Farming on the go

[Shinoskay]

So, some of the most common issues with traveling is food. Food usually is covered by magic but I love using real foods cause why not. this works though cause some gm's dont want people to use survival spells (and then they get mad when I try using good berry magic with a strawberry bush and daylight in a bottle).

So, is there any way to make daylight to feed a mobile garden? maybe something I can put in a bag of holding?

Alternatively, the underdark has plants that grow without light.... right? That in a bag of holding?

as a note, my chars level 3

[AnimeTheCat]

It would get expensive pretty quickly, but you can keep a 30 foot area "clearly illuminated" for 24 hrs with 4 sunrods, running you 8 gold per day. 240 gold per month. 2880 gold per year.

Depending on the size of your farm, that can be easy or hard.

[daremetoidareyo]

Maybe catch some koi and water in a bag of holding? Cast light in there a few times a day? Throw in some food refuse or bugs (survival check? Summon swarm? Summon nature's ally 1?) here and there.

Getting the koi out would be a pain. You might actually have to hook and line into the bag to get them out

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Try redeeming an enveloping pit. It's an [Evil] but extremely inexpensive 10' x 10' x 50' portable hole. Just turn it on its side by adhering it to a wall, or use scaffolding to make multiple levels. Make sure to keep plenty of light and warmth and water in there, and make sure to fertilize the soil well by burying fish you catch and seeding the soil with earthworms.

[Shinoskay]

'Light' isnt 'Daylight'. even the Daylight spell puts lighting to 'daylight' level but doesnt actually provide 'daylight' persay. Plants need sun rays, theres an item, i think its bottle sunlight, that gives this (cheaper then sun rods I think) but id think there was a more sustainable method.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

'Light' isnt 'Daylight'. even the Daylight spell puts lighting to 'daylight' level but doesnt actually provide 'daylight' persay per se. Plants need sun rays, theres an item, i think its bottle sunlight, that gives this (cheaper then sun rods I think) but id think there was a more sustainable method.At least some plants do fine in artificial light, which is why houseplants are a thing. You could always get a pair of ring gates and have one open to sunlight, redirected by mirrors and supplemented by lots of light-making spells.

Do some experimentation with various spells that make light and harm undead (without causing damage to plant-life) and see which ones help plants thrive. Then set down a(n [un])hallow spell with that attached. Maybe a planar bubble tied to a mildly positive energy plane?

The fact that a spell named daylight doesn't actually make daylight is stupid.

[King of Nowhere]

if your dm gets mad when you try to put daylight in a bottle, he'll probably also complain at the extradimensional garden

[Shinoskay]

if your dm gets mad when you try to put daylight in a bottle, he'll probably also complain at the extradimensional garden

Ya, he was a **** dm.
but he was more mad cause I was determined to carry renewable food in his survival game then that I was using bottled sunlight.

I spent weeks on char creation just for him to drop me after 2 or 3 days of play. like, who gets mad that someone wants lots of utility? Usually the problem is when players power game, right? I guess I can see utility belting as annoying but... im a rogue/ranger type player... I dont have damage, they are pretty much only as good as their utility!

this is the item btw (its pathfinder) d20pfsrd (com)/magic-items/wondrous-items/a-b/bottled-sunlight
Rant aside, i digress, the rings thing may be an option, I dont think I can get planar cheese at level 3 but the rings are fairly low level.

Getting the extra dimensional space hollowed could be good too.

[Skysaber]

Well, having established that nothing will please your ex-DM, there is no harm in giving an answer to your question that he wouldn't like.

The item you want is called a "Tapestry of the Garden", from the Quintessential Witch. Yes, that's third party.

It is a silk tapestry no bigger than 3' x 5', so easy to roll up and carry (it only weighs 3lbs), but when you hang it up and touch it and speak the command word you get drawn into a 300 foot by 500 foot extradimensional space designed to maintain a garden.

[The Random NPC]

It would get expensive pretty quickly, but you can keep a 30 foot area "clearly illuminated" for 24 hrs with 4 sunrods, running you 8 gold per day. 240 gold per month. 2880 gold per year.

