Herbalist Feat homebrew

[Falcon X]

My player's Druid has been begging me for more frequent access to poisons and herbs, which is her view on a classic Druid, but 5e only lets you make high-level poisons over an extended period of time. But then the latest Unearthed Arcana came out (http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/modifying-classes), which gives Poultices to a Spell-less Ranger, and it looks very much like what my Druid wants.

So, here is my proposed Herbalist feat, based on the Spell-less Ranger ability. Please give feedback on overpowered/underpowered and tweaking.
Things I'm paying attention to:
- Should I give both Kit skills, or just the choice of one.
- How much healing power should the Poultices have? The ranger's ability scales like sneak attack, so I halved that, and applied it to character level.
- Which status ailments should be in the poisons, and how long should they effect the victim?
I'm considering pulling some status ailments from 3.5, just for flexibility. If I don't give some flexibility, my player is going to ask: "The effect of Hemlock is completely different from Nightshade. Why don't they have different effects?"

The Feat:

Herbalism
- Gain proficiency in Poisoner's Kit or Herbalist's Kit.

- You can create special herbal poultices and poisons that have comparable power to some potions. You can spend 1 hour gathering herbs and preparing them into powders, liquids, or treated bandages to create a number of such items equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1). You can carry a number of such items at one time equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1). After 24 hours, any such items that you have not used lose their potency.

A healing poultice made in this way can be used by spending 1 minute applying it to a wounded humanoid creature, thereby expending it's use. That creature regains 1d6 hit points for every 4 character levels you have.

A poison powder or liquid made using this ability grants status ailments to the effected target for 1d4 + 1/4 character level (rounded up) rounds. Granted status ailments must be chosen at the time the poison is made and may wither be: poisoned, deafened, or 1 point of exhaustion.
This poison may be made into either a liquid that can be applied to a weapon, or a powder that can be thrown at the enemy (Range 10', Ranged attack that you automatically have proficiency in).

[SouthpawSoldier]

I may be interested in this for my Ranger built around the Poultices and Herbalism; AFB right now, and I lack the experience to make a judgement call.

[Inevitability]

Encourage refluffing. The druid isn't only preparing spells, she's also preparing a few herbal mixtures. Cure Wounds? No, that's just applying a medicinal herb. Goodberry? Same. Hold Person? Neurotoxin that prevents movement for a short time.

Of course, you should probably let at least some magic still be involved in applying the herbs. After all, it doesn't make much sense if some simple medicine brings a fatally wounded person back from the brink of death and instantaneously ready to fight again.

[Person_Man]

I don't think there's a need for a homebrew Feat. The Druid is already a highly effective healer, the Healer Feat exists, and you could easily refluff either or both.

[Joe the Rat]

The healing side is somewhat like the Healer feat, only you can scrounge heal kit charges, and get the hp recovery faster... and then you add poisons.

Currently, I have Herbalism kit proficiency lets a character forage for ingredients for herbal remedies & poultices, which can be used as healing kit charges. I'm also allowing a character with combined herbalist, alchemy, and Medicine proficiencies attempt to formulate status-effect poisons - which then require "standard" crafting to create. Had he taken the poisoners kit, I'd have allowed poison creation with just that, as well as having more options for delivery methods.


The big issue I think is not the ability to create, but the ability to create on the fly. Being able to whip up an dose of antitoxin or an herbal poultice or a mild paralytic within an hour, not over several days. That would probably be what you want to build the feat around. It relies on tool proficiencies to decide what you can make, but following from other feats, it should also grant an appropriate tool proficiency (herbalist kit, poisoner's kit, artisan (alchemist) and possibly artisan (brewer) as options) to guarantee it can be used.

So what can you do? Most feats have 2-3 Big Things they do. Hmm..
- The ability to forage/scrounge for ingredients - as part of your travel actions, or by spending an hour.

