Rules for starvation

[Lanah]

Since my party is now trapped in a huge cave with a despairthought below just waiting for them to slowly starve to death I was looking for some basic rules for starvation and to my surprise after searching through most of my 2nd edition books and the few 3rd edition I have I found nothing. I found tons of infos how to find food/water in the wilderness but nothing about what happens if a group really runs out of food. The closest thing I found was the Hunger spell which gives a -1 cumulative penalty for each day without food after the first three and a step 1 dmg (+1 cumulative/day).
Personally I find this a little unrealistic. Since my party is around circle 9 they could go a long time without food with these rules.
Unanswered questions for me are:
-how should Recovery Tests/day regain be managed?
-could the stacking -1 action test penalty be handled in a way that characters start to be to weak to continue their daily buisiness at some point?
-how should I handle food consumption of Troll/Obsidiman?

I made myself some house rules but I really don't like them much ( and thus I will not post them here) so I'm open to all good suggestions or official material I missed in any earthdawn edition.

[etherial]

[Kasbak]

And we have our first book for the new edition. "Having Namegivers for Dinner: A Horror's Guide to Torturous Delicacies"

[zayven]

I don't mean to sound snarky, but does it really matter?

How long do you intend to keep them down in that cave? Do you expect it to be long enough for starvation to actually be a factor? I mean, Circle 9 characters are pretty tough. What's stopping them from marching down the cave to just kill the despairthought before they begin to starve? It would be preferable to starvation, anyway.

Is being trapped in the cave serving a function of the campaign? Are they going to spend several play sessions worth of time trapped down there? Is there a way for them to get out?

I guess what I'm really asking is why you need to have some mechanic in place for starvation. It's fair to assume that they're not going to feel the effects of starvation for at least a few days. That's a LOT of in-game time. If you're jumping ahead a week or so at a time and want to impose across the board step penalties, that's one thing, but exactly how long do you plan on having them down there? I would imagine that this is why no rules exist for starvation. There simply aren't many situations that might call for it. I like the situation of trapping them underground with starvation as a threat, but wouldn't you realistically expect a party of Circle 9 characters to be able to find a way out before starvation actually becomes an issue?

Unless you've trapped them down there to die and you're just trying to figure out how long that will take. In that case, why prolong the inevitable?

On one genuinely snarky note, though, who goes into a kaer/cave without a week's worth of dwarven mine rations? How did these guys make it to Circle 9?

[Lanah]

Yup, it does matter.
It would take to long too fully explain the campaign or how the heroes got into the situation, but to show the necessity for starvation rules just this short description:
The Horror resides in a lair of magical prepared crystal (several meters thick, enhanced and protected by a spell powered by death magic of several thousand dwarves) which cannot be destroyed by mundane means, only a wide area nethermancy dispel (1x1 mile radius) could undo the spell and break the protective crystal shell around the horror. This spell must first be created by the groups nethermancer, which by the rules takes quite some time (using 2nd edition rules here) about 5 weeks+.
I don't think many players carry around food for that long, so they have to find enough food till the nethermancer completes his spell (and to survive one or two surprise attacks the horror starts unto them).
So yes, being trapped in the cave is part of the campaign, no they won't spent several game sessions down there (this would be fucking boring for the players), yes of course there is a way out (would be poor gamemastering if it would be hopeless).
I was just surprised by the lack of starvation rules because there are tons of areas in Barsaive where finding food can be a tough job (badlands, wastes, Parlainth underground, all the mountain areas, death sea just to name of few).

[ukhata]

first off,
why is there no one with the plant feast spell? (plant feast + pot of grumba is brilliant)
also just look up regular starvation things for normal humans (ie you and me)
then look up people who can fast for loooong times and then see what happens to them? (shwamis, Buddhas, greenpeace nuts etc)
and draw a middle line out of that for your players.
think also if they can be sustained through their magic. can they use recovery tests to heal hunger damage? can they burn recovery tests for "satiation" or some such.
the book does indeed not really have any hunger problems, but it does have exhaustion. you can always look at that mechanic and make it similar. also the reason for not having it is the existence of various means of food preservation, creation and finding.

also an obsidiman doesnt eat the same amount as a troll, but the same as a human. however keep your obsidiman underground for too long and hell become a statue with a trapped conscience until moved outside again.

does this help any?

Ukhata

[etherial]

[Slimcreeper]

And what about will tests to resist involuntary cannibalism?

[etherial]

[Lanah]