RAW there's... really nothing to it outside of roleplay. A fine meal provides the same mechanical benefits as eating travel rations. At best you might be able to trade well made food to NPCs for extra money or to get them on your side.
You could always houserule some sort of morale boost such as advantage on the first fear check anyone has to make for the next 4 hours for anyone who eats a PC’s home cooked meal or something.
Something I've seen a few DMs do is to award players an Inspiration Die for anything that seems like it should provide a bonus of some kind but mechanically doesn't actually do anything.
Cook's utensils are my go to tools. I usually pick up proficiency with them from my custom background no matter what character I'm playing.
They come in handy. Before taking a rest in the wilderness or some eerie abandoned ruins, I'll cook the party a good meal. You can combine basic rations with various spices found on the trade goods table of the PHB and prep the meal using the cooks utensils. There is no rule for this, but no DM I have had so far disallowed it.
Anyways, the PCs are thankful for it, and often the DM will dish out temp HP or inspiration. If they are being stingy, you could at least argue for the 1 extra HP per dice outlined in Xgte, as DxJxC mentioned.
It is also a useful role play device, for instance you can cook a fine home made meal for an important NPC the party is hosting, to butter them up. Or offer to help in the kitchen to an innkeeper. Good friends to have.
As far as actual recipes, I just describe dishes my character is making by what I like in real life.
These are all great ideas. It seems the game has room for crafting meals/drinks the way one might make potions. Just finding the right ingredients which can be a quest in itself. I add rp aspect by asking about ingredients and unusual plants in the area the party is travelling.
What kind of area are they traveling in? I might be able to make some recommendations. I used to be a chef/caterer. Someone more familiar with foraging might be better for the “local area” stuff, but I got you for the cooking. Some of it at least anyway, there are more types of food out there than anyone could learn in a lifetime after all. Cooking might very well have been one of humanity’s first art forms.
So I can say from my experience, playing as a halfling chef right now in a campaign, that the DM is ruling it sorta like how @IamSposta is saying, where you get a certain bonus based on the dish made. And it also depends on how it’s described and what ingredients are in it, sort of like Breath of the Wild. Is it a hearty stew? Advantage on CON checks for the next few hours. Spicy dish? Resistance to the cold. Surely there are magical ingredients in D&D as well, so I’d say just play with that. You could make a dish that lets you breath underwater, perhaps? While there are no set rules for cooking in D&D, it is a good space to have fun with players, awarding them for good roleplaying and creative solutions.
I ran a short campaign and had the players decide if they were going to eat an orcish battle gruel (grandmother's recipe) they had to make a CON save. If they made it they had Advantage on the frightened condition for the day.
That's b/c the people eating the spicy food sweat profusely and that cools them down.
More to the point, there is certainly IRL precedent for foods being medicinal. Many forms of folk medicine, including the herbs still used today in much of Asia, involving cooking gathered herbs, minerals, possibly animal parts to cure diseases, fatigue, menstrual disorders, constipation, and the common cold. D&D isn't made for that level of specificity, but other RPGs, like the Atelier series from Square Enix, take that kind of crafting seriously.
As DM, I would probably let players with a Hermit or Outlander background do a Nature check with varying degrees of bonus to their roll in order to think of the proper ingred, then ask them for a Survival check and 1 hour to gather the ingredients if they can't easily buy them in a town.
In most high magic settings, cooking of non-magical ingredients for specific status effects or healing likely would not make sense, logistically. It's more useful for intentionally low magic settings or where the party is lacking a dedicated healer PC. How effective or ineffective cooking should be isn't based on any set of rules, so it's all down to the DM's decisions on what kind of game she wants to be running.
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Not finding much when searching for these key words. Something could be homebrewed but would rather stay in RAW.
RAW there's... really nothing to it outside of roleplay. A fine meal provides the same mechanical benefits as eating travel rations. At best you might be able to trade well made food to NPCs for extra money or to get them on your side.