- whipping up fast concoctions: You can make certain types of remedies or ailments very quickly - I'm on the one-hour thing right now, but I can also see an argument to range this from 10 minutes to an hour. Some things can be made while da wizard is doing his detect magic ritual. Others can be made during a short rest. If I were to standardize, I would say 5gp worth of whatever in 10 minutes. If I offered this, my doctor's player would then ask if he could actually make a potion of healing in under an hour - at which point I'd have to decide if that would create problems. Decide what is fair, and what is too over the top, then let the player suggest things to add to the list.

- Status Poisons are a clever idea - and really add to the field. My doc character has formulated an oil based on Troglodyte secretions, which cause the ever-wonderful poisoned status from the reek. I'd steer towards the disadvantaging effects (dazed, stunned, poisoned, blinded, deafened... maybe charmed), as they are far more interesting options than "more d6". 1 minute duration, or save ends, or both. Set DCs by the poison, not the character skill. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with giving a player the ability to make "impossible DC" poisons on the fly, because they took expertise in poisoner's kit. You could use the "passive kit DC" as a benchmark for how potent of a poison they could make.

- As you've suggested, there should be a limited shelf life of these fast concoctions - specifically on the preparations. Some may be about immediate consumption, others can "sit" for up to a day. You can also decide to limit the number of items that can be prepared in a day - or the number of "active" preparations the character can have can have.



The Healer feat will get what you may be looking for for heals. This would give you more things to do at camp, and give you an emergency way to solve problems when the right spell is not on hand.

[Falcon X]

The major point here is fluff (though it must be somewhat effective or the player will call bs). I didn't really think of refluffing the Healer feat, but overall it could work. It would probably involve requiring her to forage, and in return she gets the kit for free (albeit probably fewer than 10 charges).

The real issue here is that my Druid really wants to be a poisoner who can whip something small up in an hour. It's a point of realism to her that she has trouble ignoring, and I'd like to at least meet her halfway on it... which is why I can't just modify the Healer feat.

Yeah, I still think I'm going to have to do something like what I presented, albeit tweaking ailments or numerical values. (And I forgot to add save DCs)
It's only her WIS modifier in items, so it should be far from broken, especially considering the 1-minute application time, so it can't be used in the heat of combat.

[zeek0]

I would establish a limited number of times that bandages / poisons will work on a singular target. Does a x6 dose of poison cause x6 exhaustion? Can I use 6 bandages to restore 6d6 hp in a single sitting?

One way to amend this would be to make it clear that a new potion/poison can be used after a short rest. That means that the druid could provide healing many times to a resting subject, but only once per hour.

Just some thoughts.

[Person_Man]

The real issue here is that my Druid really wants to be a poisoner who can whip something small up in an hour.

Then I would just let her spend one of her Proficiency slots on the Poisoner's Kit, and let her make 1 dose of Basic Poison as part of any Rest if she could reasonably gather herbs to do it, and a reduced cost for other poisons.

[Easy_Lee]

I agree with Person_man. I think that the real issue is that the RAW crafting rules are silly as hell, and I'd just do away with those if a player wanted to craft. It's not fair that only fabricating wizards can create items in a reasonable (for a campaign) amount of time.

PCs may craft faster than we reasonably can in real life, but the most mundane of them also jump farther, swim faster, survive longer falls, take hits from giants, and heal grievous injuries after eight hours of rest, so I'm not worried about the realism.

[Mr.Moron]

I agree with Person_man. I think that the real issue is that the RAW crafting rules are silly as hell, and I'd just do away with those if a player wanted to craft. It's not fair that only fabricating wizards can create items in a reasonable (for a campaign) amount of time.

PCs may craft faster than we reasonably can in real life, but the most mundane of them also jump farther, swim faster, survive longer falls, take hits from giants, and heal grievous injuries after eight hours of rest, so I'm not worried about the realism.

The issue you run into with accelerating crafting to match the pace of active campaign periods is that things start getting really weird if you have any appreciable downtime at some point.

