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Herb Chart

Foraging & Herbs

Herbs    Misc Plants    Woods    Edibles    Misc Items    Newest Items    Complete List

Foraging

Foraging is the art of rummaging about one's immediate area looking for naturally-produced or discarded items. These can range from healing herbs and edible plants to woods for carving or even just junk (old buttons, torn cloth and dust bunnies amongst others). The foraging system was rewritten from scratch, rebuilt from the ground up, and the list of things we can forage is small but growing. As additions are made, I will try to keep them updated here. Skill levels listed here are approximate, as many factors can affect how difficult something is to find.

The Verbs

As with any system in DR, there are verbs that allow us to use it. For Foraging, we have two: FORAGE and COLLECT. To gather a single item type FORAGE <item>. To gather a small pile of that particular item, type COLLECT <item>. Collecting is a bit more difficult, comes with a higher RT and will result in varying quality levels, when that attribute is applicable. A pile that has been collected can be destroyed by KICKing the pile. There is a small chance, however, that you do an imitation of Charlie Brown going for the football and end up on your back. Some find this annoying, I personally find it hilarious even when it happens to me.

Rangers, Empaths and Thieves have an additional option, they can FORAGE <item> CAREFUL. This will result in marginally improved quality (where applicable), has a slightly higher RT, and teaches more exp per success. It is also slightly more difficult than foraging normally.

Rangers and Empaths have a third option: FORAGE <item> PRECISE. Again, the difficulty goes up along with the RT, but in exchange for more exp per success and higher quality.

The old foraging system had timers. The current one appears not to, but the tests are inconclusive so far. It might be simply that the timers go down with skill faster than the RT does so when you are foraging for something easy enough by your skill, the timer is gone before the RT is. The latter theory seems to be supported by evidence that one can learn well by foraging twice then collecting once ... perhaps the timer for foraging that item is less than the RT but the timer for collecting isn't. So one can keep themselves busy with foraging regularly while waiting for the collection RT to tick down, and the forage/forage/collect method appears to have merit.

When DRII goes live (tentatively planned for summer 2004) timers will go away entirely if they haven't already by then. Instead, the system will track current levels of foragables within the room and if we forage them all then we will simply have to wait until they grow back ... anywhere from a few hours to a few days (possibly longer in some cases).

Training

There is no set rule to train, as in at X ranks you forage for Y. Difficulty is based on your foraging *and* perception ranks as well as several environmental conditions, including (but necessarily limited to): item difficulty, item rarity, preferred biosphere (forest, desert, etc) of item, preferred temperature/humidity/season of item, terrain (cave, road, field), ground type (dirt, sand, gravel), time of day, moons present (still think this one is either a joke or only applies to certain specific items), current weather, fertility of an area and, finally, certain room-specific settings for case-by-case reasons.

In addition, wearing hand/head armor appears to affect foraging, remove them if you can. Light conditions also impact foraging, so it is a bit harder to do at night, and possibly on cloudy days. Kneeling makes foraging easier, even if it does seem inconsistant in some cases (why kneel to pick an apple off a tree? the assumption is we are foraging for those already fallen from the tree, I guess), hopefully that will be addressed eventually. So remove that armor, kneel and forage during the day if you can.

Best I can recommend is simply try foraging for everything you know to be availalbe in a given area and see which teaches best. For Rangers, Empaths and Thieves I recommend foraging with CAREFUL and look for items that give you at least 8 sec RT but no more than 15 or so. Less than 8 means they are too easy and won't teach well, more than 15 means they are too difficult and although each success teaches more, you will spend too much time in RT so the overall effect is you learn less over time. If you don't know what's available in an area, just try foraging for everything. Takes a bit of time, but is worth it for an area you frequent.

Sometime in the future I plan to start a foraging journal to keep track of what I found where and under what conditions. Hopefully that may be of some use to those trying to figure out where to find what they need. It will basically be a blog, of sorts, though perhaps I might even build it with a search function of some kind, allowing you to constrain the entries to a particular herb, area, or both.

Foraging List

I will try to keep this list updated as new foragable items are released. The list at the bottom is a list of all items in order of base difficulty. Skill levels indicated are approximate, as one's perception skill and conditions present (see above) can affect the result. Use them only as a guideline, not a hard-and-fast rule.

The following is just a semi-alphabetical list. Some may seem out of order but that is because primarily the list is based off of the second word when an item has a two-word name but I figured "bone, fish" rather than "fish bone" would be confusing (there would no doubt be people typing "forage bone fish" and wondering why it didn't work). Like items (such as sticks, berries, etc) are grouped together where necessary  (and sorting by second word hasn't done it already) and the overall list is broken into five main categories for ease of reference.

