Stranded in far off and desolate tundras, treading far from any townstead and without food, a Druid can produce a goodberry and feed the party indefinitely.
Standing amidst a farming settlement whose crops were burnt, leaving an village without work, money, or food, a Druid spends a day casting Plant Growth and restores the village tenfold.
Shambling through the intense and grueling heats of a hateful tundra, a druid can produce 10 gallons of water at the flick of the wrist.
I can go on, and I'm not bashing the druid by any means. They're unique and fun and an overall amazing class; definitely one of the strongest ones in 5th edition. However, I keep finding difficulty in balancing these factors without also destroying their identities as servants of nature. I've obviously been bouncing around more than a handful ideas regarding these issues, but I'm curious or an outsider's perspective.
Stranded in far off and desolate tundras, treading far from any townstead and without food, a Druid can produce a goodberry and feed the party indefinitely.
Standing amidst a farming settlement whose crops were burnt, leaving an village without work, money, or food, a Druid spends a day casting Plant Growth and restores the village tenfold.
Shambling through the intense and grueling heats of a hateful tundra, a druid can produce 10 gallons of water at the flick of the wrist.
I can go on, and I'm not bashing the druid by any means. They're unique and fun and an overall amazing class; definitely one of the strongest ones in 5th edition. However, I keep finding difficulty in balancing these factors without also destroying their identities as servants of nature. I've obviously been bouncing around more than a handful ideas regarding these issues, but I'm curious or an outsider's perspective.
Stranded in far off lands, an adventurer carries rations for weeks to months and can (survival check) forage or hunt for food indefinitely.
Standing amidst a farming settlement whose crops were burnt, the Druid has the choice to restore the village or go after the people responsible. And what about the crops In the next village when the people get wind of the Druid giving everyone a free boost? And after a season of “spreading the wealth” what happens when the bottom falls out of the kingdom’s wheat market and the whole economy crashes?
Shambling through the desert the Druid, who can produce 10 gallons of water at the flick of a wrist, is taken hostage by some desert gang and is forced to only produce water as the new well for the settlement.
I think any real world with the types of magic that are common to the typical adventurer would work much differently than ours does or did. This isn’t really a Druid problem.
If you want a hardcore survival campaign, ban druids. And maybe Rangers as well. Anything that would "balance" them would be a big nerf; this is what Druids do.
You could make them alignment restricted, or very dogma restricted. The way paladins used to be. It would make them less user friendly without actually changing the class at all.
My first thought tho was talk to your players, they might not want to play a druid. Who knows they might not even want to be game breaking your game.
You can house rule that needed material components are consumed for those spells so you can control the frequency of their use (definitely dont ban entire classes, that is the worst solution).
Stranded in far off and desolate tundras, treading far from any townstead and without food, a Druid can produce a goodberry and feed the party indefinitely.
If you make goodberry consume it's component, you cannot handwave it off with a focus or component pouch. Suddenly Mistletoe is a yet another thing the group is looking for to survive your desolate tundra. The druid's ability to turn a simple sprig into food for 2ish days still gets to shine, and they're not an infinite food/water vending machine.
Standing amidst a farming settlement whose crops were burnt, leaving an village without work, money, or food, a Druid spends a day casting Plant Growth and restores the village tenfold.
Well, two fold, but your point stands. You might consider removing this portion of the spell if you don't want your druid getting into the farming game in a big way.
Shambling through the intense and grueling heats of a hateful tundra, a druid can produce 10 gallons of water at the flick of the wrist.
The cleric can do this also. So can Artificers, water Genasi and I assume many more I haven't thought of. Back to create/destroy water though, the goodberry solution won't work here because the material component is trivial (drop of water). If getting water specifically is going to be a really large part of your campaign, you're going to want to do something to this spell (new component that's harder to find, ban it, whatever).
Helping the group survive the wilds is something a Druid SHOULD be good at. The wilds is what they're all about. Just running through wholesale and banning stuff likely isn't the best approach.
Whatever you do with this, be sure to tell your players waaay ahead of time (like a session 0, or even pre-session 0). D&D, by it's structure, isn't going to do gritty realism well without some tweaking for the reasons you describe; there are a LOT of tools to just handwave away the "tedium" of survival and get back to the heroic deeds. You and your players NEED to be on the same page so that when one of these things come along, your players either don't bother with it, or bring it to your attention so you can figure out some kind of compromise.
