Hi all,
Any good forumulas for when an Herbalist uses spells while looking for Herbs out in the wild?
Here is the way we currently handle Herbalists:
1) Search an area for 4 hours, make an Herb lore roll. GM tabulates all known Herbs in an area, randomizes the herbs based on rarity and gets one, applies the difficulty of finding to the Herb lore roll. Success = 1 dose, Absolute Success 1-5 doses (source: Hands of the Healer).
2) Rolls a "Prepare Herb" to remove it and not damage it based on difficulty
3) When it comes time to use it, Rolls a "Use Prepared Herb" - Success = ok
Now, my herbalist wants to use the "Herb Finding" spells on the "Herb Mastery" list to help search for an area but can only cast the spell spaced out during the 4 hour search.
We actually came up with a formula based on the "Sneak/Crawl" Strategic Movement Rate table T-5.2 in RMSS.
A typical human can cover 4 miles in the Forest/Rough terrain every 4 hours
4 miles is 21,120 feet.
If the typical area you can search is 5' wide (the typical size of every grid in D*D and Rolemaster) that =105,600 ft
A sq mile is = 27,878,400 ft
So 105,600 of 27,878,400 = 0.0037% - THIS IS TINY
If I plop in "Herb Finding V" which adds 500' to this search, and he can cast 5 times an hour (without resting) I get an improvement of another 2500' which is still super small = 0.0038%
The only spell really is Herb Finding X where the area is 1 mile. NOW we are talking! But until then, it seems almost impossible.
If I increase the "swath" of area the character can examine as they walk to 20', I get a much higher percentage they will find something.
20' x 21,120 = 422,400' searched in 4 hours
422,400 / 27,878,400 = 0.015% chance to find any given herb that might be in the area per 4 hours
GAH!
Can someone help me out with the area covered per hour (or per 4 hours) based on the Strategic Movement Rate Table so I have a multiplier for different terrain? This gave me a headache.
