exerting yourself more than doing nothing will require more calories than this:
Table 1 - Calorific requirments
{table=head]Activity|Calorific requirment (kCal)
Doing Nothing|1000
4 encounters at CR<level|+1000
2 encounters at CR=level|+1000
1 encounter at CR>level|+1000
Walking 10 Miles|+1000
Hustling 5 miles|+1000
Riding 10 miles|+1000
8 hours of crafting|+1000
Carrying a medium or greater load|+1000
8 hours heavy manual labour (digging, ploughing, building)|+2000[/table]
In addition to this, medium creatures require 1 gallon of fresh water per day. Decreasing the size catagory by 1 halves the calorific and water requirement, increasing size catagory by 1 doubles it. Creatures that fly require double the calorific intake. Long creatures (horses etc) require 1.5x the calorific intake. Under a hot climate, the water requirments double.
Spoiled Food
Generic food lasts for 7 days before it spoils. Once spoiled is food is eaten, a character must make a DC15 fortitude save or become nauseated (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#nauseated) for 24 hours. For each day that the food has been spoiled, increase the DC by 1. A character nauseated in this way may not eat anything for as long as he is nauseated. Other foods last for different lenghts of time:
Table 2 - Shelf-life
{table=head]Food|Time to spoil
Generic food|7 days
Trail rations|1 month
Salted foods|1 month
Food kept cool|1 month
Food kept frozen|3 months
Opened preserves (pickles, jams, tinned foods|3 months
Dry food stored in barells|6 months
Unopened preserves (pickles, jams, tinned foods)|2 years[/table]
Any food that has only been spoiled for 3 days may be cooked. After that time it counts as generic food and will last for 3 more days before spoiling. Food may not be cooked twice. Food spoiled for more than 3 days is beyond saving. Pickles and jams may be made by any character with 4 ranks in survival and a sealable jar or tin. The calorific content and weight of the food doubles to account for the oils or sugars used in preservation and the weight of the sealed container.
Spells and Calories
Spells that create food and drink work as normal with the following addendum/rule of thumb: Any spell that creates food creates 1000kCal/spell level/caster level. Create food and drink (a level 3 spell) therefore creates 3000kCal per level - enough for the mere survival of 3 people or 1 horse. Heroes' Feast creates 6000kCal per level - a feast by any stretch of the imagination. Magnificent Mansion creates 7000kCal per level, which certainly seems like an excelent 9-course banquet, though not for 12 people/level. It's not a perfect rule of thumb, but it seems to suffice.
This handily brings me on to the next section:
Too much/not enough
For simplicity's sake, consistantly eating at least 1000kCal more food than is required (500kCal for small creatures, 2000kCal for large) or at least 1000kCal (or 500 for small, 2000 for large) less food than is required counts as eating too much or not enough food, respectively. Both effects are treated in the same way: If a character has consistantly eaten too much or not enough food for at least 15 days out of a month, change their physical stats as if their age catagory had advanced by one for each month of innapropriate eating. In addition, change the character's body wieght by a third in the appropriate direction.
At the third month of over or under eating, reduce the base speed of the character by half. In addition to this treat a character that has under-eaten as being one size catagory smaller for the sake of moving through confined spaces. Similarly, treat a character that has over-eaten as being one size catagory larger for the same purposes.
A character that has spent time over or under eating may move back to their normal weight by over-eating if they have been under-eating and vice-versa. This can be done by changing the amount that the character eats, or by changing the amount that the character does (see table 1).
Edit: response to rules that over-eating should result in more encumberance - this is already PARTIALLY modelled by losing strength as you become more obese. It's not perfect, and a way to include this is to include any weight the characters gain (typically 1/3 of their body weight per month) in their carried load. I would not do anything similar for people losing weight beyond their normal body weight, however. Granted they are lighter, but they are are also weaker, and that would help to mitigate the penalty gained from that.
Starvation
As written in the SRD, however for every week the character goes without food, they add +1d6 to the amount of non-lethal damage they take, so on week one they take 1d6/day, on week two they take 2d6/day, on week three they take 3d6/day and so on. With water, the same rules apply, however the damage goes up by 1d6 per day, rather than per week.
Food and Calories (spoilered to keep things from becoming walls of text)
To keep things simple, 1000kCal is the basic unit of "food" that will be presented here. According to this economics thread (http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=10821) is equivalent to about two cups of rice or a 12oz steak. For the sake of simplicity, 1000kCal of generic food is equivalent to 1lb, though trail rations (salted nuts, dried fruit, salt beef and dry biscuits) contain 2000kCal/lb.
