Size change and appetite

[TheElfLord]

Many people and monsters in the average DnD world can change size. I'm wondering what you guys think the effect on appetite would be. When the gargantuan dragon alternate forms into a human, does she retain her dragon sized hunger or can she subsist on just human portions. Does the tiny fae have to eat more in elf form?

This is one of those things that could be easily house ruled either way if it isn't explicitly, but I'm wondering what you guys think.





P.S. To forestall the inevitable, talk to your DM and see what he thinks that always appears in these kinds of threads, I'm the DM.

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

The easiest is probably to assume that you need what is required by your knew form. I would only go with the other alternative for amusement or if I needed to leave clues for the PCs that something might be amiss with the elven girl that eats like a pack of starving wolves.

P.S. To forestall the inevitable, talk to your DM and see what he thinks that always appears in these kinds of threads, I'm the DM.

Talk to your players and see what they think.

[Tempest Fennac]

I'd say you'd be better off assuming people need food based on whatever their current form is (eg: a Dragon in Human form would burst if they tried eating the sort of meals a Dragon wold need).

[its_all_ogre]

i would go by their normal requirements, after all it's magic, there is no reason to assume they will need different amounts of food, unless it states so under the spell/ability description.
science should not be applied to a dnd game.

i thought this thread was asking if size-advanced creatures would need to eat more, then i would have replied yes!

[Rutee]

My answer is "Whatever's more interesting". If it'd be fun to watch this NPC or PC devour oodles of food, comparative to size, go for it. If you think it'd ruin a sensitive disguise, don't.

[raygungothic]

Good question!

I agree that "whatever's more interesting" is the right answer, but I think my inclination would be to pick an option for a particular kind of sizeshifting and then make it consistent. If one dragon eats human quantities in human form and is then ravenously hungry when it returns to dragon form, other dragons should too unless there's a really good reason.

So... what's the range of possible options and their potential impacts?

1. Only need to eat whatever's appropriate for current form. Advantages: easy to run, no awkward questions about stomach size, won't break disguise. Disadvantages: boring, contains no plot fuel, won't break disguise.

2. Only need to eat whatever's appropriate for current form, but has to make it up on returning to native form if native form is bigger. Advantages: has a certain intuitive something to it, avoids awkward questions, won't break disguise but could still provide an interesting clue, could be a plot point. Disadvantages: players might fail to correlate seeing the NPC-disguise and the rampage of a hungry dragon that rapidly follows it, totally not helpful for anything with smaller native size.

3. Eat whatever's appropriate for original form. Advantages: Characterful and entertaining, nice fairy-tale quality to it, could be a good clue, interesting if original species is small rather than large. Disadvantages: Awkward questions about stomach capacity kill catgirls and could lead to bad humour ruining the mood, clue could easily be anvil-tastically heavy.

4. Doesn't eat in the changed form because it causes too many problems. Advantages: Fairly logical, avoids problems, could be a clue in its own way (but difficult to implement). Disadvantages: Only plausible if the shift is only for a short-ish time.

5. ?

Anyone got any better ideas?

[Swooper]

I would only go with the other alternative for amusement or if I needed to leave clues for the PCs that something might be amiss with the elven girl that eats like a pack of starving wolves.

I'm totally yoinking that.

[Chronos]

It's not actually an issue for dragons: Even though dragons are perpetually hungry, they actually need hardly any food at all. When a hundred-ton lizard can subsist entirely on morning dew licked from the grass, I don't think you need to ask whether it can live on a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch. For a dragon in any form, I would say that it could survive on anything from the merest scraps, to a few hundred sheep, in a day. What it actually would eat would depend on the temperment of the dragon in question: A red dragon infamous for his ravenous appetite might have a hard time restraining himself, and blow his cover by eating five times his (current) body mass in an hour (he's able to do so because he's a dragon, which aren't really subject to the same rules as us), but that a wise gold dragon with iron self-control could pull off a disguise as an æscetic monk.

For anything other than dragons, I would say that they need food according to their current form, and that their degree of satiety remains unchanged when they change (so a hungry human would be equally hungry when Enlarged, and a full ogre could be Polymorphed into a full chicken). After all, a creature's equipment changes size to match the creature, if possible, so why wouldn't the contents of the creature's stomach also change? However, a creature might accidentally retain its old eating habits, with a variety of ill effects (a pixie the size of a human might continue to eat a few berries a day, and faint from hunger, and shrunken ogre might try to eat a whole pig, and give himself a bellyache).

[AtomicKitKat]

I'd go with "Appetite stays, requirements change." So the dragon would presumably order the entire tavern menu, then petulantly sulk when it finds it cannot stuff more than a single game hen down its elven throat. Likewise, the Cleric who runs around with DMM Persisted Righteous Might would spend much of their time complaining that they're hungry.

[raygungothic]

"Appetite persists while stomach size changes" is a neat idea. Dragons in human form with eyes too big for their bellies, fae fainting because they only had a daisy for breakfast, all good. Could be a bit too comical in some situations though.

[ASCIISkull]

I played a wizard once who got rather ill after returning to human form, after having taken quite a few bites out of a hydra while she had been in the form of a dragon.

[Chronos]

Could be a bit too comical in some situations though.

If it gets to be too much, it's easy enough to scale it back. Most of the creatures which can change size are sentient, and so would be able to consciously decide to eat more or less food. But it still provides good potential for humor, in the situations where you do want humor.

[bugsysservant]

Hmm... how would a ring of sustenance effect this? Doesn't it take a week to go into effect? So if you're wearing a ring of sustenance when a human, and turn into a dragon, is it still providing food for a human sized body, or does it automatically keep track of food rate after the first week of acclimation?

[AtomicKitKat]

I would say the RoS just satiates your hunger/whatever requirements as per normal(as long as it functions for your present form).

[Khanderas]

Shapeshange changes the body.
Food is buildingblocks for the body.

Therefore, you need food according to the new body.


If you use illusions and disguises you still eat like your old self since your body didnt change.