Quote:
Originally Posted by larsdangly
It looks as though a Naturalist pays the same for Herbalism talent as anyone else, but an herbalist pays less to become a naturalist. Was your intention that Herbalism is a subset of Naturalist, so all Naturalists also know Herbalism?
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I first had Herbalist at IQ10. When I took the suggestions to streamline, I thought I would split it into Herbalist I and Herbalist II. But when I looked at Naturalist again, I realized that it says "knows about herbs". So I lowered Herbalist to IQ9. This fits better with a Neanderthal's lower IQ level and that they don't use magic. Also I didn't expect herbalists to know specifically about the rest of nature. Thus Herbalist at 1 CP becomes a stepping stone for Naturalist; or just spend 2 CP on Naturalist and get Herbalist. However, A player could always limit what the talent does, so if your Naturalist knows 'about' a certain herb, he might never have come in contact with it and thus might not be able to make a concoction with that herb.
Quote:
Originally Posted by phiwum
I wonder a bit about balance. Something like Mammal Repellent sure makes camping outdoors a lot easier.
The ancestral smudge description is a little oddly worded. A critical success against IQ is, what, 3, 4 or 5? A critical success is a critical success, regardless of the attribute you're rolling. A higher IQ guy is no better than a moron, unless I'm mistaken in what you mean by "critical success". An alternative for this one would to give a boost to seance rolls if you played with such rules, which can be found in Shadekeep's Apocrypha, but I don't know how easy these would be to amend.
I do like the inclusion of something for BOU.
Medicinal dressing is good. How long does each application take? I'm guessing five minutes. If so, that's a serious cost in time in most situations, which is appropriate. I'm reckoning the person can't engage in strenuous activity for the entire hour (combat, climbing, etc.) but can do other things. The use of adjST is good too.
I'm not too sure about Increase Initiative. A party wide benefit from an herbal concoction is a bit odd.
Lastly, I haven't thought about costs. These are much cheaper than chemical potions, but of more limited use. Anticipating abuse is the hard part. The repellents in particular look like they could be abused, but outside the labyrinth, a GM could declare that the wind diffuses them earlier than twelve hours.
Anyway, the simplification is an improvement. Rules for finding the herbs are lacking, but the same is true for other hunting and gathering. How do you deal with someone who wants to find a poisonous snake? Random searches until he rolls an encounter is lame if he's out snake hunting. Instead, there has to be a daily (say) roll in locating a snake that is independent of encounter tables. It should be modified by setting and talents like Naturalist, Woodsman and Tracking. Ain't no rules for that, so I make some ad hoc rules on the fly and on success play out the combat. (The combat against most herbs is admittedly one-sided.) |
Regarding the repellents: Perhaps the victim gets an IQ roll or perhaps an ST roll to overcome the effects. Thus Repellents might not be a guarantee of averting beasts. And perhaps the duration could be done in dice rolled time that the GM rolls, like 2d6 hours effectiveness. Also, these are obviously lesser variations of the Chemist Potions.
With Smudge, I wanted to include an example of spiritual effects (soul) that herbs might produce. Having read Unlife, I thought that Ancestor Worship might be appropriate. I think Ancestor Worship should NOT be a telephone call away, so I made it difficult. But I agree that the wording is odd. That entry needs work. Shadekeep's variation might do.
What is BOU?
Your description of how long it would take for Medicinal Dressing application fits my thoughts.
As far as costs for the 'potions', I wanted them cheaper, easier to make and less powerful than Chemist Potions. The cost of these items might be too inexpensive for what I am charging. The use of a 1/4 chemist potion in some of the concoctions perhaps should be factored in.
Taking the suggestion that the talent should be simplified, I stripped searching for herbs to IQ roll. However, I too am not happy with that. I need to locate my TFT Beyond The Mountain supplements. They had description on of hunting.
I am thinking of making a "Herbalist II" as an APOTHECARY. This would be an Herbalist with Chemist background that could make herbal drugs. These herbal items would be processed, portable and have a very long shelf life. As a near equal of Chemist, the 'potions' could also be more powerful and even possibly magical. Apothecary would probably only be supported in large cities, unless they are doing field research.