You might look up some info on Dark Sun or other settings if you're looking for ideas for how to handle this kind of stuff also.
You can house rule that needed material components are consumed for those spells so you can control the frequency of their use (definitely dont ban entire classes, that is the worst solution).
That's what I would call a "big nerf." I wouldn't want to play a class if their spells cost materials that they shouldn't when other classes' don't. There's nothing I can think of that would prevent druids from having the ability to excel in virtually all survival situations that wouldn't be impeding the class and what they can do.
If you think that banning a class is an awful solution, fair enough I suppose, but I disagree. I've seen plenty of games where the DM disallows certain races or classes and it works just fine; sometimes a specific race or class really would break your world, and there's nothing wrong with removing them or multiple.
Granted, if you really want to play a game with intense survival there are better options than DnD 5e.
You can house rule that needed material components are consumed for those spells so you can control the frequency of their use (definitely dont ban entire classes, that is the worst solution).
That's what I would call a "big nerf." I wouldn't want to play a class if their spells cost materials that they shouldn't when other classes' don't.
There's nothing I can think of that would prevent druids from having the ability to excel in virtually all survival situations that wouldn't be impeding the class and what they can do.
If you think that banning a class is an awful solution, fair enough I suppose, but I disagree. I've seen plenty of games where the DM disallows certain races or classes and it works just fine; sometimes a specific race or class really would break your world, and there's nothing wrong with removing them or multiple.
Granted, if you really want to play a game with intense survival there are better options than DnD 5e.
It is only nerfing 3 spells that in most campaigns are not even essential. And all 3 of these spells are on multiple class spell lists, so it is far from a targeted nerf.
At least 4 classes can learn 1 of these spells, are you suggesting that it is better to ban all 4 of them rather than just limit the use of these spells?
As an aside, I could see banning races and maybe subclasses depending on setting, but disagree with banning an entire class.
That's true and fair, but the heart of the issue stands.
If I am bothering to take Goodberry and/or Create or Destroy Water, I'm doing it so I don't have to deal with needing food and water in the wilderness. If my DM then said "Oh you can't cast that because you don't have Misteltoe and you're in the middle of the desert so you can't find any" I'd be pretty miffed.
Obviously that's where talking to your party beforehand comes in, but if I was told "this is going to be a heavy survival campaign and these spells will require the components and use them upon casting" I definitely wouldn't bother being that class or at least taking those spells - I can't imagine many people would - so at that point you may as well just ban the class/spells. Unless you're going to give your Druid opportunities to harvest mistletoe, in which case what's the point of limiting them? One way or another it would be a very pedantic to both keep track of and limit.
That said, I honestly wouldn't suggest any of that; 5e isn't made for hardcore survival, and if you do want to do it your best bet is probably to find ways to stop your party from taking any Rests as much as possible or change the mechanics of how resting/spell recovery works. However that can get very sluggish unless it's done creatively.
My best suggestion is if you want to do a survival game, find another tabletop that's geared towards it. If you REALLY want to do it in DnD, it's probably easiest if you at least just ban the spells that make survival a non-issue. Unfortunately there's a lot of those.
Obviously house rules that impact player choices should be laid out before the choices are made.
Just because you dont feel a class is as viable by limitations does not mean that someone else feels the same, so a class should not be banned over 1 spell.
The point of limiting a spell is to limit it, not remove it entirely. Should magic items be banned since they are in limited supply? No. So why use that line of thinking for spell components?
It really isn't hard to do a survival game in 5e. There are even grittier rule options that support it. There are just a small handful of things that could break that game type that need to be addressed as well (namely spells that create food, water, or shelter and foraging).
I'm not saying the class isn't viable because of those. I've played Druids, and never once taken Goodberry or Create or Destroy Water. However, if I knew we were about to go into an environment where food and water would be scarce, I would prepare them. If it was Houseruled that they used the components, I would stock up on a bunch of Mistletoe sprigs and a couple canteens of water - wouldn't really be hard, I'm not sure how many sprigs of mistletoe grow in a single plant but I'm pretty sure it's dozens, and they wouldn't be expensive. If this is possible, why bother limiting it at all?
On the other hand, if the campaign started in some desolate area, I would presume my Druid would have those components on them - unless the story started with the party just being dropped/teleported there or something. I just think it would be very pedantic to try and limit these specific spells. There's certainly no realistic way to prevent the Druid from gathering a load of mistletoe if you're giving them the opportunity to gather any, and if you aren't giving them the opportunity to gather any why not just ban the spell?
