Nutrition In D&D 3.5

[Bartmanhomer]

OK food plays a big part in Dungeons and Dragons 3.5. I was inspired of watching an education cartoon called Nutri ventures: the quest of the seven kingdoms. And I thought of an idea of what type of adventurers should eat during their adventure. Eat food have special effects:

Grains for energy
Dairy for strength and endurance
Fruits for magic
Meat for muscles
Beans for turbo boost
Fish for intelligence
Vegetables for recovers

And the food for bad effects are:

Sugar
Salt
Fried Foods
Fatty Foods

I know this sounds boring but in a way it good for learning and having fun. Tell me what you think about it. :smile:

[Menzath]

Interesting concept, but do realize salt is needed to live, excess is bad for sure though.
And even though fatty and greasy foods are bad for physical health, they can be good stress relief. Maybe coupling a food system with a stamina and mental system would work.
Not sure how a stamina system would be implemented, but converting spell slots to points as an alternative in unearthed arcana would work, maybe also give mundanes a "spell" point progression and give alternate uses to use these points.

[Bartmanhomer]

Interesting concept, but do realize salt is needed to live, excess is bad for sure though.
And even though fatty and greasy foods are bad for physical health, they can be good stress relief. Maybe coupling a food system with a stamina and mental system would work.
Not sure how a stamina system would be implemented, but converting spell slots to points as an alternative in unearthed arcana would work, maybe also give mundanes a "spell" point progression and give alternate uses to use these points.
I'm glad you like my idea for D&D 3.5. Also I forgot to mention is that water is important part of nutrition obviously because it keep you hydrated.

[Geddy2112]

It is not so much that food should give you a boost, but a lack thereof is going to cause problems. For example, adventurers might find themselves lacking in vitamin C, as did a lot of sailors, and develop scurvy. Most of the time, adventurers have sufficent foodstuffs or are in areas where they can procure things to get complete proteins, essential fats, micronutrients etc. It could come up in a large desert crawl, or if the players were stranded at sea. I think this can and should be factored into lower level adventurers in these scenarios.

A lot of cultures have managed to live off of a very limited diet-Aborigines in Australia lived(and still do) primarily off yams. Native Americans in the Southwest had a complete diet based on corn, beans, and squashes. Inuits live primarily on marine mammal meat. You don't need grains or carbs-the human(oid) body can make glucose from protein or fat. I know it pathfinder there is something called halfling wandermeal, which is basically hardtack and while it can sustain a person for a while, it is specifically mentioned to be devoid of nutrition and it will cause sickness if you go too long on it alone.

Also, bad things like sugar, salt, and fat, are really modern concepts. In ancient times, starvation was a far bigger threat-only the richest and elite could overeat and sit around all day like we do in the modern age and consume too much alcohol/sugars/salts/fats/etc. Murderhobos spend 8 hours a day walking around in armor and robes, often through dungeons and other unfriendly terrain while hacking and slashing apart monsters who beat them into pulp. Considering how much abuse the adventuring body takes, they basically need to eat everything they can. There is no way that adventurers would develop chronic health problems related to such-acute poisoning maybe, but adventurers(even feeble arcane casters) are in REALLY good shape and don't need to watch their cholesterol or blood pressure.

Lets not even begin to factor in magic. Any divine class can create two gallons of pure freshwater in six seconds, at level 1. There are several first and second level spells that can either make a small amount of food feed a lot, or create large amounts of sustenance. Rings of sustenance, templates, and all kinds of other tricks can simply eliminate the need for a creature to eat or drink.

[Bartmanhomer]

It is not so much that food should give you a boost, but a lack thereof is going to cause problems. For example, adventurers might find themselves lacking in vitamin C, as did a lot of sailors, and develop scurvy. Most of the time, adventurers have sufficent foodstuffs or are in areas where they can procure things to get complete proteins, essential fats, micronutrients etc. It could come up in a large desert crawl, or if the players were stranded at sea. I think this can and should be factored into lower level adventurers in these scenarios.

