Rations and Waterskins

[No brains]

Anybody ever notice how one day's rations weighs 2 lbs when 1 pound of food is necessary for a day and how a waterskin only holds half of a day's required water? What's up with that- both the IRL underpinnings of up and any in-game ups DMs have decided on to explain this.

[leogobsin]

For the waterskin I'd just assume you fill it a few times a day, maybe if you're traveling a long distance have a barrel of water on a cart that you fill at streams and then fill your waterskin from that.

As for the rations... I honestly had never noticed that. That's actually making me think about houseruling a day's rations as only weighing 1 pound in the game I'm DMing.

[sophontteks]

I noticed that my halfling weighs 30 pounds and his starting equipment weighs over 60 pounds. He is carrying over twice his bodyweight and can carry over 3 times his body weight at 7 strength. The point is, I don't think they put a ton of work into the weight system.

[xanderh]

For the food, keep in mind that 1 lb is the minimum to not be exhausted. 2 lbs is a more comfortable amount of food, and allows you to go to half rations if you're running low without suffering massive penalties for doing so.

[Laserlight]

The goliath and the halfling eat the same amount...okay, that might be reasonable. But the goliath and the gnome also eat the same amount. And plate armor weighs the same for both of them. And the +1 plate armor fits both the 4'10", 96lb half elf female and the 6'6", 245lb half orc male.

If you're expecting a great deal of accuracy or thought, you're probably looking for another game system.

[DeadMech]

On at least one occasion I've had to keep my mouth shut about food and water when my DM started us in a dungeon without either and no known way out. "How many times have we rested again... Oh right... we die of dehydration today if the DM remembers. Better just keep that between you and me, brain."

Anyway... it's generally not feasible to personally carry enough water to survive in the wilderness for extended lengths of time in reality. Having containers for it is more about being able to store water you produce or find in between.

[hymer]

water you produce
Oh, ick. :smallwink:

[DeadMech]

Oh, ick. :smallwink:

I meant in terms of say boiling and condensing unclean water or other such methods.

Though in a pinch you can Bear Grylls too I suppose.

[Man_Over_Game]

I think a big part of it is the nutrients provided by two pounds of rations vs. one pound of food.

This is the medieval ages, and you're burning a ton of calories fighting guards and running away from monsters.

Those rations are probably not much more than an unsalted cracker. It's not going to have any protein, probably not any salt, no vitamins of any kind. You need a pound of real food to survive a day, but two pounds of baked mulch might suffice for the time being.

As for the water thing, that's pretty easily. You probably haven't done too much hard labor while travelling, but when I was working as a wildland firefighter, I'd go through about 2+ gallons a day, comfortably. Half the stuff I was carrying was water, and I was carrying tools, rations, a fire blanket, and a bunch of other stuff. You go through a ton of water when you're digging trenches uphill. I imagine adventuring is probably similar in labor.

In 2E, a waterskin in Dark Sun would hold a single gallon for someone that worked in the sun all day. I'd probably say that 5e waterskins hold about half that.

[Millface]

ToA is the only campaign I've ever run that I paid attention to food and water in any real sense, and that's because I have a table full of veterans who wanted to play D&DSouls for a campaign to see if they could hack it.

It bogs down the game IMO, and my players agree. If they wanted me to be stricter about it because roleplaying that aspect was fun for them, I'd do it. If they don't care, I'd just as soon cut it entirely. In most, if not all cases of regular play, food and water are either readily available or easy enough to obtain (someone in the party has survival) that it can just be assumed that they're making sure they don't starve and call it good.

[Man_Over_Game]

Whenever I thought it was relevant (like if they're in a desert), I'd have a "supply" resource that was basically their count for food/water, subtracted by 1 for each person they take care of each day. If they ran out, they suffered exhaustion for the day. If they ate good food during the day, they didn't lose (or even gained) more supplies. My players seemed to really like it once it was simplified enough to track, and was only relevant when necessary.

[Ganymede]

Rations are stored in heavy packaging in order to keep them fresh.

[Willie the Duck]

Anybody ever notice how one day's rations weighs 2 lbs when 1 pound of food is necessary for a day and how a waterskin only holds half of a day's required water? What's up with that- both the IRL underpinnings of up and any in-game ups DMs have decided on to explain this.

I would hazard a guess that the 2 lbs vs. 1 lbs for food issue is that they wrote the 1 pound part before they decided that they were increasing the weight of rations on the equipment chart. In other words, I think one is a genuine mistake. The waterskin could go either way--genuine error or they thought that a half-days rations was reasonable (since during most occasions, you could fill it up while travelling, since you are hand-waving finding streams with a successful survival check).

