Recent Posts
I remember a few years back I played a ranger that tried to skin, de-bone, de-teeth, de-claw, butcher any and every animal, magical beast, dragon etc. that I thought would be useful. I loved this and because of all that this character is at the top of my list of favorite pc’s I’ve played. I made or had made everything from a winter wolf cloak to a red dragon scale scabbard that was my prized possess. I loved this, but my DM hated it. (hehe) I was wondering if anyone has done this or had a player that did this? How did you deal with it? What are some of the items they came up with? What can you think of that would be cool if not useful?
Fizz
I remember a few years back I played a ranger that tried to skin, de-bone, de-teeth, de-claw, butcher any and every animal, magical beast, dragon etc. that I thought would be useful. I loved this and because of all that this character is at the top of my list of favorite pc’s I’ve played. I made or had made everything from a winter wolf cloak to a red dragon scale scabbard that was my prized possess. I loved this, but my DM hated it. (hehe) I was wondering if anyone has done this or had a player that did this? How did you deal with it? What are some of the items they came up with? What can you think of that would be cool if not useful?Fizz
I actually prefer this because in my campaign, they need components of certain creatures in order to make magic items, none of this craft and use a spell crap in my games..... If the party wizard wants to make a cloak of the manta ray he better go find one and skin it, or if he wants to make a belt of strength he better cut some of the muscle tissue of a giant....
Isn't taxidermy the highest form of flattery?
We had one group where we were fighting this advanced owlbear from hell and 6 younger owlbears. We never got too far with the game, but when we were done, I was gonna suggest that we all make owlbear skin capes with all the feathers still on them.
Then,...I was gonna make a codpiece out of the biggest owlbear's beak--and have THE BIGGEST CODPIECE IN THE LAND.
In one short-lived campaign, my wizard wanted to cut off the horns of some minotaurs that we had just fought (and maybe some howler quills at some other point?) and see if he could sell them. I didn't actually want anything substantial for it- we were around 6th level, and I expected to get about 10gp from this. More just to acknowledge the effort and add some flavor to the game than anything. For some reason, however, the DM refused to let me do it. He didn't see the point and just kept telling me no one would want to buy them. I tried to tell him alchemists might have an interest, or they could be decorations or trophies, but he just kept saying "no," so I gave up and left the horns on (while silently vowing to encourage such things in my campaigns and certainly let the players take advantage of those kinds of situations and ideas).
My campaign is a low-treasure / medium-magic one. The PCs are encouraged to craft magic items for their personal use, but even at 25% of Base Value (a number that makes better sense than 50% from an economics standpoint) there are still too costly for PCs to afford.
As a result, they adventure, collect material components, and then craft magic items for about 10% of book value. Of course, since I cut treasure awards about 90%, this works out well for the power-balance.
Incidentally, they founded a magic component shoppe in their home-town to help their own efforts to buy components inexpensively since they are "in the trade" as well as sell left-overs they weren't using themselves.
I've been planning to do something similar...if you make magic items you can do them by book costs or cut those costs and find specific ingredients.
I had a wood elf barbarian who liked to take the canine teeth of every goblinoid he kiled as a trophy. He would string them up along ht elance of this separ, and make them rattle when he was attacking. The DM loved it :) That same DM was a plyer in another of my campaigns, and when he solo'd 3 gricks @ like 3rd level, he took the beaks and wore them like gauntlets. That party also had a completely mundane amber necklace (with a bug in it) that they got off a goblin sorc early on. They kept stealing it and trading it back and forth for 10 more levels, until the campaing ended. Another guy had a vicious frost weapon, so he had made a winter wolf pelt cloak from a kill, and had it enchanted to help v cold damage. Trophies are good fun!!!
In my current campaign, everything is centered on a major trade city. So characters collecting tidbits to sell to spell component shops is no big deal. Actually, since it's a high magic game it's common for players to do this to raise funds (or save them).
Not to mention it can be a good source of adventures for cash strapped players.
One of my characters in a looong (decades, here) homebrew campaign has great interest in alchemy and crafting of magical items. As noted by other posters, monster pieces/parts are key ingredients in any magical item so whenever my character kills anything, she's always thinking "Now what useful part of this creature should I carve out?".
In our Age of Worms campaign (which I DM)
.
.
.
(minor spoiler alert!)
one of the characters is always practicing his butchery skills. In 3FoE, he stopped to butcher the dire boar. He was quite pleased when he succeeded at carving out some nice pork chops but his companions refused to accept his meaty gifts since they had no way to cook them and (wisely) didn't feel like walking around with bloody meat in their backpacks. In EaBK he attempted to carve up the crocodiles and giant snakes encountered in the swamp. Since the PCs had witnessed the lizard men eating some soldier corpses his character actually asked at one point if lizardman meat was edible. He also attempted to skin the dragon in GoW.
As the DM, I don't mind at all. In fact, alot of times it can be a source of comic relief. Of course, my campaigns always have lots of similar skill-attempt moments; ie, someone attempting to cook the rations or foraged goodies into some sumptuous meal, etc.