A lot of cultures have managed to live off of a very limited diet-Aborigines in Australia lived(and still do) primarily off yams. Native Americans in the Southwest had a complete diet based on corn, beans, and squashes. Inuits live primarily on marine mammal meat. You don't need grains or carbs-the human(oid) body can make glucose from protein or fat. I know it pathfinder there is something called halfling wandermeal, which is basically hardtack and while it can sustain a person for a while, it is specifically mentioned to be devoid of nutrition and it will cause sickness if you go too long on it alone.

Also, bad things like sugar, salt, and fat, are really modern concepts. In ancient times, starvation was a far bigger threat-only the richest and elite could overeat and sit around all day like we do in the modern age and consume too much alcohol/sugars/salts/fats/etc. Murderhobos spend 8 hours a day walking around in armor and robes, often through dungeons and other unfriendly terrain while hacking and slashing apart monsters who beat them into pulp. Considering how much abuse the adventuring body takes, they basically need to eat everything they can. There is no way that adventurers would develop chronic health problems related to such-acute poisoning maybe, but adventurers(even feeble arcane casters) are in REALLY good shape and don't need to watch their cholesterol or blood pressure.

Lets not even begin to factor in magic. Any divine class can create two gallons of pure freshwater in six seconds, at level 1. There are several first and second level spells that can either make a small amount of food feed a lot, or create large amounts of sustenance. Rings of sustenance, templates, and all kinds of other tricks can simply eliminate the need for a creature to eat or drink.
Yes I agree. Running a Nutrition campaign should be low level.

[Bartmanhomer]

I thinking in the future that I should be a DM by running a Nutrition campaign. There's going to be food of course with special effects and fighting. I need to know how can I pull off a successful Nutrition campaign. Any suggestion?

[John Longarrow]

Step 1) Learn what kind(s) of food were traditionally eaten by troops on the move. Most infantry burns between 4 to 6 thousand calories per day during combat operations. This is about what I'd expect adventurers running around and fighting would burn through.

Step 2) Learn which foods were used because they can support the diet above. High fat content is almost required for these types of missions.

As an example, I was stuck doing wildland firefighting. My lunch consisted of about 12oz of peanut butter. I was loosing weight while I was doing that.

[Zanos]

I'll be the naysayer and say that this sounds really, really tedious to keep track of and manage.

[Elkad]

Your chart is all wrong for actual nutrition.

You need some protein to sustain muscle mass.
You need some minerals (salt, potassium, etc)
Everything else can be gotten from fat - granted for some of it (like vitamin C in humans, thanks to a defective gene we all have), you need the right fat.
It's healthier than eating all that other stuff.

And the rules may be different for different races.

[Ashtagon]

The food groups mentioned in the OP could be used as a basis fpor magical affinities if making food-based magic items.

Otherwise, forcing PCs to keep track of different kinds of mundane food items is essentially playing Dungeons, Dragons, and Food Allergies. It's not my idea of fun.

[Stealth Marmot]

While we're at it, why not work in proper dental care?

What's the stats on a Cavity Creep? Will the Crest gel Crest Team be the new order of paladins?

[Berenger]

Your idea of "bad food" is patently absurd for a setting with a near-medieval technology level. The prevalent problems of western post-industrial affluent societies don't apply there. Salt and fat are absolutely necessary for fitness and survival, especially when facing hard physical work and times of starvation.

[Vaz]

There are problems with this. Others have addresaed the physiological aspect of it.

First; Magic- magic exosts and clerics completely obviate this even at low levels. Survival is not an issue when at 5th level, a Cleric can spend their typical 2 spell slots a day creating food to suit a party of 6. Doesn't even address the Component Pouch miraculously having things in it required. While it may be caked in Batpoop and Sulphur, there is bound to be meat in there. I know a lot of Vile Spells at least have flesh components if you're not choosy.

Survival Skill; a Ranger 5 with 16 Wisdom has a +9 to Survival, assume a +2 item like a Mwork Trap or Guidebook on edible berries/roots or a Ray Mears/Bear Grills biography telling you how to survive by peeing in your mouth. That is a +22 on a take 10 to dp it at half speed on the march. That is a party of 7 catered for each day.

Doesn't need to be a ranger even, just a hunter as an expert 1 can feed herself, her husband and child adequately with an overall +5 from Mwork trap/peeing guidebook and skill ranks, without a bonus from high wis. That's not accounting for any animals with meat they find on the way.