Depending on the size of your farm, that can be easy or hard.

Well you wouldn't want sunlight for the full 24 hours so it'll only be 1440, or 720 if you get plants that need light for less time. My suggestion would be to find magic plants and sink as much as you can into profession (farmer). I think it's a DC 50 to grow wheat on the plane of fire, lack of light can't be much worse.

[nijineko]

craft a Magnificent Mansion into an always on item, and presto, lots of space. use stuff from the SBG to outfit the resulting space, and you can further craft items to produce the needed light and dark and organics... add some skilled unseen servants to care for your garden space, or go homunculus or construct instead if that's your thing.

[Khedrac]

Maybe catch some koi and water in a bag of holding? Cast light in there a few times a day? Throw in some food refuse or bugs (survival check? Summon swarm? Summon nature's ally 1?) here and there.

Getting the koi out would be a pain. You might actually have to hook and line into the bag to get them out

Fish still need to breath - the water needs to be oxygenated. So looking at the rules for bags of holding, your fish will still die of asphixiation fairly quickly.

[tiercel]

The boring answer is the Survival skill, coupled with a high character speed. “Get along in the wild” forces you to move at half *your* overland speed, but if you can get your base speed to 40 or even 60, you can travel as fast as those bumbling slowpokes in your party while keeping them all fed and supplied with water (DC 16 for a standard party of four, assuming you don’t have to also feed familiars, animal companions, mounts, entourage singing “Brave Sir Robin,” etc.)

Of course, if your DM hated something as humble as goodberry, then actually using the Survival skill in order to survive may be a target of DM wrath too (“no no no, you have to ROLEPLAY looking for food and make individual Spot, Search, and combat checks for EVERY individual potential source of food....”)

[Ashtagon]

At least some plants do fine in artificial light, which is why houseplants are a thing. You could always get a pair of ring gates and have one open to sunlight, redirected by mirrors and supplemented by lots of light-making spells.

Do some experimentation with various spells that make light and harm undead (without causing damage to plant-life) and see which ones help plants thrive. Then set down a(n [un])hallow spell with that attached. Maybe a planar bubble tied to a mildly positive energy plane?

The fact that a spell named daylight doesn't actually make daylight is stupid.

Many catgirls died to bring the above post.

While it's true that in the real world, many plants can thrive on artificial light, it's equally true that in the D&D world, plants that require light specifically require natural sunlight.

[TheCount]

i would suggest ripple bark, a humble fungus.
it appers in both 3.5 and 5e.
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Ripplebark
it grows almost anywhere, dont need light but thrives in it and has a nut-like flavor.

also, troll meat in a magic box? for extreme emergencies

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

Celestial Brilliance is a 4th lvl cleric spell, lasts day/level, text says (paraphrasing) " object shines with light brighter than daylight, channeled from celestia". Not to much of a stretch to say its literally daylight from heaven, keep your garden in a portable hole so theres airflow, put in a object of Celestial Brilliance 16hrs a day.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Many catgirls died to bring the above post.

While it's true that in the real world, many plants can thrive on artificial light, it's equally true that in the D&D world, plants that require light specifically require natural sunlight.Remember the rule that says that if it works in the real world it works in the game just the same, unless the actual rules say otherwise?

I don't recall anything that says that artificial light won't nourish plant-life. Source?

[nijineko]

Remember the rule that says that if it works in the real world it works in the game just the same, unless the actual rules say otherwise?

I don't recall anything that says that artificial light won't nourish plant-life. Source?

I don't recall that rule either. Can you source it, please?

[Ashtagon]

Tome of Forbidden Insights, page 117, second paragraph.

[Palanan]

I've never heard of this Tome of Forbidden Whatnot, and can't find it on Amazon or DriveThruRPG. It also doesn't seem to be on WorldCat, which often lists third-party publications.

Whatever it is, it's certainly not an official 3.X product. Does anyone have more information on what this item is? Or does it even exist?

[AnimeTheCat]

Many catgirls died to bring the above post.

While it's true that in the real world, many plants can thrive on artificial light, it's equally true that in the D&D world, plants that require light specifically require natural sunlight.

