Level
3rd
Casting Time
1 Action
Range/Area
30 ft
Components
V, S
Duration
Instantaneous
School
Conjuration
Attack/Save
None
Damage/Effect
Creation
You create 45 pounds of food and 30 gallons of water on the ground or in containers within range, enough to sustain up to fifteen humanoids or five steeds for 24 hours. The food is bland but nourishing, and spoils if uneaten after 24 hours. The water is clean and doesn't go bad.
seems like a lot of food
Seems under powered for a 3rd level spell compared to level 1 goodberry. It last for 24 hours, can sustain 10 people, each gaining 1 hp for eating the berry, takes care of food and water, and taste sweet.
Goodberry infact does not satisfy the need for water, This has been confirmed on sage advice. Though I can agree this spell is much less useful in most cases.
goodberry also does not fill the stomach, so does not satisfy hunger for roleplay purposes.
According to https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/adventuring#FoodandWater that should be enough for 30 characters, unless the weather is hot. Then, it's only enough water for 15.
Under Powered? just be a little more creative: https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/dungeons-and-dragons-5e/opinion/dungeons-dragons-best-worst-spell-cooking-up-chaos-and-comedy-with-conjure-food-and-water
30 gallons of water is so much fun when used creatively! I've dumped it on enemies climbing up cliffs and ladders. I've used it to to put out party members on fire. I've used it to fill a small rowboat of people following us. I've filled the back of wagons to create distractions. I've dumped it on the middle of patrons in a tavern to create opportunities for rogue party members or to help them get out of conversation and sticky situations. I've even dumped it on the ground at the feed of a mage to wash his staff that was just disarmed out of his reach. I've dumped it on campfires to create an ominous entrance. I've used it on the floor in corridors and tunnels to create 30 gallons worth of water for our Wizard to turn into ice with Shape water (30 gallons worth of half inch thick ice covers a lot of area).
i agree with kadekorso about this
I tried to convince my DM that the autolysis/mash & fermentation involved in bread and beer making counts as the flour being "eaten," albeit on a microscopic scale. This would mean that applying some skilled work & downtime, you can produce more flavourful and longer lasting food.
There are a lot of counterarguments to this, though. For one, any food material not digested in the process would irrefutably spoil (probably meaning the bread crumbles and goes mouldy). Second, there may be a semantic difference between eating and simply digesting. Also, it's dependent on the interpretation that the caster gets to choose the food created, and extending the food's life may just go against RaI. The DM simply added that it's got to be eaten "by a multi-celled organism." Drat.
The best use of this is to cover an oponets weapons in bacon fat, cover his head in a large crabs shell, or turkey, and have the water be inside it so they drown and cover the floor in grease. Or of corse you can use it to impress pepole.
A 5th level divine soul sorcerer can use all spell slots and sorcery points to cast this 5 times a day. By 9th level, it's up to 10 times per day. By 20th level, without even considering Sorcerous Restoration, you can cast this 23 times per day.
For the actual amounts, that's 225 pounds of food and 150 gallons of water at 5th level, 450 pounds of food and 300 gallons of water at 9th level, and 1035 pounds of food and 690 gallons of water at 20th level.
For the number of people you can sustain in a day: at 5th level you can feed 75 people for a day. At 9th level, it's 150 people. At 20th level, it's 345 people.
Not even considering the fact that with sorcerous restoration at 20th level, each short rest gives you four sorcery points, which is essentially 4/5 of a casting of create food and water. Theoretically, if you long rest for 8 hours, and use 15 of your remaining 16 hours of the day to take short rests, and use the last hour to cast this spell, that's an extra 60 sorcery points, or 12 castings of this spell, or 540 pounds of food and 360 gallons of water, or 180 people fed for a day.
With this in mind, the optimized 20th level sorcerer taking 15 short rests in a day can get to a total of 35 castings of the spell, 1575 pounds of food, 1,050 gallons of water, 525 people fed for a day.
Reminder that this spell costs nothing and has no material components.
Ff
The spell states that the food is bland, so sadly it probably doesnt include bacon, crab or roast turkey. But at least you can throw 45 pounds of bread at someone as a distraction.
Solving World Hunger...
Maybe
DM allowing 15 short rests a day :-)
If that’s what a player wants to do with his downtime, sure. It’d make for possible plot hooks. A sorcerer NPC trying to keep their small village of 100-200 people alive as they’ve lost everything to [insert event].
Even if the food has to be bland, it doesn't have to be bread. You could create 45 pounds of bland turkey and do whatever you want with it. You could flavour it with prestidigitation and have normal food that spoils in 24 hours.
By some point of view fermentation is food going bad but in a way that is beneficial.
The difference is just the kind of microorganism does it.
So 'Create Water' specifically states that it must be an 'open container', whereas this bad boy just says you create 30 gallons of water in 'containers'. Lungs are containers. Average human lungs at max capacity have a volume around 6000mL and 30gallons of water is about 136383 mL so basically, you can drown 23 people each time you cast this spell and even make yourself popcorn for the show.
That joke's getting old. Obviously no DM is going to allow that, and no one in their right mind would call lungs "containers."