I thought I'd repost my idea and dedicate a new thread to this (rather than stealing Tsigany's again ), because it seems lots of people are concerned about herbs and overharvesting and so on.

Basically, all herbs as they currently exist would become dried and prepared herbs, so that they can be eaten/smoked safely. Herbalists, however, would harvest fresh herbs that must be dried in a special room before they are useful as cures.
- Tailors would be able to create a special drying cloth, that would hold up to 50 or 100 herbs at one time.
- A non-empty cloth must be left to dry in one of the drying rooms for at least a Lusternian day (during which no other herbs can be dried by that person).
- Fresh herbs can be used for potions/tinctures or alternatively dried for cures, but after a month of being picked they become wilted and are only of use for potions/tinctures.
- The cloth has a random chance of being destroyed under the direct light of the drying process.

What issues am I trying to address here?
- Balance amongst the trades. It should be take just as much effort for a herbalist to become rich and renowned as any other trade.
- Overharvesting. Currently there are no limits on what can be harvested, nor the potential for profit. I don't think we should start introducing severe penalties, but there should be some sort of strategy involved in harvesting.
- The potion shortage. By giving herbalists the chance to sell to alchemists at no cost to themselves, and also herbs that would otherwise be useless... it encourages a reduced price and greater volume of trade.
- Increased internal competition. These measures should reduce the monopolies present by a few individuals (not greatly, but enough), and it may also encourage cooperation between some herbalists to supply a full range.

Ok, so thats my idea. What other alternatives can you come up with?

(Note I really don't want to have an argument about replicating the achaean system here, I'm sure we all know how that works. )

sounds good but sounds to me like you'll have too few herbs out there for cures. One fight can take about 20 of an herb, if not more. Especially with the way some use posions.

Aye, good point Daganev. Although the numbers of herbs in each batch could be adjusted until a balance is found.

A solution might be to do away with the requirement of only having one cloth drying at a time. Instead, make the cloth decay every time, but allow unlimited batches drying at once. It sacrifices the advantage of stopping too much harvesting somewhat, but for those with money, they could supply as many herbs as they like.

I'm still curious about other ideas though?

perhaps the drying process could be an added value type deal, like dry the herbs then grind them, one herb giving say 2 pinches of ground herb. It'd add another step to their routine, but also would mean they only have to harvest 50% of the herbs to get the same amount

Now thats a better idea!