Herbalism Feedback

[Arienette]

This might be old news to the server population in general, but its new to me! I am just now getting around to trying out herbalism, and it seems to me that there is something a bit "off" about the recipes and requirements.

Firstly, a lot of the potions seem to be completely pointless to make. A lot of the potions (like barkskin) have the same Caster Level as the loot drop and NPC vendor versions that can be bought for like 80 gold. It strikes me as a bit of a waste of time and resources to craft these.

There are a couple of potions however that seem much more worthwhile; Freedom and Death Ward. The problem with these is that they require Kings Crown (and Mojo), which are also required for Heal potions and are very rare.

I more than understand requiring Kings Crown for Heal, as to keep them somewhat difficult to mass produce and increase their rarity. This strikes me as a very good idea.

However, it also means that using Kings Crown (and Mojo) to make Freedom/Death Ward Potions is probably a losing proposition.

It would be nice if these potions required some other ingredient (perhaps one that is also somewhat hard to obtain) instead of using the same things needed for Heal.

[Bunnysmack]

Herbalism has long been an extremely useful crafting discipline for making consumables that both you and your friends will use, but one that falls a bit flat with regard to creating items that you intend to actually sell (Market demand+material needs+crafting points+going price rarely equal a profitable end result). This is true not only of the potions that require mojo/King's Crown, but for a lot of the other main consumables as well (restoration pies and heal kits, for example). Often there are more cost effective alternatives available to customers for a lot of these things, be they player-made potions/wands/scrolls or even NPC merchants.

I will say that herbalism does help a more niche market for characters that can't fit UMD or high lore into their build. In those cases, some of the consumables have more value, but even then it's dicey to try and make a profit selling to such a limited customer base.

I in no way regret taking herbalism, as I love being able to outfit myself, and my friends, with stacks of heal potions, +10 heal kits, freedom pots, restoration pies, etc., but it isn't something I often rely on to actually play the merchant game.

[Hazard]

Herbalism has long been an extremely useful crafting discipline for making consumables that both you and your friends will use, but one that falls a bit flat with regard to creating items that you intend to actually sell (Market demand+material needs+crafting points+going price rarely equal a profitable end result). This is true not only of the potions that require mojo/King's Crown, but for a lot of the other main consumables as well (restoration pies and heal kits, for example). Often there are more cost effective alternatives available to customers for a lot of these things, be they player-made potions/wands/scrolls or even NPC merchants.

I will say that herbalism does help a more niche market for characters that can't fit UMD or high lore into their build. In those cases, some of the consumables have more value, but even then it's dicey to try and make a profit selling to such a limited customer base.

I in no way regret taking herbalism, as I love being able to outfit myself, and my friends, with stacks of heal potions, +10 heal kits, freedom pots, restoration pies, etc., but it isn't something I often rely on to actually play the merchant game.

This, totally this.

I love herbalism. It's amazing for making gifts for friends, or great roleplay items.
Awful for selling, but still my favourite tradeskill.

[The GrumpyCat]

This might be old news to the server population in general, but its new to me! I am just now getting around to trying out herbalism, and it seems to me that there is something a bit "off" about the recipes and requirements.

Firstly, a lot of the potions seem to be completely pointless to make. A lot of the potions (like barkskin) have the same Caster Level as the loot drop and NPC vendor versions that can be bought for like 80 gold. It strikes me as a bit of a waste of time and resources to craft these.

There are a couple of potions however that seem much more worthwhile; Freedom and Death Ward. The problem with these is that they require Kings Crown (and Mojo), which are also required for Heal potions and are very rare.

I more than understand requiring Kings Crown for Heal, as to keep them somewhat difficult to mass produce and increase their rarity. This strikes me as a very good idea.

However, it also means that using Kings Crown (and Mojo) to make Freedom/Death Ward Potions is probably a losing proposition.

It would be nice if these potions required some other ingredient (perhaps one that is also somewhat hard to obtain) instead of using the same things needed for Heal.

Haya, I feel you do have some good points here. There was some discussion about the power of potions on another thread - (viewtopic.php?f=37&t=32549) So maybe this is something we need looking into?

