Herbalism Rules

A portable Herbalism Kit

HOMEBREW RULES for using HERBALISM PROFICIENCY (taken from emails)

CRAFTING POTIONS

There are rules for crafting items in the PHB, page 187.  Unfortunately, the creation of something like a potion of healing takes a lot of effort.  Quoting:

"For every day of downtime you spend crafting, you can craft one or more items with a total market value not exceeding 5 gp, and you must expend raw materials worth half the total market value. If something you want to craft has a market value greater than 5 gp, you make progress every day in 5-gp increments until you reach the market value of the item. For example, a suit of plate armor (market value 1,500 gp) takes 300 days to craft by yourself."

A potion of healing is listed as 50 gp, so at 5gp of effort a day, it would take 10 days to craft and cost half of that, 25 gp, in materials to make.

I would add since a portion of healing is clearly magical (its insta-heal juice that never goes bad), on the final day when the potion is completed, your character would have to sacrifice either a spell slot for that day or your cantrips for that day, as you'd be imbuing that magic into the potion.

Since your character can forage, you can find the materials without spending any money, at say 1gp per hour of foraging, up to a maximum of 5 gp per day, which would count toward the days of crafting.

HEALING

-- We can try an alternate use for Herbalism if you want.  Your character can still craft potions of healing as stated above.  But you can also use  herbal remedies mixed with medicine to enhance other forms of healing the party may use.  This would be equal to your level proficiency bonus (which is +2 at level one) in HP added to the healing method. For example, a  standard healing potion is 2d4+2.  You would add an additional 2 hp of healing onto that, making it 2D4+4, using medicines, poultices, and other natural remedies to help the healing along.  This would work in tandem with potions, spells, healing items, natural healing from rest, and other effects.

Some limitations:

-- A Medicine Proficiency roll may be needed, depending on circumstance.

-- This can't be done during combat.  The characters have to at least be resting or at low activity for 10 minutes or so for your character to properly apply everything.  The plus counts per session of healing, not per potions/spell, though it can be applied multiple times in a day as the characters get hurt again.

-- It uses up any stored medicines and herbs you may have in your herbalism kit,  1 gp worth of crafting material per session.

-- If this is used even once that day, the character can't use that day for crafting any herbalism-related items, as both the tools and materials will be used for on-the-spot healing.

OTHER USES

-- Using the crafting rules, your character can use herbalism to create other potions and poultices once you learn the recipes.  Antitoxins, antivenins, inks, dyes, teas, incense, soap, perfumes, and certain drugs (mild narcotics or stimulants, symptomatics, etc) are all possible with a proficiency check.  More potent potions of healing as well as elixirs of health can also probably be crafted at higher levels.