Alternative quest reward.

[Ara D.]

So my character received a find herbs, burdock, for old man quest. My herb lores not great and I don't recognize it. This got me thinking. If I was actually there I would ask what burdock looked like where it likes to grow? So I suggest the following. On gather herb quest the old men should also say something like it grows in fields or it likes river banks. I don't want a quest area circle just terrain preference. Second I think they " show" you what it looks like so you at least have a 1 out of 2 or 3 chance of recognizing out it in the field. And third if you succeed in the quest the old man teaches one or more properties of the plant. I would rather receive that knowledge than the traditional reward. Maybe a dialogue choice of do you know about this herb? Ok then let me tell you about it or oh you already are familiar this the uses of this herb then take this reward.

[PALU]

I agree that they ought to be able to tell you where to look for the plants.

It can be noted that you can collect various unidentified plants and offer them to the sage and he'll accept the correct one. Thus, if you keep track of the description for what you offer, you can get the unidentified description for the plant, and then go back out to collect more.

[Sami]

Hmm. The way I see it with quests is that not every character is able to do them all - and there's nothing wrong if they therefore have to abandon some quests right away.
This is different from (quite general) viewpoint where there should be options and aids to allow every character complete every quest.
There's character's dialog lines within this quest such as:
"Unfortunately I'm not familiar with the plants around here."
...and other ways to be fair with the sage about being weak with herblore. If that's the case, those lines can be used.

If I was to add character's dialog line such as "Could you describe this plant and tell me where it grows?" I'd be sure also to add sage's response "Well, if that's the level of your expertise in this matter then I have no use for herb pickers such as yourself." That's how I'd imagine those sages to act. Wanting help from somebody who really can help.

[PALU]

I see your point, Sami, but it is the sage who comments on the PC's herb lore. With your approach I would have the sage ask if the PC's herb lore is good ("You don't happen to know your way around the local plants?"), as well as allowing the PC to back out gracefully when the plant sought is revealed if it's unknown ("Sorry, that's a plant I don't recognize"). After all, a herb lore skill of e.g. 50 isn't bad, but it's still far from sufficient to recognize everything the sage may request, and the sage might have more need of legwork than skill in some cases, so an acceptance in the first phase might not reflect over confidence.

[Ara D.]

I don't spend a lot of time gather herbs so alot of time when that quest comes up I'm not sure which herbs I can even identify yet.

 Your word is law but for the sake of friendly debate, I hear the quest as a need for young legs it's a task for an apprentice or novice. If they were wanting to test your herb lore then they should give an ailment like I've have a fever or cough, maybe trouble sleeping and they ask for herbs to help and thus you must be able to identify the properties of a plant to know what to give. But that would be an entirely different quest all together.

I just wish there were ways to learn from my elders

[Plotinus]

If you wander around on different tile types, pick some funny grass, some interesting leaves, some strange flowers, etc, make a note of where you found them (maybe with an F6 marker) and then bring themb ack to the sage. if the funny grass is wrong, he'll refuse it and say that's not what he wanted. if the interesting leaves is right, he'll say good, but that's not all i wanted! and then you notice you look through your map markers and see you found the interesting leaves in a road tile so you go look at some other road tiles.

[jonottawa]

If you wander around on different tile types, pick some funny grass, some interesting leaves, some strange flowers, etc, make a note of where you found them (maybe with an F6 marker) and then bring themb ack to the sage. if the funny grass is wrong, he'll refuse it and say that's not what he wanted. if the interesting leaves is right, he'll say good, but that's not all i wanted! and then you notice you look through your map markers and see you found the interesting leaves in a road tile so you go look at some other road tiles.

Are you suggesting I use creativity, ingenuity and persistence to complete this quest? How DARE you?!

[JP_Finn]

There’s no shame cancelling quests... when wounded adventurer tells me his shelter was in pine mire bordered by coniferous forest: I won’t bother going to look for it... unless it was lynx. And it’s winter time. Got to have something to do to pass the time.

[Ara D.]

Ya the try random herbs till he accepts them is how I do it too. I was suggesting that I think it would cool to have the option to learn a herb from completing the quest as opposed to receiving an herbal blend. I always value knowledge. I also refuse or ignore quests. I got a bear pipe gather quest around the 3 day of my spring start.

[Sami]

Ya the try random herbs till he accepts them is how I do it too. I was suggesting that I think it would cool to have the option to learn a herb from completing the quest as opposed to receiving an herbal blend. I always value knowledge. I also refuse or ignore quests. I got a bear pipe gather quest around the 3 day of my spring start.

When it comes herb knowledge as a reward that’s something we could consider. I guess you can already get skill knowledge rewards from NPCs including herblore too, so the results of learning new properties that way exists. (Unless I remember wrong about herblore being part of skill knowledge rewards) But having plant properties revealed right away would be a new approach.
Takes some pondering to think about convenient way to handle this, but there are many options.
It’s been suggested before that you could manually ask sages about certain plant properties so the reward could be “Thanks, and now if you’re ever in need of plant identification just come ask”.
Many possbilities. We’ll see where it goes.