I did find myself that crafting your own healing potions - now the lower circles of healing actually give decent amounts of HP, is really worth it and saves a lot of gold. That's definatly something I'd advise. Not so much for the selling to others, but for saving gold at early levels it's worth it. But lets be honest - that's a reason to slip one or two points in herbalism early on - not a reason to go deep in.

The point about the material price of Freedom of Movement and Deathward needing Kings Crown is good. I've checked with some folk and I think I'll be working on removing that requirement. (It's not much work and something I can do in an afternoon.)

Over all I kinda agree with what other people are saying - that Herbalism is cool but really better for concepts rather than as a money making craft. Which is odd considering the amount of consumables it has. Perhaps that's something to look into in the future?

[Kalopsia]

What herbalism would absolutely need is the ability to craft "zoo" spell potions with a high caster level at prices that are competitive with brewed (magic) potions, ideally without having to kill five dragons per potion :)

[Arienette]

I totally agree that herbalism is good for making stuff for personal use.

I am currently making heal potions (slowly) for myself and it’s great not having to spend thousands for each potion at a shop.

I just thought to myself, maybe I’ll make some of these others like Freedom to sell/give away. When I saw they require the same items as heal potions I immediately changed my mind.

Thanks to Grumpy for talking that into sonsideration!

[AstralUniverse]

What herbalism would absolutely need is the ability to craft "zoo" spell potions with a high caster level at prices that are competitive with brewed (magic) potions, ideally without having to kill five dragons per potion

Tbh even zoo spells at CL 3 wouldnt be so bad for herbalism. It would come off big in places like Skal without zoo buff access early on. It would mostly help low lvl characters make some use of this trade outside of dumping 19-20 points for Heal potions.

[Eira]

Please please please allow normal dye recipes to make 5, and bulk to be 25 or something like that.

There's no combat or otherwise mechanical benefit except making furniture building less of a hell to do.

Herbalism would be more worth the time and effort put into it, if a lot of the items were produced in larger quantities (or yes, higher CL for some)

Otherwise, the only reason I've ever seen someone take it is for heal potions, heal kits, or a couple points for food

[Scylon]

Best way to make it something amazing is high DC items that cannot be replicated in any other way. Like I don't know, Shadow shield pot with a 45 DC? just a wild example. It's like a barkskin, deathward and neg energy thing in one. something like that would sell.

The issue is also alchemy. Herbalist and alchemy are intertwined, and pots should be an alchemy thing. However if there is high DC items that alchemists HAVE to buy to make awesome pots from herbalists that again might be something worth looking at.

[Might-N-Magic]

Herbalism, by far, is the biggest "loser" of the crafts. The potions you can craft often have painful ingredients or ingredients in silly numbers which only produce very weak potions in small quantity. Herbalism should be a fine replacement for lack of UMD so that way builds without 3 Rogue are more viable, but the only stat potion is for Strength. Ever try to live on 3 CL store-bought pots? You have to chug every five minutes it seems. Herbalism should be a fix for being the one brave guy who didn't dip Rogue for 15 UMD and wands.

[mash]

There is a natural tension between herbalism/alchemy as crafts and consumable factories. Most ways to make consumables require investment of a feat (brew potion/scribe scroll/craft wand), while herbalism/alchemy require trade points which you get practically gifted. Potions are moreover in every way the best consumable except for their cost - they can be consumed in half a round and by every character without any UMD or Lore investment. I am not saying these crafts couldn't use some more love and recipes, they do seem a bit limited right now (hence their DCs generally seem to max out in the 20s instead of the 50s of other crafts) - but it should be taken into account that any potion that gets cost effective will quickly overtake all other options due to the inherent advantages of potions.

[Skibbles]

It feels plain outdated and neglected. The biggest evidence being that the craft just got its own bag after years of every other resource having a corresponding container - or that one of the recipes requires an obnoxiously specific version of the basic Spirits alcohol drink you can only find at certain vendors when both versions are identical looking and the only way you can find this out is by running a search on the forums to find it was reported in 2018 or something (actually now its stated on the wiki entry too, now that I'm checking, which must be newish.)

Herbalism is mostly underwhelming, it used to be troll-tier resource juggling, but at the same time it produces one or two of the most valued potions.

Zoo potions will be getting a pretty large sideways buff in the upcoming time change that will greatly increase their duration, so it would be nice to see herbalism get the full suite of Zoo potions in preparation - easily mass produced in huge quantities to be able to undercut NPC merchants.

