Harvesting Monster / Elemental Essences

[Tygular]

I was wondering what people's thoughts are on harvesting essences of monsters or elemental creatures. I know you can harvest parts of monsters but what about elemental creature's essences. What kind of ruling would you do? I was thinking of you can distill/reduce by alchemical procedures 1% of the weight of the monster.
What are your thoughts? Thanks in advance.

[Aleron]

I allow it as part of my crafting system actually. It generally has three steps:

1) Identify parts of the monster that can be used (requires a knowledge check based on the creature type)
2) Use relevant skill to harvest the essence/organ/etc (this is usually a survival check, but in some cases I let heal work as well)
3) Item consumed during crafting. Reduces cost of crafting or may allow for special properties to be added (ex. fire elemental essence can be used to add flaming to a weapon or fire resistance to an armor).

This also allows martial or non magic types to add magical effects to their items effectively as the essence or whatnot supplies the required spell and magic. It's generally just a slightly more difficult craft check.