Create Food and Water: Do You Want Fries with That?

Usable By: Artificer, Cleric, Paladin

Spell Level: 3

School: Conjuration

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 30 feet

Duration: Instantaneous

Components: V, S

You create 45 pounds of food and 30 gallons of water on the ground or in containers within range, enough to sustain up to fifteen humanoids or five steeds for 24 hours. The food is bland but nourishing, and spoils if uneaten after 24 hours. The water is clean and doesn’t go bad.

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

Most of the time when I’m considering spells I’m thinking about what it adds to my character first, then the party second. Create Food and Water adds nearly nothing to your character at the vast majority of tables simply because a lot of people don’t love playing in games where it does matter, and in games where it matters, it feels more like a spell tax than an actual problem you’re solving with Create Food and Water. In the context of the party, it can be your group's easy solution to hostile environmental travel, always being sure, no matter the distance or duration, you have food and water available. That isn’t the vast majority of environments; it's a subset of the hexcrawl style adventures, which is already a tiny portion of games being played.

Given that this isn’t a tool you’re basically ever going to want or need, instead I think Create Food and Water’s purpose lies in developing out worlds that have a solution to hunger via magic. Magical societies have unending access to food and water given enough 5th level clerics. This is the kind of spell that spurs ideas and plots on its own. With the power to make endless food and water, what if an organization took power and deliberately deprived the non-magical of food to create dependency, Mad Max: Fury Road style? Alternatively, maybe you don’t want NPCs with access to such powerful effects that clerics just are incredibly rare, with their mid tier magic being coveted by many. Courts want to keep their clerics happy and praised for what they offer in the forms of revival and feasting, and they fail to hear the plight of the hungry below them.

Outside world building implications, I don’t think you should spend much, if any, time thinking about Create Food and Water. If you want to make a game where you’re challenging players with potential of food scarcity and water shortages, this spell probably can’t exist of the game goes past level four, or clerics, genie warlocks, and land (desert) druids have to be off the table or this spell just solves that problem in its entirety. I’d encourage you to steer away from that form of game in 5th edition, as it can facilitate it, but not well, and other systems will definitely support that kind of game better.

5e Spells

Create Food and Water: Do You Want Fries with That?