That said, this leads to an underlying issue with 5e: 5e has made it relatively easy to ignore (survival checks, ubiquitous Light cantrips, etc.) the careful tracking of encumbrance, rations, ammunition, and light sources game that existed in earlier editions (and was actively enjoyed by, and rigorously followed by, an unknown percentage of gamers, but clearly a declining number). That's fine, what's frustrating is how they actually made it a challenge to engage said systems. Not being consistent on weights is just one more thing. The weights are decidedly low* if you do use the optional encumbrance system, there are spells you have to actively ignore to play this way, and the classes which best interact with the wilderness (druids and rangers) have abilities which basically state 'you get to ignore these penalties the DM wouldn't have bothered with if you hadn't insisted on playing an outdoorsy class. The rest of your party now has disadvantage on random stuff.'
*Not for realism's sake. A average Strength individual being slowed down by 50 lbs. and not being able to routinely carry over 150 lbs. is realistic. But individuals traipsing across the landscape (including climbing mountains or castle walls) with heavy armor and weapons and weeks of food and water isn't realistic to begin with. So you'd think they'd merge unrealisms to make a playable situation. No such luck.

Mind you, they seem to be playing to 80-90% of the gaming base, so it's fine. But it would be nice to see a nice polished Wilderness Adventure book for those who want to play such a system.

[Tiadoppler]

A gallon of water weighs around 8 lbs. It's entirely possible for a 200lb person to need 2 gallons (16lbs) of drinking water over the course of a physically intense day.


If you want some "easy" numbers for water/rations that make a bit more real-world sense, here's what I use in my campaigns (I know it's not precise, but there was some rounding for ease of use):

Water usage per day:
Comfortable: 10% of body weight per day. Includes cooking water/minimal wash water.
Basic: 5% of body weight per day.
Minimal Survival: 2.5% of body weight per day. Should include penalties to physical and mental activities.

Food usage per day (For fresh foods. Dehydrated foods or "travel rations" should count for double their weight because they're designed to pack nutrition into a light package):
Comfortable: 2% of body weight per day. Includes fresh foods or luxury items (high water weight, or low nutritional content)
Basic: 1% of body weight per day.
Minimal Survival: .5% of body weight per day. Should include penalties to physical and mental activities.

For example, a 100lb Elf eating Lembas Bread while stranded on a desert island would drink 2.5lbs (a bit more than a quart) of water and eat 1/4lb of condensed travel bread per day. He needs to keep his food supply going as long as possible, but he'll quickly grow weak.

On the other hand, the 300lb Dragonborn Pirate sailing off in the Elf's ship might use 30lbs (almost 4 gallons) of water, wine and beer, and eat 6lbs of fresh meat, bread and fruit every day. He's got a ship full of food and likes being comfortable.

The elf's best friend, a 200lb Human hiding in the ship's hold, needs to eat enough to stay alert, but not take so much that the Dragonborn notices. He drinks 10lbs (a bit over a gallon) and eats 2lbs a day, while he waits for a chance to defeat the Dragonborn and save his friend.

[Man_Over_Game]

A gallon of water weighs around 8 lbs. It's entirely possible for a 200lb person to need 2 gallons (16lbs) of drinking water over the course of a physically intense day.


If you want some "easy" numbers for water/rations that make a bit more real-world sense, here's what I use in my campaigns (I know it's not precise, but there was some rounding for ease of use):

Water usage per day:
Comfortable: 10% of body weight per day. Includes cooking water/minimal wash water.
Basic: 5% of body weight per day.
Minimal Survival: 2.5% of body weight per day. Should include penalties to physical and mental activities.

Food usage per day (For fresh foods. Dehydrated foods or "travel rations" should count for double their weight because they're designed to pack nutrition into a light package):
Comfortable: 2% of body weight per day. Includes fresh foods or luxury items (high water weight, or low nutritional content)
Basic: 1% of body weight per day.
Minimal Survival: .5% of body weight per day. Should include penalties to physical and mental activities.

For example, a 100lb Elf eating Lembas Bread while stranded on a desert island would drink 2.5lbs (a bit more than a quart) of water and eat 1/4lb of condensed travel bread per day. He needs to keep his food supply going as long as possible, but he'll quickly grow weak.

On the other hand, the 300lb Dragonborn Pirate sailing off in the Elf's ship might use 30lbs (almost 4 gallons) of water, wine and beer, and eat 6lbs of fresh meat, bread and fruit every day. He's got a ship full of food and likes being comfortable.

