200 gnomes, in a boat, no wind. Help.

[Carpe DM]

Ok folks -- we have a problem in our Divine Comedy campaign (background is a fantasy version of 13th Century Italy). We made a hurried exit from town one step ahead of the forces of ethnic cleansing by hijacking the Frigate Si Fortuna, bringing the town's oppressed gnomish population with us. And by oppressed I mean torch-wielding mobs were involved.

We are now stranded, in a ship, no wind, for a non-trivial amount of time, with these gnomes.

It's up to me, the 5th level cloistered cleric, to keep these people alive. Purify food and water, on the salt water, should give me 40 gallons of drinkable water per day. That's 80 gnomes. I cast that three times (out of five cantrips), and we've solved our water problem.

But food is going to get us all killed. Create food and water is one, count 'em, one person per level per 24 hours. I get two non-domain third levels pells a day. That means I can cover 10 people. Any thoughts?

best,

Carpe

 

[Nifft]

Pray for wind?
Eat the gnomes?
Wood shape up some oars & oar-holes, and put them to work rowing?

Cheers, -- N

 

[Drowbane]

Suck it up and blow a hole in the bottom of the boat. That many gnomes in one place... /shudder

 

[Dargon]

start fishing

 

[WarShrike]

Encourage canabalism amongst the Gnome population. Or have the crew do some fishing. Use a Gnome or two as bait for catching sharks, lots of fishy goodness there. Ships always have tons of rope, that makes alot of nets, if anyone is proficient at Use Rope. Kill and eat any seabirds in the area. Spread out those 10 portions, if you got more than enough water, the Gnomes can go without food for a couple days. So if every Gnome eats half a portion, once every 3 days, thats 60 gnomes fed, or 80 every 4 days. Hope those Gnomes are fat so their bodies will have plenty to canabalize for what they need. Summon animals and have the crew eat em alive. If you're not a Gnome, find a safe place, as Gnomes will turn on others before turning on each other. Out of ideas.

WarShrike

 

[domino]

I'd point out two things.

One, people can go for up to 3 months without food and survive. It'll suck, but it's doable.

Two. DnD has no mechanic for starving to death.

 

[Zurai]

Two. DnD has no mechanic for starving to death.

Incorrect.

A character can go without water for 1 day plus a number of hours equal to his Constitution score. After this time, the character must make a Constitution check each hour (DC 10, +1 per previous check) or take 1d6 points of nonlethal damage.
A character can go without food for 3 days, in growing discomfort. After this time, the character must make a Constitution check each day (DC 10, +1 per previous check) or take 1d6 points of nonlethal damage.
Characters who have taken nonlethal damage from lack of food or water are fatigued. Nonlethal damage from thirst or starvation cannot be recovered until the character gets food or water, as needed -- not even magic that restores hit points (such as Cure Light Wounds) heals this damage.

Oh, by the way, that same entry contains something helpful: Medium creatures need 1 pound of food a day to survive, but small creatures need only half of that.

 

[gnfnrf]

Hmmm...

Are these gnomes stock gnome warrior 1, or some other default, or a mix? Depending on the Charisma scores of these gnomes, you may have up to 200 prestigitations, 200 ghost sounds, and 200 dancing lights to work with.

Each prestigitation can be used to a minor effect, but with 200 at once, possibilities open up.

If physics works in your world, heating or chilling 2000 cubic feet of air for one hour might be enough to create a breeze.

You could dye a total of 120,000 cubic feet of water (lasting an hour) as some sort of signal.

Ghost sound could also be used for a signal (the equivalent of 800 people.)

200 dancing lights would be awfully pretty. Maybe doing that at night would spook deepwater fish to the surface, where you could eat them (cleaning and flavoring them with prestigitation).

--
gnfnrf

 

[Arkhandus]

200 gnomes on the ship with you???

.....Dude, just tell the gnomes to get crackin', and they'll either scheme up a hairbrained but successful plan to get lots of fish, or turn your becalmed ship into a speedy deathmachine!

 

[Infiniti2000]

start fishing

I have 200 suggestions for what to use for bait.