10-12-2018, 02:30 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Oct 2014
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Scavenger diet
Okay, so in my fantasy campaign, there is a species that is a species of scavengers (going by the dietary definition of a scavenger) (They're my version of the good old D&D gnolls).
So I could get away with adding Restricted Diet (Meat only) and Reduced Consumption X (Cast Iron Stomach) to their racial template to represent that they can literally eat fresh carrion and drink water that would be unsafe for others but can subsist on fresh meat and only on meat? Also, could I add a racial quirk that doesn't count for the regular limit of quirks like "Prefer their meat raw"? Are racial quirks a thing? Like because of their physiology cooking meat makes it lose flavor to them? Thanks! |
10-12-2018, 02:38 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
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Re: Scavenger diet
Sure.
Cast Iron Stomach and possibly Resistant to Disease are practically staples for carrion eaters.And Racial Perks and Quirks are perfectly doable and shouldn't really count against a campaign limit.
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10-12-2018, 02:51 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: Scavenger diet
I agree with the Cast Iron Stomach method. Seems very legit to me. Accurate and Simple.
As one of my alien starfighter pilot characters was fond of commenting: "You ... cook ... your food? Barbarians."
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10-17-2018, 01:01 AM | #4 |
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Scavenger diet
The only thing I always had with Cast-Iron Stomach is figuring out what levels correspond to what sorts of food becoming edible. I once asked the forum for advice on that, but I'm still longing for a conclusive table of food/scavenger ratings sorted by the level of Reduced Consumption. ^_^
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10-17-2018, 09:12 AM | #5 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Scavenger diet
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10-17-2018, 09:56 AM | #6 | |
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Scavenger diet
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10-17-2018, 02:59 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Scavenger diet
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It also gives guidelines on how CIS can help when not purchasing food. As it stands, CIS gives no benefit for foraged food, unless the GM decides to be mean and dictates some/all of the food you found is inedible without a certain level of CIS. *I don't think CIS is a RAW Limitation for Doesn't Eat or Drink, but I see no reason not to include it.
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10-22-2018, 11:55 AM | #8 |
Join Date: Sep 2018
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Re: Scavenger diet
I'd say it depends. If this is for a Player's racial template where the party will largely not be Gnolls then it is quirky and leads to fun Role-play where the Gnoll is constantly being gross and alien. It would be a character quirk, so making it a racial quirk just cements it in the game world.
However in generally in your world this isn't a quirk. Most carrion eaters eat raw meat simply because cooking was a tradition exclusively for those that needed to cook meat. Other Gnoll would naturally have a palate derived from carrion eating and cooked food would be icky to them. It wouldn't be strange to them. Or not any more of a quirk than those weird humans and their frying fetish. |
10-22-2018, 01:11 PM | #9 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
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Re: Scavenger diet
Crows and ravens and dogs are all scavengers, but they certainly don't turn their noses (or beaks) up at fresh meat.
Dogs are a particularly broad example: they will eat feces, their own vomit, rotting meat, tinned dog food, raw beef and elk steaks. Along with tennis balls, socks, and various other non-food things. Spotted Hyenas (probably a close comparison for Gnolls) prefer to hunt their own meat (and are quite good at it) but are hardly fussy - they eat bone, hooves, hair, teeth, etc off fresh kills and scavenged kills, along with some dubious quality left-over meat. Even hypercarnivores like lions will eat a lightning-struck magotty wildebeast they stumble across, but vultures have the specialized stomach acids and enzymes [1] to sterilize anything, and hyenas have the bone-destroying jaws to process the allegedly inedible. I don't think lions really count as having Cast Iron Stomach. They just are willing to risk HT rolls for rotting food in exchange for not risking life and limb wrestling with large herbivores. Spotted Hyenas might more properly said to have a "low level" of Universal Digestion - digesting even fresh bones and hooves is a challenge few animals are up to. [1] Incidentally, vulture stomach acid pH is similar to human stomach acid... if we could projectile vomit on command in a foes face like a vulture can, we might never have bothered learning to use tools.
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10-22-2018, 05:16 PM | #10 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Scavenger diet
Rotten food is far more likely to merely induce vomiting or diarrhea than actual life threatening illness. So the risk is likely to be worth it for most animals with okay immune systems. Most humans and cheetahs being unusual for sensitivity, I think.
Free food is hard to turn down.
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