Dyes should just be gutted out of the system and replaced with just one streamlined item: Assorted Dyes. Seeing the enormous list of different Dyes that have no value beyond being part of another recipe makes me inconsolably frustrated.

Systems like the excessive Dyes make me wish Minecraft had never been invented to poison gaming forever with gratuitously vacuous crafting.

I think it would also help to plain remove some of the other options like death armor potions, ironguts, rotten fruit bullets, etc, just to streamline the interface with less filler to make room for more useful options.

I like that bulls strength has two tiers, and it might be cool to introduce multiple tiers of each of the Zoo potions and barkskin. Like Might and Magic said there is a lot of room to make herbalism a really cool alternative to basic UMD/Lore.

[Archnon]

For the record:

viewtopic.php?f=51&t=24928&p=200035&hil ... on#p200035

This is already pending. Want to put my two cents in. I would love to see race specific potions that function as the extended brew potion wizard pots. Similar to the giant's strength but each race would get a brew

Giant' Strength --> Orcish Grog - Bull's (10)
Aged Dwarven Ale --> Already in the loot matrix as Bears (10)
Elven something something dancy dancy something Drink --> cats (10)
Hin Somethings Something cunning trickster something Drink --> Fox's (10)
Gnomish Gogondy --> Owls. (10)

Gate them by race, make them relatively easy to make for a decent stack size. Then you get a market for longer potions that requires RP and trade. If I am brog, I wanna find a half-orc to make em for me. You get the idea.

[Hazard]

I would love to see more craftable items added to cooking/herbalism, such as mundane consumables.

Something in particular I feel is missing and would be a great addition would be potions or dusts of concealment, giving access to a craftable and mundane means of protection from scrying.

A powder you can snort to give you the effects of true sight (detection pulse), without the see invis lingering afterwards.

And I would love to see more effective poisons for RP. That is, poisons that don't rely on being put on weapons, but rather specifically for foods, crops and water sources. That is the best kind of poison RP in my opinion and not really viable atm. It would be really great to just poison some dinner guests or have plague priests contaminate crops/water supplies.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Herbalism literally prints gold better then any other craft because it requires no investment or other crafters, thanks to heal potions. Normally I would outline a plan for you here, but 1) they make pvp take forever in an ac world and 2) If too many people start doing it it will tank the market. But I'm not a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon, so...

I fully support every other point in this thread however, especially about FoM and death ward. You'd be hard pressed to want to sell them for less then 750 each because of the kings crown. Compare that to a wand you can buy for 5 to 6 thousand and get 35-45 charges, and yeah...They are of course better in a fight like mash pointed out so you don't want them nearly as cheap as wands, but that's just an obscene ratio.

[xanrael]

And I would love to see more effective poisons for RP. That is, poisons that don't rely on being put on weapons, but rather specifically for foods, crops and water sources. That is the best kind of poison RP in my opinion and not really viable atm. It would be really great to just poison some dinner guests or have plague priests contaminate crops/water supplies.

1.
We have dinner style tables in homes, why can't they be clickable (or have multiple places that could be clickable) to provide food/drink similar to a well? Fits RP and you could poison them, ideally without turning the city hostile to you if that's still a thing and with a lower amount needed as you're not targeting a city's worth of people.

Unrelated to the poison thing it would be really cool if you could customize the fixture name as the owner so it might read "Roasted duck" and would send something to the PC when clicking (eating/drinking) like "the food is undercooked but barely palatable" to give those that like RPing cooking another spot to add ambiance.

2.
Could even go with getting a culture of disease and infesting food/drink/wells with it. Slower acting weaker effects that if left untreated could lead to something bad gives more time for an individual to RP seeking a cure and is unlikely to lead to a level 3 fresh off the boat just dying (I'm looking at you Deadly Nightshade). Could make them resistant to cures (higher heal kit DCs, remove disease only has a chance as opposed to 100%) or no, but would give a bit of variety.

[Godsgopher]

So I am to my knowledge one of the very few Herbalists in the underdark. And one of the very very few to work commercially for anyone who wants to hire me. I've also been a herbalist on the surface. Being an underdark herbalist is very very hard compared to the surface. Everything is scarce which bring me to the single biggest problem I have with Herbalism.