I've had campaigns that while they keep up a fairly typical adventuring pace most of the time have points where either the PCs are waiting on some external process or maybe it's just winter and they've got a good 3-4 months of mundane living. Usually this is just a few RP scenes and a time-skip, maybe using some training rules if the system in question has those.

Suddenly if they can craft 1 suit of armor over a week, or a potion in a day suddenly they're producing 16 suits of armor, or 100+ potions. This can really throw things off kilter.

To go that route you've have have a firm commitment to no downtime, or put in meta-limitations when downtime might come up. Both of these options can wind up feeling really artificial and inconsistent.

[Easy_Lee]

The issue you run into with accelerating crafting to match the pace of active campaign periods is that things start getting really weird if you have any appreciable downtime at some point.


That's a good point. To be fair, the RAW Wizard already presents this sort of problem if he gets hold of the fabricate spell and / or conjures some unseen servants.

[Shining Wrath]

The issue you run into with accelerating crafting to match the pace of active campaign periods is that things start getting really weird if you have any appreciable downtime at some point.

I've had campaigns that while they keep up a fairly typical adventuring pace most of the time have points where either the PCs are waiting on some external process or maybe it's just winter and they've got a good 3-4 months of mundane living. Usually this is just a few RP scenes and a time-skip, maybe using some training rules if the system in question has those.

Suddenly if they can craft 1 suit of armor over a week, or a potion in a day suddenly they're producing 16 suits of armor, or 100+ potions. This can really throw things off kilter.

To go that route you've have have a firm commitment to no downtime, or put in meta-limitations when downtime might come up. Both of these options can wind up feeling really artificial and inconsistent.

To achieve balance, I'd suggest raw materials might be limited. To craft armor requires iron, to make potions requires herbs, and so on. If the party is in a big city crafting armor might require membership in the local armorer's guild, and involve some fun RP with Diplomacy checks plus maybe a few well-placed bribes, et cetera.

And if you're actually crafting poisons - well, even in a big city there isn't that much fresh mandrake root or black lotus pollen, and someone buying both is going to attract attention. You think the armorer's guild is a pain to deal with, watch how the Assassin's Guild deals with perceived competition. :smallbiggrin:

[Mr.Moron]

That's a good point. To be fair, the RAW Wizard already presents this sort of problem if he gets hold of the fabricate spell and / or conjures some unseen servants.

I'm not entirely convinced "Well. The game already has this problem over here" is a great answer to "This new thing might be problem". I'd sooner just ban fabricate than accelerate crafting rules to keep up with it. Which is what I do in fact.

Really I find if a player wants to bring crafting into the equation it's far easier to adjust my plot hooks to match long crafting times. That said, I don't love particularly the crafting RAW either and I probably wouldn't use it. However, that's more because it's fiddly & narrow than the base cases being too time consuming. Which isn't to say I wouldn't accelerate things at all, just not to the point where crafting is a typical camp time activity which produces complex goods on the order of a couple days and handful of total man-hours.

[Easy_Lee]

I'm not entirely convinced "Well. The game already has this problem over here" is a great answer to "This new thing might be problem". I'd sooner just ban fabricate than accelerate crafting rules to keep up with it. Which is what I do in fact.

Really I find if a player wants to bring crafting into the equation it's far easier to adjust my plot hooks to match long crafting times. That said, I don't love particularly the crafting RAW either and I probably wouldn't use it. However, that's more because it's fiddly & narrow than the base cases being too time consuming. Which isn't to say I wouldn't accelerate things at all, just not to the point where crafting is a typical camp time activity which produces complex goods on the order of a couple days and handful of total man-hours.

I think it depends. Making poison ought to be fairly quick once one has the right stuff, whereas making a magical weapon ought to take some time and is probably best served by a complex, plot-related ritual.

I don't blame you for banning fabricate because reasons, though I will say that MMOs have always had instantaneous crafting without causing problems. You just have to make sure that the materials are difficult to obtain and that players can't make a profit off of it (perhaps they can only sell their goods at-cost due to stingy merchants and guilds protecting those merchants. Perhaps players can't craft certain things, such as walls, any faster than anyone else).

