EFUA Plant System

[Conan The Conqueror]

A change I would like to suggest is some sort of skill check for identifying how many times a plant can be harvested before it dies. Currently the system allows for druids to know automatically, and for rangers to know when the plant is on its last legs. All other classes are clueless.

I believe that a skill check upon clicking on the plant would be more beneficial to the crafting system and still allow for interaction among druids/rangers and those others who use the planting system.

So for example, Druids would continue to have complete knowledge of the status of a plant. Rangers could make a check and if they succeed they get full knowledge of the status of the plant, but still retain their ability to discern when the plant is near death. And finally, non-druids/rangers would have a check to determine if the plant would die from being harvested.

The check could be lore based and be relatively high, say 25+ or so. A lot of times players will kill plants that are newly seeded, even if that is not their intention. This change would allow for some chance for experienced planters/healers/alchemists to avoid unintentionally killing a plant. However, this still allows for the Druids and rangers to be present in order to better manage the life of said plants.

[FleetingHeart]

Yessir. I would love this.

[Drakill Tannan]

Yeah, not only druids and rangers can know about plants.

[FleetingHeart]

Exactly. And given the limitations on the number of plants in an area... it can even be impossible for those others to follow the advice of druids... that is, take a seed first, then take your cuttings. If you kill the plant, plant the seeds. Often times, that means waiting for a reset to plant them. Sometimes that is even not enough... as the area was already over planted.

[Professor Death]

One vote no on this.  I think about it as representing that the druids and rangers are just that much more in tune.  As a non-druid/ranger harvester, I just take it slower and hope someone else hasn't been there before me.  It makes sense!

[Conan The Conqueror]

This change still represents that druids and rangers are more in tune. Non-druid/rangers would not know the complete status of a plant. They would only know if harvesting something would kill the plant if they managed to pass the skill check. This keeps it very much in line with the current system.

The skill check could even be a combination of skills, just like the crafting system in order to prevent someone from just dumping points into one skill, although I see no reason someone would do that just to have a chance at being told the plant will die.

I don't even know what you mean by take it slower. I can plant a single plant and wait 6 months, come back and harvest it once and it might die. The time is not a factor at all, because you have absolutely no idea at any time if the plant has been touched aside from when you touch it yourself.

[Snoteye]

My understanding of this suggestion is that it gives rangers a chance to be as effective as druids and everyone else a chance to be as effective as rangers. Is that correct?

[putrid_plum]

I would disagree with this.  I always thought that animal empathy covered all nature type lore, like plants and animals... not the lore skill.  So really that doesn't make to much sense.  Another way to look at this would be if players are killing plants druids and rangers could teach them to harvest right or do it for them perhaps in a non-harmful way?

[Snoteye]

Animal Empathy does so to an extent because the only other alternative is the all-encompassing Lore. For knowledge checks we tend to combine Lore with an otherwise unrelated skill (e.g. AE) to give all characters a chance and certain characters an advantage.

[putrid_plum]

Oh.

[Conan The Conqueror]

Yes, this would give each of the mentioned class groups a chance to be as effective as their superior class is. And it would be in an individual basis. One plant you would realize that harvesting might kill it and another you might not notice taking another piece of fruit will kill it.

What do you do when there are no druids actively playing? Or Rangers for that matter? Or if they do play, it's not in your timezone.
What if the druids character type prevents them from interacting with non-druids/rangers?

Druids still retain the utmost advantage in this system as they automatically succeed in examining a plant. Rangers have the chance to possibly be as effective in examining a plant as well as a druid in a single instance. And finally, all other classes who invest some skill points in lore (or whatever skill is deemed suitable) have a chance to be as effective as a ranger in determining whether or not harvesting a piece of the plant will kill it.

With the appropriate skill check DC, it prevents the check from being a token gesture and still keeps a high value on interaction with druids/rangers when possible. However, this system allows for the possibility of the EFU plant system to avoid being crippled because of OOC limitations.

[Snoteye]

I should add that this was implemented, by the way.