Hi, I'm currently thinking about creating a Grung, and if it would be possible, or what the requirements would there be, to carry a barrel around with enough water in it to immerse a Grung in it.
Looking at the Item "Barrel" it states "A barrel can hold 40 gallons of liquid, or 4 cubic feet of solid material."
Looking at the solid material, the barrel could fit 4 cube feet, this means 4ft x 4ft x 4ft. So a ~3ft Grung would fit into the barrel at ease.
So, now here it get's complicated for me. 4 cubic feet seems to equal 29,9221 US-gallons or 24,9153 British-Gallons - Since DnD is created by americans, I'll assume the american gallons, but that would still be ~10 gallons less than the barrel could fit into.
Then I was trying a different approach, since barrels are usually rather cylindric than cubic and tried to figure out, how big the barrel would be and see ~how much water I would need to have in that barrel. - Yes I know, a Barrel is shaped rather ovally than a cylinder, but that would be even harder to calculate.
To have space for 4 cubic feet, the barrel would have a size of 1,5ft diameter and 2,25ft height - So this would seem too small even for a 3ft Grung, or at least a really tight fit.
Next, even we could figure that out, the question is, how much water would actually be needed to be immersed, since the body would raise the water-level in the barrel due it's mass.
Too complicated? That might be. Why even think about it? It's because of the carryweight limit. I'd like to see if it would be possible to carry the barrel around or not.
According to DnDB, my Grung would be able to carry 195lb (could get up to 210lb) or dush/drag/lift 390lb. Due the calculations I made, 20gallons of water would be ~2,67 cubic feet and 166bs but since the capacity calculations of the barrel above, I'm unsure if this would be a correct caluclation or not.
With the additional 70lb of the barrel itself, that would be 236lbs, so it would either need a Mule to carry that, or a Medium Size creature with at least 16 STR, IF they're not carrying anything else, since their limit would be 240lb (Goliaths and such could carry more of course)
- So, does someone have an idea how this would be calculated correctly? In theory a Mule would be the easiest way out and we wouldn't even need to calculate too much, unless it would carry additional things. - Downside, touching the Mule would give it the poisoned status - yes, not too much of a problem, but still. - Yes I know, the real easy way would be a portable hole or bag of holding and what not, but those are wonderous magic items, so it's nothing every character should come by easily and this character is meant for early levels.
Just ask your DM. Their opinion matters, the math, not so much. If they’re cool with it, it works, if they’re not, it doesn’t. No matter if the math says it should or shouldn’t.
40 gallons (the volume of the barrel in D&D) is roughly the volume of a bath tub. A Medium Creature could squeeze into that. A Grung would find it outright roomy. For carrying the barrel, you'd probably be best off purchasing a mule and cart, since stronger characters will also have their own equipment they need to keep on them. If you get a mule, I'd suggest investing in good gloves so you aren't accidentally poisoning it. If the party does more dungeon-delving, you might consider a hireling to carry the barrel and other supplies instead of the mule, so he can more easily follow you through the dungeons, keeping to the best of his ability away from the fighting of course (a combat hireling would cost more, and would be more likely to die, creating the logistical problem of transportation again).
You are correct that the displacement of the water from the Grung's body would reduce how much water you'd need to carry, as well as the fact that it's still more weight than your Grung can carry. The easiest solution would be to have a mule-drawn cart to transport the half-filled barrel of water, along with other party supplies, and include a pair of sturdy gloves for your Grung to use when handling the mule to avoid poisoning it.
If you'd rather bring an empty barrel (or tub/washbasin) and provide water as you go, there are a few ways this can be done, even if wells and streams, and ponds aren't available as water sources.
At L2 an Artificer can create a Bag of Holding via an infusion which can hold the water in smaller containers, that you can dump into your barrel/tub for your soaks when needed. An Artificer can also create an Alchemy Jug via an infusion, which can reduce how much water you need to bring with you, due to producing some of the water each day with the magic item.
A L5 Cleric can cast Create Food and Water, which is sufficient to cover your water needs, as well as feeding and providing drinking water to the rest of the party.
If your DM awards you a Decanter of Endless Water, that would resolve your problems as well.
I hope this has been helpful. What class(s) are you thinking for this character? Is this for a specific campaign?
Your math is flawed. 4ft × 4ft × 4ft = 64 cubic ft. That’s how cubing works. 4 cubic feet = 1ft × 1ft × 4 ft.
Yes: for “4 cubic feet”, the cubic foot is the unit. Conversely, a “4 foot cube” would be 64 cubic feet. (It’s a bit like a”melee weapon attack” vs “an attack with a melee weapon”…)
I think the role playing opportunity of trying to persuade a party’s Goliath barbarian to carry around the Grung’s personal spa could be fun!
