To preface, I have never played a battlerager and have fought against them with the majority of my characters. We all have certain perspectives, and mine is mostly from playing mages.

My question though is, where is the line drawn between a natural and magical prep that a rager can eat?

You would think that if a natural item - like seaweed could give a magical benefit - like breathing underwater, that others like that would be allowable too. One example that comes to my mind would be a blowfish fillet. It's a piece of fish sold by a fisherman that in my opinion has affects that could be considered more natural than being made to breathe underwater. You get poisoned (natural), maybe the poison freezes your nerves, and makes your skin tougher. That is only an example, I'm sure there are other natural looking preps, like mushrooms and various types of roots that are natural in appearance but apparently are banned for rager consumption. Why are some allowed and some not? Is seaweed a unique exception?

I personally would like to see ragers able to ingest some of these more natural enhancements. Maybe a little downgrade in their powers would be prudent to counterbalance such a thing, but seeing as everyone else has options to prep, why not ragers too? to a degree.

Addendum:

A suggestion, maybe make some natural looking preps (Magical) so that players can determine whether ragers can eat them or not?

>You would think that if a natural item - like seaweed could
>give a magical benefit - like breathing underwater,

I'm going to cut you off here and recommend reading 'help seaweed'.

That doesn't say discount other natural looking preps. To go back to the fillet example, there are poisons that stun and well poison people. Rangers get a skill called bark skin as well so toughening ones hide isn't necessarily magical either. What makes seaweed more special than other natural herbs and roots isn't settled there. There are many things that have both a skill/natural and a magical embodiment, I mean you can quaff a potion and get underwater breathing as a spell and eat seaweed and get underwater breathing as a skill. There are other abilities that have spell/skill similarities too. Barkskin and stoneskin both modify your hide, one you can eat a herb for the other you do skillfully. I think the issue could use more thorough clarification & rationalization.

Seaweed, that's it.

Another example: why can ragers get herbs from a ranger that will heal them but not eat a piece of plant that may just refresh them or something else that is relatively minor.

I don't really think it would be good for the game if ragers could eat pills/food that have effects like this, but it doesn't really make sense why they can't when it seems like IC a poultice or ranger herbs are just as magical.

>Another example: why can ragers get herbs from a ranger that
>will heal them but not eat a piece of plant that may just
>refresh them or something else that is relatively minor.

Think of it like the difference between cocaine and coca leaves. In the real world, natural products are refined by technology/industry to achieve their potency. Pills in cf are the same way, except that instead of being refined through technology, they're refined through magic. It's not neccesarily the case that the substance itself is magical, but it's been worked with magic to get it potent enough to have an effect. Rangers, on the other hand, know how to increase the potency of healing herbs without using magic.

As for the fish, think of it this way. The fish itself isn't magical, but magic has been applied to weaken the poison. Eating un-magiced blowfish would just be instantly fatal, no saving throw. Instead, some mages work it over so it's at least marginally edible. That's just one possible explanation.

Yeah, that's a good explanation, but I wasn't really talking about anything that's actually pill-like. There are some very natural-seeming things that are labelled pills (it seems now the trend is moving towards labelling them food?).

I would think anything you could purchase from a merchant would generally be out of the question, but there's plenty of things lying on the ground in forests and swamps to eat.

I just want to play my rager that loves his psilocybin and won't have to wake up to the Destructor wearing a D.A.R.E. shirt!

>I would think anything you could purchase from a merchant
>would generally be out of the question, but there's plenty of
>things lying on the ground in forests and swamps to eat.

The only thing I can suggest is that there implied process there. The same way that after you kill certain animals like bears, leopard, mammoth and stuff you end up with a cloak, tunic on the ground with a description like "this cloak has been crafted from the hide of a moonbeast" or some such. By the same token, perhaps some of the foods you find around have been handled. There are plenty of natural roots in the world that have to be worked somehow before they're edible.

This explanation might help explain it some, but the fact is that game balance is the real motivator. Ragers can't use preps and are compensated by having very strong powers. Change one side of that equation and you have to change the other.

Both have similar effects, you'll just need to chew quite a bit of the leaves (not impossibly much however).
As for preps, some will give you a spell and some a skill effect. I have heard that there are certain non-magic preps ragers can use asside seaweed, but having never played a rager I don't know whether this is just misinfo.

I've mentioned before but it bears repeating here: seaweed *still* has the "it's better to eat food, not pills" echo when a rager eats it, making it feel very, very weird.

Can you get rid of that echo? That would clear up a lot of questions.