What is a ring of sustenance worth to you?

[Dark Psion]

This is true. I tend to say my familiar (bat) catches bugs and other small critters during our travels, but now that you mention it, no one has fed our horses in about a year....

On a lighter note, when I made up my character oh so long ago, I must have thought it would be fun to select "chicken" from the list of items she could carry. Well, I forgot about the poor thing after the second game and only recently rediscovered it on my list of belongings. I asked about it, and the DM told me, have you been feeding it? I answered honestly, and it was determined that said chicken probably died a cruel and terrible death ages ago. I felt awful. I really did.

You had better see a cleric quickly, before the curse of the Poultrygeist strikes you!

 

[ejja_1]

One of my favorite phrases is that I need a 48 hour day to do all the stuff I need to get done. So yes I would deffinatley take the ring, the 2 full time and 1 part time job I would work would deffinatley make it worth it.

 

[frankthedm]

A kingdom of magic[Glantri by name and quite close to the Basic D&D country] has been producing a fair number of these little babys. Thier only known drawback is that the wearer is still hungry and still tired, the ring sustains them just enough to prevent fatigue and stavation/dehydration damage and wakes them once they have the needed rest [bio clock on 2 hour, rather than 8 hour]. Should the ring be taken off or the magic be surpressed for even a round, the wearer, unless he was sleeping, eating and dinking as much as he normally needed, winds up exhausted and taking a fair amount of starvation and dehydration damage. Of recent the rings have wound up in very key places for valuable guards and in the hands of several adventuring groups.

Unknown to most, there are very fragile magical gems tuned to the rings. when one of these gems are crushed, every one of these rings within a certain distance [often 20' to 100'] deactivates as if succesefully hit [overcome] with a targetted dispel.

evil...?

 

[Beale Knight]

Never mind being a resident of a fantasy world - in real life, such an item would be extremely valuable. I know I would take out a (couple of!) monstrous mortgages to get a hold of an item like that.

Tell me about it. I work nights and have a very active 2 year old boy who sleeps perfectly well through the night, leaving him bouncy and happy through the day - apart from the 2 1/2 - 3 hours of nap time about noon. During his days at home, if I get more than three hours sleep in a row it's a grand luxury - and the reason he goes to daycare twice a week; the Dad must get some solid sleep and they frown at that at work! (but it's worth every tired breath)

Rounding this back on topic - I had a Fighter in a previous campaign that got his finger in one, and it proved very valuble for the number one reason that seems to be coming up: he could stand extended guard duty at night, which helped the principle spellcasters of the group.

 

[Umbran]

The ring's value to normal folk (in either real or fantasy worlds) is sometimes a bit overstated, in one simple way - the six hours you gain are generally dark, and the rest of the world is inactive. The human world is built for diurnal critters, and mostly shuts down when folks are sleeping. Your activity would be largely limited to activities that are solitary. For many folks, this limits the productivity of the work, or the value of entertainment you'd get from them.

 

[Sejs]

the six hours you gain are generally dark, and the rest of the world is inactive.

This also being one of the reasons that it would be really, really boring being a vampire. There's nothing to do. Pretty much all the shops are closed. Heck, there's not even anything good on TV for most of the time you're up and about.

Actually I'm a little bit surprised ... the ring gives you more time for traveling? Studying ok, but traveling more than 8 hours per day won't be easier while wearing such a ring. People would still get exhausted after some time.

I know there's some magical boots out there somewhere that let you travel without getting fatigued. Just combine the two and you're set.


As for the spellcaster thing - the ring doesn't let you regain spells faster than normal, but that's for balance reasons, not logic ones. On the other hand, during those spare 6 hours that you need to rest-but-not-sleep you can still DO other things. Like work on new spells, learn how to cook, get some reading in... stuff like that. Heck, prep camp to break for the next morning so the group can pick up, have breakfast and get going faster than they would be able to otherwise.





Side note - mention of the elf thing made me realize something. Elven child rearing would be absolute friggin torture. Just think about it, not only does the horrible young stage last for-freakin'-ever, but the little bastards never go to sleep! Elven parents don't even get the 2am respite that normal parents get from their little monsters. Maybe that's the secret to elves low birth rates; they don't have poor fertility, it's just that if an elven couple's child just -happens- to disappear one day, none of the other elves ask any questions.

 

[Hypersmurf]

But you do sleep, for 2 hours. gaining the benifit of 8 hours of sleep. one of the benifits of 8 hours of sleep is 8 hours of restful calm. (perhaps it doesn't apply to elves, I don't play one so I haven't really thought about the rules for elves)

PHB p15: "Elves do not sleep, as members of the other common races do. Instead, an elf meditates in a deep trance for 4 hours a day. An elf resting in this fashion receives the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep."

PHB p178: "If a character does not need to sleep for some reason, she still must have 8 hours of restful calm before preparing any spells. For example, elf wizards need 8 hours of rest to clear their minds, even though they need only 4 hours of trance to refresh their bodies. Thus, an elf wizard could trance for 4 hours and rest for 4 hours, then prepare spells."

So, we can see that a/ 4 hours of trance provides the same benefit as 8 hours' sleep, and b/ 4 hours of trance does not allow a wizard to prepare spells.

Therefore, the benefit of 8 hours of sleep does not include the ability to prepare spells.

The description of the ring states "... its wearer needs only sleep 2 hours per day to gain the benefit of 8 hours of sleep."

As we've just shown that the benefit of 8 hours of sleep does not include the ability to prepare spells, someone wearing a Ring of Sustenance who sleeps for 2 hours does not gain the ability to prepare spells, and must therefore have another 6 hours of restful calm.

-Hyp.

 

[ElvishBard]

Fun With the Ring

I was playing as a gnomish bard and had the ring but none of my companions did so while they slept I would hide their armor and valuables and all sorts of things, it was pretty funny when they woke up because all their stuff was hanging in trees.