Farmers can't grow crops?

[Prysus]

Greetings and Salutations. So I was working on a NPC today and I decided to make a Vagabond/Peasant or Farmer O.C.C. (PF2, page 99, "Optional" O.C.C.). I'm making an Orc, and decided to make a Farmer who (as the GM may need) can also double as a slave for the fields or other similar tasks. I write down the O.C.C. skills, no big deal. I'm going through Related Skills and using my PF Skill List to look for fitting selection. "Lore: Farm" is in Adventures on the High Seas. That seems good for a Farmer O.C.C., right? Not automatic, but no big deal. Then I read Lore: Farm, and the first sentence is: "This skill is not to be confused with the science of botany in which the character can farm, and identify and grow plants." So back to the main book.

Botany reads: "Characters will know how to farm, grow and cultivate plants ..." and the list goes on. Not sure everything the skill covers is necessary, but I can see it being useful and it does mention the knowledge to farm. Not the skill I was looking for, but apparently the skill I need in order to actually farm. Except this isn't an O.C.C. skill, and since Botany is a Science skill this means not available to the Farmers as an O.C.C. Related or Secondary skill.

Frustrating, but I decide that I might as well use what I can. Back to Lore: Farm (since it's a Technical skill, it's an option and I'd receive a bonus to it). One of the lines reads: "It also includes a very basic knowledge of how to grow and care for plants ..." Well, a basic knowledge, I can deal with that. What's the percentage? It does NOT have one. It only provides bonuses to other skills (2 of the 3 skills are not available to the Farmer O.C.C.), but no actual skill of its own.

Farmers can herd cattle, raise and train horses, breed and train dogs, but not grow crops. While raising animals is nice, this feels like only half the equation at best. So can farmers just not farm on the Palladium World? Or am I missing something? While I could make a judgment call and just give them Botany, I'm trying to make the character as close to by the book as possible. Thank you for your time and patience, please have a nice day. Farewell and safe journeys.

[kiralon]

Lol, a 2nd ed farmer could sail better than they could farm.
The Farmhand from first ed has plant farm/lore as a secondary skill of (+12%) as well as id plants and fruits so I would say its an accidental omission and only thought about animal farming.

[Hotrod]

If a skill is required to do something that the class must do, I write it into the OCC skills.

You know, we should probably have an errata thread stickied in this forum that includes a consolidated list of missing OCC skills from each profession, or skills that really should be optional for a given class but aren't.

[Library Ogre]

Palladium, IME, is very thin on "practical" skills. There's no way in the main book to be a smith, save by being a dwarf or a kobold. Growing crops is under botany, instead of an agriculture skill.

[eliakon]

Basically the entire game is written from the point of adventurers.

Magic is almost entirely battle magic with healing magic an after thought and 'civilian' magic almost non-existent.

Skills are grouped for the best possible adventurer builds with many exciting skills that you can mix and match to build the best build for exploring, and fighting, roguishness and daring do... but for any sort of 'boring' career there is one skill that does everything if your lucky.

Psionics? Ditto

And of course pretty much every writer following on follows the same conventions. Its what sells of course. most people want stuff that their players can use after all.

There are pages of equipment for adventurers...but it is almost impossible to find the prices of a set of clothes and don't even think about figuring out the price of crops, or fodder, or food. Warhorses are covered...but not livestock.

Never mind the currency rate where the average peasant village will have several pounds of gold and silver stashed away since every coin is gold and silver so that you can have piles of gleaming gold in the hoards. (I mean the basic unit of currency is the gold piece...)

It is, honestly, a rare game that actually covers this stuff in any detail to be honest. And with Palladiums emphasis on wild cinematics and story over realism it just isn't a priority.

[kiralon]

I vaguely remember reading that a gp was supposed to be the equivalent of a dollar, so that's why there are 500gp coins ($500 note equivalent)
and the game is very human-adventurer-centric. (Selecting a race is step 4, after stat rolling which is 1)

[Drex]

Personally, I think there would be a difference between a Botanist and a Farmer in real-world terms. If we are running on the idea of what taking the botany skill gives an adventure it would be a knowledge of crop growing as a side effect of learning botany. I think though there might have been an oversight in 2nd ed in not giving the 1ed +12% to plant growth though.

[eliakon]

Personally, I think there would be a difference between a Botanist and a Farmer in real-world terms. If we are running on the idea of what taking the botany skill gives an adventure it would be a knowledge of crop growing as a side effect of learning botany. I think though there might have been an oversight in 2nd ed in not giving the 1ed +12% to plant growth though.

There is
In theory you would have, off hand.
Gardening (growing small plots of mixed plants)
Farming (used by labor and part timers)
Agronomy (the professional farmer)
Botony (The scholastic study of plants)

But that's to many skills for something that doesn't relate to adventuring... so it got turned into "botany"

[Drex]

That's fair it would be to many skills even for Palladium. But I meant botany merely provides farming also but I dont think an average farmer would be a botanist

[eliakon]

That's fair it would be to many skills even for Palladium. But I meant botany merely provides farming also but I dont think an average farmer would be a botanist

Yes...
But it is not to many skills to have Acrobatics, Gymnastics and Tumbling.
We need specalized WPs for Swords, Large Swords, Katana, Wakazashi, and Daisho (which is different than Paired wakazashi/katana)

Like I said. The only place that there is detailed in depth work is in the adventuring sections. Some of the most recent books do a bit better job on working on the setting but even they don't do much to adress the issue of the fact that there simply isn't much out there for people if they don't want to be an adventurer.

[Reagren Wright]

I'd say all farms start with it Make it an O.C.C. skill.

[bar1scorpio]

Maybe there will be something in Garden of the Gods.
Well it's got "Garden" in the title!

