Healing in the TOR

[Kurt]

Hi Hannibal,

The Lake town implements that herbs as much less mundane than your collection gives away.

I don't quite know what your saying there. Do you mean that my document is mundane? Or do you mean that I may think the Laketown supplement is mundane? My collection?

I can't give an opinion on the Laketown material, I have not read it. Given the other material that has been published I am sure it's very good. I know that there are rules for herbs in it, but I don't know what they are. I do plan on buying the Laketown book and LM screen when Erebor and Journeys & Maps is released. I will then get those three together with Horse-Lords of Rohan to save on shipping costs.

Kind Regards,
Kurt

[Glorelendil]

Hi Jason,

Instead of linking the thread, I have cut out the relevant parts. Half way through the thread Glorelendil posted some examples on using the Cooking trait and the Smoking trait ... it all started to make sense.

Cooking:

- Travel: "My delicious cooking, unappreciated by those boorish Men and Dwarves, sustains me on the road."
- Encounters: "I offer the gate-guard one of the savory pork-'n-pickle sandwiches I packed away."
- Fiendish Plots (spoiler alert): "I make a rich stew for the goblins, but lace it with herbs that will give them terrible cramps and gas."
- Healing: "Chicken soup. Chicken soup cures everything."
And so on.

Smoking:

Lore: "Hmm...I sit back and have a long smoke and think about this. Ah, of course, I remember now..."
Courtesy: "I notice that the merchant has an old pipe poking out of his jacket pocket, and offer to sweeten the deal with some Longbottom Leaf."
Travel: "Ahhh...nothing like a nice smoke after a day of hiking."
Awe: "I blow smoke out of my nostrils."

The final point that probably should be made about the above examples is that any player can narrate those things, but only those with the trait can use it to gain an AP or an auto-success. For anybody else it's just description added to the scene, but with no effect on outcome.

[beardo1976]

Hi Jason,

Instead of linking the thread, I have cut out the relevant parts. Half way through the thread Glorelendil posted some examples on using the Cooking trait and the Smoking trait ... it all started to make sense.

Cooking:

- Travel: "My delicious cooking, unappreciated by those boorish Men and Dwarves, sustains me on the road."
- Encounters: "I offer the gate-guard one of the savory pork-'n-pickle sandwiches I packed away."
- Fiendish Plots (spoiler alert): "I make a rich stew for the goblins, but lace it with herbs that will give them terrible cramps and gas."
- Healing: "Chicken soup. Chicken soup cures everything."
And so on.

Smoking:

Lore: "Hmm...I sit back and have a long smoke and think about this. Ah, of course, I remember now..."
Courtesy: "I notice that the merchant has an old pipe poking out of his jacket pocket, and offer to sweeten the deal with some Longbottom Leaf."
Travel: "Ahhh...nothing like a nice smoke after a day of hiking."
Awe: "I blow smoke out of my nostrils."

Rich H has a resources page here. His document on trait usage is #11.

So if you have the Healing and Herbs document that I wrote there are also some examples of how to use the Herb-Lore trait. It took me a while to get because its so different from other game systems, but now that I understand I really enjoy the way that traits work with the skills.

Cheers,
Kurt

Super helpful, thanks so much Kurt!

[Hannibal_pjv]

Ou... I mean that the herbs are much less potent (powerful) in the Lake Town supplement than in that Herb guide. Sorry for confusion

[Rich H]

Ou... I mean that the herbs are much less potent (powerful) in the Lake Town supplement than in that Herb guide. Sorry for confusion

In what way? As far as I can tell (although I could have an older version) the Herb Guide just gives advice on how to invoke the Herb Lore trait for things like helping treat injuries, poisons and the like. There are no specific herbs listed there so the options are available to anyone with the Herb Lore trait, which isn't the same as the individual capabilities of herbs listed within the Laketown supplement.

[Hannibal_pjv]

More like that healing with traits is more powerful than to use your whole fellowship action that you can get one herb, that is less powerful than normal healing with herb-lore according by the guide.
There is very big power level difference.
The Herb guide is very good supplement! It is just at the different power level than lake town herbs. It would make excellent supplement with some nerfing. It handles the use of traits very nicely, just needs less powerful outcomes.

[Rich H]

Where exactly?

... It's been a while since I've read the document but I just recall it being a guide to Herb Lore and its usefulness/detail with regard to its invocation as a trait. I wasn't aware of any egregious mechanical bonuses. From what I recall it merely codifies and explicitly lays out what most LMs would allow as part of a trait invocations.

[Kurt]

Hi Hannibal,

There are only three areas that my house rules differ from the official rules. All of them are relatively minor adjustments and two of them make venturing into the wilderness more dangerous, not less.

The first modification is the concept of trait synergies. I did this because the skills and abilities that one particular hero has is quite limited. Only by working together would the brave members of an adventuring company be able to survive in the wild and dangerous world. I discussed trait synergies that work together to lower the TN required for successful completion of a task. This was discussed as both a personal task or shared task between two people. I gave one example using Gardening and Herb-Lore and another example using Cooking and Herb-Lore.

The next two modifications make things more challenging, particularly in the case of healing or removing the effects of witchcraft.

The second modification is with respect to diseases. I have come up with a table of penalties which increases the difficulty of tasks (especially physical tasks like traveling) for a hero that has a disease. The penalties apply during the time that it takes to recover from a disease after a successful healing check.

The third modification is with respect to witchcraft. I have disallowed the use of a trait for an automatic success when healing or removing witchcraft and I require that the hero has and understands Shadow-Lore. In addition, healing witchcraft is a solitary task that requires checks against the TN level which is severe or daunting.

Other than those modifications, everything else is the same as the rule system. Rest of the document explains details about herbs such as why you can buy herbs in most villages and you only need to forage for them on longer journeys (5-10 days depending if a party member is a Gardner).

The automatic success of traits is a core mechanic for TOR, it’s not something that I made up. I too was thinking in terms of +/- and class/roles when I started reading the books due to my experience with other systems. It took me a while to get my head around the traits and the way they are used with skills, but now I understand it I think it’s fantastic. The system is great!

As mentioned above and in previous posts, the use of traits allows for an automatic success or to rollback an unforeseen event. It is also important to understand how the character progresses using these traits too. It becomes more difficult to advance ones skills without the use of appropriate traits.

Using traits is covered on pages 92-94.
Awarding advancement points is covered on page 194 and 212.

Kind Regards,
Kurt

[Rich H]

Great post Kurt. And arguably those three modifications are simply logical, but well thought out and explained, extrapolations of the rules regarding journeys and associated traits.