Topic: RoleMaster Herbs

[Urlord]

One of the best features of the Rolmaster system is medicinal herbs. Unlike most other RPGs, an adventuring group can function without a Healer or Cleric traveling with them. Unfortunately, the herbs are scattered across dozens of supplements, adventures, and books. I don't remember if there is a supplement dedicated to Herbs, like "Herb Law."  Or if anyone has created fan-based material that compiles most/all the herbs in a single source. Like the Creature books, you could have tables with herbs sorted by climate, terrain, and difficulty.  If there is such a book, can someone please point me to it?

Additionally, some of the herb effects need to be corrected. For example, there is a herb called Agaath, with the Effect being "Breathe in low oxygen (25%+) for 12 hours. Once per day, AF 3."

Since the oxygen percentage at sea level is 20.9%, I am assuming the authors meant "Breath in low oxygen (down to 25% of normal) for 12 hours."  This would make more sense as it allows a character to breathe at the peak of Mount Everest, which is 6.9% oxygen (about 33% normal).

These are my RM thoughts for today!

[Hurin]

https://www.northbrilend.org/herbs/

http://www.rolemasterblog.com/download/shadow-world-master-encounter-table/

[katastrophe]

One of the best features of the Rolmaster system is medicinal herbs. Unlike most other RPGs, an adventuring group can function without a Healer or Cleric traveling with them. Unfortunately, the herbs are scattered across dozens of supplements, adventures, and books. I don't remember if there is a supplement dedicated to Herbs, like "Herb Law."  Or if anyone has created fan-based material that compiles most/all the herbs in a single source. Like the Creature books, you could have tables with herbs sorted by climate, terrain, and difficulty.  If there is such a book, can someone please point me to it?

Additionally, some of the herb effects need to be corrected. For example, there is a herb called Agaath, with the Effect being "Breathe in low oxygen (25%+) for 12 hours. Once per day, AF 3."

Since the oxygen percentage at sea level is 20.9%, I am assuming the authors meant "Breath in low oxygen (down to 25% of normal) for 12 hours."  This would make more sense as it allows a character to breathe at the peak of Mount Everest, which is 6.9% oxygen (about 33% normal).

These are my RM thoughts for today!

I found an excel sheet someplace that has a great number of Shadow World herbs and their information including cost. someone may be able to point to that. Since it is an editable sheet you can fix it.

[Dreven1]

I agree that Herbs/Poisons/Intoxicants are a fantastic aspect of the game for many, many players! There is an xls of all the plants somewhere, I created and imported it all into a SQL database for my game! Unfortunately, I cannot post the xls in this forum.

How do you handle these aspects of herbs in your game?
1) Finding the herbs (do you use foraging or Herbalism?) What is the chance to find them?
2) If found, what is the number assigned for how many doses?
3) What is the difficulty you use to "use/remove" them - basically to retrieve and store them?
4) What is the difficulty to "Prepare" them for use?

Here is what I do and help me if you think this could be better.

Many of my players have Herbalism/Poison Lore (used the same way) to find herbs.
1) They say they want to go search an area, and the time it takes is 4 hours out in the wild. The exact time it takes for a random encounter. I cross index all the herbs/poisons in an area with the Climate/Locale.  This list is where I start. Then I randomly pick one of the plants.
2) I use the difficulty assigned to the herbs to apply against their roll.  If the herb/poison is marked as say, Hard, a -10 is applied to the Herbalism/Poison Lore roll.
3) They can find the plants based on difficulty of the Class level.  So, if they have 1-2 ranks in Herbalism/Poison Lore, they can find Difficulty class 1 herbs, if they have 3-4 ranks, they can find Class 1 and Class 2 herbs (this goes all the way to class 9 - the most absurd and powerful herbs/poisons)
4) So, they hit "111" on the skill roll and find something! I then make a secret roll based on how powerful the herb/poison is and the description (if any) of the plant.  It could be just 1 dose in the case of very powerful herbs and say, 1d10, in the case of finding a Mirenna Berry bush
5) Now they have to remove it, I use the same difficulty skill check as with the finding of the herb (this is NOT idea since players are hit with a double positive or double negative to find it and then retrieve it).  If they get over 111, yup, they successfully "removed" a dose. They then roll for each dose to successfully retrieve them.
6) Finally, to "prepare" them when they actually use them.  You guessed it, same difficulty.

WHEW! Herbs are a "get rich quick" scheme in my games.  One herb can set the party for magic items and anything they ever need at 1st or 2nd level in one lucky roll.  It gets TENSE sometimes as they could get #193 Shumaran, #653 Tyr-fira or even 921 Ul-acaana in 4 hours of a random search.