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XGtE adds only the suggestion that when eating a good meal during a short rest, that PCs heal 1 additional hit point per hit dice rolled to recover.
You could always houserule some sort of morale boost such as advantage on the first fear check anyone has to make for the next 4 hours for anyone who eats a PC’s home cooked meal or something.
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Something I've seen a few DMs do is to award players an Inspiration Die for anything that seems like it should provide a bonus of some kind but mechanically doesn't actually do anything.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Or just award XP for roleplay.
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Cook's utensils are my go to tools. I usually pick up proficiency with them from my custom background no matter what character I'm playing.
They come in handy. Before taking a rest in the wilderness or some eerie abandoned ruins, I'll cook the party a good meal. You can combine basic rations with various spices found on the trade goods table of the PHB and prep the meal using the cooks utensils. There is no rule for this, but no DM I have had so far disallowed it.
Anyways, the PCs are thankful for it, and often the DM will dish out temp HP or inspiration. If they are being stingy, you could at least argue for the 1 extra HP per dice outlined in Xgte, as DxJxC mentioned.
It is also a useful role play device, for instance you can cook a fine home made meal for an important NPC the party is hosting, to butter them up. Or offer to help in the kitchen to an innkeeper. Good friends to have.
As far as actual recipes, I just describe dishes my character is making by what I like in real life.
These are all great ideas. It seems the game has room for crafting meals/drinks the way one might make potions. Just finding the right ingredients which can be a quest in itself. I add rp aspect by asking about ingredients and unusual plants in the area the party is travelling.
What kind of area are they traveling in? I might be able to make some recommendations. I used to be a chef/caterer. Someone more familiar with foraging might be better for the “local area” stuff, but I got you for the cooking. Some of it at least anyway, there are more types of food out there than anyone could learn in a lifetime after all. Cooking might very well have been one of humanity’s first art forms.
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So I can say from my experience, playing as a halfling chef right now in a campaign, that the DM is ruling it sorta like how @IamSposta is saying, where you get a certain bonus based on the dish made. And it also depends on how it’s described and what ingredients are in it, sort of like Breath of the Wild. Is it a hearty stew? Advantage on CON checks for the next few hours. Spicy dish? Resistance to the cold. Surely there are magical ingredients in D&D as well, so I’d say just play with that. You could make a dish that lets you breath underwater, perhaps? While there are no set rules for cooking in D&D, it is a good space to have fun with players, awarding them for good roleplaying and creative solutions.
I ran a short campaign and had the players decide if they were going to eat an orcish battle gruel (grandmother's recipe) they had to make a CON save. If they made it they had Advantage on the frightened condition for the day.
Spicy food should be resistance to heat. Ever notice how all the spiciest dishes come from hot climates? 😉
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That's b/c the people eating the spicy food sweat profusely and that cools them down.
More to the point, there is certainly IRL precedent for foods being medicinal. Many forms of folk medicine, including the herbs still used today in much of Asia, involving cooking gathered herbs, minerals, possibly animal parts to cure diseases, fatigue, menstrual disorders, constipation, and the common cold. D&D isn't made for that level of specificity, but other RPGs, like the Atelier series from Square Enix, take that kind of crafting seriously.
As DM, I would probably let players with a Hermit or Outlander background do a Nature check with varying degrees of bonus to their roll in order to think of the proper ingred, then ask them for a Survival check and 1 hour to gather the ingredients if they can't easily buy them in a town.
I wouldn’t get too crazy with it though. You don’t want a bowel of Auroch stew to be as powerful as a magic potion.
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That is really taking variety meats too far.
In most high magic settings, cooking of non-magical ingredients for specific status effects or healing likely would not make sense, logistically. It's more useful for intentionally low magic settings or where the party is lacking a dedicated healer PC. How effective or ineffective cooking should be isn't based on any set of rules, so it's all down to the DM's decisions on what kind of game she wants to be running.