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Post by Mordorandor on Oct 8, 2022 10:03:36 GMT -6
Please direct me to a thread if one exists ....
What do you see is the purpose/benefit of the purify food and water spell? What might players do with it to benefit themselves or the party?
"This spell will make spoiled or poisoned food and water usable. The quantity subject to a single spell is approximately that which would serve a dozen people."
In my experience, players generally adventure for less than a game day, avoiding the need for rations altogether. When they do take rations in the likelihood of being away for a long period, they buy iron rations, which doesn't spoil in dungeons and makes moot the need to purify spoilt food they find.
Also, low-level characters rarely have access to poison-detecting abilities, so the spell seems even less useful for the purpose of detoxifying food and water, unless a party of sufficient level is without food and needs to survive.
This seems to regulate the spell to a specific kind of adventuring session, like a session of survival.
At the risk of wild speculation, what kind of games did Dave and Gary play where purify food and water might have some benefit/purpose?
I'm wondering, was it meant initially as a way for parties to buy standard food on the cheap (5 GP instead of 15 GP) and take it on long adventures underground?
And then, a Cleric must be 2nd level to even have this one 1st-level spell prepared, which seems ... unhelpful or just a waste.
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Post by Mushgnome on Oct 8, 2022 12:11:41 GMT -6
I suspect the spell has its roots in gaming groups who used Outdoor Survival as their D&D 'wilderness.' If memory serves, Outdoor Survival had a whole sub-system for decontaminating water by boiling or purification tablets. So that's the most likely origin for the Purify Food & Water spell in my opinion: as a magical substitute for the iodine tablets in Outdoor Survival.
A few other suggestions how you could use this spell: 1) Preventative care: spending a 1st level spell today potentially saves you from having to cast 3rd level Cure Disease tomorrow; 2) surviving a city under siege or a long sea voyage; 3) saving a village whose crops withered or herd was poisoned; 4) to prevent assassination by poison at a royal banquet.
I also like your "save 10gp by purchasing standard instead of iron rations" idea!
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naiyor
Level 1 Medium
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Post by naiyor on Oct 8, 2022 12:38:05 GMT -6
I really like the idea of preventing assassination...this would be used a lot by the "Powerful Folk".
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Post by tombowings on Oct 8, 2022 14:29:24 GMT -6
I generally allow the spell to act as a Finger of Death against Water Elementals.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 8, 2022 15:28:10 GMT -6
It makes Eowyn's stew bearable. Alas, poor Aragorn was a Ranger and not a Cleric.
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Post by hamurai on Oct 9, 2022 9:16:18 GMT -6
Maybe it just depends on your definition of "food" and "drink". Any slain body may have served as food, but some monsters were probably poisonous. Some... fluids... may have been readily available, but not save to drink. With that spell, you could eat pretty much anything when your rations ran out. Or you want to save them for later. Or you have a strange food preference.
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Post by Mordorandor on Oct 9, 2022 9:30:12 GMT -6
I suspect the spell has its roots in gaming groups who used Outdoor Survival as their D&D 'wilderness.' .... Nice insight! My only counter-thought is self-reporting by a/some player/s of the time that they didn't brave the outdoors until they were higher level. So if true, it was some time before players would use this spell. Still ... that the spell is 1st-level and could benefit a party of 12 might also make it worth preparing by higher-level characters for more lethal, lengthier, outdoor adventure sessions. |
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Post by Mordorandor on Oct 9, 2022 9:33:35 GMT -6
Maybe it just depends on your definition of "food" and "drink". Any slain body may have served as food, but some monsters were probably poisonous. Some... fluids... may have been readily available, but not save to drink. With that spell, you could eat pretty much anything when your rations ran out. Or you want to save them for later. Or you have a strange food preference. I [will] never[!] thought [think] of it that way!  Maybe a different thread, but purifying a corpse to eat might be similar to finger of death for Lawful Clerics ... you can only do it in grave situations or else Alignment change occurs. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2022 13:46:57 GMT -6
Maybe it just depends on your definition of "food" and "drink". Any slain body may have served as food, but some monsters were probably poisonous. Some... fluids... may have been readily available, but not save to drink. With that spell, you could eat pretty much anything when your rations ran out. Or you want to save them for later. Or you have a strange food preference. There's a manga series called "Dungeon Meshi" that revolves around the concept of having to eat monster parts to complete a Megadungeon in that universe. One of the characters is a Dwarven culinary artist who finds ways to make them edible and delicious. It's not the same as the spell per se but a variation on that theme. Magic is often a shortcut or "universe hack" of something that can be done without magic, albeit with more difficulty and cost, after all. |
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Post by jamesmishler on Oct 9, 2022 15:19:02 GMT -6
Back in the day some dungeon delves could last for weeks. If you had a DM who cared about rations, this spell could be a lifesaver, literally, when you ran out of food and all you could find was old, rotting, moldy food in the humanoid's storerooms.
