Herbalism [low magic] [long]

[gpetruc]

Here is a simple herbalism system I created (possibly to use it in a very low magic setting).

General ideas
- This system is designed for low-magical worlds, where healing
through divine magic is rare.
- It allows a small amount of healing through natural means (herbs).
- It is good for rangers and other wilderness classes, and also for
NPC experts.
- It uses skills checks

All checks are Profession:Herbalist checks unless stated otherwise
5 ranks in Knowledge:Nature give a +2 synergy bonus to
Profession:Herbalis

To be able to use this skill a character must have an herb of the appropriate type and power level:
Herb types
- hp healing
- ability damage healing (one type for each ability score)
- poison healing
- disease healing

Difficulty (just the definitions):
VE: Very Easy (15)
E: Easy (20)
M: Moderate (25)
D: Difficult (30)
VD: Very Difficult (35)

Healing HP
(no more that 3/day, and no more that 1/hour)
VE: 1d4
E: 2d4
M: 4d4
D: 6d4
VD: 6d6

Healing disease ability damage
(no more that 1/day)
E: 1 point
M: 1d4 points
D: 2d4 points
VD: 2d6 points

Healing poison damage
(no more than once/poison)
E: 1d2 points
M: 1d4+1 points
D: 2d4+2 points
VD: 3d4+3 points

Healing ability damage from other sources
(no more than 1/day)
M: 1 point
D: 1d4 points
VD: 2d4 points

Poison:
(only once/poison)
poison DC - 10: delay for 1 hour
poison DC - 5: delay for 1 hour, halve secondary damage
poison DC: prevent secondary damage

Diseases
(only once/day)
- Disease DC - 10: halve disease damage for 1 day
- Disease DC - 5: prevent damage for 1 day
- Disease DC: heal disease

Herbalist feat
This feat allows:
1) to perform Difficult and Very Difficult tasks (all those
with DC > 20)
2) to take 10 in the checks
3) to prepare herbal brews and ointments

Herb price (raw):
Very Easy: 1 gp
Easy: 5 gp
Moderate: 20 gp
Difficult: 50 gp
Very Difficult: 100 gp
these herbs last for 1 week
note that more powerful herbs may be rare

Finding an herb:
DC equal to the herb power
+2 to check if in good season/place
-2 to check in winter/underground/wasteland
Search time: 30 min
Every time you find 1d4 dozes of the herb
the herb lasts for 1 week

Identify (Knowledge: Nature)
- a healing herb: DC equal to the herb DC; if fail by less than 5 you
can still find out what kind of healing produces; no retry
- a brew: DC equal to the DC of the herb contained; no retry
- a disease/poison: DC equal to the poison DC; gives general
information about the strength, ability affected & so on. It allows
to prepare an antidote

Brews:
1) Time:
- Easy or less: 15 min
- Moderate: 30 min
- Difficult: 1 hour
- Very difficult: 2 hours
(simply: every difficulty increment is x2 time)
2) DC:
- the same DC as for the normal check
3) Duration:
- brews last 1 month
(can be made last for 1 year if the check is made against DC + 5)
4) Cost:
- Very Easy: 20 gp
- Easy: 50 gp
- Moderate: 100 gp
- Difficult: 200 gp
- Very Difficult: 500 gp
- x2 for every other additional +5 DC
5) Effect:
- the same as the herb used for the brew
- the ability score to be healed, or the type of disease/poison must be specified at brewing time.

Antidotes:
an antidote for one kind of poison/disease has the following effects:
- it heals the one who uses it from the specified poison/disease
- it prevents that poison/disease to affect the character for 2 hours
rules are the same as brewing rules
DC is as the poison/disease DC + 5

Edit: fixed formatting

 

[DDK]

I've only had a brief look but it looks pretty cool.

Have you ever seen Shaun Hately's Guide to Herbs in RPG's? Very informative and interesting. I once did a 3rd ed. conversion and some extra rules for it's use but I lost it in a HD crash and have never bothered redoing it since. Worth checking out even if it's for 2nd ed. It's on the web for free as a netbook. I haven't got the URL on me but a Google search should turn it up without any problem.

 

[gpetruc]

I have Shaun Hately's Guide to Herbs in RPG's, and used it in my 2e campaigns.

While a straight conversion is not easy (most herbs are greatly underpowered in 3e terms when you can easily buy many potions), I tried to make similar rules: I randomly generated a list of 400 herbs, divided rationally between the various climates, gave them some powers and then made all the rules (some pages, plus the herbal).
But later I thought that unless one is very interested in this it could result in too much rules and bookkeeping, and so I made this much simpler version.

Anyway if you want I can send it to you, or post it in the messageboards.

 

[handforged]

I really like yor system, but I am a bit confused by the number/condition limitations. Could you clarify a little bit. I understand that to save space in the original post, you did what you did.

In example, you stated under Healing HP's, "(no more that 3/day, and no more that 1/hour)." Does this mean that no more than 3 attempts can be made per day, or no more than three hit points can be gained? I assume the previous, but clarification should be made as to attempts or successful attempts.

I really like he system. The only thing that I think might make it better would be that the various processes could be divided up. Finding the proper herbs(wilderness lore), mixing a poultice(herbalism) and applying them/caring for a patient(heal) are actually quite different skills, I agree that knowledge: nature should give synergy bonuses to suck checks.

I think that I will use such rules in my game, and that I will also develop specific herbs which require special preparation for certain things.

Thanks for a great system.

Edit: Shaun Hately's Guide to Herbs in RPG's

~hf

 

[gpetruc]

The limit, for example the (3/day, no more than 1/hour) in heal HP, means that a character cannot benefit by more than three healing checks every day, and anyway no more than one every hour. While magical healing can be used as many times as you wish, bending and applying a medical herb on a wound 10 times wouldn't be so useful.

In the longer rules (the ones with the herbal and so on; I haven't got them here so I can't post them) I made different skill checks but allowing to substitute one skill check with another but with a penalty: for example instead of heal you could use profession (herbalist) at -5.

This time I was trying to keep it simple.