Though, that's a mistake I shouldn't have made. 4x4x4 is ofc 64, I'm unsure where I throw that logic error in there.
Thanks for the hint anyway! Much appreciated.
@Xalthu: sure, the DM's opinion matters, and their decision is what counts, but I like to explain how I would handle things, as this would probably affect their decision.
@FayetteGamer: Definitely valid and good ideas. For the current build-idea I'd pick a Monk with Knives (one active, one back up, for throwing and such). Even though I'm a fan of multiclassing, those options don't fit into that build, but could of course be used for different ones and I'll keep that in mind.
for calculating it, when a body floats in water it displaces the same mass of water as the floating body (not just what's under the waterline), so for your ~70lb grung, you can simply remove 70lb of water from the full barrel and the grung will float with the waterline at the top of the barrel!
For simplicity of doing it, as a physical excercise, just fill it brimfull and then get in. the water you displace will slough off, leaving the correct amount of water!
If you simply use lb and substract that in a 1:1 ration, it would mean that a ball of lead which weights ~4 times as much as a ball of aluminium of the same size, would displace 4 times as much water. I'm not really good in physics, but that does sound quite unlikely.
In the long run, your best bet would be a bag of holding or a portable hole filled with water to be used as your personal swimming pool/watering hole. Alternatively, a decanter of endless water could be used to fill a lightweight container you carry with you to "sleep" in.
In terms of weight, a barrel in D&D is 70lbs and 40 gallons of water is 40 x 8.34lbs = 333.6lbs. So the barrel full of water is about 400lbs. You'd probably need a wagon to move that around with you.
1 cu ft holds 7.48 gallons (note all these numbers are at room temperature ... density of water is somewhat a function of temperature).
4 cu ft is about 30 gallons. So the barrel that will hold 4 cu ft of solid material and 40 gallons of water is more like 5.34 cu ft.
A barrel with a diameter of 1.5' (18") and about 3' tall would be 5.34 cu ft. However, 18" is pretty narrow. Grungs are typically 3' (2.5'-3.5') tall so they might need a 3' tall barrel to immerse themselves. Looking at pictures, they also appear to be more than 18" wide (their heads are pretty big), so it would be up to the DM whether the grung would fit in a 1.5'x3' barrel.
Anyway, it is all up to the DM and whether they'd be ok with a PC with a poisonous skin in the party. In particular, a grapple focused grung character could possibly force saving throws against poison on anyone they grapple to which a DM might just say NO. So, if you want to play a grung, I suggest discussing the character concept with the DM first.
If you simply use lb and substract that in a 1:1 ration, it would mean that a ball of lead which weights ~4 times as much as a ball of aluminium of the same size, would displace 4 times as much water. I'm not really good in physics, but that does sound quite unlikely.
Mass does not equal weight. And Dencity is a different beast all together.
@Xalthu: sure, the DM's opinion matters, and their decision is what counts, but I like to explain how I would handle things, as this would probably affect their decision.
That makes some sense, and you know your DM better than I do. I was thinking more, if it were me as DM and a player said they want to do this this, my thought process would be: A size small creature wants to soak in a barrel, sure no problem, I don’t need to start calculating your displacement to know you’ll fit well enough. And considering how rarely people track drinking water, I’d probably let you carry it around empty and I wouldn’t even worry about where you were getting the water to fill it. I’d just be sure to bring it up when you go into a dungeon and that mule can’t make it up a rope or a ladder, that’s when it would get interesting.
If you simply use lb and substract that in a 1:1 ration, it would mean that a ball of lead which weights ~4 times as much as a ball of aluminium of the same size, would displace 4 times as much water. I'm not really good in physics, but that does sound quite unlikely.
Apologies, I should have been more clear:
This applies when a body floats in water, not when it sinks. If you make a floating boat out of 4lbs of lead and one out of 4lbs of aluminium, they will both be as "heavy on the draft" and will displace 4lbs of water to keep themselves afloat. putting a 70lb person in said boat would displace a further 70lbs of water, assuming it is large enough.
This leads to the logical conclusion that if a body does not have the volume to displace the amount of water it needs to float - such as the 4lb lead ball - then it will simply sink! This is the basics of buoyancy.
For displacement of sinking objects, you need the volume of the body, and this will be the volume of water displaced. As such, the less helpful unit would be "4lbs of lead" and the more helpful would be "a 3-inch diameter ball of lead", as this is far more simple to garner the volume from!
If it floats, you need the mass*, and if it sinks, you need the volume.
