D&D 5E Waterskins (apparently every adventuring party in history died of thirst)

[FormerlyHemlock]

Another oddity: characters can survive without food for 3 days + Con modifier (minimum of 1).

What's to stop them from only eating 1 ration every 4 days?

The same thing that stops me from eating rations only once every 4 days. ;-)

 

[Ancalagon]

It seems like a lot of water for a day...

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[discosoc]

Nothing.

Anyway, that is incredibly short a time. People have survived for weeks during hunger strikes, some for as long as 70 days. In D&D, with 20 con, your max is 14 days.

Those people are probably not living an active adventuring lifestyle, either. Also, wouldn't 7 days be your time frame with a 20 CON?

 

[discosoc]

It seems like a lot of water for a day...

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Not for people as active as adventurers are. Actually most people in real life drink too little water anyway.

 

[Ancalagon]

Not for people as active as adventurers are. Actually most people in real life drink too little water anyway.

Are you going on about the "you should drink 8 glasses of water a day" thing? Because that's a myth you know.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/upshot/no-you-do-not-have-to-drink-8-glasses-of-water-a-day.html

TLR the origin of the myth is a 1945 nutrition recommendation that stated that most people needed 2.5 litres of water a day... completely ignoring the following sentence from that recommendation, which stated that the majority of that would come from food (which contains a lot of water).

 

[corwyn77]

Those people are probably not living an active adventuring lifestyle, either. Also, wouldn't 7 days be your time frame with a 20 CON?

You can go 3 + con bonus days (8) without food. Every day after that you gain a level of exhaustion so you would die on day 14.

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

A waterskin holds 4 pints of water, which is equal to 1/2 gallon. According to the food and water rules (PHB, p. 170), a character needs to drink 1 gallon of water a day to stave off exhaustion and death.

So, assuming each character is traveling with a waterskin (which not every background provides), the average party can survive outside of town for about... half a day.

This means that the average level-1 party will die of thirst long before they even reach a dungeon.

So... Does anyone actually use waterskins in their game? If so, how?

When traveling the group basicly moves from water source to water surce, so you only need to take enough water with you to travel to the next camp site.

This might also lead to encounters, as the amount of good camp sites with a water source might be limited

 

[Prakriti]

Moving from water source to water source makes sense. I guess any overland travel is going to involve daily Survival checks then. Food isn't an issue, with rations being so simple, but the characters will be living day-by-day when it comes to water.

Also, I'm not sure how all this will play out in a dungeon. The characters will certainly want to carry extra waterskins with them, but even 4 waterskins apiece is going to translate to only 2 days of comfort.

Should be interesting.

 

[GameOgre]

Oh Gods! Not this again! I had this debate 40 years ago with my best friend and it lead to my characters death and his character drinking his own pee in order to survive,

Some subjects should not be broached! There is no fun and even slightly realistic answer to this debate. Just stop now and slowly back away from this subject and talk about something safe like Paladin alignments or real world religion and politics in game.

For your own sake before it's too late.

Walk away!

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Moving from water source to water source makes sense. I guess any overland travel is going to involve daily Survival checks then.

Only if you want it to. Me, I'm fine with saying "you travel for three weeks" and assuming they encounter a water source with enough regularity not for it to be a worry. Remember, after all, that people actually do this. The Canterbury Tales are not a harrowing account of the pilgrims' desperate daily search for water. In a relatively hospitable environment, like medieval England or the Standard Fantasy Setting, the water supply does not seem to be a major concern for travelers. If the party's crossing a desert or something, of course, the situation changes. Nothing I or anyone else has said here should be taken to apply to Athas!

Also, I'm not sure how all this will play out in a dungeon. The characters will certainly want to carry extra waterskins with them, but even 4 waterskins apiece is going to translate to only 2 days of comfort.

Fantasy dungeons are the opposite extreme: they're waaay more hospitable than any real-life cave system would ever be. Nothing as large and energetic as a human could ever "live off the land" underground: there's a reason actual cave animals tend towards tiny and slow-moving. But in a universe where subterranean life-forms are generally bigger than their surface counterparts, who the heck knows what's possible?