D&D 5E Goodberries and Eberron

[Kurotowa]

After thinking about it, there's one convergence of circumstances where Goodberry really shines: feeding a group of up to a few dozen when supplies are short, foraging is impractical, and cookfires might be unwise.

So yes, an expedition into the Mournland is a great example of all three. But so would any trek through hostile and unfamiliar terrain, especially if time is a factor. That's everything from explorers to black ops infiltration. Another case type would be small scale disaster relief. You can't rest your whole food supply on one Druid, but if it's just a matter of feeding a small group of survivors in a remote location until they can be evacuated, Goodberry shines. Finally, Goodberry might be the right fit if you've got the equivalent of an offshore oil rig or polar research station. Somewhere remote and hostile with a small crew to feed, but important enough to budget for the one Magewright or low level Ghallanda caster to cast Goodberry once or twice a day.

 

[RSIxidor]

Are there rules for Goodberry Wine anywhere in the book? Or even a description of what it does or how it's made? All I noticed in my read through of Rising was one or two name checks of it as a thing that exists. Was it detailed more in a previous edition and I've forgotten about it since?

3.5 Eberron The Five Tribes has it as a wine that heals 8 damage, but you can only drink it once a day and get the benefit. I think this is because in 3.5, each character could benefit from up to 8 HP of goodberry healing a day. It also functions normally in the Mournlands (I haven't read the new book, so not sure if they kept that from old editions).

EDIT: Duration of Goodberry was 1 day/level, which still isn't that long even for a level 20, and it also only converted 2d4 worth of berries (doesn't scale with level).

EDIT2: This book doesn't tell us much about how its made, but it seems whatever the process is causes the berries potency to remain longer.

 

[tetrasodium]

3.5 Eberron The Five Tribes has it as a wine that heals 8 damage, but you can only drink it once a day and get the benefit. I think this is because in 3.5, each character could benefit from up to 8 HP of goodberry healing a day. It also functions normally in the Mournlands (I haven't read the new book, so not sure if they kept that from old editions).

There is a table with a d8 worth of fun environmental effects. The only one that explicitly effects healing is this "Healing spells are impeded here. Any spell that re·stores hit points does so as if it were cast at a level one lower than the spell slot expended. A spell cast using a 1 st-level slot restores no hit points. " although a few will effect people trying to cast spells (which obviously includes casting healing spells). They do a great job of being strange and unpredictably scary to PCs.

 

[ChaosOS]

Keith's talked about the Mournland changes - he always wanted the Mournland to be weirder rather than just anti-healing. So, he worked with JC n co to make the weird effects table.

 

[tetrasodium]

Keith's talked about the Mournland changes - he always wanted the Mournland to be weirder rather than just anti-healing. So, he worked with JC n co to make the weird effects table.

They do a nice job of getting there much better than the healing stuff alone

 

[TiwazTyrsfist]

Tangential, but I have always felt that, since Eberron is more developed infrastructure wise than most other settings, that commoners should have more money than in most settings.

We shouldn't be basing them on 10th century peasant farmers, we should be basing them on late 18th early 19th century commoners. There are large cities. People are as likely to be a clerk or a factory worker as they are to be a rural farmer. Freight shipping on the lightning rail and skyships means farmers can ship excess goods to high demand markets (like Sharn).

It's not the 10,000 peasant farmers supporting 20 knights and a king in a castle.
It's a couple hundred farmers with large farms supporting cities of up to half a million.

 

[tetrasodium]

Tangential, but I have always felt that, since Eberron is more developed infrastructure wise than most other settings, that commoners should have more money than in most settings.

We shouldn't be basing them on 10th century peasant farmers, we should be basing them on late 18th early 19th century commoners. There are large cities. People are as likely to be a clerk or a factory worker as they are to be a rural farmer. Freight shipping on the lightning rail and skyships means farmers can ship excess goods to high demand markets (like Sharn).

It's not the 10,000 peasant farmers supporting 20 knights and a king in a castle.
It's a couple hundred farmers with large farms supporting cities of up to half a million.

Indeed, but that Rising 151 Half a million people line is still dramatically lowball. There was a big discussion on it in discord a while back. We know that sharn is roughly manhattan stacked like legos eight times over based on stuff keith has said & the fact that it's a mile high. 1850 Manhattan census had a population of 500k, but the tallest building in the world at the time was only 5 stories from 1797-1885, from 1885-1889 it was ten, then quickly began exploding. At best, that 500k for sharn is only the official count of people who matter (ie "land" owners & such). The current population of manhattan is 1.629 million making the exact number of people in sharn Trivially well above eight to ten million people. Cities that are only "large" like Rekkenmark/Kings Citadel/etc are likely to easily have 500k pop though.


