A Boring and Pointless Thought Experiment

[No brains]

Regarding surviving on carried food and water, if a character with 10 strength dropped everything else to just carry food and water in the lightest containers possible, how many days of food and water could they carry?

If there are any other tricks for maximizing ration capacity, like dragging a personal sled, using a mule or ox pulling a wagon, packing a ship full of supplies, how long could those other theoretical people last in 5e?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Regarding surviving on carried food and water, if a character with 10 strength dropped everything else to just carry food and water in the lightest containers possible, how many days of food and water could they carry?

If there are any other tricks for maximizing ration capacity, like dragging a personal sled, using a mule or ox pulling a wagon, packing a ship full of supplies, how long could those other theoretical people last in 5e?

Regular encumbrance (150 pounds) or variant (50 pounds before movement penalties)?

[iTreeby]

Are "the lightest containers possible" non-magical?

[Demonslayer666]

Standard water requirement is 1 gallon per day (8 lbs), and a day of rations is 2 lbs. That's 10 lbs per day, so 15 days ignoring container weight at a 10 strength.

But it's much better to forage your water along the way rather than try to carry all of it.

[BloodOgre]

Carry a gnome cleric that knows the Create Food and Water spell.

[Ninja_Prawn]

To actually dig into container weight, etc...

I'll ignore vials, which the PHB claims are weightless, since you'd need 256 vials of water per day so that's plainly ridiculous.

The most efficient containers in terms of capacity:weight are sacks (30lb:0.5lb) and buckets (3gal:2lb), so that's what we'll use. Even if you were only travelling for one day (hence needing only 2lb of food and 1 gallon of water), sacks are still the lightest option and a bucket is still the joint lightest liquid container (with waterskins).

Including for the weight of containers, then, a person with 10 Str can actually carry only 13 days of food and drink (140.5lb) on their own back. 14 days is half a pound over the encumbrance limit. That'll be inside 5 buckets and 1 sack, so presumably they'd need some kind of yoke to hold the buckets, but I can't see that weighing more than 9.5lb. A 10-foot pole is 7lb for reference.

I'm sure vehicles would massively increase your range, but I can't be bothered to run the numbers right now.

[jjordan]

Standard water requirement is 1 gallon per day (8 lbs), and a day of rations is 2 lbs. That's 10 lbs per day, so 15 days ignoring container weight at a 10 strength.

But it's much better to forage your water along the way rather than try to carry all of it.This is the best D&D answer. The real answer is more complicated. Carrying 150lbs of equipment means more exertion which means more water is needed. Environment has to be taken into account. Containers *DO* weigh a considerable amount. A good source is this one: https://ke.army.mil/bordeninstitute/other_pub/HydrationPDF.pdf

[RulesJD]

casts Goodberry

[No brains]

To actually dig into container weight, etc...

I'll ignore vials, which the PHB claims are weightless, since you'd need 256 vials of water per day so that's plainly ridiculous.

The most efficient containers in terms of capacity:weight are sacks (30lb:0.5lb) and buckets (3gal:2lb), so that's what we'll use. Even if you were only travelling for one day (hence needing only 2lb of food and 1 gallon of water), sacks are still the lightest option and a bucket is still the joint lightest liquid container (with waterskins).

Including for the weight of containers, then, a person with 10 Str can actually carry only 13 days of food and drink (140.5lb) on their own back. 14 days is half a pound over the encumbrance limit. That'll be inside 5 buckets and 1 sack, so presumably they'd need some kind of yoke to hold the buckets, but I can't see that weighing more than 9.5lb. A 10-foot pole is 7lb for reference.

I'm sure vehicles would massively increase your range, but I can't be bothered to run the numbers right now.

I like this answer the most so far. It's interesting that a palanquin of ration sacks and water buckets only allows safe travel over a fortnight. This gives me an idea of how far apart some places may be in a campaign world and how people may choose to travel between them. Thank you for bothering with the numbers you did run!

I suppose we could extrapolate that anything within a week's travel could be considered an 'easy' trip. People could technically walk 30 miles in one day without the need to carry any resources on them whatsoever.

One complicating factor with vehicles is that food and water would also be needed for the creature pulling a wagon. I wonder if there's an ideal size/strength/container ratio that allows for best overland travel. Likely mules and oxen are going to be forerunners in fuel economy due to the Beast of Burden trait. An elephant is technically stronger than an ox, but demands more food because it's actually huge.