There's a reason that the only spells that actually consume components are the ones that have very rare and/or expensive components. Gathering a load of common, cheap components is simple, and having them be consumed is just inane minutiae. If you find a single bush of mistletoe sprigs, you can now cast the spell at least a dozen times.
Survival can be done in 5e, but starvation mechanics are by far the weakest part of it (unless nobody in the party has the ability to cast any of these spells.) Terrible weather and horrific monsters stalking you or the like are much better for it, but even they have spells that make them easily avoidable. They just tend to be higher than 1st level.
It could be fun for the start of the game - (Out of the Abyss spoilers) say in a game like Out of the Abyss where you start as a prisoner in the Underdark, you're gonna have a hard time gathering mistletoe for your spell. But as soon as you get the opportunity to do so, the whole "gathering food is a challenge" thing goes out the window.
You could just make a rule that in your game spells or abilities that result in the creation of consumable food or water either do not work at all or work at a greatly reduced rate (for example, a spell to create potable water only produces 1/2 or 1/4 of the stated amount, or it is effective to create water but the water is not fit for consumption), and let the players know that before character creation. You can make that a random rule or you can concoct a story as to why it is happening. If someone still wants to play a druid they can avoid those types of spells, which IMO is still perfectly workable.
You absolutely could do that, and odds are people will not pick those spells as they're far less useful than intended. In which case, if you're going to go through the effort of changing several spells to be far less effective than they should be, why not just not allow those spells?
I guess someone may still take them... but I doubt it. Seems like a waste of a prepared spell, when they're only partially as effective as they should be.
You absolutely could do that, and odds are people will not pick those spells as they're far less useful than intended. In which case, if you're going to go through the effort of changing several spells to be far less effective than they should be, why not just not allow those spells?
I guess someone may still take them... but I doubt it. Seems like a waste of a prepared spell, when they're only partially as effective as they should be.
But that partial effectiveness is amplified by the theme of the adventure. Normally, a spell that makes food or water for a day is just a nicety, but not that great. In a survival setting, it straight up breaks the adventure. So a weakened version of the same spell would be useless normally, but extremely helpful in survival.
Even if the spell cant replace a day's worth of food, if ut can make your food last twice as long, it could be worth it.
I would balance druid, in this context, by increasing the demand on them. The druid may cross the tundra well fed but what about the displaced villagers he is escorting. The crops were burnt for a reason... and if the evil baron finds out a druid interloper has stayed the sentence of the town... well. In my experience a create water spell in a desert is just asking for a sandstorm.
actually mechanical "balance" is not something I would advise. its alot of work to implement right and, as mentioned above, it could affect player agency if they had assumed a RAW world.
I would allow them to feel like heroes. Players generally set their own difficulties and if they knew they were going to a harsh environment and chose to play a druid or ranger then they are just trying to play smart. Let them do so and feel good. There are other ways to throw a challenge and now they have two less spell slots per day to use against the monsters.
Gritty and realistic setting doesn't quite go with high-enough-level-to-drop-a-lot-of-spells. Characters of a certain level are just not troubled by things like food and water and weather.
But solutions and caveats.
Goodberry: IIRC previous editions had the Goodberry spell TRANSFORM a handful of berries into goodberries. The idea is that finding one bush in the wild could sustain a small group for the day rather than requiring hours of foraging and hunting. So it wouldn't be too harsh of a rule to require actual berries or the equivalent (fruit of a desert/tundra plant?). Finding that fruit in the harshest of environments might take hours but you could then sustain a small group.
Plant Growth, 8 hour: Not sure which casting of this spell is saving a village but the 8 hour version just increases crop production for a year, not restore the burning and salting of a field. Maybe it could reverse a burning or salting instead but that's restoring the fields for the season's growth rather than returning the destroyed harvest so the village might still be in trouble until their newly planted seeds turn into edible crops after a growing season.
Plant Growth, 1 action: The quick version of the spell produces an area of overgrowth to inhibit movement. A clever player might think of this to turn a field into a ready to pick crop but to me it always seemed more of thick vines and roots and branches rather than increasing the fruits. In fact, such a casting might destroy the existing fruits by turning them thick and tough.
