So I recently took on interest in the Druidic Herbalism facet of the class and thought it'd be really cool. I've been told about and read up how broken this feature is and I acknowledge that. I've also been told that Paizo has plans to gut this from Druid entirely and rewrite it from the ground up in June, which effectively makes what I wanted to make useless in two months.
Can anyone give me clarification on how this feature is being changed? Is there a way to still be an effective potion maker as a druid without this class feature if it's gutted to hell and back in June?
Can druids make effective/decent potion makers and do well economically or is it a pointless endeavor? I wanted to use the potions to bolster crops and improve an area in which I'd grow more ingredients to self-produce material components.
Also does the free potion portion of the feature demand that I follow potion creation time constraints?
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It is doubtful that pathfinder 1st edition will get any errata or rework. I don’t see these sludgy (and maybe not what you wanted) potions breaking the game. Potions effect you so I don’t see how this will help your crop. Just cast plant growth .
It doesn’t appear to change the 1 day creation time until it becomes 1 minute at 7th level. (There are probably rules and options for speeding up this type of thing but why bother when you get it for free at lvl 7).
There's a lot to unpack here, and I'm not entirely clear on what you're asking, so I'll just give my take in a couple statements.
I doubt they will errata the 1E Druidic Herbalism.
The Druid is hands-down THE best potion maker in the game, using herbalism, so it's certainly not pointless.
The "broken" part of herbalism comes from trying to sell the free potions for a profit. No GM in their right mind will let you sell them for full price, but if they do, it's broken. The broken aspect can also come in to play if there is too much downtime in a game. A potion-focused druid can make multiple free potions a day, with max caster level and no cap. Give that druid a few months of downtime, and he'll have hundreds of potions that are better than anything sold in shops. Again, it's up to the GM to limit downtime in most campaigns. In something with a lot of downtime built in...it's somewhat overpowered, but ultimately is still kept somewhat in check by the fact that potion drinking is a standard action, so while you would effectively have unlimited 1-3 level spells, you also have to have a chance to pre-buff before fights or it's substantially less useful.
No part of the druidic herbalism will have any direct bearing on bolstering crops or improving an area. As GeneticDrift said, the obvious spell for that would be Plant Growth, and that isn't going to reasonably function as a potion or oil. Filling the gap between your envisioned character and the mechanical benefit of casting that spell is something you'll have to resort to roleplaying and flavorful descriptions for.