Knights & Knaves Alehouse

I'm sure this has been covered in a book or article somewhere - what's the difference between iron rations and regular rations?

Mythmere wrote:I'm sure this has been covered in a book or article somewhere - what's the difference between iron rations and regular rations?

I think for the weight iron rations are supposed to provide more nutrition for less bulk and last longer overall. "Longer" as in years versus the weeks or months that normal rations might. That's always the way I ruled it.

Iron rations weigh 75, standard rations weigh 200 iirc. Check the encumbrance tables at the back of the DMG.

Thanks, guys.

The above is correct, and is probably the primary difference in AD&D, but in OD&D (where encumbrance for miscellaneous gear isn't itemized) the key to the difference is in the description: "iron rations (for dungeon expeditions)" (Vol. I, p. 14). To me this means that if you're traveling overland carrying standard rations is fine, but if you're planning to carry food into the dungeon it has to be iron rations (presumably because the dank dungeon atmosphere causes standard rations to spoil).

Of course, if you're a DM with a sense of whimsy, you can decide that iron rations are, in fact, made of iron, and make a good blunt object to knock people out with

Standard Rations= Bread, fresh produce, lightly preserved meats (smoked, lite brine, etc.), cheese wheel, etc.

Iron Rations= Hard Tack, dried beans, jerky (or pemican, etc.), heavily brined meats, parched corn, etc.

You can live off of both one just has better flavor. Do note that when they called it hard tack they meant it! There are hard tack bisquits from the American Revolution that have not yet begun to spoil! The practice was to throw them into the cooking beans, etc. to soften them up (it works sometimes).

I like the house rule where standard rations are good for only a week, while iron rations are good indefinately. Makes players buy food according to how long they think they are going to be gone.

- Wheggi

I'm not sure how much this matters, but in the various computer games they also make it so that Iron Rations sates your hunger longer than normal rations do.

Wheggi wrote:I like the house rule where standard rations are good for only a week, while iron rations are good indefinately. Makes players buy food according to how long they think they are going to be gone.

- Wheggi

I believe that's what we're using in the current game. Are you the one who suggested it or did JH (or JW) come up with it independently? I'm not crazy about that ruling, because I think that the kind of foodstuffs that make up standard rations (as listed by stongiant above -- bread, cheese, lightly salted/smoked meat, etc.) should be able to last more than a week, and that the increased bulk/enc. of standard rations is enough of a 'balancing' element against their cheaper cost (that and the fact that you can't take them into dungeons), but it doesn't bother me enough to make an issue out of it...

I hadn't been the one to suggest it, but it is a system I have used before. If a DM is one that is a stickler for encumberance then your method is certainly a great way to go, but if you are one of those DMs that plays AD&D "lite" (which means usually with minimal concerns for spell components, encumberance, training expense specifics, etc. . . . hey, some people play that way), the "perishable standard rations" method is a good way to differentiate between the two. My next game I'll probably go with the increased bulk method.

- Wheggi

I got to thinking about this thread again after reading Mitchner's Poland and his description of the mongols eating dried strips of beef while in the saddle, never flagging even during a forced march.

As a note the Gygax/Arneson Blue Expert Book states:
Rations, iron: preserved food for one person for one week (x10).
Rations, standard: unpreserved food for one person for one week (x10).

Seems Stonegiant was spot on; I wonder if Gygax has considered Revolutionary War bisquets softened in beans. Yum.

sepulchre wrote:I got to thinking about this thread again after reading Mitchner's Poland and his description of the mongols eating dried strips of beef while in the saddle, never flagging even during a forced march.

As a note the Gygax/Arneson Blue Expert Book states:
Rations, iron: preserved food for one person for one week (x10).
Rations, standard: unpreserved food for one person for one week (x10).

Seems Stonegiant was spot on; I wonder if Gygax has considered Revolutionary War bisquets softened in beans. Yum.

Seems rational to me.

When I was young, I asked what iron rations was, and I was told that it was caned food. I had a hard time believing that because it was such a modern thing, but I was told that armies used caned food since the Napoleonic Wars. From my understanding, it can also cover pickled food (food preserved in glass jars).

sepulchre wrote:Seems Stonegiant was spot on; I wonder if Gygax has considered Revolutionary War bisquets softened in beans. Yum.

Good ol' SOS - Shit On a Shingle.

There are a few problems that stemmed from eating Iron rations in the real word for a prolonged time.

1. Severe constipation (IIRC in one Rev War doctors diary a soldier came in doubled over in pain with a distended abdomen; he hadn't had a bowel movement in over 6 weeks, it took 7 or 8 vinegar/sour wine enemas before he could even try to go on his own ).

2. Iron Rations are not good sources for Vitamin C and others and scurvy was a common side effect from those on a diet of these rations alone.

3. They taste like shit; I have read soldiers in many wars cooking there beans and hard tack with anything to give it some flavor (coffee, chicory, wild herbs (dill, garlic, onions, etc.); anytime fresh food was available it was chosen over the hard rations.

I think a fair house rule with Iron Rations would be that it can't be eaten for more than three straight weeks without any side effects, I would say a 3 weeks on to 1 week off ratio would work.