Both the real world and D&D have cavern ecologies and deep aquatic ecologies that allow for certain varieties of plants to thrive without light, or with very little in very short periods of time. So, while I doubt that there is a specifically written rule somewhere that lays out that plants can only use natural sunlight, there's an easy enough workaround that doesn't even require sunlight.


Well you wouldn't want sunlight for the full 24 hours so it'll only be 1440, or 720 if you get plants that need light for less time. My suggestion would be to find magic plants and sink as much as you can into profession (farmer). I think it's a DC 50 to grow wheat on the plane of fire, lack of light can't be much worse.

Or like I said above, just grow things that don't need it in the first place.

[crankykobold]

Try redeeming an enveloping pit. It's an [Evil] but extremely inexpensive 10' x 10' x 50' portable hole. Just turn it on its side by adhering it to a wall, or use scaffolding to make multiple levels. Make sure to keep plenty of light and warmth and water in there, and make sure to fertilize the soil well by burying fish you catch and seeding the soil with earthworms.

One of the problems with enveloping pit is lack of oxygen. you can grow mushrooms without light but pretty sure you still need air. When my halfing wizard built his mobile tower in an enveloping pit I solved the air problem with a resetting magic gust of wind trap and put a skeleton to trigger it in the very bottom.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

One of the problems with enveloping pit is lack of oxygen. you can grow mushrooms without light but pretty sure you still need air. When my halfing wizard built his mobile tower in an enveloping pit I solved the air problem with a resetting magic gust of wind trap and put a skeleton to trigger it in the very bottom.So, are you saying that plants don't make/recycle oxygen? Despite that being 50% of what plants do?

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by MaxiDuRaritry
So, are you saying that plants don't make/recycle oxygen? Despite that being 50% of what plants do?

I think he’s saying that mushrooms aren’t plants, which is entirely accurate.


Originally Posted by Ashtagon
*Tome of Forbidden Insights*

I feel like I can’t be the only person who’s never heard of this. Is there anyone who knows anything more about this title?

[crankykobold]

So, are you saying that plants don't make/recycle oxygen? Despite that being 50% of what plants do?

honestly I dont really know for sure. But i dont think they would grow in an environment with no air to begin with. Like a closed portable hole.

[Segev]

To be fair, if the DM wants to run a survival game, trying to bypass the "survival" part is going to upset him, and rightly so. It'd be like him trying to run an intrigue game and playing a barbarian who just murders everybody he doesn't like. Sure, the DM can hit you with "consequences," but the damage to the tone of the game is done.

[The Random NPC]

To be fair, if the DM wants to run a survival game, trying to bypass the "survival" part is going to upset him, and rightly so. It'd be like him trying to run an intrigue game and playing a barbarian who just murders everybody he doesn't like. Sure, the DM can hit you with "consequences," but the damage to the tone of the game is done.

Yeah, but D&d doesn't do survival games well. If you want to do one you have to do a lot of work retooling powers and rules, while banning others.

Tangentially related:
I was once in a game with a terrible GM, he presented us with a group of starving cerebral rats that were attacking the city we were in. I figured I could just craft up some everlasting rations and use that to hire the rats to police their own population (they were a reoccurring problem, every five years or so). GM decided to tell us then that all forms of food from magic causes you to slowly starve to death. So after a few hours of exploring alternative options to deal with the rats, we ended up killing them all.

[Powerdork]

GM decided to tell us then that all forms of food from magic causes you to slowly starve to death.

So it might as well not exist, right?
Love soft bans more than anything in the world, not.

[The Random NPC]

So it might as well not exist, right?
Love soft bans more than anything in the world, not.

Exactly, but there worst part was finding out all the house rules after we broke them.

[Segev]

Exactly, but there worst part was finding out all the house rules after we broke them.

That's frustrating, yeah. It's one thing if the DM admits that he forgot it was a house rule, or acknowledges that it's something he's changing now to solve what he perceives to be a problem, but too often it's used in a way that becomes a "gotcha."

Why, no, I don't think my cleric would fail to know that create food and water is a spell used to trick people into starving themselves to death, rather than a spell he can use to feed a starving family.