Create Water: This could be a solution to desert survival but there is the limitation of having a suitable vessel for water or way to collect the resultant rain. Ten gallons of water is pretty big and pretty heavy. Hiking through the desert means you'll need to drag along a pretty big bowl and a lot of jugs and skins because if you just use a depression in the ground or cause rain you'll lose the water.
One other thing to consider is what all these survival spells will do to your spell resources. I played a game once where I was a cleric (in a previous edition...3.5?). The scenario was that the region was getting really hot to the point of making Constitution rolls. I had the Endure Elements spell (and another caster might have had it as well) so we could avoid those rolls with a simple 1st level spell. This seems like exactly the thing that would ruin the gritty realism of a survival scenario, right?
But, once you consider that between the two casters, we were casting the spell eight times each day for the four party members and our four horses. We couldn't really save any NPCs or villagers along our route and when we did get into combat, each of us were down four 1st level spells which left us with only a few spells for combat or healing or utility and mostly reducing my cleric to a weaker version of a fighter with spells saved for emergency healing.
In the OPs worries, the druid might be breaking through much of the grit and realism but it might cost them many spells, leaving them with cantrips and a scimitar. Enough bandits and monsters might make them question their spell priorities or find mundane solutions for survival. And there is still the impact to the world around them that makes survival feel real.
I largely agree with Antesse's suggestions and thoughts on this subject.
I might also consider changing the spell level of Create/Destroy Water so that it takes up a 2nd level slot as a houserule that you announce before people decide what classes to pick.
I know this is an older thread, but you might also just consider leaving the results to a die-roll or arcane/nature check.
Let's take, for instance, Create Water. If we use a die roll, we can take the existing results and find a dice that corresponds with it. 10 gallons = 1d10. Already, by saying that cast water is now a die roll, we've made it harder. Let's give the players a nibble now. Let's let them add their caster level divided by 2 to it. Now you're thinking, "Wait a minute, at level 20 they could make 20 gallons of water instead of 10!" And you're right, but at level 20, they're halfway to being gods, so I'm cool with that. And not only that, but we're gonna add a little more to the spell. A little more grit and grind.
Let's take terrain and divide it into three types, Humid, Moderate, and Arid.
Humid Terrain: Terrain with a lot of water in it, like a snow-capped mountain or a jungle or the middle of the ocean, is humid. You add 5 to your total result.
Moderate Terrain: This is common land. Most of the world is moderate terrain. Your total result suffers no negative modifier.
Arid Terrain: Deserts, rocky badlands, the Plane of Hell. Your total result is divided in half.
Now let's rewrite the spell.
Create or Destroy Water
1st Level Transmutation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 30 feet
Components: V S M (A drop of water if creating water or a few grains of sand if destroying it)
Duration: Instantaneous
Classes: Cleric, Druid
You either create or destroy water. Create Water. You create clean water within range in an open container. The amount of water created is 1d10 + half of your Caster Level rounded down, in gallons. Alternatively, the water falls as rain in a 30-foot cube within range, extinguishing exposed flames in the area. Destroy Water. You destroy up to 10 gallons of water in an open container within range. Alternatively, you destroy fog in a 30-foot cube within range.
At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, you create or destroy 1d10 additional gallons of water, or the size of the cube increases by 5 feet, for each slot level above 1st.
The terrain you are casting this spell in can affect the amount of water produced.
Humid Terrain: Terrain with a lot of water in it, like a snow-capped mountain or a jungle or the middle of the ocean, is humid. Add 5 gallons to your total result.
Moderate Terrain: This is common land. Most of the world is moderate terrain. Your total result receives no modifier.
Arid Terrain: Deserts, rocky badlands, the Plane of Hell. Your total number of gallons are divided in half.
So, now we've got a spell with a lot of nuances in it, but I don't think it's harder to understand or anything. I think it offers an unpredictable result, and yet at the same time, allows it to react to the environment.And yes, in the right environment and with the right roll, you might get more water than the spell initially allows. Why? Because I've learned that when I take something away, I get the best reactions when I give something in return.
Stranded in far off and desolate tundras, treading far from any townstead and without food, a Druid can produce a goodberry and feed the party indefinitely.
Standing amidst a farming settlement whose crops were burnt, leaving an village without work, money, or food, a Druid spends a day casting Plant Growth and restores the village tenfold.
Shambling through the intense and grueling heats of a hateful tundra, a druid can produce 10 gallons of water at the flick of the wrist.