The elf's best friend, a 200lb Human hiding in the ship's hold, needs to eat enough to stay alert, but not take so much that the Dragonborn notices. He drinks 10lbs (a bit over a gallon) and eats 2lbs a day, while he waits for a chance to defeat the Dragonborn and save his friend.

I like this, nice job on compiling this information. The only issue I see is implementing this into a balanced system that the entire party can use.

Maybe something like:

Everyone tracks their consumption rate as numbers converted from these percentages (so Johnny at the Comfortable rate uses 5 water rations, where Rosa the Gnome uses 2 at the Comfortable rate). Everyone says how they're resting. What kind of rest/exhaustion is recovered is based off their usage type.

For example, Comfortable is a long rest as normal.
Basic removes an exhaustion stack if you have more than one.
Minimal removes an exhaustion stack if you have more than two, but gives an exhaustion stack if you have less than one. Or, in other words, if you don't have 1-2 exhaustion, move closer by one to 1-2 exhaustion stacks.

[Tiadoppler]

I like this, nice job on compiling this information. The only issue I see is implementing this into a balanced system that the entire party can use.

Maybe something like:

Everyone tracks their consumption rate as numbers converted from these percentages (so Johnny at the Comfortable rate uses 5 water rations, where Rosa the Gnome uses 2 at the Comfortable rate). Everyone says how they're resting. What kind of rest/exhaustion is recovered is based off their usage type.

For example, Comfortable is a long rest as normal.
Basic removes an exhaustion stack if you have more than one.
Minimal removes an exhaustion stack if you have more than two, but gives an exhaustion stack if you have less than one.

My party is used to tracking food and water in a spreadsheet, so each player just uses some # of lbs of food and water each day and the math is handled automatically.


I like your method a lot. It's pretty close to what my table uses:

Comfortable grants a small bonus (usually you recover all your hit die instead of just half, or you get Inspiration).
Basic is the normal long rest. It should be completely adequate nutrition. It's what most people in the world get.
Minimal doesn't remove exhaustion or recover hit die at all.

[Slipperychicken]

It's worth mentioning that fantasy player-characters are extremely active people who easily burn 3,000 - 4,000 calories each day, and otherwise have much greater dietary needs than their sedentary players. Even if they're riding horses everywhere, that's a big workout! You can get fit as hell riding horses all day. Not to mention carrying heavy loads and fighting.

Here's how I'd track rations if I were to start GMing again tomorrow:

Each PC sets aside a quantity of encumbrance capacity for a week or two of dry rations. So long as a character carries their rations it will occupy this much and will not change.
Players who wish to drop their rations to free up capacity may do so, but they will starve if they do not recover it within a day or find alternative nourishment. They can store their rations on a pack-animal, vehicle, or retainer if they wish, but must have access to it each day to eat.
Have a static monthly or weekly lifestyle-expense, which rations, torches, and other supplies contribute to. Deduct that static number each week or month regardless of circumstances to represent the cost of supplies, lodging, and maintenance (i.e. patching up your tent and clothes after a kobold's arrow pierced them).
In the wilderness, players are always considered well-supplied unless they drop their "rations" item or otherwise adventure for a truly absurd amount of time without resupply (i.e. multiple months)
Players are assumed to restock their supplies each time they return to civilization. I as GM may use this to railroad them to a given shop or merchant within reason if it suits my purposes (i.e. "as you are in a shop to restock on arrows, <plot_hook> approaches you").



The goliath and the halfling eat the same amount...okay, that might be reasonable. But the goliath and the gnome also eat the same amount. And plate armor weighs the same for both of them. And the +1 plate armor fits both the 4'10", 96lb half elf female and the 6'6", 245lb half orc male.

Page 144 of the 5e PHB has a sidebar for armor-fitting. Unrelated to that, small creatures are basically treated the same as medium ones for both encumbrance and equipment weight; while I disagree with that choice, I can see the reasoning behind it in terms of ease-of-use.

[Nifft]

And the +1 plate armor fits both the 4'10", 96lb half elf female and the 6'6", 245lb half orc male.

And in the former case, the plate armor looks superficially like a bikini; while in the latter case, the same armor suddenly sports pauldrons in which an entire gnome family could call home.


Rations are stored in heavy packaging in order to keep them fresh.

Yeah on a serious note you might have some sort of (magical?) big plant leaf wrap which keep away pests / help preserve the contents. The wrap might be thick because air-tight sealing isn't a thing yet. Might also be stored in pickle juice / vinegar / enough salt to kill pests.

On a slightly silly anachronistic note, maybe rations come in thick steel cans which are heavy because they need to remain sealed in the face of kobold swords and in the event of unexpected skydiving.