A question got brought up in a game I DM and the discussion sidetracked us HARD for 30/40 minutes and we never came to a conclusion.

The party has a Druid, and he was the one to propose this conundrum in 3 parts.

1) If he turned himself into for example a cow, could, if the party was utterly desparate (pun not intended), use him as a food source by taking just SOME cow meat and without dropping HP to 0.

2) If they are sucessful at this, if the Druid then changed back into a human, would the wildshape cow meat turn back into Human Druid meat? Or would it stay cow since its no longer connected to his body?

3) would his human body now be missing the chunks where the cow flesh was taken?

In either case there are no rules so it's pure DM call.

If you want a RAW version, Druids have the Regenerate spell. They can cast it on an actual cow then anything you remove from that cow, so long as it remains technically alive, it will heal and fully replace what was taken within 2 minutes. 

See, here I thought you were going to say the Druid would just cast goodberry every day and avoid the strange quasi-cannible questions. 

Quote from Cyb3rM1nd >>

In either case there are no rules so it's pure DM call.

If you want a RAW version, Druids have the Regenerate spell. They can cast it on an actual cow then anything you remove from that cow, so long as it remains technically alive, it will heal and fully replace what was taken within 2 minutes. 

 
Yeah, but the poor cow would still feel you chopping its leg off (or whatever), and growing one back can’t feel nice either. The moral implications are… well, kinda grim.

Quote from Xalthu >>

See, here I thought you were going to say the Druid would just cast goodberry every day and avoid the strange quasi-cannible questions. 

 
I don't even know why but I kinda forgot about goodberry. 🤔

I'm suddenly concerned about my own mind. 😲

🤣

Quote from IamSposta >>

Quote from Cyb3rM1nd >>

In either case there are no rules so it's pure DM call.

If you want a RAW version, Druids have the Regenerate spell. They can cast it on an actual cow then anything you remove from that cow, so long as it remains technically alive, it will heal and fully replace what was taken within 2 minutes. 

 
Yeah, but the poor cow would still feel you chopping its leg off (or whatever), and growing one back can’t feel nice either. The moral implications are… well, kinda grim.

 
Druid: I love all nature!
Also Druid: **tortures cow for endless meat instead of just casting goodberry**

This should be a meme.

Quote from PinkLemonade >>

A question got brought up in a game I DM and the discussion sidetracked us HARD for 30/40 minutes and we never came to a conclusion.

The party has a Druid, and he was the one to propose this conundrum in 3 parts.

1) If he turned himself into for example a cow, could, if the party was utterly desparate (pun not intended), use him as a food source by taking just SOME cow meat and without dropping HP to 0.

2) If they are sucessful at this, if the Druid then changed back into a human, would the wildshape cow meat turn back into Human Druid meat? Or would it stay cow since its no longer connected to his body?

3) would his human body now be missing the chunks where the cow flesh was taken?

3 -  The druid would not be missing anything as they would return to their original hp.

2 - GM call. The druid and all their things can if they so choose turn into a cow. When they revert, it should come back. Personally I think it would be funny if the party ate the druids backpack.

1 - GM call again.

Easier to just use goodberry.

You know, now that I see a lot of you mention it, yeah, he should just stick to goodberry 😂 I guess me and the whole table forgot it exsisted because we were so enthralled by the hypothetical lol

Quote from PinkLemonade >>

A question got brought up in a game I DM and the discussion sidetracked us HARD for 30/40 minutes and we never came to a conclusion.

The party has a Druid, and he was the one to propose this conundrum in 3 parts.

1) If he turned himself into for example a cow, could, if the party was utterly desparate (pun not intended), use him as a food source by taking just SOME cow meat and without dropping HP to 0.

2) If they are sucessful at this, if the Druid then changed back into a human, would the wildshape cow meat turn back into Human Druid meat? Or would it stay cow since its no longer connected to his body?

3) would his human body now be missing the chunks where the cow flesh was taken?

 1) There's no rules on dismemberment so it would be up to DM. There's optional rules for Injuries in the DMG if looking for inspiration.