Herbs
blocil berries nilos grass jadice pollen yelith root junliar stem
jadice flower plovik leaf qun pollen muljin sap nuloe stem
georin grass riolur leaf cebi root sufil sap
hulnik grass eghmok moss nemoih root genich stem

Misc Plants
acorn glaysker flower moss tree root stem
draconaeia blossom red flower green moss rose toadstool
jasmine blossom grass butterfly orchid white rose vine
cattail lavender wild orchid red rose weed
chamomile leaf root sage seolarn weed
clover aloe leaf briarberry root sap
blue flower mistletoe pig root seaweed

Woods
branch osage branch bloodwood limb teak limb hickory stick
alder branch pine branch cherry limb walnut limb mahogany stick
apple branch redwood branch ebony limb willow limb maple stick
ash branch rosewood branch elm limb yew limb mistwood stick
birch branch spruce branch fir limb log oak stick
bloodwood branch teak branch hickory limb stick osage stick
cherry branch walnut branch mahogany limb alder stick pine stick
ebony branch willow branch maple limb apple stick redwood stick
elm branch yew branch mistwood limb ash stick rosewood stick
fir branch chip oak limb birch stick spruce stick
hickory branch limb osage limb bloodwood stick teak stick
mahogany branch alder limb pine limb cherry stick walnut stick
maple branch apple limb redwood limb ebony stick willow stick
mistwood branch ash limb rosewood limb elm stick yew stick
oak branch birch limb spruce limb fir stick twig

Edibles
almond blueberries clam lemon taffelberries
apple briarberries honey comb orange turnip
coffee bean wild carrot gooseberries scallion
berries cherry tea leaf strawberry

Misc Items
fish bone corn peat broken shell seashell
dust bunny bread crumb rock clam shell wood splinter
old button dirt shell fana shell shoe tack
torn cloth grungy feather asarwuden shell nedoren shell shark tooth
coin rusty nail snail shell phelim shell torch

Newest Items
following is a list of the items recently added, in order of *base* difficulty
(order is first column, top to bottom, then second column, and so on)
almond ebony branch rosewood branch lemon apple stick
apple elm branch spruce branch apple limb bloodwood stick
coffee bean fir branch teak branch bloodwood limb cherry stick
draconaeia blossom hickory branch walnut branch cherry limb hickory stick
jasmine blossom mahogany branch willow branch hickory limb osage stick
alder branch maple branch yew branch osage limb yew stick
apple branch mistwood branch briarberries yew limb torch
ash branch oak branch cherry orange
birch branch osage branch honey comb peat
bloodwood branch pine branch aloe leaf briarberry root
cherry branch redwood branch tea leaf pig root

Complete List
following is a list of every item currently available, in order of *base* difficulty
(order is first column, top to bottom, then second column, and so on)
berries vine apple stick old button blocil berries
fish bone weed alder branch tea leaf glaysker flower
branch torn cloth alder limb white rose redwood branch
dust bunny georin grass alder stick green moss walnut branch
wood chip blueberries toadstool ebony branch redwood limb
bread crumb strawberry seolarn weed elm branch redwood stick
grass cherry clover mahogany branch red rose
leaf clam shell ash branch maple branch willow branch
rock blue flower birch branch oak branch mistletoe
root red flower fir branch rosewood branch eghmok moss
shell tree root ash limb teak branch wild orchid
broken shell shark tooth birch limb hulnik grass muljin sap
wood splinter fana shell fir limb riolur leaf coffee bean
stick nedoren shell rose ebony limb yew branch
twig jasmine blossom ash stick elm limb yew limb
torch pine branch birch stick mahogany limb yew stick
shoe tack spruce branch fir stick maple limb mistwood branch
sea shell aloe leaf chamomile oak limb mistwood limb
acorn pine limb gooseberries rosewood limb mistwood stick
cattail spruce limb turnip teak limb honey comb
dirt pine stick draconaeia blossom walnut limb osage branch
grungy feather spruce stick lavender willow limb osage limb
seaweed briarberries moss briarberry root osage stick
stem phelim shell cherry branch pig root bloodwood branch
jadice flower asarwuden shell hickory branch sufil sap bloodwood limb
corn nemoih root cherry limb ebony stick bloodwood stick
limb yelith root hickory limb elm stick butterfly orchid
log apple cherry stick mahogany stick jadice pollen
rusty nail apple branch hickory stick maple stick qun pollen
peat wild carrot almond oak stick cebi root
sap clam nilos grass rosewood stick genich stem
scallion lemon plovik leaf teak stick nuloe stem
snail shell apple limb sage walnut stick coin
taffelberries orange junliar stem willow stick


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