Herbalism / Poisonerism

A discarded idea.

A herbalist (lets stick with that name, or maybe this is part of a ranger? could be) can collect different plants to either harm or heal a creature.  

Each plant is focussed on one aspect of health (as understood in fantasy land), the potency of the effect also varies between plants. 

Aspects of health tied to ability scores:

Strength - the body

Dexterity - the nerves

Mind - Sanity and intellect

Charisma - Spirit (vague)

(Rejected aspects: Head, Gut, Soul)

Par example, 

Honeyleaf, Heals the body with a potency of 3.

Swineglory, a foul poisonous plant! harms the body with a potency of 5 (5 Strength damage per hour?). 

Herbal Combat

Attempting to cure poisoning by swineglory with honeyleaf leaves you at a -2. As you see below it will only slow the poison.


Potency differential

Difference          Effect

-5                        The cure worsens the poison, doubling its potency

-3,4                     No Effect

-2                        Lowers potency by 2 (doesn't stack from single source)

-1                        Lowers potency by 2 per hour

0,1                      Cured!

2+                       Cured and 1/2 ability score loss restored   

This kind of works for poisons. For healing burns or other things that don't deal continuous damage it doesn't fit as well. 

In the end having a specific cure for a specific poison is more interesting! 

So we are correct to discard this idea.

Inspired by this much better idea: https://foreignplanets.blogspot.com/2020/07/naively-simple-alchemy.html