[jjordan]

I'm sure vehicles would massively increase your range, but I can't be bothered to run the numbers right now.Not really. Equine animals (horses and mules) can carry about 20% of their body weight before they start to show signs of stress and increased injury. This tops out at 30%. These numbers are roughly the same for humans (although humans are actually a little better at carrying loads than animals are). So a 1,200lbs horse can carry about 240lbs of load. Your horse needs 5-10 gallons of water per day plus about 15 lbs of forage/grain. Assuming 7 gallons of water per day that gives you 71 pounds of food per animal per day. With a carrying capacity of 240lbs that gives you about 3 days. If you forage then you can extend your time but at the cost of slowing your rate of movement. You can also cut back on the amount you feed the horses, feeding them every 2 or three days (and letting them forage in the evenings). This will extend your range a little but at the cost of wearing your horses down. Pulling vehicles increases the carrying capacity of the animals but requires really good roads or it slows you down too much.

This is logistics, the science of warfare. I ran these numbers years ago and compared them with the marches made in the Anabasis. They match up pretty darn well.

Also, remember that size plays a large role in carrying capacity. The US military (and others) say that 33% is the routine max. But you can easily go as high as 50% if you're willing to accept some injury risk. As a 140lbs E-4 in the Army I walked all day with a 60lbs load during training and that could go up to 90lbs (64% of body weight) for a couple of hours if I had to take someone else's load (that happened a lot). And that was nothing compared to the 100lbs rucksacks (not including personal weapons and protective gear) the regular infantry carried or the 135lbs loads some Marine units were averaging in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To factor in strength (as well as size) I came up with the following (which I use for estimates, players don't need to see this): Take the character's body weight and divide by ten, round up to the nearest integer, and multiply that by strength. Multiply that number by 0.35 for tiny, 0.75 for small, 1.5 for large, 2 for huge, 3 for gargantuan size. That's your maximum, short burst, lifting capacity. 55% of that number is your maximum sustained carrying capacity if you're an athlete or similar. 35% of that number is your max sustained carrying capacity if you're a more sedentary individual.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Equine animals (horses and mules) can carry about 20% of their body weight...

I meant within the world of D&D. And pulling a wagon, not just loading up the horses direct.

Some quick numbers: draft horse is Str 18, large = 540lb carry capacity
x2 for pulling a wagon = 1080lb
x2 for having two horses = 2160
-400 weight of wagon = 1760

Per PHB, a horse eats 10lb/day. No figure is given for water; I assume that's because they don't need clean water (most toe-paths follow rivers anyway, right?).

Thus, 30lb/day for 2 horses and 1 human gives you 58 days of supplies with some slack for containers etc., assuming the human walks but carries nothing.

[Mellack]

I think better than using a mule or horse would be to use a hand cart. No more food/water requirements, and it multiplies the capacity by five. Even at 200 pounds for the cart, a strength 10 person goes from carrying 150 pounds to 550 pounds (plus the cart to make 750). I believe that would get them around 50 days.

[Monster Manuel]

As an aside, given the comments about Create Food and Water, Goodberry, etc, it occurs to me that the logistics of traveling long distances is one of the aspects of "real" medieval society that would get totally blown away in a world with access to magic.

A small squad of low-level druids can keep a good size force equipped with rations with practically no logistical requirements at all. This would change how wars would be fought, and how trade would be conducted. Like, a lot.

Weird.

[8wGremlin]

As an aside, given the comments about Create Food and Water, Goodberry, etc, it occurs to me that the logistics of traveling long distances is one of the aspects of "real" medieval society that would get totally blown away in a world with access to magic.

A small squad of low-level druids can keep a good size force equipped with rations with practically no logistical requirements at all. This would change how wars would be fought, and how trade would be conducted. Like, a lot.

Weird.

yeah, the whole premise of D&D being medieval with magic, gets blown out of the water if you just have 1st level spellcasters, let alone hight level spellcasters.

There are many thought experiments on this forum that looks at this, the biggest divide is whether PC are special in that they can only have levels, or that any creature can have levels.

One thing I think is interesting is a clan thought experiment, imagine a clan in the middle of the wilderness they are 30 of them, and they are all variant human Commoners (as per MM) so they get +1 to two attributes, a skill, a language and a feat.

Now what happens to that clan as it grows if they all have access to feats?
Magic Initiate - Druid (Druidcraft, Mold Earth, and Goodberry)
Magic Initiate - Wizard (Prestidigitation, firebolt, and find familiar)

What if these were high elves, or gnomes, etc.

[iTreeby]

yeah, the whole premise of D&D being medieval with magic, gets blown out of the water if you just have 1st level spellcasters, let alone hight level spellcasters.

There are many thought experiments on this forum that looks at this, the biggest divide is whether PC are special in that they can only have levels, or that any creature can have levels.

One thing I think is interesting is a clan thought experiment, imagine a clan in the middle of the wilderness they are 30 of them, and they are all variant human Commoners (as per MM) so they get +1 to two attributes, a skill, a language and a feat.

Now what happens to that clan as it grows if they all have access to feats?
Magic Initiate - Druid (Druidcraft, Mold Earth, and Goodberry)
Magic Initiate - Wizard (Prestidigitation, firebolt, and find familiar)

What if these were high elves, or gnomes, etc.