3; trail rations/going to town and buying food. Adventurers are awash with gold. By 4th level, they have more gold than most unskilled commoners see in basocally their lifetime (with the assumption that they have 2 ranks in profession to represent that they're not the best, a commoner sees 1gp/week, 50 a year for ease of calcs, to see 2700gp, a commoner would have to work for 54 years, and certainly not all at the same time).

Over the course of adventure, a party will simply be checking off trail rations at a rate of 5gp every tenday. No need to account for food, they simply have enough.

When in towns, a person can buy good lodgings with good food at 25gp every tenday. When a 4th level character with even only 10% of their wealth in gp remaining can afford to spend 10 weeks in such a place without actually.doing anything food doesn't need taking care of outside just telling your party to mark off increments in gold.

I created a survival adventure, once. None of the party were magical, and started at level 3. Supposedly.

I promised them I'd allow magic later on for multiclassing purposes, but until then, it was low magic (or, no magic rather). In truth, i let the party select a magical class at 6th level, after they got exposed to macguffin, but that it was Gestalt, but 5 levels behind, with half caster getting their progression doubled. Session zero, I asked.for their character sheets, and wrote a commoner, expert, or noble one, as appropriate with as many appropriate skills as their base character. First session, I told them what happened to their characters, and how they came to be together Individually captured by a band of Orcs in the mountains, their relevant parties ambushed and slain; the Prince ambushed hunting (shooting arrows at things his retainers pushed towards him) with a suitor, she was killed. The apothecary lost her pet dog, and apprentices, the Village guard snagged on patrol, and the bard simply pulled from her tent. They weren't adventurerss - yet.

They were all being marched in chains by the orcs to there home, but were driven off by elvish mercenary warbands, who didn't care about the prisoners. Some were killed in the crossfire, others used as human shields, others killed be orcs as they tried to run. Battle was bloody; most died on both sides, the party members survivng by chance, their own wit (Bard saved old apothecary by grabning her telling her to play dead, prince picked up a bow from a dead orc and got sucker punched by an elf, Guard got KO'd by a horse that was bolting through that he tried to ride). Not going to lie, spent about 15 minutes telling this story on a battle map.

The game started with these 4 disparate members, all level 1, no equipment to speak of save a few things left over (think the Rohirrim killing the Urukhai in LotR, burning the dead and leaving the rest to die in the winter snow while they went to find the rest.

There were 15 other members. Exhaustion, survival, food/water, and attempting to get these people to safety became of paramount importance. The more who survived (with each individual having a story that would play a later part of the campaign, if only they saved them; and even those who didn't on occasion (I love Wendigos).

The campaign ran until 12th level, and would have been ace to carry on, but 2 players ended up moving to the other side of the world. It apparently meant more to them in those first few levels when they had to maintain that group of people, and watching serious moral dilemnas (my GF not speaking for about 3 days to me after I "killed" one of the more elderley ones after they failed their Survival Checks a few times, and she picked up a couple of diseases.

The ultimate plot was that the world had had magic stolen from it, and had it returned to them by the Orc Horde, who unsealed it with a great sacrifice, summoning Orcus; the party, in close proximity, instantly got the full force, and passed their Fortitude Saves (fluffed as a fever disease, manifesting as the gestalt class when they next levelled up after breaking the fever. The Dungeoncrasher Fighter, who, until this stage, been very happy at levelling up, and was already at a higher XP than a few other members (RP bonuses I awarded on party nominating a single player other than themselves at end of a session got the best out of everyone), went up first. When I said about the Gestalt, his eyes went wide. And instantly dove for his books. Don't think he left my house for another 3 hours and the following week, I stopped midgame to give everyone their additional XP earned which would level them up to 6//1. You better believe that all 3 went 'no worries, our sheets are already done'.

It was a really good group, who were at first put out that they didn't get to play their Ranger Prince (who lacked Craft Weaponsmithing, or at least Bowmaking, which I found funny given I'd already made a brief outline of the plot, which lead to some rather funny reactions from the other party members; i relented when I said that they could make a search check on the battlesite, but all 4 failed it, so I just faked a roll behind my screen, got a Natural 1 (I know its not an auto failure, but these were hardly skilled breakers and enterers looking for hidden loots), and promptly gifted him a Shortbow not suited for him.

