Herbal preparations: Craft or Profession?

[Suldulin]

Shameless plug: Occult Lore has a section on Herbalism, which I wrote, so I can't give you an unbiased opinion on it I was pretty happy the way it turned out, though. Two prestige classes (Master Herbalist, Wylderwitch, a skill (Herbalism, which can be easily subsumed into Craft [Herbalism], and a feat, Plantbind.)

Bastion Press' Steve Schend also did a treatment of it in Alchemy and Herbalism, which to my regret I have never seen as I've been in Asia since before it was released. I really look forward to seeing how he handled the same material.

Wizards Masters of the Wild has a bit on Herbalism. It's quite useable out of the box but bare bones and minimalist.

Chris

heh, well seems the writer of it beat me too it, but yeah I like the herbalism section of Occult lore, make herbalism a skill like alchemy is, combinining craft and proffession

 

[Umbran]

What's in a name? A skill by any other name still has the same DC...

To my mind, the question is worrthy of thought, but not because there's a question of whether herbalism is making something, or providing a service. The root question is - who is supposed to have access to the skill?

If you make it a Craft, then everyone has access to it as a class skill. That doesn't sound right.

If you make it a profession, the only core classes who don't have it as a class skill are Barbarians and Fighters. That still seems like too many having easy access.

So, it seems that it really needs it's own skill, akin to Alchemy.

 

[EricNoah]

Attached is a document I've been working on for a future campaign setting. Note that it has some new house rules, but toward the end are a couple of charts that show how I related Profession:Herbalist, Knowledge: Nature, Craft (Herbal Remedy) and Heal.

 

[d20Dwarf]

Herbal preparations? Yes...YEs......YES!

 

[Squire James]

I wonder how many people are arguing for something to be a Craft skill simply because their character's Int is higher than their character's Wis?

I favor Profession (herbalist) for crafting of herbal concoctions and all the related activities. A Profession skill IMO can include many "little skills" related to that profession, in this case the selection and preparation of herbs. Similarly, Profession (sailor) covers the variety of duties one would do on a ship (from mopping floors to adjusting sails).

Of course, this means the best herbalist PC's are people who can cast healing spells anyway (which makes the Heal skill almost useless except at extremely low levels).

 

[jmucchiello]

As it's never come up in my games or writings, I'd use Profession (herbalism) as a Craft skill in the same way you can use Alchemy as a Craft skill. (Substitute Int for Wis when used this way.) Skill points are so valuable, I cannot imagine charging a character twice for the same skill: Profession (herbalism) and Craft (herbal stuff). You may as well start charging characters with Craft (woodcarving) for Knowledge (wood) so they can choose good pieces of wood for their projects.

Arguably you could say writing a book about geography would involve using Knowledge (geography) as a Craft skill. Composing a song is Perform as a Craft skill (subbing Int for Cha).

I have material about this in embrionic form for a book that I'll be releasing eventually. But I don't know when.

Joe Mucchiello
Throwing Dice Games
http://www.throwingdice.com

 

[jgbrowning]

i always viewed it this way.

profession (herbalist) ment that i knew how things worked and that i could sell RAW unprocessed herbs to make money.

craft (herbalism) was having the skill to actually make the complex concotions that worked something like magic.


I always make my NPC who are traditionally herbalist have both skills. but you dont have to.

one guy knows a lot of "book" knowledge and can identify things.
one guy knows how to make a lot of concoctions, but take him out of the terrain/ecology he learned the craft in and he wouldn't know what herbs to substitute for others.

its not perfect, but workable.

joe b.