---
# System prepended metadata

title: 'Apothecary, Feldsher and Clinic changes'
tags: [design doc]

---

## Abstract
The Apothecary and Feldsher should be working together, both to manage the Clinic (which they should have joint ownership of, they already have keys of one another and have the skills to aid one another), but also when it comes to treating the townfolk.
There should be one slot of the Apothecary and one slot of the Feldsher. (Think something akin to how there is one Weaponsmith and one Armourer.) The two of them will be able to appoint apprentices of their own, an Apothecary-in-training and a Feldsher-in-training, utilizing the current apprentice system.
There should also be a generic apprentice job, titled Clinic Apprentice (or Clinic Assistant, whichever sounds cooler) with the intent of being a generic apprentice that can be chosen by the Feldsher/Apothecary if they wish to specialize.

The purpose of the apprentices is to both be a learner role, but to also aid the Feldsher and Apothecary in their work.
For the Feldsher this is fairly easy, helping with triage, fetching water, etc.
Regarding the Apothecary, the workload is too absurd, especially for one person. As such certain numbers need to be tweaked, especially for research, essence gain, etcetera.
The NARCOS and PURITY machines should be removed aswell, the NARCOS is a way for the Apothecary to gain mammons without interacting with anyone which is absurd. The value/sellprice of drugs should be increased, to encourage striking a deal with the Merchant (or perhaps the future thieves guild). The PURITY machine's current main purpose is to be a source of zig boxes, dwarven boomboxes and instruments, since everything it can sell other than those mentioned items are craftable.
Drugs should be easier to craft (or produce more output with enough skill), since one of the reasons the drugs arent produced is because their ingredients can be cumbersome to attain. Likewise drugs such as spice and moondust should be illegal due to their baothan connections (swampweed is seen as useful for mages and ozium can be used as a painkiller), as right now nobody really cares due to the apothecary starting with spice and other hard drugs in their workshop, and the PURITY machine outright selling those.

## GOALS
- Help lighten the workload of the Apothecary (primarly) and Feldsher, both to ease the players suffering but also to give them time to roleplay and interact.
- Make them able to have apprentices and add an apprentice job for the clinic, both as a learner role but also as a helper role
- Remove the NARCOS machine and increase the value of illegal hard drugs, to encourage selling to the Merchant to export, and perhaps even to the Steward to store in the vault. Potentially NARCOS can be kept around but its mammon output should be lesser than what the actual value of the item is, to make selling to players simply better, but still encouraging the apothecary player to try and engage in the drug trade.
- The cost/expenses of alchemy should be tweaked, keep the same gameplay loop of collecting ingredients, and breaking them down into essence to create potions/enchantments, however to engage with said loop should be easier.
- farming should remain the same, herb NPK demands however should be tweaked to encourage smart placement of herbs, as atm of writing it doesn't matter since they consume the same amounts.
- Instruments should be craftable and added to the Merchant's goldface, same with the zigbox and the dwarven boombox
- The Apothecary and Feldsher should co-own the clinic, to encourage them to work together and help one another. Clinic Apprentices are there to help them and to learn from them.

## NON-GOALS
- Avoid making the apothecary's job boring/unneeded, alchemy should be accessible but not mind-numbingly easy
- Potions, drugs and enchantments should still require some effort to create. Ingredients shoul give at most 2 essences, and enhancements/potions should be somewhat complex to create.