Quote Originally Posted by ComradeBear View Post
I'm sure that having hydration rules is pretty edition and splatbook dependent, but even then I question why. Rations in the game basically function as a Proper Nutrition Token and you go through them at a rate of 1/in-game day. There is no concern for keeping rations well preserved, they have no expiration date, and we never check to see if anyone gets food poisoning from them. Why?
Hydration and Rations rules exist, as far as I know, in every edition of D&D. Except possibly 4th. They typically require X "tokens" or water/food per day, varying based on size of the creature.

It's actually a pretty decent example of where the D&D game can vary from gamist (generally kept simple in the core rulebooks) to more simluationist (generally in splatbooks like AD&D 1e Wilderness Survival Guide). But it's part of the game for a simple reason: resource management is a core component of what D&D adventuring is about. And logistics management is a subset of resource management. (It's just a frequently discarded subset. But it's still one that's typically included as part of the core rules.)