A character with this skill  is able to
more easily locate && positively identify plant life that is useful
for some purpose other than its food value, such as plants that
have medicinal use.

If some medicinal plant is found and a Proficiency Check succeeds,
then the plant will certainly be the correct sort (no chance of misidentification).

<Identifying Plants, Simple Version: Dragon 82>

<e>

<LOCATING PLANTS (Availability of Medicinal Plants)>

<Locating Plants, Simple Version: Dragon 82>

In most areas of the wilderness, nature has provided the means
for characters to help themselves if they become injured or ill -
but in order to take advantage of these benefits, characters must
know what they are searching for and be able to correctly identify
it when they find it.

Wherever vegetation is found, characters may be able to locate
plants that have medicinal purposes. Appendix J in the
DMG (pages 220-221) gives a long list of such
plants and the beneficial powers that they are known or reputed
to have. It is beyond the scope of these rules to specify which
plants are found in which areas, or exactly what effects the plants
have when they are used; such decisions must be left in the domain
of the DM. What these rules do provide is the
following table, which gives guidelines for the chance that medicinal
plants exist in a particular terrain && climate combination.

Each entry on the table consists of two numbers.

    * Roll 1 (Left Column): The # to the left of the slash is the % chance that the AREA in question contains vegetation,
    which might include plants that have a medicinal purpose.

    ** Roll 2: (Right Column): The # to the right of the slash is the % chance that a character,
    in one turn of gathering,
    will locate a patch of one particular medicinal plant.

    *** Roll 3: <Characters without plant lore have a 50% chance of misidentification.>
    <Characters with plant lore have a 100% chance of identification.>

Table 40: Availability of Medicinal Plants
                                                                                                <Vegetation/Herb>

-	-	Winter	Spring	Summer	Autumn
Arctic	D	0/0	5/10	10/10	0/0
-	H	5/10	10/10	10/10	5/10
-	M	0/0	0/0	5/20	0/0
-	P	5/20	5/20	10/20	5/20
-	Se	10/10	10/20	15/20	10/10
-	-	Winter	Spring	Summer	Autumn
Subarctic	D	0/0	5/10	15/10	5/10
-	F	70/30	85/30	100/20	75/30
-	H	20/20	30/20	40/30	25/30
-	M	10/20	15/20	20/30	15/20
-	P	20/20	30/30	50/30	30/20
-	Se	25/10	35/20	50/30	35/20
-	Sw	15/10	20/10	30/10	20/20
-	-	Winter	Spring	Summer	Autumn
Temperate	D	10/10	5/10	5/10	5/20
-	F	80/30	90/30	100/30	90/30
-	H	65/20	75/30	90/40	80/20
-	M	20/20	30/30	40/30	30/20
-	P	50/20	60/30	75/40	60/20
-	Se	50/20	65/30	80/30	65/20
-	Sw	30/10	35/20	40/20	35/10
-	-	Winter	Spring	Summer	Autumn
Subtropical	D	5/10	5/10	0/0	5/10
-	F	90/40	100/40	100/40	100/40
-	H	80/40	90/40	100/50	95/50
-	M	40/30	55/40	75/40	60/30
-	P	80/40	90/40	100/40	100/40
-	Se	80/30	90/30	100/30	95/30
-	Sw	40/10	50/20	50/20	50/10
-	-	Winter	Spring	Summer	Autumn
Tropical	D	5/10	5/10	0/0	5/10
-	F	100/40	100/40	100/30	100/40
-	H	90/30	100/30	100/30	95/30
-	M	85/40	90/40	90/30	90/40
-	P	100/40	100/40	100/40	100/30
-	Se	90/30	95/40	100/40	95/30
-	Sw	50/10	60/10	70/20	60/10

When SEARCHING for a medicinal plant, a character need not
(and should not) restrict his search to one specific kind of vegetation.
Instead, he searches for any plant that performs a certain
function -- a plant that helps stop bleeding; a plant that cures a
stomach ailment; a plant that helps counteract poisoning; and so
forth.

Example: A party is moving through a region of tropical hills in
the winter, and one of its members is in dire need of medicine to
bring down his fever. Another member decides to SEARCH for a
plant that will help his stricken comrade. The chance of finding
vegetation in the immediate AREA is 90%, and one roll of percentile
dice by the DM indicates that vegetation does
exist, so the search can proceed. After the character spends one
turn SEARCHING, the DM makes a second roll. This
result is 15, indicating that not only was the searcher able to find a
beneficial plant, but it is of the type he wanted (and the character
will know this). If the result of the second roll is 16-30, the
searcher was able to find a medicinal plant, and he believes it to
be of the desired type, but actually it has some other function. If
the plant is ingested by the feverish character, it will have no effect
on his ailment and might even make his condition worse in
some respect. If the result of the second roll is greater than 30, no
plants of medicinal nature were found on the search.

A character can SEARCH for medicinal plants continually (one
search per turn) as long as he keeps moving and thus does not
search the same AREA more than once. (Repeated searches of
the same AREA by the same character will automatically fail.) As
with all other types of searching activities, the character must
concentrate on what he is doing and his movement rate is slowed
accordingly. The DM may attach other penalties or
provisions to a searching character, such as a greater chance of
being surprised and a slower reaction time (save penalty)
in a situation requiring dodging or quick movement.

Despite what is said in the first sentence of the preceding paragraph,
the DM should not permit players (and their
characters) to take unfair advantage of the opportunity to discover
medicinal plants. If a character insists on SEARCHING for
beneficial plants constantly in an obvious attempt to TURN himself
into a walking storehouse of medicine, the DM is
free to disregard any dice rolls indicating success and simply rule
that no medicinal plants are found during a long period of searching.
On the other hand, if the need for medicine is genuine but the
odds of finding the right plant are small, a character who persists
in his search should not be penalized.

Skill in Plant Lore
If characters are venturing into the wilderness without ready
access to healing && curing magic, or want to safeguard themselves
against the possibility of losing that aid along the way,
their chances of survival will be increased if the party contains
someone with proficiency in plant lore. Such a character cannot
locate vegetation where it does not exist, but if there is greenery
to search through, then a proficient character has a greater
chance of finding the type of plant desired. <e>