Topic: Physical Alteration herbs, especially Breldiar and Splayfoot

[Ecthelion]

Hi,

since we have an Animist in our current group, who can cast Herb Mastery III or V already, thereby being able to increase the number of doses of many herbs, herbs are relatively cheap for this group. And with Instant Herbal Cures the preparation times can be reduced to a few rounds even for "brew" type herbs. This has led to our group relatively often using the herb Splayfoot, adding +25 to all actions, and/or - for our archer - Breldiar, adding another +50 to missile attacks (and -30 to the rest of the actions, thereby a bit more than negating the effect of Splayfoot). So recently, for every important battle, the group prepared itself by using Splayfoot and the archer additionally ingested a Breldiar, so that the opponents faced a party whose OBs were boosted by +25 and the archer's OB was even boosted by +75!

Since I am not content with the situation of these herbs being used that often, I am currently thinking about removing all herbs in the Physical Alteration section from our game, so that it is really only the magical healing that herbs can be used for. I don't see any other good way to restrict the use of these herbs in our setting.

I must say that we are not using the addiction rules, just because we a) don't want to restrict magical healing and b) shy away from the additional dice rolling, but IMHO this would not help too much anyway, since these herbs have a relatively low Addiction Factor anyway and, with a couple of GPs available, the party would probably buy a Ring of Daily I "Heal Addiction I" (Healer Base List) or use the services of a Healer in the next town to cast the spell if needed. Of course in a low magic setting this might be not as easy, but that's not our setting.

We might start using AFs and also limit access to magical addiction healing, but that would also affect magical healing, which we don't want, and add more dice rolling when using a herb. We might of course also drastically reduce the number of GPs handed out in our games, but that would not really help so much with a higher-level Animist and we also don't want to change the style of our game just because of this one issue.

Have others had similar problems? If so, what have you done? Thanks in advance.

[jdale]

The only non-healing herb we've really played with was an herb that allows out-of-body experiences (astral voyaging). While it had some immediate uses, the NPCs cautioned us that prolonged use would attract the attention of entities from beyond. I suppose with Splayfoot's "good in heart" and single purpose requirements, it could attract the attentions of overly lawful entities, but that might not be a disadvantage. That aside, some thoughts....

Breldiar also applies the -30 to melee and maneuvers, so an easy counter for that is to threaten the archer with melee and the need to move during combat. Attack the party from multiple sides, have stealth combatants circle them, have enemies with high maneuverability and speed, attack them while they need to move between locations perhaps even while climbing etc. Also, with the long duration the maneuver penalties can kick in after the combat, e.g. the party wins the encounter but needs to flee before the rest of the enemy forces show up.

AF of 7 is not super high but it's certainly high enough to be a factor, even if all it does it increase the total cost. If you are concerned about making healing herbs harder to obtain, just treat the healing herbs as non-addictive and reserve the addiction potential for the physical alteration group. AF is meant to be a control on the usefulness of herbs, if you remove that control they will certainly become more powerful.

Splayfoot with an AF of 16 will become addictive one time in six. That means, for a typical battle and a party of 6, one member will get addicted every battle. That is certainly significant especially if they are fighting multiple battles a day (i.e. even with a daily I item, they can't fix everyone after every fight). And probability isn't actually as smooth as 16% makes it sound. In practice, if all six party members take it and each makes the AF 16 check, the result is that 35% of the times, no one will get addicted; 40% chance that 1 person will get addicted; 19% that two people will get addicted; 5% that three people will get addicted; about 0.7% chance that 4+ people will get addicted. Those rarer occasions where 3+ people are getting addicted (and they will happen if the party is using the herb heavily) are the times that will be difficult for them.

Splayfoot is m-F-4, so moderate temperate along riverbanks and lakes (probably common enough) and only medium difficulty to find. I don't think they thought that through very well. I would probably make it much rarer. Maybe also rule it only grows in certain temples and at locations where epic things happened (e.g. a great battle was fought).

Another possible tweak would be to rule that it only gives the +25 for actions that directly advance a narrowly stated purpose, with a corresponding penalty to any action not linked to that purpose. You could say "to win this battle" but it has a duration of 1-4 hours, so that would hurt later on. Or you could say "instills singleness of purpose" means that it requires a RR to do anything not related to that purpose. In some cases the requirement of "good in heart" might also be meaningful limitation.

You may also want to rule that no roll can benefit from modifiers from two different herbs at once.

[markc]

 Since you are not using the addiction rules I might,
 1) Reduce the effect of an herb if taken more than once per day. ie full effect first time per day 1/2 effect second time per day, 1/3 3rd time etc.
    Note: You can exempt healing herbs from this rule if you like if you need healing herb in you game.
 2) Have herbs only work once per day.
    Note: See note above.
 3) Herbs work one or multiple times per day depending on their ADF using some formula you the GM devise. So a life-giving herb might work once per year or once per some multiple of years but a herling herb 1-10 might work 2/day or 20 doses per 30 days.
 4) If a person has some magic resistance magicl herbs might not work or might only be partially effective.


