I have a player that seems keen on eating various monsters after encounters. Is there a way I should handle this? It doesn't bother me that he's doing it, I'm just wondering how to run it. Do I call for Survival checks for skinning and removing the bones? Should I call for a additional check for poisonous monsters to see if they cut out the parts that would kill them? What would they taste like? How expensive is a pot or pan, and where would they need to go to to buy one?
First, I would make them need to be proficient in cook's utensils. Beasts would be okay for eating. Hummanoids...not so much, that's borderline cannibalism (a good use for the sanity chart!). Nature or Arcana checks to see if they know if it is okay to eat said creature. Survival or maybe Medicine or Nature (depending on what they are proficient in) to see how much food they can harvest. Finally, a Cook's Utensils check to see if they can cook it enough to make it non-poisonous/lightning/fire/whatever the creature has. If they do really well, maybe they are resistant to similar effects for 8 hours or so.
Cooking supplies should be pretty easy to get in a well-developed city; any general store should have one. Even without real pots or pans, the creative adventurer can use whatever means they have to get raw meat cooked in a safe way, be it roasted on a stick or spit, steamed, or what have you. If you want to determine what meats should be good to eat, the average beast, monstrosity, or dragon should be safe so long as you avoid the dangerous or inedible parts, such as venom glands. Additionally, humanoids and giants are also fair game if you are a lizardfolk (though giants may be a bit more than you can chew.) Plants are also edible, though just like animals, there are some parts of them much more edible than others (unless your character's a beaverkin)
However, aberrations, fiends (if you manage to actually kill them in their home plane), celestials, undead, and fey are immersed in all sorts of ancient magics, so expect eating them to have certain adverse effects on average human physiology, such as diseases, curses, lots of elemental or psychic damage, ect. Good luck with "eating" elementals. If you're lucky you've got either stone, dirt, or water for dinner.
Well, it's not like we know the realities of eating magical creatures. Most creatures that have attacks beyond basic physical damage probably have some part of them that's responsible that may or may not be important to deal with.
The first question as a DM is 'do I feel like making eating monsters important to my game'? If not, I wouldn't worry much about systems, just either tell him whether a particular critter is edible or tasty, and if he insists on eating something you consider inedible, making him save or be poisoned for a while. On the other hand, you could decide to make eating monsters a plot point, in which case eating unnatural creatures might be important, and could (depending on what is eaten, and how prepared) result in a variety of negative effects (curses, damage, diseases, poisoning, possession all plausible) or beneficial effects (generally charms).
Wow. That was a total misunderstanding there. I thought you were thinking of the Call of Cthulhu Rpg, and telling them that that was the game they should be playing if they want to eat aberrations. I stupidly didn't realize that you were talking about the actual story. I have read most of Lovecraft's works, including Call of Cthulhu. Sorry for the mistake.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
Wow. That was a total misunderstanding there. I thought you were thinking of the Call of Cthulhu Rpg, and telling them that that was the game they should be playing if they want to eat aberrations. I stupidly didn't realize that you were talking about the actual story. I have read most of Lovecraft's works, including Call of Cthulhu. Sorry for the mistake.
Gotcha. Do you know why D&D has “Aberations” in its lore? When Garry Gygax was inventing the game he used minis to play it. He needed monsters so he went to a toy store and bought a bag of monsters. Then he had to write rules for them so his players (fam &friends) had something to kill. One of those toy monsters was a flying meatball with eyestalks all over it, and he turned to Lovecraft for lore.
I actually published a supplement about a week back that takes a very deep dive on this, though admittedly it sidesteps some of the ethical questions by leaving out intelligent humanoids. Some entries get pretty serious about the ramifications of eating a legendary aberration or fiend. I'd be happy to comp a copy to anyone interested in reviewing it, but the first 6 pages are also up for free on the DMs Guild! It's called, appropriately, the Monster Menu.
Survival check to do the butchering. You could make the DC 10 plus the creature's CR if you want to keep things consistent.
If the creature has innate poisonous abilities, or toxic abilities like a Gorgon's breath weapon, double the creature's CR and add 10. Don't tell the player whether they safely got some good bits safely or not... they will know what they rolled, but not whether it was a success. Up to them if they risk it. Eat a poisonous beastie and you're gonna suffer its effects...
Aberrations are probably never safe to eat and some stuff, like Fire Elementals, obviously not.
Mess Kit: This tin box contains a cup and simple cutlery. The box clamps together, and one side can be used as a cooking pan and the other as a plate or shallow bowl. You need to have one to eat it at least, you should be able to cook with the cooking pan, simple cutlery would likely include a knife, fork, and spoon. Whatever. It weighs one pound, most standard equipment packs include one, and will also provide a tinderbox to light the fire.
Using a Fire Elemental to cook would be fun. It would be a riot to have a Chef who was an elemental, so a Gensai apparently would make a great Chef, and there's a Feat for that.
Eating a sentient creature of any kind is morally questionable though. There are people in the real world who won't eat meat at all. Take a little time to consider. You might have a vegetarian in the real world playing one of the characters.
I have a player that seems keen on eating various monsters after encounters. Is there a way I should handle this? It doesn't bother me that he's doing it, I'm just wondering how to run it. Do I call for Survival checks for skinning and removing the bones? Should I call for a additional check for poisonous monsters to see if they cut out the parts that would kill them? What would they taste like? How expensive is a pot or pan, and where would they need to go to to buy one?