It just requires too many components. For way too little profit.

A smith for example can do so many things with just coal and iron. But a herbalist needs dozens of ingredients. And what's worse an underdark herbalist unless there a member of one of the exclusive groups who have their own gardens, has only one source of Lady's Tear that I am presently aware of. There is literally just one public plant, and you have to get a special Key to get access to it, where it sits right next to the King's Crown.

And Lady's Tear is used in EVERY Healing potion.

But as bad as that is barkskin is worse, Barkskin potions need
Nuts (easy)
Hardwood (rare and difficult to carry lot due to weight, very small harvest size)
spider silk (simi-rare: Mostly just very time consuming, small harvest size)
Blood of a Magical Creature (Rare, unless your on the surface but in the UD it rarely drops)
And a glass bottle....

Yea... Glass bottles. Not hard to make, but getting sand and coal enough to make enough of them... Im always having to stop in the middle of a batch of potions to make more bottles. Thats Sand + Coal, two each, then turning the glass into bottles 2 glass and 2 more coal. Its MASSIVELY time consuming.

So I all this into the cauldron and I brew up just 6 potions of barkskin that I have to sell for less than 80 each. Because otherwise I should have just bought them. So lets review...

Thats...

3 Nuts
1 Glass Bottle
1 Blood of a Magical Creature
1 Spider Silk
1 Hardwood
= 6 potions worth 80 each or 480 gold (but your not going to get 80ea because you have to undersell the merchants)

Put it another way, I have to go to six different locations to get the components for barkskin. Don't forget the sand and coal, then make glass, then more coal to make bottles...

[Godsgopher]

By the way, before anyone gets the idea that I an downing on Herbalism I actually really really enjoy it. Not sure why, maybe because in some ways is so highly practical.

But largely people do not want healing potions with the exception of HEAL potions. I like the rarity of those, and while the Kings Crown guarantees there rarity, there also a royal pain to make because of all the steps involved and the very small batch size. I'm actually ok with this for HEALs because there is REAL demand for them.

But you also have similar issues for all the other healing, which generally other people don't want. Potions unbeknownst to most are actually better than bandages. But because bandages do not provoke an attack of opportunity, are MUCH cheaper, and dont require a very rare Herbalist to make them for you. Demand for potions is pretty small.

Thoughts for improving the Trade... I don't mean do to all of these. Balance!

1. Add more potions, more functionality
2. Add more mundane consumables
3. Increase batch sizes OR reduce components
4. Increase harvesting sizes
5. Make other disciplines need more things Herbalists can make.
6. Get rid of all the dyes... what's the point?
7. Also revamp Poisons to actually be better than 1 in 20 chance of working, and you will see many more herbalists.

I'm going to continue playing a herbalist, I really love them. But I admit you don't get as much out of it as other disciplines and you DONT make gold. Our single most profitable item is HEAL's and they currently go for 2000-2500 gold.

Compare that to something like an enhanced Adamantium Bracer which goes for around 100,000+ and is much less time consuming to make.

[Edens_Fall]

The point about the material price of Freedom of Movement and Deathward needing Kings Crown is good. I've checked with some folk and I think I'll be working on removing that requirement. (It's not much work and something I can do in an afternoon.)

SO MUCH THIS!!!! While not possible to luv you more GrumpyCat, this would awesome.

As a long time fan of herbalism, it is very limited if you plan to go into a merchants roll. I'm not sure how practical it would be script the craftable potions at a higher CL compared to the vendor ones, but such would be a nice improvement. That or make them more easier to craft. Right now it doesn't seem worth making anything other then Heal Pots, Oil Flasks, and Dragon Oil to sale.

[The GrumpyCat]

By the way, before anyone gets the idea that I an downing on Herbalism I actually really really enjoy it. Not sure why, maybe because in some ways is so highly practical.

But largely people do not want healing potions with the exception of HEAL potions. I like the rarity of those, and while the Kings Crown guarantees there rarity, there also a royal pain to make because of all the steps involved and the very small batch size. I'm actually ok with this for HEALs because there is REAL demand for them.

But you also have similar issues for all the other healing, which generally other people don't want. Potions unbeknownst to most are actually better than bandages. But because bandages do not provoke an attack of opportunity, are MUCH cheaper, and dont require a very rare Herbalist to make them for you. Demand for potions is pretty small.