It kinda depends on what source books they have access to. They will probably start theorycrafting and start a eugenics program to breed variant humans eventually resulting in splinter clan fueds based on determining the best starting feats.

[jjordan]

I meant within the world of D&D. And pulling a wagon, not just loading up the horses direct.

Some quick numbers: draft horse is Str 18, large = 540lb carry capacity
x2 for pulling a wagon = 1080lb
x2 for having two horses = 2160
-400 weight of wagon = 1760

Per PHB, a horse eats 10lb/day. No figure is given for water; I assume that's because they don't need clean water (most toe-paths follow rivers anyway, right?).

Thus, 30lb/day for 2 horses and 1 human gives you 58 days of supplies with some slack for containers etc., assuming the human walks but carries nothing.
So the draft horse can carry 540lbs. That's a 2000lbs draft horse which is average for a Belgian draft horse and big (upper end of the scale) for Percherons and Clydesdales (the Budweiser horses).

It can pull 5x its carrying capacity. That gives it a sustained towing capacity of 2700lbs. This number accords pretty well with reports from other sources. Multiply that by two for having two horses (two horses can actually pull three times their normal capacity but I see where the DnD design team went for simple) and you get 5400lbs.

The DnD team went way too simple on feed and completely forgot about water. Draft horses eat more than riding horses. This is where the math of logistics comes into play. This man (https://wagonteamster.com/html/faqs.html) has spent a few years driving a team around the US and notes that while driving on tarmac roads (far superior to anything in a typical fantasy setting) he feeds each horse 10-15lbs of grain AND 30lbsof hay/forage each day. So that's 40lbs per horse per day right there. Plus 7 gallons of water per horse per day is 56lbs per horse per day. So that's 96lbs per horse per day. With two horses that's 192lbs per day. With supplies for a single human that's 202lbs per day. With 4800lbs carrying capacity (5400lbs less the 400lbs weight of the cart less the weight of a single human and gear) that's about 24 days.

You're right about the water. Mostly. When you look at sources like the Anabasis or the Trail Guides published for people travelling the Oregon Trail it's clear they are moving from water source to water source rather than carrying water for their animals. But it's also clear they are moving very slowly (2-3 miles per hour on good terrain and slower still on more difficult terrain) and devoting time to foraging every day. Trail Guides are an interesting subject because they existed in the Middle Ages as well. They were typically a list of points along a route with simple notes (get water here, the inn-keeper is a thief, the road is bad, etc...) and travelers would ask locals for directions to the next location rather than having a map that showed the whole countryside.

[Amechra]

Not really. Equine animals (horses and mules) can carry about 20% of their body weight before they start to show signs of stress and increased injury. This tops out at 30%. These numbers are roughly the same for humans (although humans are actually a little better at carrying loads than animals are). So a 1,200lbs horse can carry about 240lbs of load. Your horse needs 5-10 gallons of water per day plus about 15 lbs of forage/grain. Assuming 7 gallons of water per day that gives you 71 pounds of food per animal per day. With a carrying capacity of 240lbs that gives you about 3 days. If you forage then you can extend your time but at the cost of slowing your rate of movement. You can also cut back on the amount you feed the horses, feeding them every 2 or three days (and letting them forage in the evenings). This will extend your range a little but at the cost of wearing your horses down. Pulling vehicles increases the carrying capacity of the animals but requires really good roads or it slows you down too much.

This is logistics, the science of warfare. I ran these numbers years ago and compared them with the marches made in the Anabasis. They match up pretty darn well.

Also, remember that size plays a large role in carrying capacity. The US military (and others) say that 33% is the routine max. But you can easily go as high as 50% if you're willing to accept some injury risk. As a 140lbs E-4 in the Army I walked all day with a 60lbs load during training and that could go up to 90lbs (64% of body weight) for a couple of hours if I had to take someone else's load (that happened a lot). And that was nothing compared to the 100lbs rucksacks (not including personal weapons and protective gear) the regular infantry carried or the 135lbs loads some Marine units were averaging in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To factor in strength (as well as size) I came up with the following (which I use for estimates, players don't need to see this): Take the character's body weight and divide by ten, round up to the nearest integer, and multiply that by strength. Multiply that number by 0.35 for tiny, 0.75 for small, 1.5 for large, 2 for huge, 3 for gargantuan size. That's your maximum, short burst, lifting capacity. 55% of that number is your maximum sustained carrying capacity if you're an athlete or similar. 35% of that number is your max sustained carrying capacity if you're a more sedentary individual.

On the one hand, D&D abstracts a lot of that out.

On the other hand, I've always wanted to run a mercantile campaign, so this is a post I'll keep in mind.