This is the result of my research into this mods cooking system.

https://i.imgur.com/3n5Yxad.png

methodology: I saved my game before eating all of the raw ingredients for a recipe and screencapped my nutrition bar. Then I reloaded my save and ate the finished product and screencapped my nutrition bar again. I then compared the size of the two bars and cropped only the difference between the two. This shows exactly how much nutrition is produced extra when cooking.

If you bring a farmer it's important to know that the games formula for giving the farmer experience will give a flat amount and then a small amount extra based on the nutrition of the item. Most of your farmers experience comes from the flat amount, as a result it is far more effective to eat many smaller items instead of a single large one. This means that cooking is good for increasing the overall amount of nutrition the party has but it always reduces the amount of experience your farmer gets. Be smart about this, use ingredients like eggs to make larger meals to feed the non farmer party members and then let your farmer munch on unused ingredients.

It is also very smart to buy the experience necklace from the general store as this also increases the amount of experience farmers earn when eating. By the time the rest of my party was level 10 my farmer was level 19. You can expect to get a farmer to level 20 by the end of the campaign but it would be very difficult to get to level 21.

This is the farmer build I suggest:
Concentration 4 / Fire 3 / Air 4 / Poison 4 / Water 4
This will give you access to every support spell in the game.
From here bring Concentration up to 5 to increase the duration of Force Field.
Skill books could optionally be used to bring magic schools up to 5.


At first I thought that Forest Tinctures were a ripoff since mudworts are used in rage potions but then I learned that this mod heavily nerfed rage potion stacking (It only makes sense to use 2 at a time, possibly 3).
Even if you have the rope the game will still find many ways to force you to take fall damage and the injuries will stack up. tinctures will keep you from depleting your healing potion supply.


Unrelated advice for this mod:

• The Poison Immunity trait has insane value. A 4 man party of lizardmen is the way to go.
  
• Strive to attain 35 accuracy. Enchanting dex on your gear will allow you to spec out of the accuracy skill.
  
• Palenuts are used to enchant +12 evasion. This is crazy overpowered. That's 12 dex worth of dodge.
  
• Crystal Flowers are best used for enchanting
  
• The skill books in the Knowledge Shop may appear to be useless at first glace, but you must remember to forget! (Amnesia potions are a thing! They can be found and made with alchemy)
  
• Be careful with the rest button! Resting will instantly take about 8 in game hours worth of nutrition from your party. Even if you only rest for less than a second. You are charged this nutrition cost every time you use the rope or the shovel.
  
• Try Firearms! They've been given dex scaling, armor penetration, accuracy, crit, and faster attack speeds. Ammo is abundant. It is possible to achieve 100% crit chance ;)
  
• Trolls Blood potions are very cheap to make and very strong. Having everyone take 1 just before a tough encounter can really make the difference.