2) Wether body parts removed revert to your normal form when you do is also not covered by Wild Shape so it would be up to DM.

3) Taken that when you revert to your normal form, you return to the number of hit points you had before you transformed, i assume such wounds wouldn't carry over but taken that it's not covered by rules, it'd be up to DM again.

I'm now having flashbacks to Kim Ki-duk's The Isle, which (among other things that would likely get me banned from this forum for describing), involves carving sushi out of living fish

“Bloodied” is not a thing in this edition.

Quote from IamSposta >>

“Bloodied” is not a thing in this edition.

It's on page 248 of the DMG and is just a descriptor for half hp.

I always smile in reminisce when hearing at a table terms from previous editions such as bloodied, flat footed, reflex save, observation, tini-gens etc...  ;)

FWIW The Player's Handbook has a passage on Describing The Effects of Damage:

Describing The Effects of Damage: Dungeon Masters describe hit point loss in different ways. When your current hit point total is half or more of your hit point maximum, you typically show no signs of injury. When you drop below half your hit point maximum, you show signs of wear, such as cuts and bruises. An attack that reduces you to 0 hit points strikes you directly, leaving a bleeding injury or other trauma, or it simply knocks you unconscious.

Goodberry. In spelljammer, our crew wasn't crazy about the idea of being away from port and relying on us casting create food & drink or goodberry because what if the spellcasters die. ooops. LOL.

Quote from schm0 >>

Quote from IamSposta >>

“Bloodied” is not a thing in this edition.

It's on page 248 of the DMG and is just a descriptor for half hp.

 It's parts of DMG tips, used as an example of how you can describe creature at half HP and not hard-coded in the core rules like it used to in 4E though. I believe it's what IamSposta meant.

Some people see Druid and think "Hm, can I be a cannibal?"

Others think "OH MY GOD, I am surrounded by people that hate the taste of Goodberry that much?"

Note to all druids, Goodberry just became a mandatory spell. Forget about Faerie Fire and healing word, just be sure to prepare Goodberry.  Nothing else matters..

A tasty mix could be grilled steak with goodberry reduction. ;)

What would happen is the cow meat would become human meat, because wild shape is you taking the shape and abilities of another animal, so when it wears off, all flesh will become human. So, you would need to cook and then eat the cow meat quickly, before the wild shape cow bleeds to death, turning the cow meat Into human meat. The Druid wouldn’t have chunks missing out of it (I think), but blood would still be everywhere. Also, you could technicaly be labelled a cannibal, and be arrested and sentenced to death have a nice day :)

To be honest, in my campaigns food is never an issue and if one of my players would try that, i'd let it be and move on but if it became an habit or distraction i'd tell the party that prolonged eating of  shapechanger meat may expose you to disease or get poisoned. 

Ultimately it is a DM call since nothing is spelled out in the rules.

However,

1) It is magic so you can justify it however you like.

2) Familiars and most other summoned creatures get around the "what happens to the body issue?" by summoning spirits that take the form of the creature and not an example of the creature itself. These disappear when killed.

In the same spirit of the rules :), a Druid's wildshape could be magic that summons a "spirit" form for the Druid to assume. Unlike the spirit forms in other spells, the druid actually takes the form of the creature but since damage doesn't carry over until the "spirit" form is killed, it seems pretty clear that the druid's natural form and the "spirit" form (beast or elemental) are separate. As a result, it isn't much of a stretch to assume that damage to the "spirit" form may not leave behind blood, that pieces chopped off disappear when detached from the creature or that when the "spirit" form disappears by hitting 0 hit points or the druid reverting, all traces of it disappears.

This approach may make even more sense when one considers that all of the druid's equipment has also been magically rolled into the wild shape. It doesn't make sense to be able to dissect the wild shape to recover the druid's equipment - does the druid lose a magic ring when a creature chops off the wildshape's horn? I'd say no ... and the easiest way for all of that to make sense is to have the DM consider the wild shapes to be some sort of "spirit" form for the druid.

However, since nothing is specified in RAW, the DM can do whatever they like.