In one short-lived campaign, my wizard wanted to cut off the horns of some minotaurs that we had just fought (and maybe some howler quills at some other point?) and see if he could sell them. I didn't actually want anything substantial for it- we were around 6th level, and I expected to get about 10gp from this. More just to acknowledge the effort and add some flavor to the game than anything. For some reason, however, the DM refused to let me do it. He didn't see the point and just kept telling me no one would want to buy them. I tried to tell him alchemists might have an interest, or they could be decorations or trophies, but he just kept saying "no," so I gave up and left the horns on (while silently vowing to encourage such things in my campaigns and certainly let the players take advantage of those kinds of situations and ideas).
Now wouldn't it have been better if he'd found a way for those minotaur horns to come into play some time down the road? Then it would have been the quality-fiction serendipity of the noble hero on his path and not "That's not in my script, ass."
My own PCs were raw ingredient HORDERS.
I'd say survival is the main skill for standard butchering and harvesting from the slain. Craft: Taxidermy or Craft: Leatherworking if your actually looking at taking skins or trophies. I also suggest some gentle repose spells, or possibly working out with your DM a gentle repose jar/box/case for your biodegradable collection.
HOUSERULE FOR POSSIBLE YOINKAGE!!
Trophy collection happens a lot in my game, because I have a house rule regarding magic item creation: the neccessity of a focus component equal in value to 1/10th the item's market price, not counting base weapon or armor costs, masterwork, etc. So for a +1 armor, you need a component worth 100gp, 200gp for a +1 weapon, all the way up to 20,000gp for a +10 weapon. While some of these can be easily purchased even in small villages and such, the big components require metropolises to really find, and even then I'm very strict on what is there.
Now comes the harvesting part: I rule that a component can be harvested from a creature with a value equal to the creature's CR squared x the survival check result. Obviously, this means for optimum harvesting you want a ranger with maxed out survival and favored enemy against the creature you're after, but I'd figure you'd want that anyway if you were hunting something in specific. Before getting into really psychotic optimization, at level 20 we could assume the ranger has max ranks 23 with a +4 from wisdom, +3 skill focus, +6 favored enemy. This nets an average check result of 46, 56 on a nat 20. If we assume they went up against a CR 20 red dragon, they would get a component (likely the fundamentum, or possibly the brain) worth 20x20x46 = 18,400. Not bad, but actually a little shy of a component for a +10 weapon, which is about where we would want it.
Conversely, say a low level group wants to make an orc bane weapon. They slay a lone orc (CR 1/2) and try to harvest from him (say ears, teeth, or topknot), the ranger being level 2 has 5 ranks, a +2 wis, and skill focus +3, for a total +10. On an average roll, he gets a 20. So .5x.5x20 = 5gp. Compared to the 800gp component needed for a +1 orcbane weapon, not nearly enough. But an orcish chefitan who was a CR 7 (barbarian 7) would net on an average roll 7x7x20 = 980, which is fine.
Granted, there are some bugs with this, but I find it works far more than it fails, and is a really great way of encouraging side quests and making PCs really enjoy their homemade magic items. It also can save them some money, but that works fine in the end, because they get a better item, and got the XP from the monster they fought. Anyone who wants to yoink this, feel free, but I do understand that Your Mileage May Vary.
Back in second edition we had a campaign going where at one point, while out at sea on a ship, my character's daughter came down below decks to ask me if we had any butter on board. When I asked why she tells my character there is a giant floating crab up above. Me and the party go and investigate, and find an Eye of the Deep (or whatever the sea based beholders were called) attacking the ship. We kill it, and after searching the ship for butter cook and eat it. This same character had all sorts of trophies from monsters we'd killed, being an evil ranger and all.
One character I played, a necromancer, would take a vertibre from every intelligent humanoid he killed, and used them to hold his topknot in place. Got the idea from one of the undead books for warhammer fantacy.
me and a couple of the guys started really started going nuts after that article came out on how to make a boat out of a dragon corpse. so everyone started cutting every monster up they ran into for about 3 or 4 months then it started to get really out of hand when the theme for one of the pc's was Mr Burns' See My Vest.
I have been interested in this sort of thing for a while but never had a chance to play out any mechanics. The Leviathan Hunter from Stormwrack, has some cool trophy abilities. Also there is a Craft Trophy feat in The Players Handbook 2, but I think those are only good for a few days until they rot or something like that. Then in one of the Savage Tide adventures there is a mechanic for skinning dinosaurs for a shop. I think it is something like a survival check against their CR.
I had a ranger character once that collected a tooth from eveything the party killed, with the exception of hordes of goblins and minor easy encounters;just really big stuff that most people never see. I had a pretty decent collection.
Remember the character belonging to a certain crazy person who cut fingers and hands off of any monster he met. and then when his character died his new character wanted to cut the hand off the old one and resurect him?
I had a ranger character once that collected a tooth from eveything the party killed, with the exception of hordes of goblins and minor easy encounters;just really big stuff that most people never see. I had a pretty decent collection.
I had a character long ago that took the head of every freaky creature we killed and had it mounted on my wall at home.
The DM and the other players thought that I was weird. Looking back on it -- I probably was.