Let me know how ya'll handle these rolls and any formulas you use? I would love to redo the way I have been doing this while still using:
1) Herbalism/Poison Lore to "find"
2) Prepare Herb/Prepare Poison to "obtain and store"
3) Use/Remove Herb/Poison to "use" according to the method (ingest, boil, apply)

[Spectre771]

I agree that Herbs/Poisons/Intoxicants are a fantastic aspect of the game for many, many players! There is an xls of all the plants somewhere, I created and imported it all into a SQL database for my game! Unfortunately, I cannot post the xls in this forum.

How do you handle these aspects of herbs in your game?
1) Finding the herbs (do you use foraging or Herbalism?) What is the chance to find them?
2) If found, what is the number assigned for how many doses?
3) What is the difficulty you use to "use/remove" them - basically to retrieve and store them?
4) What is the difficulty to "Prepare" them for use?

1)  Herb Lore to see if they have an idea of the herbs that are available in the region they are in.  Forest, plains, mountain, tundra, etc.  A lot of the herb listings have a difficulty or rarity associated with them.  I'll use percentage chance to find some based on the Foraging roll as they are now actually looking for the herbs... i.e.: foraging in the environment.

2) Some of the herb tables have a stat for number of doses found or how the herb grows.  Depending on the scarcity of the herb, I'll have to assign a difficulty.

3)  This depends on how the herb must be processed.  A lot of herbs are simply "ingest" and some are "brew."  I don't bother with a roll for those.  Obviously if it needs to be brewed first, they aren't going to be able to eat that herb in the middle of a battle.  I believe all the herb descriptions state how the herb needs to be used.

4)  See above?  I don't recall any herbs needing anything extremely complex to prepare for use. 

When it comes to something very common, I'll roll d10 for number of doses found for a successful Foraging roll.  Harder to find items I'll use a smaller die.

[Hurin]

It might help to note that RMU Treasure Law gives more guidance here. It assigns difficulties to each method of preparation. E.g.:

Brew: Boil in water and let steep 20 minutes. Will keep for 1 week in a closed container; 2 weeks if sealed to be air-tight. Requires an Easy Herbalism or Light Crafting: Culinary maneuver to prepare.

What I think RMU (or any RM edition for that matter) still doesn't entirely handle well is a trained Herbalist just looking for anything they find along the way, whether it is berries by the roadside or moss on the trees at camp. That is to say: a situation where the Herbalist is not looking for a particular Herb, but just taking what they find along the way.

So, I've started just giving anyone trained in Herbalism one roll to find herbs per leg of any journey they make. I then search in a file called 'SW Encounter Charts' -- I'm not sure who made it, perhaps Brian Hanson? -- because it has a great section on Herbs. It sorts them by Biome and allows you to roll 1-100 to see what type of Herb they will find if successful. The type of Herb also sets the difficulty of finding too.

I wish that file were updated for RMU, because then I could fully integrate my RMU and SW games. But for now, that's the best I've got.

[jdale]

Unsurprisingly, I use https://ironcrown.co.uk/ICEforums/index.php?topic=18903.0 to pick what herb they found if they do an undirected search (at a penalty).

[Dreven1]

Unsurprisingly, I use https://ironcrown.co.uk/ICEforums/index.php?topic=18903.0 to pick what herb they found if they do an undirected search (at a penalty).

This is fantastic! I would love to see the formula on how these are derived? Any idea?

[jdale]

I forget the exact mapping, but if you look in the .ipt file it has tables like this:

Table: BorealSpring
30:Delrean
30:Arthond
30:Sorel Nut
20:[when]{$prompt2}=Elevation[do]Megillos[else][!Boreal{$prompt3}][end]
10:Trudurs
10:Febfendu
3:Arfandas
3:Belramba
3:[when]{$prompt2}=Coastal[do]Olvar[else][!Boreal{$prompt3}][end]
1:Oiolosse

This is a weighted table, so the first number on each line is the number of chances. I just assigned a value for each search difficulty (e.g. Easy might be 30? you can compare the difficulties to the numbers shown to figure it out). So you are more likely to find the easy ones than the hard ones. The odds are actually uneven because different areas have different numbers of herbs with different total difficulties, like this:

Table: DesertSummer
10:(Nothing is in season)
10:Culkas
5:Argsbargies
3:Swigmakril

There are so few there that I had to put in a "nothing" result. But the assumption here is that the players have rolled successfully and will find something. The method in the rules (roll for each herb independently, with a penalty for the number searched for) is more realistic and the odds will be more consistent, this is just a quick take when you want an answer right away.

[Dreven1]

I forget the exact mapping, but if you look in the .ipt file it has tables like this:
... this is just a quick take when you want an answer right away.

Thank you JDale!