Level
1st
Casting Time
1 Action
Ritual
Range/Area
10 ft
(5 ft )
Components
V, S
Duration
Instantaneous
School
Transmutation
Attack/Save
None
Damage/Effect
Utility
All nonmagical food and drink within a 5-foot-radius sphere centered on a point of your choice within range is purified and rendered free of poison and disease.
would this work for making salt water drinkable? say your in a desert setting and reach the ocean but cant drink the salt because you know - that doesnt work irl
This sounds like it would be better as a cantrip or am i stupid. I feel like the utility of this spell is on a very limited scope.
No, it would make the saltwater free of disease or poisons. It will not make it drinkable. It also means that you would have to consider salty water a "food or drink" which I personally think it is, since you need salt for food prep or preservation. If you think your water has been spiked with poison, or want to drink marsh water in a green dragon lair, this spell is for you.
This spell does not transmute into something clean, it only gets rid of poison and disease. Blood is neither
Rotten food won't be restored or taste better, it's just... not toxic anymore
Same for stagnant water. Won't get you sick, but will still taste like sh*t
Suggested homebrew for spell scaling with level is letting it apply to larger areas when cast at higher level. Add 5 ft radius per spell level above first. Purify a whole feast hall or kitchen!
Depends on how much salt after a certain amount salt is toxic so probably
The spell says "...is purified and rendered free of poison and disease." if it said "purified by rendering..." then you would be correct. However that and means "purified" is an additional effect.
The word "purify" in this context means "to remove contaminants". Purified water should be clear and essentially tasteless. Cast on a bucket of stagnant swamp water and it should be a bucket of clear water that has no diseases or toxins.
Cast on rotten food and I would say the rotten parts vanish. Not "are made edible" but that they blow away like dust or something. Cast on a rotten apple and all the rotten parts go away, leaving the healthy stuff. Which could result in a quarter of a dried-out, withered, and bland apple. (Which you then ask the wizard to cast Prestidigitation on to make it tastier)
Divine Soul sorcerer subtly casts this, ensuring that the poisoned cup of wine he drinks is no longer poisoned, making sure the other cup of his opponent is not in the 5 ft radius. Boom, that Iocane powder scene from Princess Bride. Add another feather in the cap of subtle spell!
If player characters are in the digestive tract of a giant monster, does this spell work to cure them of poison & disease? Asking for a friend...
Not sure that it works that way. Technically salt water is drinkable, in small quantities over short periods of time. Salt water is 'salty' by nature, so purifying it would just make it pristine salt water, not transmute salt water to fresh water. Swamp water, on the other hand, is fresh water, just contaminated by a bunch of different things. Purifying it, would make drinkable fresh water. The spell doesn't let the caster specify what get's removed when it's purified, it's just made a cleaner version of what you started with. Kinda like trying to use it to make bread gluten free. Sure, gluten is 'toxic' to some people, but the bread was made with it, so all the spell would do is make it edible bread, not edible gluten free bread. Of course the DM is free to determine exactly what purify means, but I personally would not allow it to change the fundamental nature of the substance being purified.
Does it remove sewage?
I would interpret "purified" to include "free of sewage", yes. I think the intent is that the spell makes food and drink generally safe to eat.
You're ignoring the first function in the description. It purifies and removes disease and poison.
Well according to Mike Mearls, lead designer of 5e in regards to "How do you handle definitions of "Food and Drink" for the purposes of Purify Food and Drink"; his response is that it's supposed to be prepared or cultivated foods. If it's to only prepared or cultivated foods it would make sense that it would also apply to prepared or cultivated drinks. Water itself isn't necessarily safe to drink unless you prepare it by boiling, distilling, or desalinating it. So drinking water in barrels or cups would be fine, but not direct sea water.
For me, there's really 2 reasons why I wouldn't allow this spell to desalinate sea water:
1.) It would be acting way to much like Create or Destroy Water. The point of that spell is to create clean drinking water in containers. If the RAI for Purify Food and Drink was that you could purify any body of water, it would be way stronger than Create of Destroy Water; as you could effectively create upwards of 3,900 gallons of drinking water from marshes and seas.
2.) The spell specifically calls to purify "food" and "drink" and for the removal of disease and poison for a reason. If the RAI for Purify Food and Drink was that you could desalinate water, what else would it try to purify out of water? Would the spell try to remove the alcohol from wine and liquor turning it back into water; because it can cause alcohol poisoning? What if you're a cannibal or lizardfolk, could you cast this spell on living "food" and turn blood to water killing your "food" for you? Can you cast this spell into a cesspit to create second breakfast from yesterday's lunch? It creates to many edge cases and questions when the only definition of food or drink is anything you can bite into or swallow.
If the RAI is for prepared and cultivated food and drink only, then there would be an understanding of what counts as contamination for food and drink. For example, a well would be cultivated water, thus you could use Purify Food and Drink to try to remove poison from well water (although it would probably take many casting this spell over several days or even months to purify that much water, since a well is way bigger than 5 foot radius deep).
Then again Christopher Perkins would argue that you could desalinate the water because "the beer must flow". As a DM you just have to make a ruling and stick with it.
https://www.sageadvice.eu/how-do-you-handle-definitions-of-food-and-drink-for-the-purpose-of-purify-food-and-drink/
https://www.sageadvice.eu/would-purify-food-and-drink-desalinize-sea-water/