In a move that shows that sections of the fandom will argue about anything, the latest rumbling within the Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition community over the last couple of days has been targeted at, of all things, the 1st level spell goodberry. The argument essentially boils down to the fact that its overpowered for its level and invalidates one of the pillars of play and a certain type of playstyle – namely a game of survival.
Let’s look at the spell first. Goodberry is a 1st level spell that is available to druids and rangers that creates 10 magical berries when it is cast. Each of these berries heals 1 hit point when eaten, but more importantly, provides the person who ate it with all the sustenance they need for the day. So… do the people crying foul have a point?
No.
First off, it’s willfully misunderstanding the “exploration” pillar of play, a part of the game that is often overlooked and passed over for more exciting combat and social encounters. Exploration however, isn’t just getting lost in the wilderness and having to survive on what you can forage. You are experiencing this pillar of play when you’re delving into a dungeon and avoiding threats. It’s the pillar of play you’re experiencing when you enter a new city and have to find your way around – yes, there are currents of combat and social encounters present in those two situations respectively, but it doesn’t change the fact that both of them have you experiencing the game in a different light. That’s exploration.
Secondly, it’s I think misunderstanding how 5th Edition was designed. Yes, it’s high fantasy and yes you can point to works like The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings as inspiration and how the need to resupply and have adequate rations was an important point at many times in the story (you could practically make a drinking game out of Bombur sighing and tightening his belt). But more importantly, 5th Edition is designed to be heroic high fantasy. The PCs are larger than life heroes. And while certain characters within the works of Tolkien fit that bill such as Gandalf and Aragorn, there’s a reason that they aren’t the main characters and that we’re given Bilbo and Frodo. They’re meant to be the stand-ins for ordinary people called upon to do great and terrible things. If you want a game of ration tracking and arrow counting where survival hinges on you finding enough to eat, I honestly don’t think 5th Edition is your game, and I think it might suffer some by trying to put it into that box. And that’s fine! There are plenty of other games that could better emulate this experience for you. Older editions of the game like Advanced Dungeons and Dragons might provide a better framework. Or better yet – dive into the realm of indie games like Endure, Cast Away, or Expedition to Skull Island to find a game that was designed with that exact style of play in mind.
Finally, I think there’s a fundamental misunderstanding on what it means to be given enough nourishment to survive for the day. Have you ever tried to diet for an extended period of time where you’re eating at a calorie deficit day after day? Most of those diets tend to around 1,600 to 1,800 calories a day, and you’re likely still pretty hungry at times and even downright tired at times. 1,200 calories a day is the generally agreed upon minimum amount that a human can survive on before starting to do damage to the body. “Enough nourishment to sustain you for the day” is probably on this lower end of the spectrum. If the PCs insist on surviving on nothing but goodberries for an extended period of time, I think you’re well within your rights to start giving them levels of exhaustion as their bodies start to starve. Look at how exhausted Sam and Frodo grew surviving on nothing but lembas bread while trying to complete their task. And there’s also an argument that could be made that this nourishment is tied specifically to food and doesn’t cover getting adequate water through the day. It’s not necessarily clear what the intent was, but there’s definitely an argument that could be made either way.
So no – goodberry is not a broken spell, at least in my own opinion. Can it make certain survival situations easier or less challenging? Certainly. So can many things about this game. But it’s also important to note that these are resources these characters are potentially giving up something else for. At the end of the day it really comes down to thinking critically about the type of game that you want to run and whether or not the 5th Edition rules set is the best fit for the game. It might be, and it might not be, and that’s all right. There’s a wide world of games out there for you that all do something different, and it’s well worth exploring. Not everything may be to your taste, but it doesn’t have to be.
That said, if you want to run a survival game in 5th Edition and are still worried about this spell making things too easy, here are some “hot fixes” that could be applied to the spell pretty easily.
- For every day after the first day the players survive on the spell, they must make a Constitution saving that gets more and more difficult the longer they go without other nutrition or they start taking levels of exhaustion.
- Limit the amount of berries that are created with the spell – instead of ten, it’s five.
- Instead of conjuring the berries, the caster must have actual berries to enchant when they cast the spell.
- Place the survival scenario in a place where the caster would not have the ability to replenish their supply of mistletoe, a material component for the spell. Each time they cast the spell have them roll a d20 – on a 10 or higher they still have a supply. On a 9 or lower they’ve run out of mistletoe.
Ben Erickson
