Something to Ponder: Work and Nutrition while Polymorphed

[Centaur]

Hypothetical Situation:

Person is transformed into a large animal such as a draft horse and uses this for to help in some very heavy work being done over the course of several hours. Once the work is complete, Polymorph is canceled and the person returns to normal.

Needless to say, a hard working draft horse expends much more energy than a hard working human. Especialy if it is being used to perform heavy labour.

Like in any life form, this energy comes from and is replaced by the creature comsuming food. Does the person need to consume enough food to compensate for the energy consumend as a horse, or does the magic of the spell make up the difference.

If he does need to compensate for the energy used as a polymorphed creature, would it have to be from a food type the horse normaly consumes (thereby requiring him to remain polymorphed), or is normal human food sufficient.

If you comsume a large amount of food while polymorphed into a large size creature, and then the spell is reversed and you return to normal size, what happens to the food. Is it subsumed, regurgitated or do you suffer some damge from a ruptured stomach wall?

Any thoughts.

 

[Umbran]

If we must resort to real-world science...

The horse is much, much bigger than the human. So, the magic already must provide some energy in the form of mass. So, dealing with adding or taking away a little extra metabolic energy in either transformation is no big deal. So, while he's a human, he eats like a human. While he's a horse, he eats like a horse. The spell can deal with any slop.

 

[BryonD]

Heh, exactly

If conservation of matter is thrown out the window, then conservation of energy goes with it (times C squared)

 

[Tom Cashel]

I liked the part where the stomach ruptured.