Thoughts for improving the Trade... I don't mean do to all of these. Balance!

1. Add more potions, more functionality
2. Add more mundane consumables
3. Increase batch sizes OR reduce components
4. Increase harvesting sizes
5. Make other disciplines need more things Herbalists can make.
6. Get rid of all the dyes... what's the point?
7. Also revamp Poisons to actually be better than 1 in 20 chance of working, and you will see many more herbalists.

I'm going to continue playing a herbalist, I really love them. But I admit you don't get as much out of it as other disciplines and you DONT make gold. Our single most profitable item is HEAL's and they currently go for 2000-2500 gold.

Compare that to something like an enhanced Adamantium Bracer which goes for around 100,000+ and is much less time consuming to make.

A lot of your points are valid, and I think I at least somewhat agree or at least don't easily dissagree with your first five points. 6. 7. not so much.

Dyes are at present used mostly in the creation of fixtures, but I can see possiblities for expanding their use in future (hair/tattoo colouring maybe?)

The point about poisons is honestly more complex than you let on. In terms of venom... I'm not really a 'mechanics' person, but I imagine some thought would have to be given to how good to make them, so they don't become some sort of insta-win must-have tool.

But that's 'blade venoms' not 'poisons' and poisons are even more tricky...

Think of poisons like Traps. Dying to a trap in the middle of a dungeon in a one shot is a pain. Dying to poison just because you drank from the wrong well is even worse. And that's kinda the problem with making them very powerful.

Consider the following scenario from two different points of view

Poisoner: 'Yeah! I sneaked into the feast and poisoned half the food! Within a few moments, half the guests were dead! It was epic!'

Guest: 'I was happy rping, picked up a bit of food and WHAM! Dead! No reason, no explenation, we've no idea who did it. It was just some lame random griefer poisoning everyone! Ugh!!'

Yeah in theory more powerful poisons are great. But in practice they could be problematic. It's something that needs careful balence.

[Archnon]

Think of poisons like Traps. Dying to a trap in the middle of a dungeon in a one shot is a pain. Dying to poison just because you drank from the wrong well is even worse. And that's kinda the problem with making them very powerful.

Consider the following scenario from two different points of view

Poisoner: 'Yeah! I sneaked into the feast and poisoned half the food! Within a few moments, half the guests were dead! It was epic!'

Guest: 'I was happy rping, picked up a bit of food and WHAM! Dead! No reason, no explenation, we've no idea who did it. It was just some lame random griefer poisoning everyone! Ugh!!'

Yeah in theory more powerful poisons are great. But in practice they could be problematic. It's something that needs careful balence.

I really truly hope that after the first person ate a piece of bread and kicked the bucket, everyone else in the party would be like, wait, hold on and it would lead to some nice RP. Also, you are holding us back from serious kool aid rituals here!

That being said, I really think just making herbalism a viable alternative to caster crafted potions would be enough and it would balance the market in that regard for mundanes. Reducing the cost on longer term potions makes those mundane classes more viable and makes strength builds (a topic of another conversation) have a mechanism for reducing costs in dungeon crawling.

[Anomandaris]

By the way, before anyone gets the idea that I an downing on Herbalism I actually really really enjoy it. Not sure why, maybe because in some ways is so highly practical.

But largely people do not want healing potions with the exception of HEAL potions. I like the rarity of those, and while the Kings Crown guarantees there rarity, there also a royal pain to make because of all the steps involved and the very small batch size. I'm actually ok with this for HEALs because there is REAL demand for them.

But you also have similar issues for all the other healing, which generally other people don't want. Potions unbeknownst to most are actually better than bandages. But because bandages do not provoke an attack of opportunity, are MUCH cheaper, and dont require a very rare Herbalist to make them for you. Demand for potions is pretty small.

Thoughts for improving the Trade... I don't mean do to all of these. Balance!

1. Add more potions, more functionality
2. Add more mundane consumables
3. Increase batch sizes OR reduce components
4. Increase harvesting sizes
5. Make other disciplines need more things Herbalists can make.
6. Get rid of all the dyes... what's the point?
7. Also revamp Poisons to actually be better than 1 in 20 chance of working, and you will see many more herbalists.

