Herb-lore

[Majestic]

[Warning: SPOILERS from "Tales From Wilderland below]

After playing with the same group for awhile, one can start to predict what Traits players will call on and use for certain situations.

I'm gearing up to run "The Crossings of Celduin", and in Part Three under the "Poisoned!" segment (p. 118) it tells about rare purgative herbs, of which there are only a small quantity in all of Dale. More herbs could be obtained in Mirkwood, but the adventure says that acquiring them would take several weeks.

When my Hobbit PC with Herb-lore throws out his "I'll find some with Herb-lore", I'm wondering how I should handle that. My inclination would be to tell him that his Herb-lore would allow him to find those herbs quicker than the average person, but that it would still take quite awhile (probably a minimum of five days or so).

I try to be pretty gracious when my players use their Traits for automatic successes, but this is clearly a story point that should not be easily "solved", to keep the tension of the incoming army and lack of hale soldiers to defend Dale.

How would you handle it?

[zedturtle]

Herb-lore might tell him where to find the plants or how to prepare them but it's not going to make him be able to magically produce a substantial quantity on demand. Even if he does succeed at healing some of Bard's forces, there will be a need for guards on the streets and walls of Dale (especially if Bard and others are worried about the southern army being a distraction for an army sneaking in from the north, which has happened in living memory).

My thoughts, at least.

[Rich H]

Yeah, invoking a trait would garner an automatic, but ordinary, success in recovering herbs which I'd say would still mean it taking several weeks to get hold of them as per the adventure's text.

[Dunheved]

It would be such a shame if the herb-hunting hobbit tripped over his woolly toes: spraining an ankle and slowing down his progress......
or maybe the purgative herbs are only growing 'in season' right down by the banks of the Celduin... so the wise old hobbit will have to go south where the herb will be growing in the warmer conditions....
Perhaps a simple November frost (sent of course by GK) will knock over the present crop, meaning that it will take a little longer to be able to gather enough?

I hope some of these suggestions will match your normal approach.

[Falenthal]

Remember that the rules say that a Trait can be invoked for automatic success if the action is not above average difficult and/or failing it wouldn't have catastrophic consequences.

Both what zed and Rich said apply. You can tell the Hobbit that finding all the amount of herbs needed to heal the entire army, collecting them and preparing the cure will take weeks, and that his Trait allows him to know that before losing his time.

[Majestic]

Awesome stuff all. Great ideas! Thanks!

[saltmarsh]

By using herb lore he is gaurnteed to make the roll and therefore find the herbs it doesn't mean he will find them any quicker or more of them.
But if he made the roll and got a great or exceptional success then I would allow him to find the herbs quicker or more of them .
Traits are not ment to be the answer to all problems just a way to help out when all you need is a basic success to speed up play and prevent a bad dice roll ruining the game. For example if the player had the herbs on hand and just needed to prepare them, then using his herb lore trait would prevent the risk of getting a bad roll and failing the roll