*Mass is measured in lbs or kg, and it is a tricky thing because this has been confused with Weight, which is the force exerted due to gravity, and is therefore measured in Newtons, but we measure peoples mass by measuring this force, and then people call it "Weight". Nonetheless, assuming that you are not somehow affected differently by gravity than the water around you, then as long as you're talking in lbs and kg, you're probably talking about mass.
Hi, I'm currently thinking about creating a Grung, and if it would be possible, or what the requirements would there be, to carry a barrel around with enough water in it to immerse a Grung in it.
Looking at the Item "Barrel" it states "A barrel can hold 40 gallons of liquid, or 4 cubic feet of solid material."
Looking at the solid material, the barrel could fit 4 cube feet, this means 4ft x 4ft x 4ft. So a ~3ft Grung would fit into the barrel at ease.
So, now here it get's complicated for me. 4 cubic feet seems to equal 29,9221 US-gallons or 24,9153 British-Gallons - Since DnD is created by americans, I'll assume the american gallons, but that would still be ~10 gallons less than the barrel could fit into.
Then I was trying a different approach, since barrels are usually rather cylindric than cubic and tried to figure out, how big the barrel would be and see ~how much water I would need to have in that barrel. - Yes I know, a Barrel is shaped rather ovally than a cylinder, but that would be even harder to calculate.
To have space for 4 cubic feet, the barrel would have a size of 1,5ft diameter and 2,25ft height - So this would seem too small even for a 3ft Grung, or at least a really tight fit.
Next, even we could figure that out, the question is, how much water would actually be needed to be immersed, since the body would raise the water-level in the barrel due it's mass.
Too complicated? That might be. Why even think about it? It's because of the carryweight limit. I'd like to see if it would be possible to carry the barrel around or not.
According to DnDB, my Grung would be able to carry 195lb (could get up to 210lb) or dush/drag/lift 390lb. Due the calculations I made, 20gallons of water would be ~2,67 cubic feet and 166bs but since the capacity calculations of the barrel above, I'm unsure if this would be a correct caluclation or not.
With the additional 70lb of the barrel itself, that would be 236lbs, so it would either need a Mule to carry that, or a Medium Size creature with at least 16 STR, IF they're not carrying anything else, since their limit would be 240lb (Goliaths and such could carry more of course)
-
So, does someone have an idea how this would be calculated correctly? In theory a Mule would be the easiest way out and we wouldn't even need to calculate too much, unless it would carry additional things. - Downside, touching the Mule would give it the poisoned status - yes, not too much of a problem, but still.
-
Yes I know, the real easy way would be a portable hole or bag of holding and what not, but those are wonderous magic items, so it's nothing every character should come by easily and this character is meant for early levels.
Just ask your DM. Their opinion matters, the math, not so much. If they’re cool with it, it works, if they’re not, it doesn’t. No matter if the math says it should or shouldn’t.
40 gallons (the volume of the barrel in D&D) is roughly the volume of a bath tub. A Medium Creature could squeeze into that. A Grung would find it outright roomy. For carrying the barrel, you'd probably be best off purchasing a mule and cart, since stronger characters will also have their own equipment they need to keep on them. If you get a mule, I'd suggest investing in good gloves so you aren't accidentally poisoning it. If the party does more dungeon-delving, you might consider a hireling to carry the barrel and other supplies instead of the mule, so he can more easily follow you through the dungeons, keeping to the best of his ability away from the fighting of course (a combat hireling would cost more, and would be more likely to die, creating the logistical problem of transportation again).
You are correct that the displacement of the water from the Grung's body would reduce how much water you'd need to carry, as well as the fact that it's still more weight than your Grung can carry. The easiest solution would be to have a mule-drawn cart to transport the half-filled barrel of water, along with other party supplies, and include a pair of sturdy gloves for your Grung to use when handling the mule to avoid poisoning it.
If you'd rather bring an empty barrel (or tub/washbasin) and provide water as you go, there are a few ways this can be done, even if wells and streams, and ponds aren't available as water sources.
At L2 an Artificer can create a Bag of Holding via an infusion which can hold the water in smaller containers, that you can dump into your barrel/tub for your soaks when needed. An Artificer can also create an Alchemy Jug via an infusion, which can reduce how much water you need to bring with you, due to producing some of the water each day with the magic item.
A L5 Cleric can cast Create Food and Water, which is sufficient to cover your water needs, as well as feeding and providing drinking water to the rest of the party.
If your DM awards you a Decanter of Endless Water, that would resolve your problems as well.
I hope this has been helpful. What class(s) are you thinking for this character? Is this for a specific campaign?
Your math is flawed. 4ft × 4ft × 4ft = 64 cubic ft. That’s how cubing works. 4 cubic feet = 1ft × 1ft × 4 ft.
