Herbs, plants, and grubs

So, you have someone grubbing around in your game, looking for fancy things with which to stock his components pouch/herbalists satchel/what-have-you? Good! I have some charts. They assume a 2e D&D ruleset, but with a little tweaking they should be useable with whatever rules you like.

After one hour of herbalism use, roll on the following charts for results. If the herbalist searches for multiple hours, roll again. Any time the same result is rolled, double the previous amount (e.g., if the herbalist searches for 3 hours and rolls feverfew three times, it is no longer a small patch; hour 1 = 1 batch of tea, hour 2 = 2 batches, hour 3 = 4 batches).

HERBS (1d12)
1. Small patch of feverfew. This is enough to brew up one batch of feverfew tea, which is helpful in disposing of migraines and headaches. It may cut down on any penalties associated with sickness (particularly those to Intelligence or Wisdom), and may help resist mind-control effects for the next 1d4 hours (granting a +5% resistance to all charm-related spells or powers).

2. Thistles. This is enough to brew up one batch of milk-thistle tea. It will allow anyone drinking it to take a new save against any sickness they may have, or grant a +2 bonus to any save in a sickness-related save within the next 8 hours.

3. Handful of meadowsweet. This is enough to, over the course of 3 hours, make into one meadowsweet ointment. It must be mixed with a lard base and boiled. The ointment is useful for dulling pain and, when used in conjunction with first aid, will return an extra hp of health to the person being treated.

4. Bees! The herbalist must save vs. breath weapon or take 1 point of subdual damage from bees. If the herbalist saves, they may approach this bees' nest safely if they have any way to produce smoke and collect honey. While it has no medicinal purpose, it sure tastes good, and can be used to brew mead.

5. Flowering Melissa. This herb can be used to flavor food, and generally has a calmative effect that combats melancholia. Any spell causing emotion saves at a +1 bonus for the next 8 hours.

6. Horehound. Enough of these flowers to brew one pot of horehound tea. It is useful for dispelling head colds and chesty coughs, and grants a +3 saving throw bonus to resist or recover from sicknesses of that type for the next 1d4 days.

7. Mugwort. Used to treat cramps, bloating, and sore feet. Can be made into a mugwort ointment, which permits travelers to push themselves for an extra mile per day without effort. This is enough to make one application, which is good for one traveller for one day.

8. Rosemary. The flowers can be used to brew an all-purpose remedial tea (granting a +1 bonus on all sickness-related saves for the next 1d4 days) or be reduced to a pomade by boiling with lard, which makes a face wash (which can be sold for 1sp). Rosemary wood can be burned to lye-bearing ash to make a mouthwash and teeth-cleaner.

9. Rue. Enough rue to treat one venomous bite. When using rue on poisoned wounds, the herbalist may grant a +2 bonus to the target's save vs. poison. It is, additionally, a common ingredient in holy water.

10. Sage. Can be used to prepare a purgative, which grants a +4 bonus to saves vs. poison when the poison has been ingested. Can also be used to brew one batch of sage tea, which grants the imbiber +1 effective Intelligence and Wisdom for the purposes of NWPs for 1d4 hours.

11. Thyme. A key ingredient in anti-infection incenses and fumigations, thyme can be burned to help ward off disease. This is enough to burn for 30 minutes. Any area under the influences of thyme-based incense fumes for 1 hour will grant a +1 bonus to all disease and sickness based saves in the area.

12. Yarrow-root. Used to help treat battle-wounds and infectious bites. Wounds treated with yarrow-root pomade heal at +1 hp per day. Treating an infectious bite with yarrow pomade grants a +1 saving throw bonus to the target's save to resist the disease.

Training Day

I've been playing with training times a little in my games, always treading the line between forcing too much downtime between adventures and forcing too many potential adventures that are ticking away and getting worse (or better) on their own. The current state of affairs in the campaign is that characters require one night of rest in a town or other defended position (8 hours) in order to gain the benefits of levelling up (no resting and gaining hp in the dungeon).

Now we're here to talk of training and acquiring new WPs and NWPs. My rule in the past has been that 1 month of uninterrupted training time will grant any WP (3 months of attenuated "every night but also adventuring" time will grant it) while 3/6 months for NWPs is the norm. However, I'm thinking of approaching this from an entirely different stance.

The new rule, effective as of now (I'll let everyone know if the results are catastrophic) shall be based on hourly quotas.

Weapon Proficiencies: Must accumulate 6 months of general use OR 60 hours of training with some other character who knows how to use the weapon.

Non-weapon proficiencies: Must accumulate 120 hours of training with some other character who knows the skill sought or 240 hours of experimentation on the character's lonesome. Language skills can never be learned without a teacher.

Innate Skills and the Level Arc, or Why Are These Things Tied Together?

Someone, sometime, somewhere down the line decided that certain abilities should be tied to levels. These abilities are not necessarily related to combat skills (which advance as a character advances, because the character practices them). They are things like Proficiencies and Inborn Character Skills that expand, are expounded upon, or become more useful as a character increases in level.

The simplest question to ask is this: does experience in combat equate to experience in all other aspects of life? The clear is answer is no. Why should only 15th level priests be made hierophants of their faith? Why should certain spells be available to 15th level adventuring priests and not their 1st level (or 0th level) administrative counterparts? For example, a priest who has never adventured a day in his life but is a politicker of great skill might run an entire faith—does it make any sense, really, that simply because he's never gone out and swung a mace that his deity would refuse to allow him access to specific and powerful magics?

While a case can be made for the administrator/leader role (and a counter case might say that no, in fact, that deity would probably grant his chief follower the spell just as if he were a level 15 priest), there is no such case for NWP advancement. Skills, essentially, are not functions of combat experience but rather experience at using that skill.

Should there, then, be a system in place that allows characters to advance skills without gaining levels? Most probably. What would such a system look like? Here's just one example:

Every six month period spent studying a skill provokes a check: roll a d20 (with some appropriate modifiers based on circumstance - additions for teachers, subtractions for lack of materials or inconstant study). If the check succeeds you learn nothing knew. If it fails, your rank increases by one point.

Simple, perhaps too simple. And yet, doesn't it make a nice compliment? Now, while your party wizard is out studying the secrets of the stars and concocting spells, you can be learning how to play the lute.