[Falcon X]

I would establish a limited number of times that bandages / poisons will work on a singular target. Does a x6 dose of poison cause x6 exhaustion? Can I use 6 bandages to restore 6d6 hp in a single sitting?

One way to amend this would be to make it clear that a new potion/poison can be used after a short rest. That means that the druid could provide healing many times to a resting subject, but only once per hour.

Original post says that you can only make Wis modifier in bandages and they go bad after 24 hours. I would say that exhaustion could accumulate if you managed to hit with it in the few rounds available, but you would have to be pretty high level just to get to 6 uses in the first place.


Then I would just let her spend one of her Proficiency slots on the Poisoner's Kit, and let her make 1 dose of Basic Poison as part of any Rest if she could reasonably gather herbs to do it, and a reduced cost for other poisons.
This is a viable idea. Crafting rules in 5e are one of the few complaints of mine, and I could just houserule it. It would make Poisoner's Kit and Herbalist's kit something someone would actually want to take rather than just buying the poisons.


The issue you run into with accelerating crafting to match the pace of active campaign periods is that things start getting really weird if you have any appreciable downtime at some point.

I've had campaigns that while they keep up a fairly typical adventuring pace most of the time have points where either the PCs are waiting on some external process or maybe it's just winter and they've got a good 3-4 months of mundane living. Usually this is just a few RP scenes and a time-skip, maybe using some training rules if the system in question has those.

Suddenly if they can craft 1 suit of armor over a week, or a potion in a day suddenly they're producing 16 suits of armor, or 100+ potions. This can really throw things off kilter.

To go that route you've have have a firm commitment to no downtime, or put in meta-limitations when downtime might come up. Both of these options can wind up feeling really artificial and inconsistent.
Easiest solution to that is in the Player's Handbook: Lifestyle costs. Sure, you can make 16 suits of armor, but the profit is at a level designed to keep an NPC at a medium-high lifestyle, not to get a person rich. And you're going to need a workshop to make that stuff - No adventurer living on the street for you.

EDIT: No I didn't actually do the math on the lifestyle costs. Just an assumption.

[burninatortrog]

Some pretty extensive homebrew work on herbalism & alchemy can be found here. (http://www.reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/2yqrdv/5e_herbalism_alchemy_v10_fanmade_supplement/)

[Mr.Moron]

I think it depends. Making poison ought to be fairly quick once one has the right stuff, whereas making a magical weapon ought to take some time and is probably best served by a complex, plot-related ritual.

I don't blame you for banning fabricate because reasons, though I will say that MMOs have always had instantaneous crafting without causing problems. You just have to make sure that the materials are difficult to obtain and that players can't make a profit off of it (perhaps they can only sell their goods at-cost due to stingy merchants and guilds protecting those merchants. Perhaps players can't craft certain things, such as walls, any faster than anyone else).

MMOs are entirely different beast. They're very closed systems, the exotic nature of the materials almost always allows them to be tied to narrow timing mechanism. Additionally many MMOs DO include cooldowns, real time waits, or slowly generated crafting points for items with any impact.

Mundane items, of mundane materials but high costs due to time/labor constraints are always going to start doing weird things to the universe when PCs can effectively bend the laws of time/space to produce them quickly. No matter if that's a via Fabricate spell or freakishly accelerated crafting rules.

Downtime to accommodate meaningful crafting times is good way to let a player explore that space, while still having a very natural and elegant feeling way to regulate it.

If Downtime isn't available I'd rather go down the magic route. With acceleration or "Fabricate"-like effects, as consumables. If you introduced an item like say:

Hammer of Great Crafting

This magic hammer allows the user to craft anything made of metal with 8 hours work. <restrictions>. After being used in this fashion it goes inert for <appropriate period of time>.

Obviously with a bit more rigorous wording than that, but the concept works. It lets players craft quickly and removes the need having to wrestle with broader consequences or tuning downtime.