I can go on, and I'm not bashing the druid by any means. They're unique and fun and an overall amazing class; definitely one of the strongest ones in 5th edition. However, I keep finding difficulty in balancing these factors without also destroying their identities as servants of nature. I've obviously been bouncing around more than a handful ideas regarding these issues, but I'm curious or an outsider's perspective.
Stranded in far off lands, an adventurer carries rations for weeks to months and can (survival check) forage or hunt for food indefinitely.
Standing amidst a farming settlement whose crops were burnt, the Druid has the choice to restore the village or go after the people responsible. And what about the crops In the next village when the people get wind of the Druid giving everyone a free boost? And after a season of “spreading the wealth” what happens when the bottom falls out of the kingdom’s wheat market and the whole economy crashes?
Shambling through the desert the Druid, who can produce 10 gallons of water at the flick of a wrist, is taken hostage by some desert gang and is forced to only produce water as the new well for the settlement.
I think any real world with the types of magic that are common to the typical adventurer would work much differently than ours does or did. This isn’t really a Druid problem.
If you want a hardcore survival campaign, ban druids. And maybe Rangers as well. Anything that would "balance" them would be a big nerf; this is what Druids do.
You could make them alignment restricted, or very dogma restricted. The way paladins used to be. It would make them less user friendly without actually changing the class at all.
My first thought tho was talk to your players, they might not want to play a druid. Who knows they might not even want to be game breaking your game.
You can house rule that needed material components are consumed for those spells so you can control the frequency of their use (definitely dont ban entire classes, that is the worst solution).
If you make goodberry consume it's component, you cannot handwave it off with a focus or component pouch. Suddenly Mistletoe is a yet another thing the group is looking for to survive your desolate tundra. The druid's ability to turn a simple sprig into food for 2ish days still gets to shine, and they're not an infinite food/water vending machine.
Well, two fold, but your point stands. You might consider removing this portion of the spell if you don't want your druid getting into the farming game in a big way.
The cleric can do this also. So can Artificers, water Genasi and I assume many more I haven't thought of. Back to create/destroy water though, the goodberry solution won't work here because the material component is trivial (drop of water). If getting water specifically is going to be a really large part of your campaign, you're going to want to do something to this spell (new component that's harder to find, ban it, whatever).
Helping the group survive the wilds is something a Druid SHOULD be good at. The wilds is what they're all about. Just running through wholesale and banning stuff likely isn't the best approach.
Whatever you do with this, be sure to tell your players waaay ahead of time (like a session 0, or even pre-session 0). D&D, by it's structure, isn't going to do gritty realism well without some tweaking for the reasons you describe; there are a LOT of tools to just handwave away the "tedium" of survival and get back to the heroic deeds. You and your players NEED to be on the same page so that when one of these things come along, your players either don't bother with it, or bring it to your attention so you can figure out some kind of compromise.
You might look up some info on Dark Sun or other settings if you're looking for ideas for how to handle this kind of stuff also.
That's what I would call a "big nerf."
I wouldn't want to play a class if their spells cost materials that they shouldn't when other classes' don't.
There's nothing I can think of that would prevent druids from having the ability to excel in virtually all survival situations that wouldn't be impeding the class and what they can do.
If you think that banning a class is an awful solution, fair enough I suppose, but I disagree. I've seen plenty of games where the DM disallows certain races or classes and it works just fine; sometimes a specific race or class really would break your world, and there's nothing wrong with removing them or multiple.
Granted, if you really want to play a game with intense survival there are better options than DnD 5e.
It is only nerfing 3 spells that in most campaigns are not even essential. And all 3 of these spells are on multiple class spell lists, so it is far from a targeted nerf.
At least 4 classes can learn 1 of these spells, are you suggesting that it is better to ban all 4 of them rather than just limit the use of these spells?
As an aside, I could see banning races and maybe subclasses depending on setting, but disagree with banning an entire class.
That's true and fair, but the heart of the issue stands.
If I am bothering to take Goodberry and/or Create or Destroy Water, I'm doing it so I don't have to deal with needing food and water in the wilderness. If my DM then said "Oh you can't cast that because you don't have Misteltoe and you're in the middle of the desert so you can't find any" I'd be pretty miffed.
