D&D 5E (2014) Can You Milk A Conjured Cow?

[embee]

This question came up this week. My general ruling was "yes, by rules, the conjured cow can be milked. Milking isn't a hostile action, doesn't break concentration, and won't drop it to 0hp.

Now, the cow is, by rules, a fey creature in that it is a fey spirit that has taken the form of a beast (a cow). So that is another consideration. Also, it isn't food/drink that is being offered. It is being taken without invitation.

A) Do you think that a conjured cow could be milked?
B) If so, what would the effect of consuming fey food (in this case, milk) while in the Material Plane?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I mean, fair enough. That seems like a DM call. Maybe Fairy cows can spontaneously produce milk. But, then, that should be true of any animal you summon. FWIW, I've never met a cow that enjoyed being milked but none of them were fairies.

If fey cows could produce milk, fairies wouldn't be so obsessed with it.

Seriously, I'm of the opinion the creature, and anything removed from the creature, vanishes upon the end of the summoning. So drinking the milk wouldn't leave you nourished, you couldn't make leather from it's hide, etc. (If you Call the creature, however, that would work. Why anyone would waste such a spell on a fey cow is another story.) This is from 3e rules. I don't recall seeing any rules on this in 4e and 5e.

 

[MarkB]

Now I'm wondering about using conjured animals for spell components. Like, if you're all out of bat guano and you summon a bat and 'persuade' it to 'provide' the requisite component, will you successfully cast a fireball?

If you use that fireball to incinerate the bat, does it create a paradox?

 

[Dausuul]

This probably makes sense for a one hour summoning spell. If you get far enough into the process of digestion and cellular respiration, though, the chemical energy you obtain isn't necessarily being stored by the same atoms and molecules that made up the milk. If you're able to extend the summoning to that point, does that mean you get to keep the energy?

I don't think real-world physics applies to a D&D world at this level of detail. At some point, magic steps in and says "That isn't how physics works here," and by the time you get down to tracking individual summoned molecules, you're well past that point IMO.

But if you did want to track summoned atoms and molecules... drinking milk from a summoned cow would be Very Bad. If you sustain the summoning long enough for any real digestion to take place, all those atoms get integrated into your body. When the summons ends, they get ripped out of whatever molecules they are now part of--destroying proteins, mutilating genes, who knows what. I'm no expert, but I'd guess the symptoms would resemble radiation sickness (since radiation sickness is caused by the radiation ionizing random atoms in your body and breaking their chemical bonds).

On top of that, most of the water from the milk would still be in your system. Going to the bathroom wouldn't eliminate the specific water molecules that came from the milk--just a random sampling of water molecules from your body, enough to restore homeostasis. So you would experience sudden, sharp dehydration as all that water went poof.

Whether you got to keep the energy would be the least of your worries.

 

[the Jester]

If fey cows could produce milk, fairies wouldn't be so obsessed with it.

Seriously, I'm of the opinion the creature, and anything removed from the creature, vanishes upon the end of the summoning. So drinking the milk wouldn't leave you nourished, you couldn't make leather from it's hide, etc. (If you Call the creature, however, that would work. Why anyone would waste such a spell on a fey cow is another story.) This is from 3e rules. I don't recall seeing any rules on this in 4e and 5e.

Interesting sidebar question here- does that mean if you slaughter a bunch of summoned creatures without taking damage, you come out perfectly clean and mess-free (other than, perhaps, your hair and sweat)?

 

[MarkB]

Interesting sidebar question here- does that mean if you slaughter a bunch of summoned creatures without taking damage, you come out perfectly clean and mess-free (other than, perhaps, your hair and sweat)?

And then the rest of the party who've been beating down the conjurer turn around to see you with your pristine clothes and clean sword like "what were you doing this whole time?"

 

[J.Quondam]

Not so sure a conjured fey cow would even produce milk in the usual sense. I mean squeeze the teats and out squirts... Strawberry quik? Dancing flowers? A herd of tiny fey cows? Or maybe just music! The cow could be like a walking set of bagpipes.

 

[tetrasodium]

Some people have mentioned "real world knowledge" & "real world physsics", but I think there is another way of looking at it. Specifically common knowledge about how magic works in the world. There are a lot of ways to summon creatures & "can we eat it? How? What if we do it like this...". The overlord anime from a few years back skips that particular question but it's one of the earlier experiments Ainz orders to be done with the reader getting the occasional tidbit about those & other experiments across the 14 or so light novels. Here are some discoveries from this particular experiment I can remember:
[/spoiler]

• If a creature is injured & magically healed the missing & damaged parts are instantly replaced & the missing part vanishes... hmm.... what happens if the missing parts are not just forgotten blood spatter on the ground but currently doing something.
  • If creature A eats part of creature B what happens?... They both seem to be ok & the missing part is restored
    • What happens if a creature lives for a long period of time on this vanishing food?... they seem to be ok & do not develop unexpected malnourishment type conditions
      • Can we preserve the missing part and then restore the original creature with healing magic without making the preserved bit vanish?... Yes once we start preparing or cooking it for preservation the universe treats it as something new rather than just part of the original creature that would previously have vanished
        • Interesting.... what if instead of treating creature B like food we instead use the hide to make armor or the parchment for a scroll?.... The creature being allowed to heal naturally or being magically healed does not appear to impact the hide's capabilities in either case provided the normal physical & chemical treatments normally required to prepare the leather or parchment have begun.

[/spoiler]
With that kind of thing in place every conscript grunt would know that it pays to be nice to the casters able to summon even the weakest of creatures & probably learn why during the equivalent of basic training. After all even if they can't find food or wind up stuck in a siege with dwindling food it can be the difference between getting to eat some of the summoned critters that caster summons. The details & limits of what kind of things will/won't work is going to be a really easy thing for anyone who can cast the spell to come across by the time they finish learning the spell too... venison might be a bit gamey but it beats the heck out of hard tack rations & similar just as summoning a whale into a courtyard will allow a whole lot of people to eat if the chefs are quick & don't kill it. By extension there would probably be a lot of chefs & kitchen staff that know how to handle summoned creatures

 

[R_J_K75]

 

[Azzy]

This question came up this week. My general ruling was "yes, by rules, the conjured cow can be milked. Milking isn't a hostile action, doesn't break concentration, and won't drop it to 0hp.

Now, the cow is, by rules, a fey creature in that it is a fey spirit that has taken the form of a beast (a cow). So that is another consideration. Also, it isn't food/drink that is being offered. It is being taken without invitation.

A) Do you think that a conjured cow could be milked?

Sure, why not? Sounds neat.

B) If so, what would the effect of consuming fey food (in this case, milk) while in the Material Plane?

Ooh. I'd make a table of random effects (including a "nothing strange happens" result). Could be fun stuff—like temorarily growing donkey ears, the next spell you cast you have to roll on the wild magic table instead, a spell you cast is treated as if upcast one level higher (but doesn't consume the higher-level spell slot), ability to see invisible for a duration, etc.

 

[rgoodbb]

Now I'm wondering about using conjured animals for spell components. Like, if you're all out of bat guano and you summon a bat and 'persuade' it to 'provide' the requisite component, will you successfully cast a fireball?

If you use that fireball to incinerate the bat, does it create a paradox?

Pull the udder one. I am not amoosed
Sorry. Someone had to milk it.