First, I would make them need to be proficient in cook's utensils. Beasts would be okay for eating. Hummanoids...not so much, that's borderline cannibalism (a good use for the sanity chart!). Nature or Arcana checks to see if they know if it is okay to eat said creature. Survival or maybe Medicine or Nature (depending on what they are proficient in) to see how much food they can harvest. Finally, a Cook's Utensils check to see if they can cook it enough to make it non-poisonous/lightning/fire/whatever the creature has. If they do really well, maybe they are resistant to similar effects for 8 hours or so.
It's survival to get edible parts, and tool proficiency (cook's utensils) to cook them, and many creatures will be inedible (DM's call).
But only with the skills and tools they're proficient in?
You can use skills and tools you aren't proficient with, you just don't add your proficiency bonus. DCs are often pretty low, though.
Cooking supplies should be pretty easy to get in a well-developed city; any general store should have one. Even without real pots or pans, the creative adventurer can use whatever means they have to get raw meat cooked in a safe way, be it roasted on a stick or spit, steamed, or what have you. If you want to determine what meats should be good to eat, the average beast, monstrosity, or dragon should be safe so long as you avoid the dangerous or inedible parts, such as venom glands. Additionally, humanoids and giants are also fair game if you are a lizardfolk (though giants may be a bit more than you can chew.) Plants are also edible, though just like animals, there are some parts of them much more edible than others (unless your character's a beaverkin)
However, aberrations, fiends (if you manage to actually kill them in their home plane), celestials, undead, and fey are immersed in all sorts of ancient magics, so expect eating them to have certain adverse effects on average human physiology, such as diseases, curses, lots of elemental or psychic damage, ect. Good luck with "eating" elementals. If you're lucky you've got either stone, dirt, or water for dinner.
Well, it's not like we know the realities of eating magical creatures. Most creatures that have attacks beyond basic physical damage probably have some part of them that's responsible that may or may not be important to deal with.
The first question as a DM is 'do I feel like making eating monsters important to my game'? If not, I wouldn't worry much about systems, just either tell him whether a particular critter is edible or tasty, and if he insists on eating something you consider inedible, making him save or be poisoned for a while. On the other hand, you could decide to make eating monsters a plot point, in which case eating unnatural creatures might be important, and could (depending on what is eaten, and how prepared) result in a variety of negative effects (curses, damage, diseases, poisoning, possession all plausible) or beneficial effects (generally charms).
You should look into Call of Cthulhu for what can happen if you eat Aberrations.
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Or read Lovecraft. I'm pretty sure that you would have a strange tentacled creature crawling out of your throat in a couple days...
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
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Lovecraft’s most famous writing of all time was a short story entitled “The Call of Cthulhu.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Call_of_Cthulhu
Cthulhu was one of “The Great Old Ones.” They did eat some. It wasn’t good.
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Wow. That was a total misunderstanding there. I thought you were thinking of the Call of Cthulhu Rpg, and telling them that that was the game they should be playing if they want to eat aberrations. I stupidly didn't realize that you were talking about the actual story. I have read most of Lovecraft's works, including Call of Cthulhu. Sorry for the mistake.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
Gotcha. Do you know why D&D has “Aberations” in its lore? When Garry Gygax was inventing the game he used minis to play it. He needed monsters so he went to a toy store and bought a bag of monsters. Then he had to write rules for them so his players (fam &friends) had something to kill. One of those toy monsters was a flying meatball with eyestalks all over it, and he turned to Lovecraft for lore.
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That's really cool.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
I thought so too.
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In the "Popular culture" section, it says that the game was based off of the book
You mean the Call of Cthulhu game was based off of the short story? Of course it was. It would have to be.
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I actually published a supplement about a week back that takes a very deep dive on this, though admittedly it sidesteps some of the ethical questions by leaving out intelligent humanoids. Some entries get pretty serious about the ramifications of eating a legendary aberration or fiend. I'd be happy to comp a copy to anyone interested in reviewing it, but the first 6 pages are also up for free on the DMs Guild! It's called, appropriately, the Monster Menu.
Survival check to do the butchering. You could make the DC 10 plus the creature's CR if you want to keep things consistent.
If the creature has innate poisonous abilities, or toxic abilities like a Gorgon's breath weapon, double the creature's CR and add 10. Don't tell the player whether they safely got some good bits safely or not... they will know what they rolled, but not whether it was a success. Up to them if they risk it. Eat a poisonous beastie and you're gonna suffer its effects...
Aberrations are probably never safe to eat and some stuff, like Fire Elementals, obviously not.
Mess Kit: This tin box contains a cup and simple cutlery. The box clamps together, and one side can be used as a cooking pan and the other as a plate or shallow bowl. You need to have one to eat it at least, you should be able to cook with the cooking pan, simple cutlery would likely include a knife, fork, and spoon. Whatever. It weighs one pound, most standard equipment packs include one, and will also provide a tinderbox to light the fire.
Using a Fire Elemental to cook would be fun. It would be a riot to have a Chef who was an elemental, so a Gensai apparently would make a great Chef, and there's a Feat for that.
Eating a sentient creature of any kind is morally questionable though. There are people in the real world who won't eat meat at all. Take a little time to consider. You might have a vegetarian in the real world playing one of the characters.
<Insert clever signature here>
I made a cookbook once for (almost) every monster we encountered in a campaign.