Making them choose actions, and watching those rolls which were either once obviated by magic (I cast sleep on the lone starving wolf, etc) or forgotten about as money/magic took care of everything rather than inventory management, or even just simply assumed to happen thanks to taking 10 all of a sudden became useless. Those DC15 rolls to survive the extreme cold of a blizzard, and seeing old granny fall unconcious (8 Con does that to you).

The party initially struggled, before they began to enlish the help of these disparate members, and encouraging them to learn skills. The ranger couldn't help people against the Cold when he was out Hunting for food. The Apothecary couldn't work health poultices up without someone to find the stuff. The Warrior couldn't make things dead without weapons. The bard couldn't keep everyones morale up with Song all the time, and he needed to keep people busy, so he helped them become musicians. He would sing, others made drums out of fallen trees etc.

The one question came was 'now what do we do; they had lost 4 members, but had to get the 15 of them back home to civilisation. Moving out of this cozy nest in sheltered and wooded caves meant creating something to move while protected, Bandit raids, hungry wolves, all of which meant explaining things to do that at higher levels are 'I cast a spell', or "my take 10 is a 27". By the time the party got back to town, they were level 4, and were able to earn some gold before the asked me for direction; "roll an spot check"; they see an Elf sat in the corner minding his own business, but they recognise a brooch on his cloak as being one of the mercenaries who engaged the Orcs.

This was, in reality, a 5th member who joined the party who I introduced as a friend from Uni interested to play. But now he was a character, and in reality, the players took a like to him, in reality they were a bit annoyed he didn't sit through some of the bull**** I through at them, and was level 4 already, which made in game interactions even better, because this elf had left them to die, although they later mellowed when they found out he was the sole survivor, only because he was on a mission for the leader elsewhere.

I'm still sad that campaign had to end; John, Chrissa, Chinta, and Euan, if by chance you're reading this, thank you for the awesome game and for being incredible people. Mel, you're a whore and I want my hoody back.

[Bartmanhomer]

OK I just figured out for my Nuitrtion Campaign: Four heroes are on the quest to go to 7 Nutritious Land and to reunited them to bring back all the food varieties. However the villain will be a mind flayer who will stop the four heroes from their mission.

The 7 Nutritious Land are:

Yellow Land which represent grains (which will run by a dwarf.)
White Land which represent dairy (which will run by a half-elf.)
Orange Land which represent fruits (which will run by an elf.)
Red Land which represent meat (which will run by a half-orc.)
Brown Land which represent beans (which will run by a human.)
Blue Land which represent fish (which will run by a halfling.)
Green Land which represent vegetables (which will run by a gnome.)

So what do you think about my Nutrition campaign idea?

[John Longarrow]

It sounds like it is geared for pre-teens as an exercise in learning good nutrition based on current eating patterns. If that is the target audience it should be a very fun game.

If its geared for a more mature group I don't think it will go over as well.

[Bartmanhomer]

It sounds like it is geared for pre-teens as an exercise in learning good nutrition based on current eating patterns. If that is the target audience it should be a very fun game.

If its geared for a more mature group I don't think it will go over as well. Yeah I figured that. But like I said it educational and it's fun.

[John Longarrow]

Who is your target audience and what are you trying to teach? If you want it to be at all realistic you will need to work out who's actually doing what, what their caloric usage would be, what foods meet their goals, and work from there.

Old school mid-west breakfast of 1500 calories covered in gravy works great if your starting out at 5am and doing manual labor on a farm all day. Your end of day meal should be pretty light on the calories though. Eating the same way and going to the office for 8 hours leads to heart issues though.

[Bartmanhomer]

Who is your target audience and what are you trying to teach? If you want it to be at all realistic you will need to work out who's actually doing what, what their caloric usage would be, what foods meet their goals, and work from there.

Old school mid-west breakfast of 1500 calories covered in gravy works great if your starting out at 5am and doing manual labor on a farm all day. Your end of day meal should be pretty light on the calories though. Eating the same way and going to the office for 8 hours leads to heart issues though. People of all ages. Kids, teens and adults. And I'm teaching nutrition.

