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While I wouldn't argue that it's the most powerful my party is getting obscene milage out of the Herbologist (WB 3) I'm running. Does it do anything flashy? No. Am I throwing large numbers around? No. Does most of their stuff fall into adding numbers to other numbers and then forgetting about it? Yes. Still I always feel like I can contribute and that is nice.

Probably the biggest thing Herbalists have going for them is how front loaded they are. They get everything at level 1 and its a nice selection of everything.

IGNG wrote:While I wouldn't argue that it's the most powerful my party is getting obscene milage out of the Herbologist (WB 3) I'm running. Does it do anything flashy? No. Am I throwing large numbers around? No. Does most of their stuff fall into adding numbers to other numbers and then forgetting about it? Yes. Still I always feel like I can contribute and that is nice.

Probably the biggest thing Herbalists have going for them is how front loaded they are. They get everything at level 1 and its a nice selection of everything.

This is the reason that I think there is no such thing as "most powerful"
There is just "what makes a particular group work really well" and "what doesn't work for that group"
Some groups will find a Temporal Wizard to be awesome. Some would prefer to trade that for a Herbologist, or a Diabolist, or a Line Drawer, or a Biomancer, or a Shaman, or a Necromancer, or a...

What works for a particular group in a particular situation will not work for another group in a different situation. And since every single group is different and their situations are different...
...what is "best" changes.

(That said I will agree that Herbologists are swanky and very useful in several niches)

IGNG wrote:While I wouldn't argue that it's the most powerful my party is getting obscene milage out of the Herbologist (WB 3) I'm running. Does it do anything flashy? No. Am I throwing large numbers around? No. Does most of their stuff fall into adding numbers to other numbers and then forgetting about it? Yes. Still I always feel like I can contribute and that is nice.

Probably the biggest thing Herbalists have going for them is how front loaded they are. They get everything at level 1 and its a nice selection of everything.

I was fiddling around with godlings and wrote up one with diabolist and herbalist as "2 magic" selections...not sure if thats legal but he liked to brew up a mix of various stat boosting herbalist magics into a super drink, i dont remember the detail but you basically became a supernatural ps, hyped up, beserker with an mdc forcefield (maybe oak tea?or he just fed you some acorns before the potion)

Also was it just a house rule or does anyone else interpret the diabolist class to be able to write runes to triger when you take damage?cause if so thats my nomination for most OP mage, you only trigger 1 at a time and in a certain order based on creation, but it turns a fight with a mdc character into....something evil

Edit: also herbalists get to control elementals, and summon them, so if your group has the spare ppe...you get an elemental, and you get an elemental everybody gets an elemental!

Nightmartree wrote:

IGNG wrote:While I wouldn't argue that it's the most powerful my party is getting obscene milage out of the Herbologist (WB 3) I'm running. Does it do anything flashy? No. Am I throwing large numbers around? No. Does most of their stuff fall into adding numbers to other numbers and then forgetting about it? Yes. Still I always feel like I can contribute and that is nice.

Probably the biggest thing Herbalists have going for them is how front loaded they are. They get everything at level 1 and its a nice selection of everything.

I was fiddling around with godlings and wrote up one with diabolist and herbalist as "2 magic" selections...not sure if thats legal but he liked to brew up a mix of various stat boosting herbalist magics into a super drink, i dont remember the detail but you basically became a supernatural ps, hyped up, beserker with an mdc forcefield (maybe oak tea?or he just fed you some acorns before the potion)

Also was it just a house rule or does anyone else interpret the diabolist class to be able to write runes to triger when you take damage?cause if so thats my nomination for most OP mage, you only trigger 1 at a time and in a certain order based on creation, but it turns a fight with a mdc character into....something evil

Edit: also herbalists get to control elementals, and summon them, so if your group has the spare ppe...you get an elemental, and you get an elemental everybody gets an elemental!

pretty sure herbalists don't get all the wands and staves, so... summon elementals? yes. control elementals? ehhhh... not so much.

Shark_Force wrote:
pretty sure herbalists don't get all the wands and staves, so... summon elementals? yes. control elementals? ehhhh... not so much.

I know they can control air elementals, though i though they had one item that lets them control any elemental type? But can only summon air with...alder?

And why wouldnt they get the wands and staves?they get the magic herbology which those are included in right?

Nightmartree wrote:

Shark_Force wrote:
pretty sure herbalists don't get all the wands and staves, so... summon elementals? yes. control elementals? ehhhh... not so much.

I know they can control air elementals, though i though they had one item that lets them control any elemental type? But can only summon air with...alder?

And why wouldnt they get the wands and staves?they get the magic herbology which those are included in right?

recently discussed it on these forums. i don't own rifts england (borrowed from a friend), but i remembered herbologists getting most of it, but not wands and staves. apparently, it's even worse than i remembered, based on someone else who looked it up during the discussion, and they only get teas and ointments or something like that, period (officially; i mean, unofficially, give them as much access to herbalism as you want, if you're having fun with it i'm certainly not going to tell you that you're doing it wrong). which i'm pretty sure means they wouldn't even get, for example, alder leaves, so actually, i got that wrong; they can't even summon them, i was just remembering when i thought they could access everything except the wands and staves.

according to the dryad druid OCC, dryads are the only ones who get access to all herbalism magic i believe. although the filidh druid just says it gets herbalism magic, and doesn't iirc specify any part of it or limit them from getting any part of it, so your guess is as good as mine as to whether the dryad is wrong or the filidh is missing some information.

solomon's seal leaves can be used to summon any kind of lesser elemental, and a sprig of solomon's seal (which is not specified to be a wand, though it could be argued that it is one) can be used to control any kind of lesser elemental. though again, technically herbalists don't get access to those.

Shark_Force wrote: technically herbalists don't get access to those.

Ugh i found that sad little line tucked away at the bottom of the mystic herbology skill, ah well that just take so much oomph out of the herbologist. I mean insta growing plants can be fun, but you need the right kinda plant sad

Ah well live and learn, and go crying back to house rules if you feel it makes a better game, thats a gamers life

Nightmartree wrote:

Shark_Force wrote: technically herbalists don't get access to those.

Ugh i found that sad little line tucked away at the bottom of the mystic herbology skill, ah well that just take so much oomph out of the herbologist. I mean insta growing plants can be fun, but you need the right kinda plant sad

Ah well live and learn, and go crying back to house rules if you feel it makes a better game, thats a gamers life

well, like i said, if you're having fun with herbalists being able to make all those other things, well... let them make all those other things. who cares if it's "the rules".

i mean, you're doing pretty good on the first stages of finding out something that was fun in a pen and paper RPG isn't as fun as you thought it initially was (step 1: confirm the facts, step 2: acknowledge the facts instead of insisting that the words in the book don't mean what they say they mean) but you really should remember the last step... having acknowledged that the rules don't technically say that the thing you were having fun with works the way you thought it worked... play it the way you were already having fun with anyways. you weren't hurting anyone before, and it was fun, so why not keep doing it?

This is sort of like "Which car is best?"

The answer is, "Depends on what you want to do with it".

I will say that a temporal warrior is one of the most fun characters I've ever played, and one of the easiest to make money with (it's incredibly easy to steal things when you can walk right thru walls, or phase thru the armored body of a robot or APC and take out the pilot, or stick an SDC hand grenade into someone's PA with them and hose it out afterward).