Obviously that's where talking to your party beforehand comes in, but if I was told "this is going to be a heavy survival campaign and these spells will require the components and use them upon casting" I definitely wouldn't bother being that class or at least taking those spells - I can't imagine many people would - so at that point you may as well just ban the class/spells. Unless you're going to give your Druid opportunities to harvest mistletoe, in which case what's the point of limiting them? One way or another it would be a very pedantic to both keep track of and limit.
That said, I honestly wouldn't suggest any of that; 5e isn't made for hardcore survival, and if you do want to do it your best bet is probably to find ways to stop your party from taking any Rests as much as possible or change the mechanics of how resting/spell recovery works. However that can get very sluggish unless it's done creatively.
My best suggestion is if you want to do a survival game, find another tabletop that's geared towards it. If you REALLY want to do it in DnD, it's probably easiest if you at least just ban the spells that make survival a non-issue. Unfortunately there's a lot of those.
Obviously house rules that impact player choices should be laid out before the choices are made.
Just because you dont feel a class is as viable by limitations does not mean that someone else feels the same, so a class should not be banned over 1 spell.
The point of limiting a spell is to limit it, not remove it entirely. Should magic items be banned since they are in limited supply? No. So why use that line of thinking for spell components?
It really isn't hard to do a survival game in 5e. There are even grittier rule options that support it. There are just a small handful of things that could break that game type that need to be addressed as well (namely spells that create food, water, or shelter and foraging).
I'm not saying the class isn't viable because of those. I've played Druids, and never once taken Goodberry or Create or Destroy Water. However, if I knew we were about to go into an environment where food and water would be scarce, I would prepare them. If it was Houseruled that they used the components, I would stock up on a bunch of Mistletoe sprigs and a couple canteens of water - wouldn't really be hard, I'm not sure how many sprigs of mistletoe grow in a single plant but I'm pretty sure it's dozens, and they wouldn't be expensive. If this is possible, why bother limiting it at all?
On the other hand, if the campaign started in some desolate area, I would presume my Druid would have those components on them - unless the story started with the party just being dropped/teleported there or something. I just think it would be very pedantic to try and limit these specific spells. There's certainly no realistic way to prevent the Druid from gathering a load of mistletoe if you're giving them the opportunity to gather any, and if you aren't giving them the opportunity to gather any why not just ban the spell?
There's a reason that the only spells that actually consume components are the ones that have very rare and/or expensive components. Gathering a load of common, cheap components is simple, and having them be consumed is just inane minutiae. If you find a single bush of mistletoe sprigs, you can now cast the spell at least a dozen times.
Survival can be done in 5e, but starvation mechanics are by far the weakest part of it (unless nobody in the party has the ability to cast any of these spells.) Terrible weather and horrific monsters stalking you or the like are much better for it, but even they have spells that make them easily avoidable. They just tend to be higher than 1st level.
It could be fun for the start of the game - (Out of the Abyss spoilers) say in a game like Out of the Abyss where you start as a prisoner in the Underdark, you're gonna have a hard time gathering mistletoe for your spell. But as soon as you get the opportunity to do so, the whole "gathering food is a challenge" thing goes out the window.
You could just make a rule that in your game spells or abilities that result in the creation of consumable food or water either do not work at all or work at a greatly reduced rate (for example, a spell to create potable water only produces 1/2 or 1/4 of the stated amount, or it is effective to create water but the water is not fit for consumption), and let the players know that before character creation. You can make that a random rule or you can concoct a story as to why it is happening. If someone still wants to play a druid they can avoid those types of spells, which IMO is still perfectly workable.
You absolutely could do that, and odds are people will not pick those spells as they're far less useful than intended. In which case, if you're going to go through the effort of changing several spells to be far less effective than they should be, why not just not allow those spells?
I guess someone may still take them... but I doubt it. Seems like a waste of a prepared spell, when they're only partially as effective as they should be.
But that partial effectiveness is amplified by the theme of the adventure. Normally, a spell that makes food or water for a day is just a nicety, but not that great. In a survival setting, it straight up breaks the adventure. So a weakened version of the same spell would be useless normally, but extremely helpful in survival.
Even if the spell cant replace a day's worth of food, if ut can make your food last twice as long, it could be worth it.
I would balance druid, in this context, by increasing the demand on them. The druid may cross the tundra well fed but what about the displaced villagers he is escorting. The crops were burnt for a reason... and if the evil baron finds out a druid interloper has stayed the sentence of the town... well. In my experience a create water spell in a desert is just asking for a sandstorm.
actually mechanical "balance" is not something I would advise. its alot of work to implement right and, as mentioned above, it could affect player agency if they had assumed a RAW world.
