Plant Overharvesting

[Nihm]

This is somewhat like the slavery thread, where overharvesting and killing the plants herbalists and alchemists rely on might seem more of a game than story crime and have a strong ooc expectation of no consequences.
 
I do not refer to a non-ranger or non-druid taking one or two extracts from a plant that is already nearly dead, causing its death, because they have no way of knowing.
 
What I refer to is someone going out to look in all the out of way places they can for those gardens which pcs have planted.  They then find these gardens, which someone has obviously taken pains to put in an out of way place in hopes of hiding them, and completely harvest every last plant extract, killing everything.
 
They do this with the ooc expectation there will be no consequences from angry pcs because after all, it isn't fair to pk someone just for picking plants.
 
I don't refer to being caught in the act, because it is too unlikely anyone would wait near a garden just to catch these people.  But when sleuthing people who sell herbs and then finding out this is how they get them, what is appropriate?

[Blue41]

I know this has annoyed the fuck outta me, personally. I've planted a few gardens with a nature pc alt, and I've always returned to find them with zero resources remaining. Some would say it's just a matter of letting them regrow, but when a non druid/ranger happens to stumble along such gardens and cant see how many resources remain-well, boom, you're out a garden. And it's a little counterproductive to get anywhere in herbalism when you need to hike halfway across the world to re-supply.

idk what could be done about it, though. Restrict gardening to nature PC's? Make the number of resources left known to all, so at least one could avoid killing a garden?

[Random_White_Guy]

It's perfectly fair to PK people for picking your plants, I'd say. There's a reason old people sit on their porches with shotguns, yelling at people to get off their land.

That said-

The idea of PCs banding together to own "Farm" land, in the farmland, of planted reagents/etc that they sell to people is pretty damn cool. (Though would probably still be stolen often)

[The Old Hack]

My non-nature characters who try to pick herbal components always follow this procedure: Start with getting a seed. Then take a couple of extracts. If that kills the plant, plant the seed. If it doesn't, move a bit off and then plant the seed.

As to PKing people who ruin your garden... I'd say go for it. The very LEAST you should feel justified in would be to knock them on their sorry behinds, take all their herbal components away from them and maybe a fine in gold for overharvesting, too. Permaing them might be a bit much unless they are being really annoying.

[Garem]

For the record, I'm playing a nature PC who has been working to protect what few resources seem to be remaining.

Please, for the love of God, do not FD someone because they overharvested from your personal garden. That is absolutely excessive. I'm not a DM of course, but I simply cannot see that is being even slightly tolerable. Beat the hell out of them, threaten their life and limb (or lop one off for abusing nature), or find a unique alternative to dealing with people messing with your crop (maybe something like this?).

Also, an important note to keep in mind, this is part of a passing fad. This issue will die down. But it is also an extremely IG, IC issue and not something that should be handled exclusively out of the game. There is a lot of cool possibilities that are being overlooked because they take IG effort (farming co-op, as mentioned earlier); arguing here (or mere complaining) is much easier. Go forth, find your solutions in the game world.

[Kinslayer988]

When I see overharvesting while on my Druid Vhaulder I am pissed. Having tried numerous times to create a small unique garden of rare plants so that people may take as much as they plant.
Any nature character who sees overharvesting should see it as disrupting the natural balance and want to beat them up. A warning the first time but perhaps more serious later.

[DollarPhil]

I did ask a while back about if I'd be allowed to booby-trap gardens on a ranger if I also gave fair warning of danger in the line of an IC note drop but it was disallowed. Perhaps the DMs could reconsider this if only Minor non-Electric traps were used, in order to harm and annoy rather than possibly FD, as traps can't be set to subdual IIRC. I've generally gone for putting gardens in out of the way places and AEing things on top of them :D.

Yes it's an IC issue, but the problem is it can be a hostile action to wreck up someone's garden, but the chances are they will not be about when it's occurring or have any idea who did it. Even if it's an NPC zone, unless someone deciding to just grab what they can informs the DMs beforehand, the NPCs won't know.

As a final note, with large gardens it's very likely a non druid/ranger WILL wreck plants even being careful. This is because it's possible to plant over the limit for the number of plants in an area, as the system only counts grown plants. So say the limit's 20 plants and there are 19 up. Until the 20th plant grows up, you can "seed" as many as you like, but once there are more than the limit grown up, you can't replace dead ones.

