How do we feed a character whose mouth is magically sewn shut?

Question

My party has gotten themselves into quite a pickle and one of our characters has gotten his mouth sewn shut by magical thread, which we can't cut. He is unable to eat and our GM has determined that he had roughly 4 days of being alright in that state without starving to death. We're now down to 1½ days before he starves and he has 2 levels of exhaustion (which cannot be reduced by taking a long rest because he can't eat and drink).

Is there any spell or creative solution to get him fed and allow us some more time to fix the whole situation?

He is a Tortle and the 'best' idea I've had is putting a feeding tube in his nose to keep him alive. He can't use a straw. He is a level 7 warlock.

Answer 1

Just cut a hole in his cheek.

Puncture wounds are healed by regular healing spells, so just stab the tortle through the cheek and shove a goodberry in there. It won't be fun, but it works. Or...

Find a cleric who can cast Regenerate.

Once you have done that (and I highly recommend doing it in this order), use a knife and just cut the Tortle's lips off, thread and all. Regenerate will restore the character's missing body parts, lips included, after two minutes. Strictly speaking, you don't need a cleric: a druid or bard who can cast seventh level spells will also work.

Alternatives to finding someone who knows that sort of magic: find a Ring of Regeneration. This is probably a lot harder, but technically, you only need to borrow it for 1d6+1 days for the body part to regrow (here, the tortle's lips) at which point you can return it.

Answer 2

Get creative

First the bad news. 5e does not seem to have a Ring of Sustenance like the earlier editions of D&D, and a Bead of Nourishment isn't going to help you if you can't get it in their mouth somehow. There are also no spells that can really help, there's no way to get a Goodberry inside the character's mouth. You might try to argue that a stomach is a container, but then Create Food and Water might instantly kill the character because it creates 45 gallons worth of food, which seems a bit excessive.

Instead, try to get rid of the magical thread so they can eat the normal way again.

The character had their mouth sewn shut by magical thread they can't cut, so cut around the magical thread and then figure out later how you're going to fix the poor Tortle's face later. Better to be a reptilian Joker than to starve to death. Alternatively, you could try making a hole in their cheek to insert food through, if the thread won't sew that shut, it might be the less severe, but less 'complete' solution.

Alternatively, see if you can nullify the magic of the thread. Perhaps there's a Dead Magic Zone that will do the trick or you can find somebody to cast anti-magic zone, or perhaps the DM will be generous and agree that the wire itself is mundane and the magic keeping it from being cut is a spell cast on it, in which case Dispel Magic might work.

If that also doesn't work, there might be more drastic ways to keep the character from starving to death, such as using a spell or a monster to turn them to stone. A different, higher level solution would be to True Polymorph the character into a creature that doesn't need to eat, such as an undead or a construct. You could also use any of the other higher level spells that remove the need to eat: Sequester, Imprisonment or astral projection.

Answer 3

• Ioun stone

  Sustenance (Rare). You don't need to eat or drink while this clear spindle orbits your head. (DMG pg. 177)

• Goodberry (1st level) ~ shoot one down their nose.

• Dispell Magic (3rd level) ~ cancel magical effect

• Polymorph (4th level) ~ turn them into another creature to eat.

• Sequester (7th level) ~ put in suspended animation until magical effect removed

• Antimagic Field (8th level) ~ will suspend the spell effect

FOOD AND WATER

Characters who don't eat or drink suffer the effects of exhaustion (see appendix A). Exhaustion caused by lack of food or water can't be removed until the character eats and drinks the full required amount.

FOOD

A character needs one pound of food per day and can make food last longer by subsisting on half rations. Eating half a pound of food in a day counts as half a day without food.

A character can go without food for a number of days equal to 3 + his or her Constitution modifier (minimum I). At the end of each day beyond that limit, a character automatically suffers one level of exhaustion. A normal day of eating resets the count of days without food to zero.

WATER

A character needs one gallon of water per day, or two gallons per day if the weather is hot. A character who drinks only half that much water must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or suffer one level of exhaustion at the end of the day. A character with access to even less water automatically suffers one level of exhaustion at the end of the day. If the character already has one or more levels of exhaustion, the character takes two levels in either case.

Nose, mouth, toe? If you are assuming based off real human anatomy, then since we can receive food or drink through the nose into the stomach, then so can a D&D character.

If not, then may I suggest "Gentle Repose & Revivify".

All this depends on in which his mouth was magically sewn shut, like magical needle and thread, or like Neo in the Matrix?

Answer 4

A body needs an entry (hole) to absorb most kind of foods or liquids. So why not just use the lower entry, if you know what I mean.

Nutrient Enema

So my mixing some foods he could get nourishment as well. I do not play D&D but other free forms of fantasy RPGs. But since reality matters I guess, it could work?

Answer 5

A person with a knowelege of medicine might be able to create an incision and feed the character through that.

There are cows that have cannula fitted to their stomachs on a permanent basis that allow scientist to study their digestive systems and these live quite happily.

Your party could then either use magical foods like goodberries or beads of nourishment, or simply chew the food themselves before placing the chewed food directly into the party members stomach. Spells such as lesser restoration could be used as infection control to protect the site from infection.

Answer 6

I might be wrong here since I'm still a newbie, but wouldn't you be able to cut your food into chewable portions and then use the Teleport spell to teleport it into your mouth?

This spell instantly transports you and up to eight willing creatures of your choice that you can see within range, or a single object that you can see within range, to a destination you select.

Answer 7

Antimagic Field

Antimagic Field is an 8th level Cleric/Wizard spell that last for up to 1 hour. It says:

Magic Items: The properties and powers of magic items are suppressed in the sphere.

So, you could find a high level Cleric or Wizard (perhaps at a local temple, or the Wizard's Guild) and see if they would cast this. Then cut the thread while it's magical properties are suppressed.

Answer 8

You'd have to check with your DM because the thread is homebrew, but you might be able to get their mouth open far enough if you Polymorph them into something with a vastly bigger mouth than a Tortle, like a Crocodile. Unless the thread magically becomes 5ft long, a big croc should have plenty of room to squeeze in some goodberries for nourishment.

Answer 9

You can use a tube to feed them through their nose. There is a video on YouTube detailing how painful this is, and the wiki gives you some history on the horrors of it.

In this case, there is magic, so you could get a magic tube, cast a grease spell (is that still a thing in 5e?), and just slide it all the way in. Since the recipient is interested in staying alive, they will probably be somewhat willing to accommodate the tube.

Answer 10

The last version I played was version 2.5 (We wanted an upgrade but 3rd ... wasn't good for our group, so we created 2.5) and a little of 3rd.

If I remember right you can teleport stuff other than the caster teleporting himself. So plate of food = in his stomach. You can argue that even with a traditionally complicated spell with a marginal degree of error that can happen, the teleport is only going to be for a couple of feet or even measured in INCHES.

A rookie mage should be able to pull it off with ease as in the "crawling stages" of learning; he would have done this too may times to count as he worked his distance up through practice.

Our DM was awesome. He had a rule: if you can logically show how it is possible, even if its "against the rules" he would allow it. It created some very interesting games with interesting solutions to some interesting "puzzles".

One thing or phrase that was all over the place in the books (at least in the early ones) was "DM's Option!"

The more practical solution would be a simple feeding tube, or, a very good spot to introduce a "vampire' into the mix of characters as they do not need to really eat or drink(or some other form of "undead"), then his mouth can be sewn shut for eternity and depending on the party member, it might be a good addition to his character: the stitched mouth, not the addition of an undead. (Another fun thing DM did was tell us we rolling new characters.... then throw us the monsters manual to look through.)