Jesus Saves!... Everyone else takes damage.
I would allow them to feel like heroes. Players generally set their own difficulties and if they knew they were going to a harsh environment and chose to play a druid or ranger then they are just trying to play smart. Let them do so and feel good. There are other ways to throw a challenge and now they have two less spell slots per day to use against the monsters.
Gritty and realistic setting doesn't quite go with high-enough-level-to-drop-a-lot-of-spells. Characters of a certain level are just not troubled by things like food and water and weather.
But solutions and caveats.
Goodberry: IIRC previous editions had the Goodberry spell TRANSFORM a handful of berries into goodberries. The idea is that finding one bush in the wild could sustain a small group for the day rather than requiring hours of foraging and hunting. So it wouldn't be too harsh of a rule to require actual berries or the equivalent (fruit of a desert/tundra plant?). Finding that fruit in the harshest of environments might take hours but you could then sustain a small group.
Plant Growth, 8 hour: Not sure which casting of this spell is saving a village but the 8 hour version just increases crop production for a year, not restore the burning and salting of a field. Maybe it could reverse a burning or salting instead but that's restoring the fields for the season's growth rather than returning the destroyed harvest so the village might still be in trouble until their newly planted seeds turn into edible crops after a growing season.
Plant Growth, 1 action: The quick version of the spell produces an area of overgrowth to inhibit movement. A clever player might think of this to turn a field into a ready to pick crop but to me it always seemed more of thick vines and roots and branches rather than increasing the fruits. In fact, such a casting might destroy the existing fruits by turning them thick and tough.
Create Water: This could be a solution to desert survival but there is the limitation of having a suitable vessel for water or way to collect the resultant rain. Ten gallons of water is pretty big and pretty heavy. Hiking through the desert means you'll need to drag along a pretty big bowl and a lot of jugs and skins because if you just use a depression in the ground or cause rain you'll lose the water.
One other thing to consider is what all these survival spells will do to your spell resources. I played a game once where I was a cleric (in a previous edition...3.5?). The scenario was that the region was getting really hot to the point of making Constitution rolls. I had the Endure Elements spell (and another caster might have had it as well) so we could avoid those rolls with a simple 1st level spell. This seems like exactly the thing that would ruin the gritty realism of a survival scenario, right?
But, once you consider that between the two casters, we were casting the spell eight times each day for the four party members and our four horses. We couldn't really save any NPCs or villagers along our route and when we did get into combat, each of us were down four 1st level spells which left us with only a few spells for combat or healing or utility and mostly reducing my cleric to a weaker version of a fighter with spells saved for emergency healing.
In the OPs worries, the druid might be breaking through much of the grit and realism but it might cost them many spells, leaving them with cantrips and a scimitar. Enough bandits and monsters might make them question their spell priorities or find mundane solutions for survival. And there is still the impact to the world around them that makes survival feel real.
I largely agree with Antesse's suggestions and thoughts on this subject.
I might also consider changing the spell level of Create/Destroy Water so that it takes up a 2nd level slot as a houserule that you announce before people decide what classes to pick.
I know this is an older thread, but you might also just consider leaving the results to a die-roll or arcane/nature check.
Let's take, for instance, Create Water. If we use a die roll, we can take the existing results and find a dice that corresponds with it. 10 gallons = 1d10. Already, by saying that cast water is now a die roll, we've made it harder. Let's give the players a nibble now. Let's let them add their caster level divided by 2 to it. Now you're thinking, "Wait a minute, at level 20 they could make 20 gallons of water instead of 10!" And you're right, but at level 20, they're halfway to being gods, so I'm cool with that. And not only that, but we're gonna add a little more to the spell. A little more grit and grind.
Let's take terrain and divide it into three types, Humid, Moderate, and Arid.
Now let's rewrite the spell.
Create or Destroy Water
So, now we've got a spell with a lot of nuances in it, but I don't think it's harder to understand or anything. I think it offers an unpredictable result, and yet at the same time, allows it to react to the environment.And yes, in the right environment and with the right roll, you might get more water than the spell initially allows. Why? Because I've learned that when I take something away, I get the best reactions when I give something in return.
Well, food for thought.