New Keyword: Herder (feedback)

[Doyce]

Hey all,

During the course of getting ready for the Well of Souls game this Friday, I've dressed up two new Occupations and thought I'd share and gather feedback and pointers.

I like this one a bit better than the Squire. The description's a bit better, and I generally like the skill set for the Keyword -- a hybrid of Farmer, Hunter, and Nomad -- and the Specializations are fun. Thoughts welcome.

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HERDER

More comfortable with travel and skilled with livestock than a Farmer, a bit more sedentary and 'tame' than a nomad, the Herder is the type of Occupation for those rural folk whose livelihood is focused on animal husbandry of various kinds.

Beginning Hero Suggestions:
Herders fall somewhere between farmers and nomads with regards to their adventurous nature.  That said, the number of shepherds, cowherds, horsemen, and yes, even assistant pig boys that have gone on to great things should not be ignored those looking for their next hero.

Appropriate Homelands:
Usually, see farmer.

Abilities:
 # Butcher or Doctor Animal
 # Find good Pasture
 # Hardy
 # Know grazing lands
 # Listen
 # Retrace Path
 # Run Fast
 # Sling combat
 # Sleep with one eye open
 # Tend Herd Animals

Specializations:
* Cowherd: Exchange sling combat for Staff combat, if desired.  Exchange Run Fast for Ride [beast] if appropriate.
* Shepherd: No changes.
* Pig boy: Exchange sling combat for Staff combat.
* Horse rancher: Exchange Sling combat for Archery, exchange Run Fast for Ride Horse.

Typical Personality Traits: (optional)
 # Confident, Independent

Typical Followers:
 # Family members
 # Animals trained to assist with herding in one capacity or another.

Standard of Living: Common

Typical Equipment: Rope or other appropriate equipment. Weapon. Camping gear.

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[Mike Holmes]

Does the Tend Herd Animal ability change with the specializations? Or can any herdsman do as well with one herd animal as another?

Same with the Butchering and Doctoring. Is "Animal" variable, or general?

Shepherds should get Shear Sheep.

On a larger question, I like the idea of a herder keyword, but wonder if it isn't too specialized a form of Farmer? That is, I think right now all herders get away with Farmer as occupation, because it includes a lot of these things automatically. Put another way, why shouldn't I just take farmer, and know how to both herd and farm?

Or does it seem to you that Farmer doesn't cover these things? I'd be willing to buy that they're closely related, and this is just a very focused version of the herding sort. Especially in cultures that simply do not farm. That's where I think it has the largest usefulness, potentially. That said, don't nomads have the gross skills, too?

Mike

[Doyce]

Does the Tend Herd Animal ability change with the specializations? Or can any herdsman do as well with one herd animal as another?

Same with the Butchering and Doctoring. Is "Animal" variable, or general?

Yep.  It's specific to species.  Need an [animal] bracket after a couple of the skills -- I'd just assumed them.

Shepherds should get Shear Sheep.

Which I'd probably lump in under the Butcher/Doctor Animal thing (speaking as an ex-shepherd myself), or off the keyword... but yes.  Adding it's probably clearer.

On a larger question, I like the idea of a herder keyword, but wonder if it isn't too specialized a form of Farmer? That is, I think right now all herders get away with Farmer as occupation, because it includes a lot of these things automatically. Put another way, why shouldn't I just take farmer, and know how to both herd and farm?

I'd have to go back to Farmer and see how much they have in common -- I know it's obviously quite a bit -- yes, a farmer could have a smallish flock of, say, goats, and tend them well enough with his occupation abilities, provided nothing gets too complicated.  

What the Herder adds are the abilities you need when  things DO get more complicated -- when a quarter of the flock goes missing, or predators attack, or a mudslide closes off your summer grazing pastures in the mountains and you have to work out an alternative.  It is, put simply, the skill set for people who Herd Animals as their *primary* occupation, rather than those that dabble (farmers).  Conversely, you could make a Herder who dabbles in some Farming by picking up the farmer skills he doesn't have as Freebies, but it would clearly be a secondary thing for him.

(Speaking as a farm boy, you really don't see people, professionally, who do both at an equal level -- you really are either a Farmer or a Rancher, and that's it.  Now, the Farmer might have some cattle just for winter cash-making, and a Rancher might have a few fields planted with corn or sorghum or alfalfa to make silage and hay out of for winter herd feeding, but in both cases, that's just to supplement the "real" business.)

I could be that I see differences because of my personal background... the way eskimos have 30 words for "snow". :)

Especially in cultures that simply do not farm. That's where I think it has the largest usefulness, potentially.

Well, societies that don't farm at all are probably nomads, and nomads are FAR beyond what I was looking for.  In most agrarian societies, you've got folks who till and plant fields in the flatlands, and families who have flocks of [beast] that they graze in the lowlands during the winter, and then up in their mountain pastures during the summer... and that's what they do, solely.

They aren't nomads, except in a 20 mile arc. :)  

(And besides, the skill set for Nomads is... way too much for the shepherd boy with his sling or the assistant pig boy with his heavy stick.  I mean, have you LOOKED at that Nomad Occupation?  They're like NINJA PIRATES, man, they can do EVERYTHING -- hunt, shoot, fight, ride, please my man -- if they weren't xenophobes, they'd run the world.)

[Doyce]

Does the Tend Herd Animal ability change with the specializations? Or can any herdsman do as well with one herd animal as another?

Same with the Butchering and Doctoring. Is "Animal" variable, or general?

Actually, just for "Tend Herd Animals", which is typically "keep these idiot sheep from wandering off, you could probably let any herder use that on any kind of herd, if they needed to... improv penalty that varies on what you're doing.