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Yes: for “4 cubic feet”, the cubic foot is the unit. Conversely, a “4 foot cube” would be 64 cubic feet. (It’s a bit like a”melee weapon attack” vs “an attack with a melee weapon”…)
I think the role playing opportunity of trying to persuade a party’s Goliath barbarian to carry around the Grung’s personal spa could be fun!
Ah, I see. I never was that good in geometry XD
Though, that's a mistake I shouldn't have made. 4x4x4 is ofc 64, I'm unsure where I throw that logic error in there.
Thanks for the hint anyway! Much appreciated.
@Xalthu: sure, the DM's opinion matters, and their decision is what counts, but I like to explain how I would handle things, as this would probably affect their decision.
@FayetteGamer: Definitely valid and good ideas. For the current build-idea I'd pick a Monk with Knives (one active, one back up, for throwing and such). Even though I'm a fan of multiclassing, those options don't fit into that build, but could of course be used for different ones and I'll keep that in mind.
for calculating it, when a body floats in water it displaces the same mass of water as the floating body (not just what's under the waterline), so for your ~70lb grung, you can simply remove 70lb of water from the full barrel and the grung will float with the waterline at the top of the barrel!
For simplicity of doing it, as a physical excercise, just fill it brimfull and then get in. the water you displace will slough off, leaving the correct amount of water!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
I'm sorry, but that doesn't sound right.
If you simply use lb and substract that in a 1:1 ration, it would mean that a ball of lead which weights ~4 times as much as a ball of aluminium of the same size, would displace 4 times as much water. I'm not really good in physics, but that does sound quite unlikely.
In the long run, your best bet would be a bag of holding or a portable hole filled with water to be used as your personal swimming pool/watering hole. Alternatively, a decanter of endless water could be used to fill a lightweight container you carry with you to "sleep" in.
In terms of weight, a barrel in D&D is 70lbs and 40 gallons of water is 40 x 8.34lbs = 333.6lbs. So the barrel full of water is about 400lbs. You'd probably need a wagon to move that around with you.
1 cu ft holds 7.48 gallons (note all these numbers are at room temperature ... density of water is somewhat a function of temperature).
4 cu ft is about 30 gallons. So the barrel that will hold 4 cu ft of solid material and 40 gallons of water is more like 5.34 cu ft.
A barrel with a diameter of 1.5' (18") and about 3' tall would be 5.34 cu ft. However, 18" is pretty narrow. Grungs are typically 3' (2.5'-3.5') tall so they might need a 3' tall barrel to immerse themselves. Looking at pictures, they also appear to be more than 18" wide (their heads are pretty big), so it would be up to the DM whether the grung would fit in a 1.5'x3' barrel.
Anyway, it is all up to the DM and whether they'd be ok with a PC with a poisonous skin in the party. In particular, a grapple focused grung character could possibly force saving throws against poison on anyone they grapple to which a DM might just say NO. So, if you want to play a grung, I suggest discussing the character concept with the DM first.
Mass does not equal weight. And Dencity is a different beast all together.
That makes some sense, and you know your DM better than I do. I was thinking more, if it were me as DM and a player said they want to do this this, my thought process would be: A size small creature wants to soak in a barrel, sure no problem, I don’t need to start calculating your displacement to know you’ll fit well enough. And considering how rarely people track drinking water, I’d probably let you carry it around empty and I wouldn’t even worry about where you were getting the water to fill it. I’d just be sure to bring it up when you go into a dungeon and that mule can’t make it up a rope or a ladder, that’s when it would get interesting.
Apologies, I should have been more clear:
This applies when a body floats in water, not when it sinks. If you make a floating boat out of 4lbs of lead and one out of 4lbs of aluminium, they will both be as "heavy on the draft" and will displace 4lbs of water to keep themselves afloat. putting a 70lb person in said boat would displace a further 70lbs of water, assuming it is large enough.
This leads to the logical conclusion that if a body does not have the volume to displace the amount of water it needs to float - such as the 4lb lead ball - then it will simply sink! This is the basics of buoyancy.
For displacement of sinking objects, you need the volume of the body, and this will be the volume of water displaced. As such, the less helpful unit would be "4lbs of lead" and the more helpful would be "a 3-inch diameter ball of lead", as this is far more simple to garner the volume from!
If it floats, you need the mass*, and if it sinks, you need the volume.
*Mass is measured in lbs or kg, and it is a tricky thing because this has been confused with Weight, which is the force exerted due to gravity, and is therefore measured in Newtons, but we measure peoples mass by measuring this force, and then people call it "Weight". Nonetheless, assuming that you are not somehow affected differently by gravity than the water around you, then as long as you're talking in lbs and kg, you're probably talking about mass.
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
Ahhh, thank you for the clarification!