In the tread “What stonehearth can learn from RimWorld” there was an suggestion that required the herbalist.
A big thing I’d like to see Stonehearth add is the “downed” state to soldiers. In real life, most combat casualties are not instantaneous, and in medieval & ancient war, you were much more likely be wounded than killed, and I think it really adds to the drama of combat. If your knight is wounded to the point where they can’t fight anymore, your footmen should have to respond by changing their current action to respond to your knight going down. Make it easier for your fighters to become wounded enough to be “downed” and tie their recovery into the herbalist class. Make Stonehearth players feel the rush as that single brave Hearthling makes a mad dash across a field as arrows close in to save their buddy from an Orc’s coup de grace. It fits in really well with RimWorld’s deep medical mechanics, but it also really could work well with Stonehearth’s current classes and healing. It’s not hard to imagine a badly wounded soldier being carried by his buddy to the herbalist to be healed, while any minor cuts and bruises are healed by the cleric on the field. It also would prevent your soldiers from chashing a fleeing enemy across a field who has a meagre amount of health left, since they’d be incapacitated.
In another thread, the idea came up to have to need a herbalist to relocate plants.
I’m certain you’ve done this before; you embark to a region and find yourself surrounded by a scattering of silkweed, or perhaps a bevvy of berries. Industrious sort that you are, you decide to relocate them near your town so you can safely harvest them with as little waiting and travel time as possible. But then you find yourself doing this every time you start a new town, and it gets more elaborate… hedgerows of berry bushes by the dozen become a status symbol, and the sheer density of your silkweed arrangements makes your weavers’ heads spin.
However, such convenience in living-off-the-land runs counter to the design goal for the eventual Northmen - a faction more focused on combat. If they can simply pluck what they want and plonk it in their town immediately, where’s the danger? Where’s the adventure? They’ll be able to build their longhouses and wall off their silkweed gardens almost immediately, and never leave the safety of their happy homes.
So what if we change things up? What if an Herbalist of a certain level was required to relocate plants? It’s easy enough to do - simply grey out the “move” icon on the plants, and when mousing over it, add a tooltip indicating the required Herbalist level. (Edit for clarity: Any Hearthling can move the plant, so long as you have an Herbalist.) Here’s an example breakdown;