Suggestion: implement Food and Water tracking as an optional rule

[aaclayton]

Originally in GitLab by @Stendarpaval

Yesterday I released my Food and Water Tracker module. Since this module basically fully implements the Food and Water rules of the SRD (version 5.1, pages 86 and 87), Calego (ElfFriend) suggested on Discord (link to discussion) that I make this issue here about potentially including it in the dnd5e system as an optional rule, similar to gritty realism and the like.

I'm up for working on a pull request (or however they are called on GitLab) to fully integrate my module into the dnd5e system.

Of course, the Food and Water Tracker module could be improved in a few ways:

• In order to facilitate characters that don't need tracking (such as undead or constructs), I've made it so that tracking can be turned on or off by enabling or disabling a checkbox added to a new section in all characters' Special Traits called "Food and Water".
  • This might not be the most logical place for enabling that. Perhaps a button could be added below the "Currency" button on the Inventory tab of actor sheets, labelled "Food and Water". The button would open a (Form)Application containing the "Food and Water" section that is currently added to the Special Traits application.
• In that "Food and Water" section, the module allows manual adjustment of the tracked variables (Days without food and days without water), as well as custom limits for each. (The non-custom food limit is calculated based on 3 + conMod, as per the SRD.)
  • It might be more in line with the rest dialog design to use input tags and thus make these values adjustable in the dialogs themselves. On the other hand, that would make the "Food and Water" section rather devoid of options and might make the rest dialogs overly complicated.
• The module includes an optional maximum days without water, which isn't part of the SRD.
  • Might strip that, since the rapidly increasing levels of exhaustion when not drinking enough make it kind of superfluous.
• The module automatically prompts the user to roll a Constitution saving throw with a default DC of 15 (adjustable in the module's settings).
  • It might be more in line with the system to output a chat card with a saving throw button instead.
• The module automatically increases exhaustion levels.
  • It might be better to make it configurable how much the exhaustion is increased, and perhaps prompt whether or not to actually apply the increase at all.
• The module includes a compact version of the Food and Water rules below each respective prompt it adds to the rest dialogs.
  • While it's more compact than the full Food and Water rules, it's still a fair amount of text. Perhaps the text could be placed in a container that is collapsible through css when clicked (which I've done before in Mob Attack Tool, and this is also how dice rolls are hidden) or a tooltip could appear when hovering over an icon of some sort (like a "i" or "?" perhaps, or icons of food and drink). Or a link to a compendium Journal Entry about Food and Water.

I'd be willing to work through some or all of these improvements (and more if I missed a few, which I likely have), though of course getting the module integrated at all would be a priority. I welcome feedback on whether integrating it at all is a good idea, and if so, which improvements would make sense to include.

I'm aware that my code has some differences in style and especially the amount of annotation/documentation. I'd be happy to adapt it to the standards of the dnd5e system. My formal background is in physics, so coding practices like that are new to me but I'm always willing to learn! :)