In order to survive and to take no penalty from starvation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#starvationAndThirst) a medium character must take in 1000kCal worth of food per day. Exerting yourself more than doing nothing will require more calories than this:
Table 1 - Calorific requirments
{table=head]Activity|Calorific requirment (kCal)
Doing Nothing|1000
4 encounters at CR<level|+1000
2 encounters at CR=level|+1000
1 encounter at CR>level|+1000
Walking 10 Miles|+1000
Hustling 5 miles|+1000
Riding 10 miles|+1000
8 hours of crafting|+1000
Carrying a medium or greater load|+1000
8 hours heavy manual labour (digging, ploughing, building)|+2000[/table]
In addition to this, medium creatures require 1 gallon of fresh water per day. Decreasing the size catagory by 1 halves the calorific and water requirement, increasing size catagory by 1 doubles it. Creatures that fly require double the calorific intake. Long creatures (horses etc) require 1.5x the calorific intake. Under a hot climate, the water requirments double.
Spoiled Food
Generic food lasts for 7 days before it spoils. Once spoiled is food is eaten, a character must make a DC15 fortitude save or become nauseated (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#nauseated) for 24 hours. For each day that the food has been spoiled, increase the DC by 1. A character nauseated in this way may not eat anything for as long as he is nauseated. Other foods last for different lenghts of time:
Table 2 - Shelf-life
{table=head]Food|Time to spoil
Generic food|7 days
Trail rations|1 month
Salted foods|1 month
Food kept cool|1 month
Food kept frozen|3 months
Opened preserves (pickles, jams, tinned foods|3 months
Dry food stored in barells|6 months
Unopened preserves (pickles, jams, tinned foods)|2 years[/table]
Any food that has only been spoiled for 3 days may be cooked. After that time it counts as generic food and will last for 3 more days before spoiling. Food may not be cooked twice. Food spoiled for more than 3 days is beyond saving. Pickles and jams may be made by any character with 4 ranks in survival and a sealable jar or tin. The calorific content and weight of the food doubles to account for the oils or sugars used in preservation and the weight of the sealed container.
Spells and Calories
Spells that create food and drink work as normal with the following addendum/rule of thumb: Any spell that creates food creates 1000kCal/spell level/caster level. Create food and drink (a level 3 spell) therefore creates 3000kCal per level - enough for the mere survival of 3 people or 1 horse. Heroes' Feast creates 6000kCal per level - a feast by any stretch of the imagination. Magnificent Mansion creates 7000kCal per level, which certainly seems like an excelent 9-course banquet, though not for 12 people/level. It's not a perfect rule of thumb, but it seems to suffice.
This handily brings me on to the next section:
Too much/not enough
For simplicity's sake, consistantly eating at least 1000kCal more food than is required (500kCal for small creatures, 2000kCal for large) or at least 1000kCal (or 500 for small, 2000 for large) less food than is required counts as eating too much or not enough food, respectively. Both effects are treated in the same way: If a character has consistantly eaten too much or not enough food for at least 15 days out of a month, change their physical stats as if their age catagory had advanced by one for each month of innapropriate eating. In addition, change the character's body wieght by a third in the appropriate direction.
At the third month of over or under eating, reduce the base speed of the character by half. In addition to this treat a character that has under-eaten as being one size catagory smaller for the sake of moving through confined spaces. Similarly, treat a character that has over-eaten as being one size catagory larger for the same purposes.
A character that has spent time over or under eating may move back to their normal weight by over-eating if they have been under-eating and vice-versa. This can be done by changing the amount that the character eats, or by changing the amount that the character does (see table 1).
Edit: response to rules that over-eating should result in more encumberance - this is already PARTIALLY modelled by losing strength as you become more obese. It's not perfect, and a way to include this is to include any weight the characters gain (typically 1/3 of their body weight per month) in their carried load. I would not do anything similar for people losing weight beyond their normal body weight, however. Granted they are lighter, but they are are also weaker, and that would help to mitigate the penalty gained from that.
Starvation
As written in the SRD, however for every week the character goes without food, they add +1d6 to the amount of non-lethal damage they take, so on week one they take 1d6/day, on week two they take 2d6/day, on week three they take 3d6/day and so on. With water, the same rules apply, however the damage goes up by 1d6 per day, rather than per week.