In the 2nd edition of D&D there was the superb Shaun Hately's guide of herbs for RPG that provided some rules for handling herbalism and the use of herbs for healing.
I don't know if it has been ported to 3ed D&D; anyway I am interested in giving more importance to the herbalism-related skills (also to have a non clerical healing, even if weaker)
The relevant skills are, IHMO:
Knowledge (Nature) (int): to know plants, their medical uses and preparations
Profession (Herbalist) (wis): actually the only thing it does is a +2 sinergy bonus to Heal;
Alchemy (int): the skill used to prepare potions, anti toxins and similar things.
The main problem is what skills It's better to use for what and when ?
In Shaun's guide a character knew a number of herbes equals to his three times his intelligence multiplied by the number of times he took the herbalism NWP; to correctly prepare an herb a Int check was required with a penality dependant on how complicated it was to prepare the herb.
In my opinion in 3rd edition it could be converted as:
- To correctly know the use and preparation of an herb you need a Knowledge (Nature) check against a DC that varies from herb to herb. You can't retry, but after you succeeded a check you don't need any more checks for the same plant. When you take a new rank in herbalism you can retry to learn about the herbes you didn't know (the idea is that the character looks in some book or asks about "that strange plant with blue flowers I found on that hill and that I couldn't recognize" ...) but for a maximum of 5+int modif herbs. Otherwise a character might try to identify lots of herbes in order to have lots of chances to learn about them at every level up, while this seems silly: when you take one single rank you can't immediatly learn about two dozen herbs you have seen in your travelling.
- When you correctly identify a plant you need to prepare it in order to heal a character. This may require a Profession (herbalist) check, if it involves medical skills (Heal is also based on wis), or an Alchemy check if it requires difficult brewing and treating techniques.
- Druids with Nature Sense can identify a plant but they still need a Knowledge check to find out the correct preparation of the plant. anyway they have a +2 circumstance modifier to the check.
- Sinergy bonuses could work like this:
five ranks in Profession (Herbalist) give a +2 bonus to Knowledge (Nature)
five ranks in Knowledge (Nature) give a +2 bonus to Alchemy checks (only for herbal brews)
(I'm not sure for these: the only thing I realise is that in the PHB usually if a skill gives a bonus to a second one the second must not give a bonus to the first; also I didn't want only one skill to give bonus to the other two because it would have made that skill more powerfull)
Still there are lots of things to fix
1st) Wilderness lore should be used ?
2nd) How powerful the herbs should be ? In Shaun's guide an herb that cured 1d8 hp was a good one, it had a cost of about 100 gp and it was difficult to find. Now in the 3rd edition a Potion of Cure Light Wounds costs only 50gp and is quite ordinary, while a 2ed Healing potion, curing almost the same, was much more difficoult to acquire. I think that to have a decent porting of that herbary the herbs should become more powerfull.
3rd) Are there any balance problems with all this ? Probably I'm giving more power to the druids (but they are not an abused class anyway, so I think it's not that bad) and weakning the clerics (because know also others can heal); anyway I think also this isn't that bad: clerics would be able to use more spells instead of always be casting healing spells, and also maybe a party can survive without a cleric (Actually I think that a party without a cleric or a druid is really in danger in 3rd edition, much more that how it was in the second ed: healing is so common that if you are the only party without it you are in a really bad situation)
I don't know if it has been ported to 3ed D&D; anyway I am interested in giving more importance to the herbalism-related skills (also to have a non clerical healing, even if weaker)
The relevant skills are, IHMO:
Knowledge (Nature) (int): to know plants, their medical uses and preparations
Profession (Herbalist) (wis): actually the only thing it does is a +2 sinergy bonus to Heal;
Alchemy (int): the skill used to prepare potions, anti toxins and similar things.
The main problem is what skills It's better to use for what and when ?
In Shaun's guide a character knew a number of herbes equals to his three times his intelligence multiplied by the number of times he took the herbalism NWP; to correctly prepare an herb a Int check was required with a penality dependant on how complicated it was to prepare the herb.
In my opinion in 3rd edition it could be converted as:
- To correctly know the use and preparation of an herb you need a Knowledge (Nature) check against a DC that varies from herb to herb. You can't retry, but after you succeeded a check you don't need any more checks for the same plant. When you take a new rank in herbalism you can retry to learn about the herbes you didn't know (the idea is that the character looks in some book or asks about "that strange plant with blue flowers I found on that hill and that I couldn't recognize" ...) but for a maximum of 5+int modif herbs. Otherwise a character might try to identify lots of herbes in order to have lots of chances to learn about them at every level up, while this seems silly: when you take one single rank you can't immediatly learn about two dozen herbs you have seen in your travelling.
- When you correctly identify a plant you need to prepare it in order to heal a character. This may require a Profession (herbalist) check, if it involves medical skills (Heal is also based on wis), or an Alchemy check if it requires difficult brewing and treating techniques.
- Druids with Nature Sense can identify a plant but they still need a Knowledge check to find out the correct preparation of the plant. anyway they have a +2 circumstance modifier to the check.
- Sinergy bonuses could work like this:
five ranks in Profession (Herbalist) give a +2 bonus to Knowledge (Nature)
five ranks in Knowledge (Nature) give a +2 bonus to Alchemy checks (only for herbal brews)
(I'm not sure for these: the only thing I realise is that in the PHB usually if a skill gives a bonus to a second one the second must not give a bonus to the first; also I didn't want only one skill to give bonus to the other two because it would have made that skill more powerfull)
Still there are lots of things to fix
1st) Wilderness lore should be used ?
2nd) How powerful the herbs should be ? In Shaun's guide an herb that cured 1d8 hp was a good one, it had a cost of about 100 gp and it was difficult to find. Now in the 3rd edition a Potion of Cure Light Wounds costs only 50gp and is quite ordinary, while a 2ed Healing potion, curing almost the same, was much more difficoult to acquire. I think that to have a decent porting of that herbary the herbs should become more powerfull.
3rd) Are there any balance problems with all this ? Probably I'm giving more power to the druids (but they are not an abused class anyway, so I think it's not that bad) and weakning the clerics (because know also others can heal); anyway I think also this isn't that bad: clerics would be able to use more spells instead of always be casting healing spells, and also maybe a party can survive without a cleric (Actually I think that a party without a cleric or a druid is really in danger in 3rd edition, much more that how it was in the second ed: healing is so common that if you are the only party without it you are in a really bad situation)
