RSA: Create Water and Create Food

As far as utility spells go, it's hard to get more utilitarian than create water or create food. There are obvious reasons for not seeing either in play more are: Taking up 4th and 5th level spell slots, not to mention how often resources like rations are simply not tracked in a game, especially once the PCs are higher in level and can afford all the beef jerky they want. Nevertheless, these are some powerful spells and, under the right circumstances, could provide a lot of fun for a campaign. But first, let's look at the spell descriptions. Both are from the Cook Expert rules.

Create Water (Cleric 4th)
Range: 0'
Duration: Permanent

With this spell, the cleric summons forth an enchanted spring from the ground or a wall that will give enough water for 12 men and their mounts for one day (about 50 gallons). For every level the cleric is above 8th, twelve additional men and mounts can be supplied.

Create Food (Cleric 5th)
Range: 0'
Duration: Permanent

With this spell, the cleric may create enough food to feed 12 men and their mounts for one day. For every level the cleric is above 8th, he or she is able to create food for 12 more men and their mounts. Thus a 10th level cleric could create enough food to sustain 36 men and their mounts for one day.

First a note or two about both spells in general. I find it interesting that they both make specific mention of the characters' mounts. Since these are obviously spells geared toward wilderness/overland travel, it's logical that things like horses or camels would be addressed. Also, the fact that the amounts scale up so quickly. This would seem to move from dealing with a groups like a party and some hirelings to whole military units.

A couple of things about create water: One, note that even though the duration is permanent, the amount of water is finite. In other words, the spring stops springing after about a barrel of water has flowed. Two, there is no mention of retaining the water. By the book, the characters need to be ready with wineskins, bowls, what have you. Nice DMs, may cut some slack here, but if the party is in the middle of a desert, it's reasonable to expect the water to run off or soak into the sand.

Create food is very similar mechanically, but doesn't specify how the food appears or what form it takes. I would assume the food for the mounts is appropriate to the type of animal (grains, etc.). Other editions of D&D describe it as "nourishing." DMs are free to describe it how they will, but I've always imagined it as a sort of gruel or dense loaf. In other words, it will keep you fed, but that's it. Clerics aren't opening restaurants selling the stuff as "cuisine."

Now that we've covered the basics, how might one use this in their games? Well, let's say the party is planning a long trek across a desert to fight a blue dragon. Even if you don't normally track rations or water, you can give the players a gentle heads up by saying something like "The journey may take many days, and there aren't towns along the way. Make sure you have what you need to survive on your own." I'm not saying deliberately screw the PCs over, but if things like running out of food, getting lost, etc. is possible, then forewarned is forearmed.

Now, if there is a cleric in the party, he might prep these spells just in case but doesn't use them. Let's say they get to the beast's lair, kill it, and want to load up the hoard. Gold is heavy. So is water. What can they do? Why, drop the water of course and create it as needed along the way! Or perhaps the dragon (or a random encounter) killed some pack animals and the group has less carrying capacity.

Imagine the PCs are stuck in a siege situation. Create food or water might allow those stuck in the castle to stretch the rations by days or weeks. In a less benign situation, what if there were people in a place with no water. A not-nice cleric might charge for him to cast the spell each day. Heck, 50 gallons+ of water might even help put out a fire!

Despite not having the usual kinds of effects for "adventuring spells," when you're dealing with the possibility of starving or dying from dehydration, spells like these start looking a whole lot less useless.

Moldvay Musings XVIII: Encounter Distance

Greetings! It's been a little while, but  I will try to be a little more consistent with my postings.

What with COVID-19, the end of the world, and everything, I have actually been playing D&D fairly regularly via Discord and Roll20. I started a very basic Keep on the Borderlands run for my group using Labyrinth Lord/AEC rules. Nothing exceptional to report, but it's been fun dusting of a classic like that.

Now, one of the little quirks of BX (as well as some other editions) is that distances and ranges (not Areas of Effect) are converted to yards in the wilderness (as opposed to feet indoors). More on that in a bit.


After a couple of wilderness encounters (some lizard folk and a random run-in with some giant boars), it got me thinking about the encounter sequence, specifically distances. In BX -and by extension LL- when there is a random encounter, the DM is supposed to roll to determine how far apart the party and the monster(s) are when they notice one another (assuming the terrain/floorplan doesn't dictate otherwise). In the dungeon, this roll is (2d6) x 10 feet. In the wilderness, it is (4d6) x 10 yards.

The changeover mostly makes sense. In a typical dungeon, the party is not moving very fast. They usually have very limited light, in unfamiliar territory, often tight quarters, etc. Ranged weapons are limited by low ceilings and crowded conditions. Outside, you can arc a shot much farther. [Though since taking up archery, I can say that the ranges in D&D for targeting a single, mobile target are ridiculous (e.g. bowhunting). Extreme long range with a modern compound bow in those circumstances is 70-80 yards, and that would be with severe penalties. But I digress.]

One of the pitfalls of encounter distance is that it can lead to an encounter getting stalled before it starts. In the case of the boars, the party's ranger spotted the boars over 200 yards away. This gave the party ample time to pepper them with spells and missiles as the pigs closed the distance. The party's druid slapped an Entangle spell on two of them and things ended fairly quick after that.

Now, I know that if this had been a straight BX game (no druids) and the random distance had been closer, things could have gone very differently. So I am not faulting the party or the rules. That's just how the dice go sometimes. In fact, I think the players were very wise to minimize their risk. It was a random encounter with creatures that typically carry no treasure. The risk/reward ratio was not in their favor here.

The DM may want to take a moment when setting up such an encounter to think about a few distance-related factors, especially in the wilderness. 1) Does the range that was rolled make sense? Maybe there are terrain features that make is unreasonable (tree cover, uneven ground, etc.)  2) Will these features affect things like movement rates, line of sight for spells, cover from missiles, etc.? 3) Remember that the implication is that, unless one side is surprised, both groups become aware of each other at the start of the encounter. If either side is surprised, the distance is reduced to a maximum of 40 yards (X23), so surprising an orc patrol 100 yards away is a no-go.

Because of things like this, I highly recommend going through all the steps "behind the screen" first and figure out the logical way to set things up before beginning to describe the situation to the players. The encounter in general will flow much more smoothly.