Your probably right on your other points though

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Tangential, but I have always felt that, since Eberron is more developed infrastructure wise than most other settings, that commoners should have more money than in most settings.

I don't think the two are necessarily linked. More infrastructure may mean more money overall, but not more money for the commoners...

We shouldn't be basing them on 10th century peasant farmers, we should be basing them on late 18th early 19th century commoners.

19th century commoners, especially factory workers, led more miserable lives than 13th peasants, mostly due to worsening labor conditions and higher population density. Industrialization led to even greater inequalities of wealth than was possible in a mostly rural economy, peaking in Victorian times. And standard of living were at their worst in mid-19th century, despite hugely improved overall GDP.

Did living standards improve during the Industrial Revolution? if you want some illustrations, the height and life expectancy graphs are especially telling...

There are large cities. People are as likely to be a clerk or a factory worker as they are to be a rural farmer. Freight shipping on the lightning rail and skyships means farmers can ship excess goods to high demand markets (like Sharn).

At prohibitive costs save for the elite. Which may be numerous enough to warrant the extensive lightning rail/aerial shipping, but supported by hordes of laborers nonetheless (especially if you want your Sharn gritty).

 

[TiwazTyrsfist]

I didn't say their lives were better, just that they had more money. They had more possessions, and they potentially had a few luxury items.

 

[tetrasodium]

I don't think the two are necessarily linked. More infrastructure may mean more money overall, but not more money for the commoners...



19th century commoners, especially factory workers, led more miserable lives than 13th peasants, mostly due to worsening labor conditions and higher population density. Industrialization led to even greater inequalities of wealth than was possible in a mostly rural economy, peaking in Victorian times. And standard of living were at their worst in mid-19th century, despite hugely improved overall GDP.

Did living standards improve during the Industrial Revolution? if you want some illustrations, the height and life expectancy graphs are especially telling...



At prohibitive costs save for the elite. Which may be numerous enough to warrant the extensive lightning rail/aerial shipping, but supported by hordes of laborers nonetheless (especially if you want your Sharn gritty).

I don't entirely agree or disagree, but there are some important points that dramatically modify things. Some f those are on the labor side, others on the creature comforts.

@ChaosOS mentioned labor conditions earlier & he couldn't have been more understated when he simply said that eberron needs a labor revolution. With regard to treatment of labor, Eberron no doubt has labor conditions in some segments of the economy that make the worst disposable slave labor sweatshops we have ever had look gentle. Worker safety was a huge concern for labor during the industrial revolution, but it would barely register in eberron with the availability of prostetic limbs far beyond even today's bleeding edge tech& herbal/magical medical treatments that likewise eclipse the kind of trauma recovery that even military medical research has yet to even be at a point where eberron's capabilities are on the horizon A prosthetic limb doesn't need to be the perfect replacement combat usable kind. it can be a much cheaper one that just works well enough to stop the screamer from bleeding & get them back to work. Beatings are/were common & they could be even more severe given magic & magewright healing. The 8hourx5day workweek (rather than 12 or 16+ hour 6 day) was on of the big wins of the industrial revolution; but toss in something like an enchanted bedroll that lets someone get 8 hours sleep in 4 or less & your looking at an 18-20 hour workday easily. Under those conditions today's suicide nets seem like positively quaint old news because of course factories install a featherfall wardnet around the building do as not to waste time replacing trained workers who try leaping off, plus that way the old shift can just go up & leap without traffic jams as the new shift makes their way in/up.

On the other side of the coin though, Eberron has (or should have) a lot of things soon if not already available* that were not available until the early/mid 1900s. Magic equivalent indoor plumbing, electric fans, centrail ac/heat not supplied by opening a window or lighting a fire, things we would recognize as modern kitchen appliances, food preserving self prestidigitated ice/cold boxes, etc,,, ot to mention stuff like a stable banking system, affordable theater productions, ample supply of soap, etc. Yea that day off is going to be few & brutally far apart, but it's going to be a different standard of living than in something like FR or Ravenloft & in a lot of ways even greyhawk.

The lowest tiers of society however are going to make the poorest beggar in waterdeep look like a king in some ways

* Being available doesn't mean they are cheap, that magehand fan might be a week's pay