[Axelmania]

I read Lore: Farm, and the first sentence is: "This skill is not to be confused with the science of botany in which the character can farm, and identify and grow plants."
..
since Botany is a Science skill this means not available to the Farmers as an O.C.C. Related or Secondary skill.

Solution: give them that "jack of all trades" mutation from Rifts Lone Star which opens all categories while removing all bonuses.

Those without it just till the soil and drop seeds where they are told by an overseer.

[Nekira Sudacne]

One possible interpretation is there is a distinction between being able to farm, and knowing how to farm. Same way there is a difference between being a mechanic, and knowing how to design seige engines, or car engines, and (for a more modern context), from knowing how to design a car engine from knowing how to design a cell phone.

Yet, in the context of a factory, the ones actually making hte product usually have only a flimsy idea of how it's made. They know what goes into it, but not how it works.


And yes, this can actually be related back to farming. Which is an eairly example of division of labor.

The *owner* of the land needs the Botany skill to be successful. He needs to know the right time to plant, what kinds of crops to plant, the best kinds of soil or climates to plant what, ect. ect.

The actual farm HAND doesn't need to know how to farm. He just needs to know how to work a plough, and to do what he's told, when he's told to do it.

So this in particular isn't a case of Palladium getting it wrong. The OCC is the same as the one for a pesant or a vagabond/vagrant.

This means that yes, Your not playing a farmer as a Landowner, your playing a for-hire Farm Hand. you know how to plough a feild, sow seed, and harvest, but that doesn't mean you know the actual science of farming.

You are in effect an assembly line worker, implimenting the scheme of someone else. The actual owner of the land will be some Merchant or more likely Nobleman who can take the Botony skill, or has some scholar to administer the land. The fact that you were playing a former Slave only adds to this. You know WHAT to do (Lore: Farm), but not WHY you had to do it that specific way (Botany). You know Wheat grows well in this one area, but you won't necessarly know what it is about it that makes it so suitable, and may try to replicate it in a similar area, not knowing it's lacking something curcial for a farm to be successful.

This isn't as uncommon as you may think. Plenty of plantations or farms failed because someone thought they could just export what they did as a worker to a new area, and didn't know why the crop kept failing.

And no, the owners/nobles really dont' WANT their farmhands knowing all the tricks of Farming. If they had that skill, they could rise up and overthrow you and take over the farms themselves. Best to keep the pesants and slaves ignorant so they can't oppose you. So they shouldn't be given the skill either.

So while I know it's counteritnutive to say that the "Farmer" OCC should not actually know how to farm, it's not a problem with the actul Role the OCC fufils, that of pesant/vagabond farmhand worker. If Kevin had just called it the Pesant/Vagabond/Farm Hand OCC, it'd have been more clear.

[DB 2.0]

True in the terms of a post Enlightenment setting with it's Social & Land Reforms, pre-Enlightenment if you where living in a rural community and where not a Noble (and even then) you knew Agriculture, foraging and some gender suspisifc skills (carpentry fore men and cooking, food preserving, spinning, weaving & sewing for women) as well as your "occupation" if you had one, be you Cotter, Serf, Freeman, Yeoman or member of the Gentry.

as has bean pointed out non adventure practical skills are thin on the ground because given the limitations of a Class/Level based game engine they would be a waste to all but the most hard core Role Players, even then the campaign and/or character would have to be heavily based on that skill, and who wants to spend a skill slot on a skill they will never use? it's some what different than dropping a handful of points on cementing your characters backstory or getting them for free as "Everyman Skills".

[Axelmania]

The actual owner of the land will be some Merchant or more likely Nobleman who can take the Botony skill, or has some scholar to administer the land.

Merchant would definitely need to rely on someone else (unless they use their "Multiple O.C.C.s are possible" ability) since they can't get science.

Tip of the hat to the Knight OCC too. Not only can they take any of the science skills (+5 bonus, even) but they can even get a +10 to Botany if they have either the "minor landowner" or "wealthy landowner" or "scholar" or "science" categories for Family Skills.

This all applies to the mere Squire too!

Those options are especially important for the Paladin OCC (they also get the Family Background tables, I think only these 3 OCCs do) since they don't get access to all Science skills like Knights/Squires do, only math.

I think the ultimate farmer would be the Summoner OCC though. They can also take science at +10 and they could just draw a massive sealed protection circle around their crops to prevent pests/animals coming along and eating it. The majority will fail their save and be unable to enter in the first place, and those who do manage it will take damage and die quickly.

It would also be very easy to breed your cattle/chickens because instead of feeding a bull/rooster you can just summon one to do the deed and then unsummon him back wherever he came from when it's over.

[mirithol]

Farmers can herd cattle, raise and train horses, breed and train dogs, but not grow crops. While raising animals is nice, this feels like only half the equation at best. So can farmers just not farm on the Palladium World? Or am I missing something? While I could make a judgment call and just give them Botany, I'm trying to make the character as close to by the book as possible. Thank you for your time and patience, please have a nice day. Farewell and safe journeys.

Technically this sounds more like Ranching to me. But I wouldn't want to deprive a medieval farmer of his milk cow or cabal of chickens. In my low fantasy setting Farmers farm, raise some beasts limited by their wealth and land, do basic metallurgy on their farming implements, grow herbs, keep bees, make vinegar, brew or concoct something alcoholic, etc. Like most rural folk they would be a Jack of All Trades, but if you grew up on the family farm or worked on the feudal lord's farm it makes sense you would have some skill at farming and maintaining a farm. Successful farmers would also have some skill at bartering or selling their crops.

Botany sounds like an academic skill - not something my farmers would have the education for, but they would know to plant garlic on All Hallow's Eve at midnight and how to deliver a baby cow. So just make a Farmer OCC that works.