I'm going to continue playing a herbalist, I really love them. But I admit you don't get as much out of it as other disciplines and you DONT make gold. Our single most profitable item is HEAL's and they currently go for 2000-2500 gold.

Compare that to something like an enhanced Adamantium Bracer which goes for around 100,000+ and is much less time consuming to make.

A lot of your points are valid, and I think I at least somewhat agree or at least don't easily dissagree with your first five points. 6. 7. not so much.

Dyes are at present used mostly in the creation of fixtures, but I can see possiblities for expanding their use in future (hair/tattoo colouring maybe?)

The point about poisons is honestly more complex than you let on. In terms of venom... I'm not really a 'mechanics' person, but I imagine some thought would have to be given to how good to make them, so they don't become some sort of insta-win must-have tool.

But that's 'blade venoms' not 'poisons' and poisons are even more tricky...

Think of poisons like Traps. Dying to a trap in the middle of a dungeon in a one shot is a pain. Dying to poison just because you drank from the wrong well is even worse. And that's kinda the problem with making them very powerful.

Consider the following scenario from two different points of view

Poisoner: 'Yeah! I sneaked into the feast and poisoned half the food! Within a few moments, half the guests were dead! It was epic!'

Guest: 'I was happy rping, picked up a bit of food and WHAM! Dead! No reason, no explenation, we've no idea who did it. It was just some lame random griefer poisoning everyone! Ugh!!'

Yeah in theory more powerful poisons are great. But in practice they could be problematic. It's something that needs careful balence.

I think it'd be hilarious if you could create poisons that would have a rp impact not a PvP impact. Like every 5 min PC rolls a save check to not cough and wheeze uncontrollably through a scripted emote until the poison wears off. Stuff that is "interesting" but effectively harmless if you get hit with it. And set a simple rule like no poisoning public water more than 1/RL week. I dunno I think it'd be hilarious to see someone get the runs from drinking out of the local well that some sneaky goblin poisoned... because... goblin.

Otherwise yah your point on poisons is spot on. If the saves are high enough to "work" they'll just murder lowbies which sucks. So make the effects meaningful but not murdery?

[Bunnysmack]

The rate of poisoning, according to the wiki, is what determines the % chance of any poison effect getting triggered when someone drinks from a water source the criminal has targeted. Limiting the rate of poisonings per week would essentially screw up the way the mechanic is designed.

[CNS]

I do think we could loosen the slack on food based poisons, perhaps even well based ones.

Every single player has an impenetrable defense against being poisoned. Don't eat random food people give you unless you trust them. A poisoner can't poison food in the NPC shop, NPC loot drops or in your inventory. Getting exposed to poison even if the DC was 500 and unpassable is always going to be a choice.

Secondly, detect poison is a low level spell. You don't see it being taken, used, wanded etc right now cause it's utterly pointless, actually having a risk of being poisoned might make it start having some use.

[Archnon]

Love the idea of poisons with an obnoxious RP hook that don't do actual damage. It would be super cool to loop this into an antidote line of crafts that you have to go find from a pc merchant to get rid of it. Things like:

-Your sobriety drops to -25, It can't go above this point with rest.
-Your hunger meter drops to 0, eating makes you hungrier,
-Your thirst meter drops to 0, drinking makes you thirstier.
-Every tick you make a will check, with standard poison DC, on failure, you laugh uncontrollably breaking action cue (like when drunk). You dance until someone heals you or smacks you (ie get attacked). The activity exhausts you (-25 rest meter).
-Every tick you make a will check, with standard poison DC, on failure, you dance uncontrollably breaking action cue (like the bard spell). You dance until someone heals you or smacks you (ie get attacked). The activity exhausts you (-25 rest meter). (Poison an in character wedding with that one Grumpycat!)
- All language knowledge drops 85% (even common). It is fully recovered with an antidote.
- Every tick you make a will check, with a standard poison DC (much lower than other DC's), Upon failure, you attack pc's and npc;s around you ala werewolf. You automatically recover after 1 round of attacks. (This one will be too extreme)

Give each an easy to produce antidote. Nice thing about playing with the meters is that most of the effects can be temporarily wiped out with lesser restoration scrolls.

These could all be food, drink, or even potions. Run a shop with custom potions that are poisoned would be a hilarious. then you could also sell the antidotes.