Check any module written by Gygax. There's always rotten food or food of "questionable quality" in every dungeon.
In the D series this spell would be a requirement for survival!
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Post by asaki on Oct 9, 2022 19:33:01 GMT -6
4) to prevent assassination by poison at a royal banquet. This is my friends any time they're in Ravenloft and someone offers them a meal or a drink >_< "Sorry, hold on, before we eat, let me just say my blessings first." |
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Post by dicebro on Oct 10, 2022 7:14:41 GMT -6
What do you see is the purpose/benefit of the purify food and water spell? … And then, a Cleric must be 2nd level to even have this one 1st-level spell prepared, which seems ... unhelpful or just a waste. If you read the booklet carefully, you will notice that purify food and water is an underlined spell. In Original D&D there are Anti-Clerics who have similar powers to Clerics. Those Clerical spells underlined on the table for Cleric Spells have a reverse effect. See Men & Magic, Volume I, p. 34. That means that the party could encounter an “anti-cleric” who could spoil the party’s food with the spell and then hide until the party is weak from lack of sustenance. They would be perfect targets with no food or water in a couple days. So basically purify food and water is there for the party to counter the powers of an evil anti-cleric. |
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Post by Mordorandor on Oct 10, 2022 8:52:55 GMT -6
What do you see is the purpose/benefit of the purify food and water spell? … And then, a Cleric must be 2nd level to even have this one 1st-level spell prepared, which seems ... unhelpful or just a waste. That means that the party could encounter an “anti-cleric” who could spoil the party’s food with the spell .... I had a sudden flash to a scene in which the party confronts the big, bad Evil Cleric, terrified as to what s/he might do. "I have you now!" says the Evil Cleric. The party trembles. "What is s/he going to do?!" ... putrefy food and drink ... The party cries out, "No!!! The inhumanity!!!" "Mwahahahahah!" Ends on a cliff-hanger for next week's serial installment. |
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Post by dicebro on Oct 10, 2022 9:47:30 GMT -6
That means that the party could encounter an “anti-cleric” who could spoil the party’s food with the spell .... I had a sudden flash to a scene in which the party confronts the big, bad Evil Cleric, terrified as to what s/he might do. "I have you now!" says the Evil Cleric. The party trembles. "What is s/he going to do?!" ... putrefy food and drink ... The party cries out, "No!!! The inhumanity!!!" "Mwahahahahah!" Ends on a cliff-hanger for next week's serial installment. Yeah! Now the party has no food and maybe they are lost because nobody has been mapping. They just keep wandering around under ground, getting weaker with every step. The cleric poo-poo’d the purify food ritual and now everyone is mad at him. Then, when everyone is famished and weak, right around the corner they encounter a troll. Heh. |
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Post by tkdco2 on Oct 12, 2022 16:52:19 GMT -6
If you want to be really evil about it, you can rule that the spell and its reverse both apply to the quality but not the appearance. So food that has spoiled a bit would still appear to be less than fresh, so people won't want to eat it. Likewise, an evil cleric can use the reverse to remove the nutritional content of the food that only appears to be fresh. If you allow crops to be affected that way, an evil cleric can bring an entire village to its knees.
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