D&D 5E 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?

 

[Stalker0]

Are there conjured animals that have any “manticore like attacks” where pieces of them fly off for damage?

that would reinforce the notion that pieces of a creature can leave it and still remain

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Has your conjured cow ever had a calf? Has it been consistently milked every day to ensure that it is still producing milk? If not, you can’t milk a conjured cow. Cows don’t naturally produce an infinite supply of milk. Their milk is farmed once they have a calf.

 

[rgoodbb]

Only if you tip it afterwards...

 

[Oofta]

You can milk it, but the milk goes away after the cow goes away.

 

[rgoodbb]

If is from conjure animals the text says The summoned creatures are friendly to you and your companions. So I don't think the without invitation part would be a problem

 

[DemoMonkey]

The milk would disappear when the conjuration ended.

So you could drink the milk. But when the spell ended you would find yourself hungry and thirsty again, suddenly.

Sounds like a good use for a Level of exhaustion.

Never try to trick the Fae. They're better at it than you are.

 

[Dausuul]

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.

My immediate impulse would be to say that yes, it can be milked; but the milk vanishes when the cow does. You can drink it, but will get no nourishment from it.

 

[LordEntrails]

If its a milk cow, sure. for me, anything conjured can do it's normal "stuff", whatever that is. But when the conjuring ends, it leaves behind nothing. Only it's impacts on the material world remain (just like damage it does), but it's milk or other parts go away.

That is, until my players try to use such in a way to break the game, then it detonates like a 9th level fireball!

 

[jgsugden]

When it comes to whether a spell can be used to do something that is not explicit in the spell, I usually have the spellcaster make a skill check with the related skill for the spell. Here, if the druid had the 'milking' in mind when they cast it, I'd set two DCs - one to get milk that disappears, and another to get milk that remains once the summoned creature disappears (that is higher). As these are both pretty reasonable, I'd set the DCs around 12 and 14. If they decided they wanted milk after they cast it, I'd assign a random chance the summoned cow could give milk and then just go with it.