[Vaz]

D&D sounds like an awful platform to teach that from. Especially 3.5.

[Bartmanhomer]

D&D sounds like an awful platform to teach that from. Especially 3.5.

I just have to re-modified it somehow.

[John Longarrow]

People of all ages. Kids, teens and adults. And I'm teaching nutrition.

This sounds like something that would work much better in a resource management game, not an RPG. RPGs focus on character interaction rather than 'what we had for breakfast' and are pretty open ended for what characters can do. To actually teach good eating habits based off of real world criteria you'd want something that can focus on those aspects you are trying to teach.

An RPG can have entire sessions based on character dialog with no need for food related interactions.

[Vaz]

Good luck. You'll need it. There are far better vehicles than 3.5, and you'd know this if you studied nutrition. There isn't the depth to teach people about it on the micro scale that nutrition requires.

If you are desperate to use D&D, I recommend 5th. Far more player friendly. I'd still advise against it D&D in general, and take this to general roleplaying.

[Bartmanhomer]

This sounds like something that would work much better in a resource management game, not an RPG. RPGs focus on character interaction rather than 'what we had for breakfast' and are pretty open ended for what characters can do. To actually teach good eating habits based off of real world criteria you'd want something that can focus on those aspects you are trying to teach.

An RPG can have entire sessions based on character dialog with no need for food related interactions. Resource Management Game huh? What's that?

[Vizzerdrix]

Bear Grills biography telling you how to survive by peeing in your mouth.

The use of this item would give a huge penalty to survival checks, and allow critical fails on survival rolls if you dont have a camera crew around to pull you out of bad situations.

Also I remember seeing a monster in one of the monster manuals that can be summoned with a bunch of food. Delmosh? I dont remember and am too lazy to go looking now.

[John Longarrow]

Resource Management Game huh? What's that?

One of the grand daddies of the genre for computers was The Oregon Trail.

The basic concept is to manage resources to meet goals. D&D doesn't really do that in a meaningful sense. There are a couple board games around with this concept. Check out Settlers of Catan for the basics.

For nutrition you want each of the sources to have values for A,B,C,D, ect... with goals or objectives overcome by getting the proper balance between A,B,C,D,ect... This means the players would have to work out what diet allows they to achieve their objective, preferably within some other constraints (total caloric use / Total resource cost).

Done with the emphasis solely on a balance diet would get boring, but if its within a framework, such as competing restaurants, this could be a fun competition.

Think of it this way:
N groups each run a restaurant. Each group has costs for ingredients, cost for prep, and sales price on meal.
Each group is faced with different groups of customers with differing requirements. Each needs to meet the needs of each group in the most cost effective manner. Can be extended to include prep time for cooking, prep time required for delivery of ingredients, staff for serving, over all flavor, and storage / waste of unused ingredients. Each group competes to have the best restaurant.

Not easy to do in a D&D game, but in a dedicated structure over time this would easily get people thinking along the lines of what is the best way to feed your body for given target goal.

[Bartmanhomer]

One of the grand daddies of the genre for computers was The Oregon Trail.

The basic concept is to manage resources to meet goals. D&D doesn't really do that in a meaningful sense. There are a couple board games around with this concept. Check out Settlers of Catan for the basics.

For nutrition you want each of the sources to have values for A,B,C,D, ect... with goals or objectives overcome by getting the proper balance between A,B,C,D,ect... This means the players would have to work out what diet allows they to achieve their objective, preferably within some other constraints (total caloric use / Total resource cost).

Done with the emphasis solely on a balance diet would get boring, but if its within a framework, such as competing restaurants, this could be a fun competition.

Think of it this way:
N groups each run a restaurant. Each group has costs for ingredients, cost for prep, and sales price on meal.
Each group is faced with different groups of customers with differing requirements. Each needs to meet the needs of each group in the most cost effective manner. Can be extended to include prep time for cooking, prep time required for delivery of ingredients, staff for serving, over all flavor, and storage / waste of unused ingredients. Each group competes to have the best restaurant.

Not easy to do in a D&D game, but in a dedicated structure over time this would easily get people thinking along the lines of what is the best way to feed your body for given target goal. I believe it can be done in D&D game. :smile: