Herbalist Talent

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by JohnPaulB

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.

I never would have thought of tying herbs to Ancestor Worship, but it is a good and natural fit. There's more to be done in that area, I bet. Don't some folks burn sage to remove evil spirits or some such? Perhaps an herbalist could give some alternative means to ridding oneself of poltergeists, though of course it would be more difficult than burning a bit of sage.

Anyway, I do like the connection you've made there between herbalism and spiritual stuff.

What is BOU?

Book of Unlife. I've seen others use the abbreviation and it is consistent with ITL, so I use it.

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.

Just found it today, but my own need for hunting animals is a little simpler.

Since I'm using outdoor encounter tables, I have two methods for hunting. First, if you're actively looking for animals, you roll more often for an encounter. If you're lucky you roll the one you want.

Second, if you're actively hunting, say, jaguar's for their delicious earlobes, you roll once a day (IQ test) to see if you find some. If I'm using a 2d encounter table, say, then you roll 4d for those who are encountered on 8-12, 5d for 6-7 or 13-14 and 6d for 3-5 or 16-18. In other words, the number of dice roughly (and naively) correlates to the probability of a random encounter.

The number of dice are decreased by certain talents, of course, like Woodsman and Trapping, but never reduced by more than two.

The idea is simple enough and something like it would work for herbs if you had some idea of the rough probability of each herb appearing in a certain area. Other solutions would be rather complicated. (Even this one requires a GM figuring where herbs would grow!)

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.

Interesting stuff!