 If you use AF:
  (I reread the rules in GM Law for addiction factor which is under disease.)
 1) Increase the addiction roll for taking multiple doses in a day, I did not see any rules for this in GM Law but I read it fairly quickly.
 2) Say some spells cannot be embedded into items (Which I do in my game, or require some very rare materials to embed some spells into items which limits their availability and increases the cost).


MDC   

[Frabby]

In the same vein, our group hardly uses addiction rules but as a GM I did add a few "overexposure" rules. For example, in one campaign the enemy Hillmen forces (and thus, before long the players) had a herbal concoction that, when imbibed, granted the user eyesight like an elf in the dark. It took the players some time to figure out that it was this brew that also caused massive diarrhea some 30 hours after imbibing, unless you took tiny amounts that only worked for a couple of minutes per night. The Hillmen had a root against that diarrhea, too, but the party didn't.

The most limiting factor in herbs is that, unlike scrolls or potions, most of them can't be kept around very long before their potency drops or changes into something else.

Thinking of it, why do the rules not call for a RR vs. Poison whenever medically potent herbs are consumed? Breldiar, to use it as an example, could well be used as a poison to keep nimble prisoners at a penalty to contortions, lockpicking and other escaping maneuvers...

[markc]

 Frabby,
 Yes that is interesting comment about being forced an herb and trying have your body natural resistance counter the affect. But then again for today's drugs most of the time you get the desired effect by taking the right dosage.

In my game I have used Blue Eyes (gives night vision and causes eyes to glow blue) a lot and I ruled that it provides a +10 to +25 to opponents trying to see you at night depending on various factors.
MDC

[yammahoper]

AF can be used to simulate a need for increased dosage and ignore bad side affects.  This can be useful in particular when the party can afford/has access to Animist spells that cleanse all negative side affects of herbs.

In the end, this will drain pc coffers and even make them take a break while their resistance wears off.

[tulgurth]

You can still use the AF, but in another way.  Like all drugs the body will eventually build an immunity to it.   Follow the AF rules, but instead of becoming addicted, have the herb become useless or require more of it.  More doses means more AF rolls, but it also means they are going to need more to get the desired result of the herb they take.  Pretty soon they will run out of the herb for a growing season or they will run out of gold.  Remember you are the gm and you can control everything about the world.

[Ecthelion]

Hi guys, thanks for your answers. At the moment I still think it's best to completely remove the Physical Alteration herbs from our game.

[Marrethiel]

Hi guys, thanks for your answers. At the moment I still think it's best to completely remove the Physical Alteration herbs from our game.

Is that punishing the players for doing well? And Animist's is that like taking away Fire Law from Magicians because it is too effective?

[Ecthelion]

The Animist can still use his spells for all kinds of other herbs. It's only one category, or perhaps - we are currently discussing this in our group - one herb, Splayfoot, that gets toned down. So no, it's not punishing a player for playing well.

[MariusH]

I would certainly consider penalties for using multiple herbs simultaneously. The easy way is to say you only get the benefit from one of them, a more advanced approach is to make mixing drugs give adverse side-effects (not removable with the herb mastery spell).

Also, we use durations for all herbs. Many of these are rather limited (I don't recall what it is for Splayfoot). We also track our time, and herbs are generally only available at specific times of the year - and only in specific places. So it's only available for (duration period) after you've been to the right place at the right time of the year.

Another issue is whether the herbs are actually present when and where you search for them. Even though Splayfoot MAY grow in this area, it's not sure that it actually DOES. Make an "availability roll" before the animist searches for the herbs - maybe there aren't any around right now? Or maybe there was, but their rivals already picked them?

Lastly, specifically for playfoot: Make even the slightest straying from the narrow path disqualify them from being "good at heart". Did they allow that last enemy to surrender, or did they just plain kill him? Did they give money to the poor beggar in the previous town? And looting that temple back there - was that really something someone "good at heart" would do?

As for the "instant herbal cures", WE use that as making the herbs instantly effective - but the preparation still has to be done ordinarily. Not sure if that is RAW, though, but I don't think the spell specifically states "no/short preparation time".

[Marrethiel]

In the end, make sure you use the Addiction Factors. It is amazing how much it can change things. While there are addiction relief spells, they are all (IIRC) chanelling based; this means "God" has to say yes.

[Ecthelion]

In my initial posting I tried to explain why we won't use the Addiction Factor rules. In the end we decided to change two things regarding the Physical Alteration herbs (here is the link to our House Rules with a few more details):
1. They don't stack regarding their effects.
2. Splayfoot was reduced in its duration from D4 hours to D4 minutes.
At least during the last session, which was the first after we decided on these changes, neither Splayfoot nor Breldiar was used. We'll see whether this changes again during one of the next sessions.