Which was why I proposed that food should be required for short rests, not just long rests. Take away the 2 Short Rest Limit and make it cost food.
Then, food heals between combat encounters, and you can recover special abilities like Menacing Attack and Second Wind and Warlock spells as much as you want, provided you pay the food cost.
But if the food cost is 1 Camping Supply per Character Level in your party, a party of 4 Level 4 characters would only cost 16 Camping Supplies per short rest. That's 32 for 2 Short Rests and 64 for 4. That's really not that bad when you get hundreds and hundreds of food and camping supplies in the game, and it now makes it a game and strategy to determine whether you are going to short rest again or long rest or just keep going. It also makes it so you have to determine whether you're going to keep more food with you on your party or not.
AND, if you make it so that you can choose which characters will actually Short Rest, meaning not everyone has to necessarily recover HP per Short Rest, then it would require even fewer Camping Supplies per Short Rest. Maybe only 1 character needs some HP. That would be only 4 Camping Supplies. Maybe 2 need it. That would be only 8.
Then everything has its unique purpose and has meaning. Potions heal during combat, as well as spells. Between combat, you can heal via food during Short Rest.
Here's the thing, you are an advocate for DnD 5e rules but in the Player Handbook, no where does it say that food and water is ONLY for long rest or short rest.
In Appendix A, there is a section on the top right page corner regarding exhaustion. It mention how a long rest only reduces the exhaustion level by 1, provided that you have also ingested some food and drink (not that it's included in the long rest). The way I interpret that is you are still required to eat and drink, regardless of whether you rest. This doesn't contradict what I have been asking. The title of my thread has to do with eating food. Yes, I ask in regard to healing but eating to relieve exhaustion is a form of healing. So, according to DnD rules, I'm not wrong. Whether you like it or not is different story. You may not incorporate that as a DM in YOUR game but that doesn't mean another DM (Larian) can not incorporate it in theirs, because at the end of the day, it's THEIR game not ours.