[Barehander]

It would seem reasonable to let anyone know if there's only one charge left on the plant. You don't need to be a ranger to see that an apple is the last one on the tree. This would help nature PCs as much as those who get this ability. Somehow protected garden/farm areas would be nice too, so that even if you can get in to plunder, you definetely won't do it unknowingly.

I do it Old Hack's way: get one seed, then maybe two produce, and then plant whether the plant dies or not. But all it takes is one inconsiderate or just uninformed player to mess this up for everyone.

[Gippy]

It depends on the PC but to me what they are doing is theft, and most people don't like thieves.

[EfUA_undercover]

If it's theft for you deal with it ic; guess that's what Gippy meant aswell.

On the other hand I could see a ton of reasons for even nature characters to destroy your 'gardens', because 'over-planting' and 'mono-cultures' aren't a tad better than 'over-harvesting'. "Oh look 20 new phoenix pines, looks very balanced to me, lets plant another 20 here!"

Also I would see it as reasonable for a couple of nature characters to have the plan to cut of the supplies of city characters. Nothing wrong with that. Totally ic.

So it all comes up to one thing: Deal with it ic, because that is where your plants are cut down!

[Barehander]

Undercover: It's IC and warrants IC dealing with, yes. But you oversimplify it. It's also one aspect of a game. The system is designed to let players plant stuff to harvest. If it doesn't fulfill that function, that's an OOC issue.

In most cases, I find large-scale plant ruining to be a kind of griefing: you take benefit of other players with a thin veil of IC justification, causing them unhappiness. Random FDing of lowbies is also IC, but it's an OOC issue too.

Of course, if you only meant that there shouldn't be any crude OOC rules that prevent believable IC reactions, then I agree. But I bet there could be a solution that both relieved the OOC problems and let RP take its course. (See: flower pot topic in Suggestions or my sketches above.)

[Porkolt]

It's perfectly fair to PK people for picking your plants, I'd say. There's a reason old people sit on their porches with shotguns, yelling at people to get off their land.

 
This. Druids who don't protect their gardens are wimps IMO.
 
Of course, it might be a bit more difficult to ascertain whodunnit.

[Conan The Conqueror]

There is currently a way for -anyone- to b able to know if harvesting a plant will kill it. You need only invest in the appropriate skill in order to do such.

Also to those who are attempting to plant gardens and are having them raided, perhaps you should consider alternative means of acquiring what you need. There are a number of nature oriented characters out ther who would likely help, just as there are likely those who might try to hinder the rampant planting done by overzealous alchemists and herbalists.

Theres this talk about ooc considerations but it works both ways. Often I see bizarre situations like coconut palms up in the mountains where normall you would find other trees. Is it that big of a deal? Not really, but at the same time a little attention to detail wouldt hurt.

Point is, there are a number of ways that this can be dealt with. This exact issue was raised when gardening first went in. Just have to be a bit creative and maybe, just maybe, try to involve some others in what you are doing. (no to say that you aren't involving others, but always a food goal to have in mind)

[Divine Intervention]

I don't really think this is an OOC issue.  Yes it's annoying but PC's may be jerks IC towards nature.  I sure know I went around smashing up some plants and terroring natures animals on my stygian for a good reason.  If someone picks your garden, deal with them.  Punish them IC.

[DollarPhil]

DI, it's not possible to punish them IC, because the chances of them actually being in someone's plot at the same time as the planter are very small indeed so you can't track them. And sitting in the patch with a loaded shotgun, by which I mean "Stealthed buffed bear companion" all day is dull. What I think would be better is if taking the last didn't kill a plant, and thus plant destruction would only be malicious or to clear room for new plants. Then you can tell someone's trolling you and work on stopping them, as it would likely be an enemy.

The trouble is that there's no risk involved in over-harvesting. If you want to be an opportunist jerk IC and grab every patch you find, you can do it, and there's nothing lost on your behalf. However, if for example harvesting the last item on a plant would be harmful or annoying to the harvester, people would have to take more care. For example "You pick the last fruit carelessly, and as you snap it off, a large splinter lodges in your thumb. Nasty, that could get infected." 1d4 dmg, save vs 1 STR drain  (you hurt your hand, can't fight as well, or carry as much). Or "You uproot the plant with your clumsy picking, causing toxic sap to spray into your eyes." Poison save vs Blindness for a bunch of rounds.

@Conan
What skill? Wilderness Survival? Herbalism? Spot? That's not exactly a spoiler to point out, it's more stuff everyone should know if they want to play a herbalist.